Causes QF Shill space ✨

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Giveth
@GivethOct 24, 2025

The Spaces kicked off Giveth’s first Causes Quadratic Funding round, outlining how curated “causes” bundle verified public goods projects, with donations algorithmically distributed by an AI agent and cause creators earning a 3% fee. Amanda detailed the round’s dates (Aug 10–24), $40k matching pool, and sponsors (Sandbox DAO, Public Nouns, ShapeShift, plus the Giveth matching pool donors). Kai (Public Nouns) shared the “grantees & fam” cause and how to join via their NFT auction. Kunta (Sandbox DAO) described their community-driven grant program and open participation. Griff (Giveth) explained the roadmap: GIVE token rails on Polygon, AI-driven impact allocation, the COCM matching algorithm, incentives for fundraisers, and a UNDP pilot (Samoa, Afghanistan). Projects then showcased causes spanning education (ETH Daily, KF Media), energy/water (Decentralized Solar, Nexus Water, Water for All), environment and food production (Refi Sicilia, OurForest DAO, Ten Memes for Trees, Green Pill Network), governance and DeFi (DeFi Scan, Decentralized Governance Innovation), and regional impact (Venezuela, Helpers Foundation). Attendees were urged to donate to multiple causes (3–5) to maximize matching, share links, and return for the next Spaces on Aug 22.

Giveth Causes Quadratic Funding Round — Kickoff Summary and Project Notes

Event Overview

  • Host: Amanda (Giveth)
  • Co-hosts and speakers experienced intermittent Twitter Spaces issues (“rugged”), prompting a co-host suggestion to stabilize the session.
  • Purpose: Launch and showcase the first "Causes" Quadratic Funding (QF) round on Giveth, with sponsors and cause creators presenting their initiatives.

Round Logistics and Mechanics

  • Timeline: August 10–24 (9 days remaining at the time of the space).
  • Matching pool: $40,000, doubled from $20,000 thanks to community donors to the Giveth Matching Pool.
  • Max match per project: Up to $3,000 in GIV.
  • Donations and raffle:
    • Donate via giveth.io/qf/… (select a cause, token, network, amount, confirm via wallet).
    • Donations > $5 enter the GIVbacks raffle.
    • Causes are sorted by "gift power"; boosting donations increases visibility and rewards.
  • Strategy for donors (COCM algorithm):
    • To maximize matching, donate to multiple causes (ideally 3–5) to create a unique donation fingerprint. If two donors donate to only one identical cause, their impact can be treated as one and square-rooted together.
    • The best way to "game" the system is to diversify donations across causes.
  • Community ethos: This is not a competition; mutual support matters. Donate to each other; retweet and pin cause links for reach.

Causes Product and Giveth Roadmap (Griff Green)

  • Vision: Build repeatable token economies for public goods — advancing from project-level tokens to cause-level structures.
  • Roles and incentives:
    • Cause creators act as fundraisers curating verified projects under a shared theme.
    • Cause creators earn 3% of donations (aligning incentives to bring funding into public goods while project owners focus on impact delivery).
    • Giveth still takes no fee on direct donations; 100% goes to projects.
  • AI-powered distribution:
    • Donations to a cause are allocated to projects by an AI agent.
    • The agent analyzes project descriptions, recent activity, and social presence to determine impact alignment with the cause.
    • Long-term goal: evolve into a Charity Navigator-like AI specialized per cause.
  • Financial rails:
    • GIV token on Polygon powers the donation and distribution flow.
    • Future: launch tokens for each cause with GIV as underlying collateral — long-term goal since GIV launch (2021) and Giveth’s founding (2016).
  • UNDP pilot:
    • UN Development Programme projects (Samoa, Afghanistan) are testing causes on Giveth, signaling potential for further collaboration.

Sponsors and Partners

  • Public Nouns (Kai):
    • DAO funding “wild experiments” in public goods for ~3 years.
    • Historically grants larger one-off funding across education, infrastructure, software, regen verticals.
    • New cause: “Public Nouns Grantees & Fam” consolidating ~26 grantees and allied projects listed on Giveth.
    • Joining Public Nouns: 1 NFT = 1 vote via unchained auctions (e.g., PN # 508); community members often receive benefits (airdrops, early access).
  • Sandbox DAO (Kunta, Communications Lead):
    • Mission: empower and advance The Sandbox game (UGC metaverse where in-game assets are NFTs; users build assets and land).
    • Grants: fund tools for easier building and a dedicated category for charity/public goods (this round supported via the Sandbox DAO Grant Program, SDGP).
    • Governance: Hold 5 SAND or a piece of land for voting power; forum at forum.sandboxdao.com; encourage broader community participation.
  • ShapeShift: Sponsor acknowledged.
  • Giveth Matching Pool donors: Crowdfunded matching grew and contributed $20k of the $40k pool; notable treasury appreciation helped. Ongoing biweekly GIVbacks raffle: one $1,000 winner and nine winners share ~$1,000 in GIV — donors to the Matching Pool get entries while supporting future rounds.

Cause and Project Showcases

Green Pill Network — From Local Solutions to Global Impact (SwiftEvo)

  • Focus: Empower grassroots local chapters driving environmental and social impact with blockchain tools and collaborative action.
  • Model: One donation to the cause supports multiple local chapter projects across different cities/geographies.
  • Alignment: Supports localism; encourages donors to unlock matching for a network-wide ecosystem.

Global South Web3 Welcoming Party (KF Media — Will T.)

  • Background: “Pathways for LATAM” pioneered onboarding into Web3 without financial barriers; now extended to Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Cause scope: 41 projects; supports frontline educators onboarding people with little/no Web3 exposure.
  • Highlights:
    • Helpers Social Development Foundation (Nigeria): school supplies + crypto/Web3 education in rural settings.
    • AYA (Uganda): widely-known program providing school supplies to vulnerable children.
    • Zisazana Trust (“Breaking Digital Barriers”): safe house supporting orphans and child survivors of gender-based violence, including digital access initiatives.

Children-Centered World (MKPs)

  • Mission: Prioritize a child-centered world where adults create opportunities for peace, growth, experimentation; catch children when they fall.
  • Curation: Projects spanning education, support, and enabling technologies.
  • Origin story: Organized a 2019 festival in Poland with daughter Dahlia; received letters from the Dalai Lama and Polish President; self-funded by selling an apartment.

DeFi Transparency & Decentralization (DeFi Scan — Mark)

  • Aim: Promote true decentralization and transparency in DeFi/EVM; combat “DeFi illusion” (referencing Vitalik’s concern).
  • Tooling: Scanners, dashboards, future APIs to assess protocol centralization risks; streamline data collection for researchers.
  • Ecosystem-building: Encouraging projects like L2Beat to verify on Giveth; funding research frameworks with universities; public-sector lobbying/education about DeFi and decentralization.

Refi Sicilia — Bioregional Regeneration (Representative)

  • Focus: Regeneration via syntropic agroforestry, climate resilience (drought, desertification, wildfires), and societal transformation.
  • Network: Refi Italia, Refi Mediterranean (bioregional scale), Refi DAO, Region Coordination, Region Commons.
  • Tools: Sylvi, Grassroots Economics, Karma GAP, Bloom Network; on-chain impact for off-chain actions.
  • Sherwood Forest commons:
    • Downpayment on forest adjacent to a nature reserve that burned in July.
    • Open the commons for training, permaculture courses, community gatherings; counter degenerative tourism patterns.
    • Fundraising via refisicelia.com.

Decentralized Solar Power for the People (Colleen — Solar Foundation)

  • Scope: Small solar interventions with significant ROI in rural communities (primarily Africa; also Gen Ukraine).
  • Active solutions:
    • Solar-powered water pump for Helpers Foundation school (Nigeria) amid deeper wells due to drought.
    • Solar Saving Circles: empower women entrepreneurs with solar productive appliances for farming/tailoring/catering.
    • Liberia (with Bloom Network): solar for a school with zero electricity + lanterns for night study.
    • Gen Ukraine (with Solar Punk Nomads): solar + bikes for ecovillages.

Ethereum Education (ETH Daily)

  • Mission: Make Ethereum understood via curated content projects (blogs, podcasts, newsletters, tools).
  • Current roster: ~11 projects including tooling like DeFi Scan.
  • Meta take: Causes enable anyone to act as a freelance grants manager advocating for impact projects.

Copyright (Decentralized Science) — Maria Freters

  • Problem: Creators (e.g., scientists) lose 100% of copyright upon publishing (lifespan + 70 years) via standard T&Cs.
  • Goal: Restore and protect creators’ copyright ownership; build open, transparent, decentralized platforms that preserve control and enable new impact models.
  • Curation: 8 DeSci-aligned projects.

Helpers Social Development Foundation — Classroom Build (Kiki)

  • Update: Donations via Giveth enabled starting construction on a classroom building; target operation January with ~100 children enrolled.
  • Focus areas: Access to education, water, and climate change mitigation; use Web3 to address local challenges.

Food Production (Our Forest DAO — Diego)

  • Focus: Rural, community-based food production.
  • Process: Plans to coordinate with projects to surface standardized impact indicators to support AI-driven allocation.
  • Request: Clarification on whether Giveth will reach out to each project or cause owners should; ready to spread word and collaborate.

Venezuela Cause — Impact Concert (Jose Cabrera)

  • Design: Curated 5 projects as an entry point to onboard more Venezuelan initiatives despite technical/language barriers.
  • Projects include: ETH Venezuela; flood relief foundation (Mérida); University of Ancestor & Modern Knowledge (Amazon); Music Onboarding Machine (his project).
  • Method: Impact concert to gather donations across Giveth, Gitcoin, Octant; invites other cause owners to DM to join the lineup; aims for a weekday (e.g., Monday) when donors are online.

Ten MEMs for Trees — Carbon Kind Club (James)

  • Structure: Two-mode approach — “touch grass” (direct action) and “plant trees”; funds raised are often paid forward to other projects.
  • Memes-to-money loop: Earn via X’s revenue share by posting memes, then donate to public goods.
  • Update: Integrating GIV on Polygon into an upcoming game.

Giveth Galaxy Causes (Griff Green)

  • Notable spin-outs: Unicorn (simple, safe wallets), Pairwise (liquid democracy & simple voting), Common Stack, Token Engineering Commons, and additional tokenization experiments.
  • Tip: If donors need more causes to complete a unique donation fingerprint, consider Giveth Galaxy causes.

Nexus Water — Tokenizing Water & Energy (Representative)

  • Model: Tokenize liters of water and energy for humanitarian aid; DeFi pools generate revenue for projects; NFT “earn-to-give” rewards donors over time.
  • Tech: Atmospheric Water Generators (water from air) tied to tokenization and carbon credits.
  • Current mission: HaitiGo — orphanage, widows, school support; video example shared from sister company (Yale Water).
  • Web3 stack: Building on XRPL (low cost, low energy), now expanding via XRPL EVM sidechain to Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon; metaverse integrations.
  • Interest: Collaboration with Venezuela initiatives for water stations.

Water for All — Decentralizing Water (Amanda)

  • Partner: Water Lab.
  • Approach: Solar desalination plants to make water abundant; past deployments in Texas, Nicaragua, Bahamas.
  • Cause: 5 projects focused on water technology and access.

Operational Notes and Next Steps

  • Technical issues: Multiple speaker drop-offs due to Twitter instability; co-hosting suggested to reduce disruptions.
  • Calls to action:
    • Pin and retweet your cause and project links for reach.
    • Donate to multiple causes (3–5) to maximize matching via COCM.
    • Consider donating to the Giveth Matching Pool for default impact and GIVbacks raffle entries.
  • Next Twitter Space: August 22 (Monday) for additional showcasing.
  • Round closes: August 24.

Key Takeaways

  • Causes add a crucial fundraiser role with aligned incentives (3% of donations) while keeping direct donation fees at zero.
  • AI-driven allocation introduces a transparent, data-informed distribution model within causes.
  • The round demonstrates multi-ecosystem collaboration: Public Nouns, Sandbox DAO, ShapeShift, UNDP pilots, ReFi networks, DeSci initiatives, regional hubs (Venezuela, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda), and infrastructural tools (DeFi transparency and governance innovation).
  • Donor strategy matters: diversify contributions to increase matching; rally retweets and cross-support.

Participants Referenced (Selected)

  • Amanda (Giveth) — Host; cause: Water for All.
  • Griff Green (Giveth) — Product roadmap, COCM algorithm, Giveth Galaxy causes.
  • Kai (Public Nouns) — Sponsor; cause: Public Nouns Grantees & Fam.
  • Kunta (Sandbox DAO) — Sponsor; SDGP support.
  • SwiftEvo — Green Pill Network cause.
  • Will T. (KF Media) — Global South Web3 Welcoming Party cause.
  • Colleen (Solar Foundation) — Decentralized Solar Power for the People cause.
  • ETH Daily — Ethereum Education cause.
  • Maria Freters — Copyright (DeSci) cause.
  • Kiki (Helpers Social Development Foundation) — Classroom build update and broader climate/water/education focus.
  • Diego (Our Forest DAO) — Food Production cause.
  • Jose Cabrera — Venezuela cause and impact concert coordination.
  • James (Carbon Kind Club) — Ten MEMs for Trees.
  • Nexus Water representative — Water and energy tokenization for humanitarian aid.

Final Reminders

  • Support each other’s causes — this is a community-first round.
  • Share updates and links in the Space; pin to increase visibility.
  • Donate before August 24; aim for 3–5 causes to optimize matching.
  • If in doubt, donate to the Giveth Matching Pool to back the best projects platform-wide and enter GIVbacks raffles.