I appreciate the time to make a well formed response, however I too still have some strong opinions.
We should not generate more GIV emissions, so if we’re not taking from GIVbacks I wouldn’t support assigning a portion of our unallocated funding to this new idea. Allocating GIV, albeit staked (staked into what?) might give projects a more direct opportunity to game the system, if we directly gave them GIV, and they themselves get GIVpower that they stake back on themselves.
I don’t fully understand the narrative of why donors shouldn’t have more decision-making power than projects. Projects pay nothing to be on the platform, they get free hosting and free exposure, donors are the ones giving away their funds. If anything you could give projects more of a say but I don’t think they should have equal or more decision-making power than donors. It’s written fairly explicitly in the Giveth Mission and Vision that we are a donor-focused platform.
It’s the Future of Giving, not the Future of Receiving.
If the will of the herd approves though…
Soulbound NFTs are okay but there’s no way to quantify the governance power with a single NFT, there is also a lot of development work needed to implement such a solution.
Really if you want to award just governance to a project then you need to spin up a non-transferrable (soulbound) reputation token, it can be a simple ERC-20. This approach could be potentially integrated easier into existing systems, namely Gardens and Snapshot.
In general this might turn out to be an interesting idea but I don’t think it should have a huge priority against the current Giveth roadmap.
Yes, I agree that projects on the platform are being donated a lot of GIV but if projects use this GIV to participate in the ecosystem - projects are sacrificing donations upfront. This means taking money away from the causes they work with - this could mean taking money away from refugees, from education for children in deprived regions, from projects bringing clean water etc. This is the main reason why projects want to cash out - they see donations on the platform as exactly that - as funds to help people, situations in need.
The playing field is not equal here because we are saying to projects that they must sacrifice to take part in the ecosystem.
However, if projects were to be rewarded with a separate stream of GIV for the purposes of taking part in the ecosystem (and of course, getting some education around how to do this) this levels out the playing field between donors and projects. Projects would be more likely to be engaged with Giveth instead of being passive and using the platform for crowdfunding.
Donating GIV to projects passes the pressure and volatility of the token to the projects. Most projects are unaware that the actual $ value of their donations is different to the $ value on their project page due to donations being made up of mostly GIV or other volatile tokens. Currently, projects are discovering that they have been donated a fraction of the funds they thought they had due to market conditions. Projects are not aware that they are exposed to that volatility, adding further sacrifice.
Same as the point above, if we ask projects to use their GIV in the ecosystem upfront, we are asking them to sacrifice funds upfront without ‘GIVback rewards’ to compensate over time. (There are many other points for consideration when redirecting the use of funds but it’s not for discussion here). The GIV on the platform is presented as a ‘donation’ by donors and included in the donation total.
I like this suggestion as it at least allows for a levelling of the playing field but the choice, and therefore the ‘power’, still remains in the hands of the donor.
I also want to say a word about donors and sacrifice: Projects are carrying out work that the donor wants to see done but is not able to do. The people and resources involved in the project are also making sacrifices. There isn’t only financial sacrifice involved in for-good / charity work. Those that can sacrifice time / non-financial resources do so; others make a more passive sacrifice through financial support. Neither party can exist without the other - there is a mutual dependence and a mutual sacrifice or mutual achievement depending on how you view.
Donors do not feel making donations to be a sacrifice, their donation is allowing them to take part in a cause / project they care about where they are not directly involved on the ground. It is awesome that donors on Giveth can now be rewarded in addition to being able to support their favourite projects.
The donors and most of the projects on Giveth are on the same side: they are part of the giving - the projects are custodians of the donation as it passes through to the beneficiary or cause. The receivers are usually external to the project: ie the ocean being conserved, the public breathing cleaner air, the homeless person being fed. Currently the Giveth model is asking the projects to withhold GIV from the beneficiaries in order to be able to take part in Giveth ecosystem. Projects are currently not freely able to take part in ecosystem without sacrifice to the beneficiary.
The proposal is not to reward the ‘receivers’ (the beneficiaires) but to apply equal rights to the stakeholders creating the value for the cause: donors and projects are part of the same team. Projects are taking the donation, giving it value add and then donating it to the end beneficiary.
Something that I have been rolling around in my head since we started talking about changing the label “Verified” to something that does not insinuate ‘better than’ or cast shadow on ‘non-verified’ projects.
After discussing a bit with Rainer and running it past some members of the verification team I am exploring the idea of having a ‘GIV society’ or ‘GIVbacks club’ (better title coming).
Projects would apply to be a member of the club. Once they become a member of this club they can be eligible for different benefits. One of them being participation in the GIVbacks program.
We have lots of organizations reach out for partnerships and want to send funds to or somehow reward these projeccts on Giveth. Currently, Im collaborating with Panvala - they want to add all of our verified projects to their recipient list for the Stamps program. I see all of these things being rewards to the projects and benefits of being part of this club.
This would leave space for more benefits to be provided to the projects that are willing to step up and be active in the club, it would remove any negative connotation for projects that arent members of the club, it would provide opportunities for anyone to give benefits to these projects (from collaborations like Panvala), and it would encourage projects to become a public goods provider rather than a personal gain collector.
It wouldn’t necessarily provide more governance rights, but I will have to agree with the above statements in that Anyone who has GIV has governance rights, they just need to use it.
And I dont buy that we are asking them to take these funds away from refugees in order to have gov rights, we are asking people to use something that was given to them as a gift to experiment with the possibilities of how governance systems work and how maybe they can implement one into their project in the future or use our Giveth governance structure to create proposals and vote on ones that are important to them.
I think if we analyze the data we will find that in fact, most projects are actually losing right now.
how many projects are actually receiving any quality donations after taking the time to learn about Giveth and create a decent project listing? The learning curves have a significant upfront cost with very uncertain return on that value.
how many of those projects have the ability to use donated crypto in any way without having to sell it by also setting up a centralized exchange account and linking it to a bank account? The benefits of working in Web3 and receiving crypto donations are quickly lost in having to link right back to the traditional systems for accessing and distributing the funds.
Of the projects that are receiving donations beyond the 1 DAI / 1 GIV random airdrop hunters or testers of the Giveth ecosystem… what percentage of their donors come from outside the Giveth ecosystem? Donations are mostly in GIV because it’s mostly people who are Giveth contributors past and/or present that are giving to those projects IMHO.
The excitement of receiving donations on Giveth is often quickly diminished when it’s mostly those .05 xDAI or 1 GIV donations or even worse, when the amount shown as received becomes a fraction of that amount by the time the project owner figures out how to get the funds out of the wallet and into the hands of a project contributor.
Project donors getting GIVbacks are far and away the big winners here when you look at the funding flow patterns as they are right now.
Project owners are very clearly saying they want to be able to participate in Giveth, from asking how their donors can best give to the project in a way that helps the GIVeconomy become stronger, to asking how they can use their crypto donations in a way that helps the GIVeconomy AND allows them to use their crypto donations to further their stated mission.
This is a super cool idea Ashley! Although I think better title is needed for sure… The “Club” word seems very exclusive. I love the concept though and having additional benefits for projects that provide public goods is awesome. Note that GIVpower will be one of those benefits too.
Also, you nailed it. Donations are a crypto gift. The advantages of crypto are that you can do all kind of amazing things w/ it… like vote in a DAO or stake it and earn a yield. Also the volatility provides opportunities for greater returns through DeFi. It’s a learning curve for sure to come from web2 and get into web3, but it’s also an opportunity.
I think putting effort into improving resources and information for projects onboarding into the crypto space… and specifically the Giveth DAO… is much more worthwhile than just bleeding out more GIV from the economy.
Many of the points in @Danibelle’s comment I think are in-line with that.
There’s a lot we can do to improve our onboarding flow & resources for projects. We should also look to solve the problem of “how can we get more donors (outside of the Giveth ecosystem) to use Giveth to donate”.
According to the giving block, there is about $300,000,000 donated in crypto each year. We need to get our message out there… get those donors on Giveth!
The GIVeconomy can’t sustain just putting more GIV out to projects in the hopes of helping them onboard to the DAO, and we can’t expect to fund every nonprofit out of our own pocket. Instead we need to focus on improving resources for onboarding & attracting big donors to our already amazing platform.
Totally agreed with this point. I don’t really like the word “sacrifice”. Donors are not making any sacrifice whatsoever as they choose to help out for social good and it’s their responsibility to also choose the project they align their value to. They have a choice not to donate. None of us who choose to make a change in the world are sacrificing anything.
For project, this word, also too heavy, may be more true as most nonprofits work on a shoestring and does not have money to pay for valuable work. The social business model resolve some of the problem turning donors and funders into clients. If projects can be rewarded, that’s the true “sacrifice” that this is resolving.
Unfortunately as some one working in fundraising for 17 years, I don’t buy this narrative of donor first and project second. Donors give only because they want to make a change and most often they have a specific project in mind to help making those changes (especially bigger donors). Without project, there will be no donor. As fundraisers, we are just connecting causes with donors (two dots) and there is no third dot (the project) and certainly no fourth dot (a giving platform). Donors won’t come because of Giveth platform. Projects need to come first and they need to fundraise from their donors to bring them here. That’s the tried and tested strategy from many giving platform model. I think the Giveth team should invest some energy in truly understand the complexity of nonprofit fundraising and have some strategic foresight instead of assumptions and wishes.
Interesting as this is the power dynamic that the philanthropic world is reckoning with and trying its best to change with Community-focused Fundraising for example. This is a colonial approach (money talk) that shouldn’t be the centre of Giveth’s narrative which I thought was about “people on the ground”. If people continue to think like this, it’s going into dangerous mistakes that for over 100 years people are making in the international development world. Community should eventually have more say not capital. Again, this is something web3 can change if it wants to. A paradigm shift is sorely needed to break away from a patron/receiver relationship between donor and projects.
Of course we want great projects to use the platform form, but the point stands and I will fight on this:
Projects should absolutely NOT receive GIVbacks for donations
This is completely unsustainable for Giveth & the GIVeconomy. I’m sorry, but we are not an endless fountain of money. Giveth itself should not become the biggest donor on Giveth, and there is no economic benefit to bleeding more GIV via this suggestion.
We should raising more matching funds. We should reach out to people wanting to donate to support the matching funds. We should bring those bigger donors onto the platform so they use Giveth to donate. We should help projects onboard. There are a lot of things we should do, and dumping our more GIV is not one.
I just want to quickly chime in here that I totally agree with @karmaticacid on this point:
The GIVbacks program was designed specifically for donors and a focus for this GIVbacks program is to drive more non-GIVbag donors to the platform and turn them into GIVbaggers with GIVbacks.
It seems though that this post has sparked ideation on the need for a program that enables not only projects, but contributors to projects, to be able to use the GIV they receive in creative ways that DO sustain the GIVeconomy while also stimulating local crypto-economic systems.
So maybe it’s time to harvest the great feedback of this thread into a new GIVforward thread.
The idea that projects and their contributors are now GIV holders and can become GIVers through a new future GIVforward program just for THEM … is very exciting.
Then I do think that we should not be including GIV in the donations total on projects’ profiles. If we were to have a separate aggregation for GIV, we would be better signalling to projects that GIV is a gift, something special and different, that opens doors to governance, tokenomics, GIVeconomy and other aspects of web3. This brings an excellent opportunity to discuss the significance and difference of GIV: projects will ask questions. Currently, GIV rolls-up like just another token and with it’s volatility, it’s value and reputation in the eyes of projects has been affected by the downward turn in the market.
that’s an interesting idea, however keeping the actual donation of GIV in the same list for transparency - being able to see donation dates and transaction hashes is an important core of web3. maybe the GIV donated is something that should be conveyed to the project creator, like somewhere in the ‘my projects page’ or while viewing their project as the owner like :
Total GIV Received in Donations: (number)
Learn how to use GIV(add link)
We can educate the project owners more precisely on how to leverage their GIV to participate in the GIVeconomy more than selling it on the market.
Sorry, if I wasn’t clear - I meant only the totals to be separated: $USD (other currencies) and Total GIV with all donations to be listed as they are now.
One comment on the different uses of GIV: I want to stress the point that Giveth currently creates a moral or even legal dilemma for project owners here:
On the one hand Giveth (and the donor) expects them to use the funds they receive exclusively for the purpose of their project. In fact, Giveth’s own terms say that verification status can be revoked if “The funds are not being used for what is expressed in the project page or submitted verification application.” (Project Verification Process and Guidelines | Giveth Docs) And, as Melody and Claire have pointed out, projects are usually not the final beneficiaries. The funds are to be spent for project expenses, the homeless, etc. Projects are often intermediaries.
On the other hand, Giveth wants to send the message that “we are asking people to use something that was given to them as a gift to experiment with the possibilities of how governance systems work and how maybe they can implement one into their project in the future or use our Giveth governance structure to create proposals and vote on ones that are important to them” (Ashley) Or: “Donations are a crypto gift. The advantages of crypto are that you can do all kind of amazing things w/ it… like vote in a DAO or stake it and earn a yield.” (Lauren) Which means: Please do experiment with things other than offramping and spending it! Hold the funds, invest the funds, play with them!
Giveth asks for two contradictory things here that must confuse project owners. This creates a moral and legal dilemma, and right now Giveth does not support projects in navigating it.
Morally: They are forced to decide between helping beneficiaries and having a stronger voice on the platform. Donors don’t have this dilemma because GIVBacks do not reduce their donation.
Legally: In the conventional nonprofit world, donor/funders usually make it very clear if they want to give a restricted/unrestricted donation (to be spent short-term) or if funds are given for an endowment or even for shareholder advocacy (i.e. ok not to be spent but to be held or invested). Most donors don’t like money sitting around doing nothing. In most cases these kinds of donor preferences, if made explicit, are even legally binding. In the case of a Giveth donor (confirmed by Giveth’s terms), projects have to assume the donation is supposed to be spent.
Giveth could explain and (explicitly) approve different uses of crypto much more clearly along the user journey for makers. I also like Claire’s idea of showing GIV balances separately from other cryptocurrency balances. Giveth should also ask donors to be ok with projects potentially not spending a donation they have made in GIV.
This has been a wild thread. I am impressed by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the discussion here. Thank you so much! Since Burning Man is coming up for a lot of people here, I suggest we park this until September. I want to attempt a summarizing post here to recap where we agree and not agree and what could be a next step.
Agreement
It seems to me that everyone has sympathies for empowering projects more on the platform.
It seems we also agree that whatever additional power/funds we might want to give projects, it should not be called “GIVBacks”.
It seems we also agree that Giveth’s resources are not endless and that we should find a solution that does not unnecessarily bleed its funds.
Controversy
We currently disagree on the way to empower projects:
By lowering transaction costs and enabling more donations for projects. See Dani’s post.
By educating them better how to use the GIV they receive anyway for governance (and investment) purposes.
By allowing donors to voluntarily give their GIVBacks GIV to projects.
By giving projects GIV on top of the actual donation (maybe by reducing the GIV in the GIVBacks program, maybe by using fresh GIV from the treasury).
By giving projects governance power without using GIV at all (soulbound NFTs, two-house model, non-transferable soulbound reputation token, etc.)
One of these (or a mix of these options) could be called the “GIVforward” program.
Next Steps
I would like to keep working with token engineering experts on this (@mitch @Cotabe Anyone else?) to make a first concrete suggestion in September.
Loved the summary. I think it’s a very important discussion to have. I would love to help.
I agree with all the agreements in the summary. I also agree with @mitch and @karmaticacid that this has no implementation priority and we should further focus on GIVpower, communicate our message more effectively & attracting donors outside of our ecosystem. But, I think it’s not early to start thinking about it and maybe add something to our roadmap
I think we should focus on how to help projects fundraise more effectively and make the best use of Giveth. But eventually, I would like projects to have also more to say on the future of giving… because they are giving: time, energy and resources too.