GM Giveth Galaxy!
The Quadratic Funding WG is responsible for all things related to QF at Giveth. In the last few months, we’ve been operating QF rounds and iteratively making improvements to both the product & processes.
You can see our Season 1 WG proposal here, Season 2 (unfulfilled) WG proposal here, and Season 3 WG proposal here.
In this post, I will break down our spending, earnings, and achievements since Season 3, as well as our proposal for Season 4.
S3 Deliverable Status
QF received the most votes in the season 3 Snapshot vote, as a result, it was awarded a GROW scope. We requested $65,100 for the GROW scope to cover contributor costs to complete the following:
Quadratic Funding (QF) Working Group Proposal - Season 3
Feature Development
| Deliverable | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Expand our backend & data analysis process to introduce Cluster Mapping for QF round results determination |  |
We implemented Connection-Oriented Cluster Match (COCM) for QF rounds, beginning with the Galactic Giving round. See the announcement post here |
| Fully audit & improve our data export for QF to ensure seamless bug-free execution | |
Data export for QF has been improved by Lauren and Carlos and is working seamlessly |
| Improve Admin bro to more easily manage QF rounds without devs & streamline the curation process for less manual copy/paste type labor | |
AdminBro and the curation process have been improved. They’re not perfect and it’s something we can continue to work on, but they definitely improved |
| Complete the “archived QF rounds” & QF homepage issues so that users can more easily navigate existing and ended QF rounds | |
Archived QF rounds can now be easily viewed on Giveth.io/qf. The UI makes it clear to navigate between the active round and archived rounds |
| Scope out bulk checkout “cart” feature - requested often by donors during feedback rounds |  |
This feature has not been formally scoped out or allocated dev resources |
Fundraising, Accounting & Partnership Management
| Deliverable | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Perform regular & active fundraising to raise for the matching pools and attract new QF round partners | |
$107k was raised for our QF rounds in S3 from a multitude of partners, including 14 in Galactic Giving alone! More funds have already been raised for future rounds/general matching pool use as well |
| Manage and maintain partnerships w/ existing members of the quadratic force, providing updates to any received grants for QF rounds | |
We maintained contact with our existing members of the quadratic force, including updating them on round stats and attracting repeat sponsorships |
Comms, Marketing & Community Building
| Deliverable | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Run twitter shill spaces for each QF round | |
We hosted multiple spaces for the ENS and Galactic Giving rounds, and have 2 spaces planned for the GIV-Earth round |
| Create round-specific support guides for projects & donors | |
A guide was created for each QF round in S3. See the Galactic Giving support guide for reference. |
| Create & send social media content to support projects & attract donors for rounds | |
Each S3 round had corresponding social media content before, during, and after the round. This included sponsor-focused content |
| Create & send emails to support projects & attract donors for rounds | |
Multiple emails were sent to project owners and donors for each QF round |
| Provide support for donors & projects via discord, telegram & email | |
Support was provided before, during, and after QF rounds via all available channels |
| Build resources for nonprofits/project owners to make it easier for them to market QF to their communities (Ex: promote your project guide) |  |
Ongoing effort |
| Increase graphic design support for how-to guides, event announcements, round details & other comms for QF rounds | |
Rodri was the primary contact for QF round design support, and we executed with banners, social media content, and other assets for each QF round. |
Ops
| Deliverable | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Project curation, round management, Sybil analysis & funds distribution for all rounds: ENS (Mar-Apr), Galactic Giving (May), GIV-Earth (June) | |
Project curation was done for all 3, requiring extra effort for Galactic Giving and GIV-Earth due to the size of the rounds. Round management, Sybil analysis, and funds distribution was completed for ENS and Galactic Giving |
| Round setup & execution work to ensure at least one QF round per month this season. (Apr, May, June) | |
3 QF rounds between end of March to early July |
| Hire, onboard & train new PM for QF & gain support in creating an assembly line flow for running QF rounds | |
Hired @koday as a QF PM! |
| Collect, review & incorporate user feedback | |
This is an ongoing process, a retrospective was done for the ENS round with the ENS Public Goods working group but not officially done for the Galactic Giving round. However, user feedback is always accepted and taken into account before, during, and after QF rounds |
Deliverable Details & Further Progress
Season 3 included 2 completed QF rounds and the start of a 3rd. The first was the ENS Builder’s round, sponsored by the ENS Public Goods working group and focused on projects with small teams who were building with ENS. Following that up was the Galactic Giving round, a Star Wars-themed round with an incredible 14 sponsors supporting the matching pool. At the time of writing, the GIV-Earth round is about to kick off as Giveth’s first environment-focused QF round, with 5 sponsors currently supporting the matching pool.
Here is a summary of the results and details from these rounds:
ENS Builder’s Round (March 25 - April 8, 2024)
- Matching Pool: $20,000 DAI on OP Mainnet
- Round Duration: March 25 - April 8, 2024
- Total Donations: 412
- Unique Donors: 138
- Total USD Value of Donations: $7,503
- Tokens Donated: GIV, ETH, OP, ARB, MATIC, xDAI, USDC, USDT, FOX, USDGLO
- Eligible Donation Networks: Ethereum Mainnet, Gnosis, Polygon, OP Mainnet, Arbitrum One
- Eligible Projects: 34
Final matching results: ENS Round Final Matching Results [External]
Galactic Giving Round (May 2 - 16, 2024):
- Matching Pool: 50,000 USDGLO on Arbitrum
- Round Duration: May 2 - May 16, 2024
- Eligible Projects: 96
- Total Donors: 4,313
- Unique Donors: 1,531
- Total Value of Donations: $37,068
- Tokens Donated: USDGLO, USDC, ETH, GIV, OP, MATIC, XDAI, ARB, & more!
- Eligible Donation Networks: Ethereum Mainnet, Gnosis, Polygon, OP Mainnet, Arbitrum One
Final matching results: Galactic Giving Final Matching Results [External]
GIV-Earth Round (June 25 - July 9, 2024)
- Matching Pool: 37,000 USDGLO on Celo
- Stats/metrics: TBD
Final matching results: TBD
Combined results for the above rounds:
- ±$100k in total matching pool funds
- ±$144.5k (matching funds + donations) towards funding projects through Giveth
Future Rounds
GIV-Earth Round (June 25 - July 9)
GIV-ARB Ecosystem Accelerator QF Round (July 23 - August 6)
- 150k ARB matching pool
- Funded by a grant from ThankARB
- 5k ARB address bounty phase
- 7.1k ARB in admin fees (paid to Giveth)
Q/acc Round (October '24)
- This round is outside the scope of this WG proposal and is not accounted for in the budget. However, it’s worth mentioning as there will be some overlap with the QF WG in terms of resource allocation and preparing the Giveth Dapp for this new “version” of a QF round in the Q/acc context.
Spending
Our only real expense for QF is contributor salaries, as subscriptions & plans overlap with the dApp WG. Since we are still in S3, the S3 spending total includes a projection of spending through July 5. An additional $9,170 in salary payments were made in March, but are outside the scope of this WG proposal.
The total spend was ~$13k less than estimated for Season 3. As there are still 2 weeks left in the season, the actual spend figure includes an extrapolated estimate for the spending carried out to July 5.
| Season | Estimated spending | Actual spending | Dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | $65,100 | $52,808 | April 5 - July 5 '24 |
Reference: Giveth QF Budget spreadsheet, Clockify WG report
Earnings
We earn a percentage of every QF matching pool and have gained some extra funding by increasing donation traffic on Giveth. We also have continued to sell Giver NFTs and experiment with Giver holder nominations for QF rounds.
| Funding Source | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Funds gained from matching pool % fee | $15,000 | From ENS Builder’s Round, Galactic Giving, and GIV-Earth (expected value) |
| Funds gained from Giver sales during S3 | $3,700 | We sold 37 Givers at 100 DAI each on Mainnet since April 1 |
| Donations to Giveth during major QF rounds | $3,618 | This includes donations to Giveth’s project during ENS Builder’s and Galactic Giving rounds. |
| Total Funds raised for Giveth | $22,318 |
S3 Metrics & Learnings
Donations
- Total Giveth donations March 20 - June 20 (excluding matching pools)
- $401,147
- Total donations from QF rounds
- $44.5k
- QF rounds were responsible for roughly 11% of the organic donations made to Giveth projects over the last 3 months.
Project onboarding/verification:
- 251 projects were created since March 1
- An estimated 88 projects were onboarded as a result of QF rounds (20 around the ENS round, 28 around Galactic Giving, and 40 around GIV-Earth) representing roughly 35% of the total onboarded projects.
Sponsors:
- 18 sponsors supported a QF round matching pool in S3
- 5 sponsors are repeat sponsors, and one of the primary goals of QF fundraising is to increase this number
$REGEN token
- We saw a MASSIVE uptick in site traffic during the Galactic Giving round when $REGEN announced that Giveth donations would qualify for airdrop points
- We’re now working with the $REGEN team to explore how we can use this momentum to drive more meaningful impact through the Giveth platform
- What other projects/initiatives are out there that can boost Giveth’s QF rounds without a direct monetary contribution?
Season 4 Deliverables & Budget
4 options are available - GROW, SUSTAIN, SHRINK and NO (WG halts or suspends activity)
If the QF WG is granted a GROW budget, there are a few things that would be awesome to build for QF in Season 4. This includes more metrics and data for the end user in the UI, improved matching estimates for projects and donors to better reflect Cluster Match QF, and a “celebratory” page that lives at giveth.io/qf after a round ends, with stats & archived round details as well.
Additionally, we would operate 4 QF rounds this season, which means scaling up our operations. We will hire and train for a dedicated QF marketing/comms role and a dedicated QF fundraising role (both part-time to start) in order to facilitate this growth and allow us to have a quicker turnaround time between rounds. QF has been a leading driver of organic growth for Giveth and this would level-up our ability to execute and innovate on high-quality QF rounds.
Grow 
What we will do
Feature Development
- Add more QF round metrics and data to the UI, e.g. a donor leaderboard and donations over time
- Improve estimated matching shown in the UI to more accurately represent the calculations of Cluster Match QF
- Add a celebratory page and round stats to Give directly to for-good projects with crypto & zero fees after a round ends; keep the page up 24/7
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
- Provide GIVbacks to all members of the Quadratic Force when they contribute to the matching pool of any round
- Explore new partnership options/verticals, QF grants, grant program funding opportunities, etc
Comms, Marketing & Community Building
- Run 3 Twitter 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 1)
- Increase graphic design support for guides, event announcements, round details & other comms for QF rounds
Ops
- Project curation, round management, Sybil analysis & funds distribution for all planned QF Rounds
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least one QF round per month this season. (July, August, September)
- Hire, onboard & train a new Comms/Marketing specialist who is solely focused on Quadratic Funding rounds/education/spaces.
- Hire, onboard & train a new Fundraising specialist focused on growing the Quadratic Force, matching pool sizes, and maintaining/growing existing sponsor relationships.
- Collect, review & incorporate user feedback (donors, project owners, and sponsors) for the QF product.
Core Metrics 
Matching pool totals July - September: $250,000
Number of Rounds July - September: 4
Donations in the rounds July - September: $100,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: $75,000+
 Breakdown |
Estimated S4 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Feature Development | $16,750 |
| Fundraising | $12,400 |
| Comms/Community/Design | $11,200 |
| Hiring | $4,500 |
| Ops | $31,000 |
| Total | $75,850 |
Note: DevOps and services are covered by the Dapp WG, but are still needed/utilized for QF.
Sustain 
What we will do
Feature Development
- Improve estimated matching shown in the UI to more accurately represent the calculations of Cluster Match QF
- Add a celebratory page and round stats to Give directly to for-good projects with crypto & zero fees after a round ends; keep the page up 24/7
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 1-2 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 rounds: GIV-ARB Ecosystem Accelerator, other rounds TBD
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least 3 QF rounds this season. (July, Aug, Sept)
What we won’t do
- Hire, onboard & train a new Comms/Marketing specialist
- Hire, onboard & train a new Fundraising specialist
- Add more QF round metrics and data to the UI, e.g. a donor leaderboard and donations over time
Core Metrics
Matching pool totals July - September: $175,000
Number of Rounds July - September: 3
Donations in the rounds July - September: $40,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: $50,000+
| Breakdown |
Estimated S4 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Feature Development | $10,000 |
| Fundraising | $6,500 |
| Comms/Community/Design | $7,100 |
| Ops | $23,500 |
| Total | $47,100 |
Note: DevOps and services are covered by the Dapp WG, but are still needed/utilized 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 rounds: GIV-ARB Ecosystem Accelerator, other rounds TBD
- Round setup & execution work to ensure at least 2 QF rounds this season.
What we won’t do
- Hire, onboard & train a new Comms/Marketing
- Hire, onboard & train a new Fundraising specialist
- Add more QF round metrics and data to the UI, e.g. a donor leaderboard and donations over time
- Improve estimated matching shown in the UI to more accurately represent the calculations of Cluster Match QF
- Add a celebratory page and round stats to Give directly to for-good projects with crypto & zero fees after a round ends; keep the page up 24/7
Core Metrics
Matching pool totals July - September: $125,000
Number of Rounds July - September: 2
Donations in the rounds July - September: $20,000
Extra funding secured for future matching rounds: None
| Breakdown |
Estimated S4 (3 month) Cost |
|---|---|
| Comms/Community/Design | $4,900 |
| Ops/Dev | $25,500 |
| Total | $30,400 |
Next Steps
Conclusions & Final Notes
- QF has remained a huge growth mechanism for Giveth leading to significantly more donations, significantly more projects & even an increasingly promising source of revenue.
- Our innovations for QF rounds, including streaming donations and Cluster Match QF, show that we are pushing the public goods funding space forward with new experiments and are promising features for attracting more and larger sponsors. We can leverage these unique features to sustain QF round growth going forward and position Giveth as THE industry leader when it comes to innovation in the quadratic funding space.
This proposal will remain open for an advice process for at least one week and will move to Snapshot voting with all other WG proposals for final approval from the DAO.
