Optimism Quadratic Funding Round

Quadratic Funding
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GM Folks!

While we iron out the details around our upcoming Polygon QF round, we are planning to run our own round on Optimism!

Project Eligibility Requirements

We will include projects who:

  • Are verified
  • Are raising funds on Optimism / have an Optimism recipient address
  • Add an new update between September 26 and our cut-off date (likely October 3)

Round duration & dates

The round will run for 2 weeks, starting either Wednesday October 4, or Monday October 9 (depending on how quickly we can get it set up!)

Matching pool & fundraising

There will be a matching pool of at least $25,000 and it will be distributed on Optimism Network in either OP or a stablecoin. This week we will be actively fundraising and looking for sponsors who want to fund the matching pool, and if we attract more sponsors, we can increase the size of the matching pool.

If you know anyone who might be interested in sponsoring a QF round for Giveth verified projects on Optimism, please send them to @griff or @brichis

Number of projects

With a matching pool of $25k will have a limit of 125 projects for this round, but we may increase the number of projects if we can increase the matching pool size. Projects will be accepted into the round on a first-come-first serve basis until we hit our cap. There will be a few spaces left open to allow sponsors to pick a handful of projects as well.

Donation Eligibility Requirements

Only donations made on Optimism Network will be eligible for matching. In addition, the donor will need a Gitcoin passport score of at least 5. As always, following the round, we will be performing fraud analysis and some donations may be flagged as ineligible.

Justification

We want to see more projects using Optimisim network, and we want to play an active role on onboarding more nonprofits to Optimism.

It can also:

  • Incentivize new projects to get verified
  • Support existing verified projects in raising more funds
  • Create a fair & open QF round for our newer verified projects
  • Encourage our existing projects to add an Optimism recipient address
  • Increase donation data on Giveth, particularly on Optimism network
  • Support our stats for retroactive public goods funding

I know this is pretty fast! But I think with retroPGF around the corner, and our fundraising efforts ongoing for Libya & Morocco, I think there is no time like the present to kickstart our 2nd QF round.

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2

This is great! I say hell yeah let’s go for it. However I am worried with a minimum matching pool of $25k and 125 projects in the running this could dilute quite a bit how much each project might get in matching funds.

$25k / 125 projects gives an average matching of $200 per project

Why not take the top slice of 50 verified projects with OP addresses by GIVpower? I think it helps incentivize the use of the GIVpower product and can make a marginally more appealing average matching amount. We can let users know ASAP to start boosting their favourite Optimism-onboarded projects.

I think given our previous track record of on the fly QF fundraising and the state of market to not count on fundraising past the $25k minimum.

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In our Alpha round, we had a cut off of 50 projects with a matching pool of $10k = same ratio. We ended up with $11k of donations from individual donors (separate from the matching pool) and we had 2 projects get so many donations that they reached our “cap” of $2000 matching.

I think this was hugely successful. Yes, the round was a little more competitive because there were so many projects, but it set the stage for a lot of donation flow through the platform and at the end of it, the most popular projects still got significant matching.

On top of that, we had several project owners reach out during/after the alpha round because they were disappointed that they weren’t in the initial shortlist of “eligible projects”, because they wanted a chance to be in the round.

The more projects we allow into the round, the greater the opportunity projects have to take advantage of QF - the more inclusive the round is.

From the Giveth side, one big reason to run this round now is that it incentivizes our existing verified projects to add their OP address - and this will help us with our goal/promise of onboarding great nonprofits to Optimism Network. With Retro PGF around the corner, the more projects we can get on Optimism, the better it is for our ability to get some extra funding for Giveth.

Also, the more projects in the round, the more projects talking about the round, and the further the round can reach, the more likely we can get more donations on Optimism. This would really help our Optimisim giveth adoption & help improve our stats for retro PGF.

Lastly, with so little time before the rounds start, I don’t think it’s the best idea to use GIVpower as an entry requirement… we don’t have time to promote enough to be fair. It would make the round sort of “existing GIV-whale plutocratic”… where GIV stakers end up choosing the projects, and again, it’s not so open to the newbie verified nonprofit.

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