Hey all!
In an effort to improve our WG proposal process, we are trying post & vote on all proposals at the same time. As such, this post is kind of a repurposing of the unfulfilled Season 2 proposal with a little more information + a plan for what is effectively now Season 3.
The Quadratic Funding WG is responsible for all things Giveth QF. We built the Giveth QF product and since have been running rounds and iteratively making improvements to both the product & the process.
You can see our Season 1 WG proposal here and Season 2 (unfulfilled) WG proposal here.
In this post, I will break down our spending, earnings and achievements since Season 1, and our proposal for Season 3.
S1 Deliverable Status
In S1, we requested $36,360 to cover contributor costs to complete the following:
This proposal passed was posted in June 2023 & passed on July 17, 2023.
Deliverable Details & Further Progress
Since our S1, the QF product was successful built and launched, and we ran our MVP “Alpha” Round, completing all S1 milestones. We also ran a second “Optimism Round” & third “Giving Season” round successfully from start-to-finish, and ran our first two parter rounds “Buidl on Polygon” & “Meta Pool APAC” which are both nearly complete.
Here is a summary of results from these first rounds:
Giveth Alpha Round (July 18 - Aug 1, 2023)
- Matching Pool: 10,000 xDAI on Gnosis Chain (raised from the Quadratic Force)
- Donations: $11,737 raised from individual donors.
- Engagement: 47 verified projects, 246 unique donors, and 919 total donations.
Optimism Round (Oct 9-23, 2023):
- Matching Pool: 25,000 DAI on OP Mainnet (raised from the Quadratic Force)
- Donations: $23,306 raised from individual donors.
- Engagement: 125 verified projects, 388 unique donors, and 1,728 total donations.
Giving Season Round (December 19, 2023 - Jan 2, 2024)
- Matching Pool: 25,000 USDGLO on OP Mainnet (raised from the Quadratic Force)
- Donations from individual donors: $17,125
- Engagement: 85 verified projects, 211 unique donors & 949 total donations.
Buidl on Polygon Round (January 15 - 24, 2024)
This was a unique round as it was our 1st partner-focused round. The entire matching pool was sponsored by Polygon and they chose the list of projet to include in the round. We ran the round & supported with comms, project curation & marketing.
- Matching Pool: 250,000 MATIC on Polygon PoS (provided by Polygon Labs)
- Donations from individual donors: approx. $160k (with recirculated donations not included)
- Engagement: 206 projects, 2322 unique donors, 3240 eligible donations
[Meta Pool APAC Round] (February 19 - 29, 2024)
- Matching Pool: 3.759463688 mpETH on OP Mainnet (provided by Meta Pool) (approx $10k at the time of sending it & upon round completion approx. $13k)
- Donations from individual donors: approx. $2832
- Engagement: 10 projects, 34 unique donors, 72 eligible donations
Combined results for above completed rounds:
- ±$273k in total matching pool funds
- ±$488k (matching funds + donations) towards funding projects through Giveth
Future Rounds
ENS Public Goods Builders’ Round (March 25 - April 8, 2024)
- Matching Pool: 20,000 DAI on OP Mainnet
- Donations: Coming soon
- Engagement: Projects, Unique donors & Eligible donations TBD
In planning phase
- Giveth Public Goods Round on Arbitrum - ETA April 2024, matching approx. $25k, approx. 80 projects
- Arbitrum Builders Round - ETA May 2024, matching approx. $90k, approx. 100 projects
Spending
Our only real expense for QF is contributor salaries, as subscriptions & plans overlap w/ the dApp WG.
| Season | Date range | Spending (on Salaries) | Major Milestones |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | June 1 - July 1, 2023 | $15,581 | Built QF |
| 1 | July 1 - Oct 1, 2023 | $22,991 | Alpha Round Juy 18- Aug 1 |
| 1.5 | Oct 1, 2023 - Feb 1, 2024 | $44,139 | Optimism Round Oct 9-23 / Giving Season Round Dec 19-Jan 2 / Polygon Round Jan 15-24 |
| 2 | Feb 1 - Mar 1, 2024 | $11,362 | Meta Pool Round Feb 19-29, ENS Builders Mar 25-April 8 |
Reference: Giveth QF Budget spreadsheet
Earnings
We earn a % of every QF matching pool plus have gained some extra funding by driving donation traffic on Giveth, and experimenting w/ Giver NFT holder nominations.
| Funding Source | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Funds gained from matching pool % fee | $32,000 | This is assuming MATIC price of $0.92 and including funds for all the aforementioned rounds (expect “planning phase” rounds) |
| Funds gained from Giver sales during Giving Season & Polygon rounds | $3300 | We sold 23 Givers at 100 DAI each on Mainnet during the Giving Season and an additional 10 during Polygon |
| Donations to Giveth during major QF rounds | $2742 | This is including donations to Giveth’s project during Alpha, Optimism, Giving Season & Polygon rounds |
| Total Funds raised for Giveth | $38,042 |
Donations made on Giveth & Other Metrics
In order to save time on database querying troubleshooting (since @cquinterom096 is getting sick of my bugging him), here is some hacky math estimates on how much of our donations on Giveth are associated with QF.
- From our stats dashboard it says that from July 1, 2023 - Mar 1, 2024 there has been about $666,391 of donations
- This includes matching funds distributions from the alpha round, optimism round & giving season round, so subtracting those ($60k), donations is: $606,391
- The Giveth project & Giveth matching pool projects were included above and include also some hefty donations from Octant distributions, so if I eliminate those from July 1, 2023 to Feb 1, 2024, total donations approx.: $394,000
- The total donations from QF rounds (to QF eligible projects) alone are approx $11k+$23k+$17k+$203k+$3 = $257,000
- And so, roughly, QF rounds were responsible for (like more than) 65% of the organic donations made to Giveth projects over the last 8 months since launch (and this is excluding donations made to non-QF rounds during QF round period).
As for verification, we haven’t been tracking very closely exactly how many verifications were related to QF, but to get an idea:
- Verification applications process in December 2023: 40 (around Giving Season round)
- Verification applications processed in January 2024: 185 (around Polygon round) - which according to @NikolaCreatrix & @WhyldWanderer is a record amount of applications for Giveth.
- Verification applications processed in February/March 2024: TBD
Season 3 Deliverables & Budget
4 options are available - GROW, SUSTAIN, SHRINK and NO (WG halts or suspends activity)
Grow 
What we will do 
Feature Development
- Expand our backend & data analysis process to introduce Cluster Mapping for QF round results determination.
- Fully audit & improve our data export for QF to ensure seamless bug-free execution.
- Improve Admin bro to more easily manage QF rounds without devs & streamline curation process for less manual copy/paste type labour.
- Complete the “archived QF rounds” & QF homepage issues so that users can more easily navigate existing and ended QF rounds.
- Scope out bulk checkout “cart” feature - requested often by donors during feedback rounds
Fundraising, Accounting & Partnership Management
- Perform regular & active fundraising to raise for the matching pools and attract new QF round partners
- Manage and maintain partnerships w/ existing members of the quadratic force, providing updates to any received grants for QF rounds
Comms, Marketing & Community Building
- Run twitter shill spaces for each QF round
- Create round-specific support guides for projects & donors
- Create & send social media content to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Create & send emails to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Provide support for donors & projects via discord, telegram & email
- Build resources for nonprofits/project owners to make it easier for them to market QF to their communities (example)
- Increase graphic design support for to guides, event announcements, round details & other comms for QF rounds
Ops
- Project curation, round management, sybil analysis & funds distribution for all locked-in (and not fully completed rounds): Buidl on Polygon (Jan), MetaPool (Feb), ENS (Mar)
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least one QF round per month this season. (Apr, May, June)
- Hire, onboard & train new PM for QF & gain support in creating an assembly line flow for running QF rounds
- Collect, review & incorporate user feedback
Core Metrics 
Matching pool totals Apr, May, June: $140,000
Number of Rounds Apr-June: 3
Donations in the rounds Apr-June: $100,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: $20,000
 Breakdown |
Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Feature Development | $17,500 |
| Fundraising | $6,500 |
| Comms/Community | $6100 |
| Ops | $35,000 |
| Total | $65,100 |
Note: devops and services are covered by dapp wg but still needed for QF
Sustain 
What we will do
Feature Development
- Fully audit & improve our data export for QF to ensure seamless bug-free execution.
- Improve Admin bro to more easily manage QF rounds without devs & streamline curation process for less manual copy/paste type labour.
Fundraising, Accounting & Partnership Management
- Perform regular & active fundraising to raise for the matching pools and attract new QF round partners
- Manage and maintain partnerships w/ existing members of the quadratic force, providing updates to any received grants for QF rounds
Comms, Marketing & Community Building
- Run twitter shill spaces for each QF round
- Create round-specific support guides for projects & donors
- Create & send social media content to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Create & send emails to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Provide support for donors & projects via discord, telegram & email
Ops
- Project curation, round management, sybil analysis & funds distribution for all locked-in (and not fully completed rounds): Buidl on Polygon (Jan), MetaPool (Feb), ENS (Mar)
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least 2 QF rounds this season. (Apr, June)
- Hire, onboard & train new PM for QF & gain support in creating an assembly line flow for running QF rounds
Core Metrics
Matching pool totals Apr-June: $50,000
Number of Rounds Apr-June: 2
Donations in the rounds Feb-May: $40,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: $20,000
| Breakdown |
Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Feature Development | $7500 |
| Fundraising | $6500 |
| Comms/Community | $5000 |
| Ops | $31,000 |
| Total | $50,000 |
Note: devops and services are covered by dapp wg but still needed for QF
Shrink 
What we will do
Comms, Marketing & Community Building
- Create round-specific support guides for projects & donors
- Create & send social media content to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Create & send emails to support projects & attract donors for rounds
- Provide support for donors & projects via discord, telegram & email
Ops
- Project curation, round management, sybil analysis & funds distribution for all locked-in (and not fully completed rounds): Buidl on Polygon (Jan), MetaPool (Feb), ENS (Mar)
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least 1 QF rounds this season.
Core Metrics
Matching pool totals Apr-June: $25,000
Number of Rounds Apr-June: 1
Donations in the rounds Feb-May: $20,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: None
| Breakdown |
Estimated S3 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Comms/Community | $5000 |
| Ops | $26,000 |
| Total | $31,000 |
Next Steps
Conclusions & Final Notes
- QF has been an EXTREMELY big growth mechanism for Giveth leading to the significantly more donations, significantly more projects & even a small but promising source of revenue.
- This proposal & the GIVeconomy WG proposal (coming soon) are dependent on each other in that, I manage both WGs. This proposal MUST pass with a “Grow” or “Sustain” if we wish to “Grow” the GIVeconomy WG… because I can’t make both happen without us bringing on more support.
This proposal will remain open for advice process for one week (and maybe a few days more) and will move to Snapshot voting with all other WG proposals for final approval from the DAO.
