Following on the proposal to Loosen the GIVbacks Requirements and assuming a positive outcome of that proposal, this post aims to gather community feedback on proposed changes to Project Verification.
Context 
Project Verification is a process in which Giveth verifies which projects are considered to be Public Goods. It is a key process to vetting high quality projects on behalf of our donors, ensuring funds go to a legitimate and effective cause.
In the current project verification process, projects must apply for verification through a form and a member of the Project Verification Team either approves or rejects the application based on the information provided in the form. Approved projects receive a Verified badge, getting access to GIVpower and yielding GIVbacks to their donors.
It has been a long-term goal for Giveth to decentralize the way we verify the legitimacy of projects and decide which projects are considered “Public Goods”. We believe that a wider range of experts should have a say in which projects deserve to benefit from the economy of giving we’ve built.
In January 2024 @karmaticacid proposed a system to allow projects that aren’t public goods to be able to benefit from GIVpower - Changing what “verified” means on Giveth. This change would allow projects that are legitimate but not strictly public goods to participate in GIVpower. Effectively this would create two tiers of verification for projects, with each tier having unique requirements and benefits.
Enter, DeVouch 
In June 2024 we launched a new product - DeVouch - which allows members of reputable organizations to issue attestations for projects looking for funding. This allows eligible attesters to vouch or flag the legitimacy of projects across the ecosystem, including applicants to Optimism’s Retro Funding program and projects on Gitcoin & Giveth.
This was originally designed to fulfill the requirements of decentralizing our verification process and was spun out to provide benefit to the Retro Funding program and other web3 organizations focused on capital allocation to expand the user base and help fund the project.
We’re now at a point where we have the infrastructure and resources to bring this evolution to Giveth’s verification system! 
Proposed Solution
This proposal is comprised of four concepts:
- A new sub-community of the Giveth DAO - Giveth Verifiers
- Tiered levels of Verification & benefits
- Verification POINTS
- Impact Audits
Giveth Verifiers (working title)
A group of trusted experts and Key Opinion Leaders would be granted the power to vouch for Giveth projects using DeVouch. This would be done through the issuance of attestations on Optimism to the eligible addresses.
Furthermore, Giveth Verifiers would be encouraged to participate in an onboarding session to learn the finer points of verifying a project’s legitimacy and impact and to ensure value alignment with Giveth. Verifiers who completed the onboarding would be issued a separate attestation, signifying they completed the optional onboarding.
Lastly, the final entity within Verifiers is the Core Reviewers. These are our current core contributors who review verification applications and issue Verified badges to projects. Currently @WhyldWanderer @NikolaCreatrix and @anamarija09 - They will also hold a distinct attestation, highlighting their addresses as the most highly trained Verifiers.
Giveth Verifiers will be tasked with periodically checking out projects, reviewing their details and issuing vouches for projects that they believe to be legitimate and creating benefit for society and the world. Verifiers may eventually be rewarded in GIV for the reviewing and attesting to projects.
Verification Points 
Projects that receive vouches from Verifiers will begin to earn Verification Points! Each vouch from a Verifier earns more points for the given project. Anyone will be able to see how many points a project has and which Verifiers vouched for the project.
With Verifiers classified into three groups, each with their own level of training and experience, we can then adjust the issuance of verification points based on the type of Verifier that vouched for a project. Points earned from Verifiers follow these guidelines:
- Verifiers who have NOT completed the onboarding will be worth the least amount of points.
- Verifiers completed the onboarding will add notably more points.
- Core Reviewers will add SIGNIFICANTLY more points than other Verifiers.
We’ll have the exact numbers of points closer to when we are ready to launch this feature. At launch we will have the Giveth Verifiers composed of parts of the Giveth core team and all Optimism Badgeholders from Round 4 & Optimism Super Delegates, approximately ~260 addresses total. More Verifiers will be added by Giveth at a later date and we will provide the details of that process when the time is appropriate.
So, what the heck are points even all about?
With Verification Points we can then establish tiers of benefits for projects based on the amount of points they have. These are known as Verification Levels.
Verification Levels
We will have two tiers of verification to start with, level 1 & level 2.
Level 1 will require a low amount of points to become eligible for, in the range of 1-5 points. A level 1 project will be eligible to be boosted with GIVpower, showing up higher on the list of projects but will NOT yield GIVbacks to its donors.
Level 2 will require a SIGNIFICANT amount of points, in the range of 20-50. Level 2 projects will be eligible to be boosted with GIVpower AND yield GIVbacks to its donors. Additionally level 2 projects will need to submit an Impact Audit (previously called the Project Verification form). The Impact Audit requires verification of project ownership via social media and asks other important details about the projects goals, organizational structure and clear details on how it will use donations.
Giveth may add more levels and benefits to existing levels at some point in the future, there is a lot of potential for experimentation!
Impact Audit
The Impact Audit is the first thing projects should fill out if they are looking to get vouched for and subsequently earn verification points.
A redacted version of the audit will be publicly viewable on the project’s profile. No sensitive information will be shown here. This will allow donors and verifiers to learn more about the project, boosting the likelihood of subsequent donations and vouches.
Our core team will still be able to correspond with project owners and help them improve their audit, increasing the chances they gain points and subsequently gain levels.
Summarizing the Flow
Project Owners
For project owners, not much changes in their onboarding process. They create their project on Giveth and are highly encouraged to fill out the Impact Audit (formerly the verification form). Our core team of reviewers will still do the job of reviewing Impact Audits and vouching for projects.
Project owners however also have the opportunity of getting more points from other Verifiers. Projects could even reach verification level 1 or 2 without needing a core team member to vouch for it.
Giveth Verifiers
Verifiers will be added to the group by the issuance of attestations and informed via the most appropriate channel (usually TG or Discord). Reviewing project details, including their Impact Audit will be able to be done directly from the project page on Giveth as will vouching for the project. Verifiers will never have to leave the Giveth website in order to participate, however we will also create a channel on TG or Discord as an optional discussion space for Verifiers.
Advice Process & Moving Forward
The proposed changes will significantly enhance the transparency, legitimacy, and overall effectiveness of the Giveth verification process. By decentralizing the verification system and introducing tiered levels of verification, we aim to leverage the collective knowledge and expertise of the ecosystem to ensure that high-quality and value-aligned projects benefit from our GIVeconomy.
This is an invitation for the community to share their thoughts, suggestions, and concerns. We want to make sure we get it right by building something effective and engaging for verifiers and project owners alike. We look forward to hearing your insights and working together to make these proposals a success!
Here’s a quick vibe check poll
- Sounds good, let’s try it out!
- No! We should keep project verification as is
- No, we should find a different solution, I will comment my concern
- Abstain
0 voters
on a first version of Decentralized Verification.