Gitcoin Grants Stack: Your Tools to Fund What Matters
The Gitcoin Grants Program has grown immensely since its launch in 2019 — from one matching pool supporting open source to many concurrent pools serving interests as varied as Climate, Ethereum Infrastructure, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Over that period, we learned that there isn’t a single model that is right for every organization. Being able to tweak aspects like project eligibility criteria or donor matching settings allows the community to dial in the right program for their needs.
That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of Gitcoin Grants Stack: a protocol-enabled suite of tools that makes it easy for communities to easily and collectively allocate capital to fund their shared needs.
Built with Allo Protocol, Gitcoin Grants Stack is the first-ever decentralized, customizable, smart contract-enabled solution that connects grants program managers, project owners and community members to manage and participate in community-oriented grants programs.
The product suite enables a streamlined management process for grant program managers–from program setup to application management to funds allocation–making it easy to manage and grow their program. It encourages community members to discover and support new projects in their digital neighborhood. It empowers project owners to seek funding, apply to grants programs, and build their web3 reputation and beyond.
Gitcoin Grants Stack has three main components that make it possible to manage, discover, donate to, and participate in grants programs.
Enables program managers to create and deploy a program plus track and manage grantee applications and simplify approvals processes.
Encourages donor discovery and support of different programs and projects.
Empowers project owners to create a single profile where they can build reputation and manage applications, and accept direct donations.
Project Management:
Application Management:
Project Reputation Creation & Verification:
Additionally, through an integration with Gitcoin Passport, it also helps with identifying & protecting from bad actors (Sybils) on the donor and applicant sides, preventing the draining of program funds.
Allo Protocol is the underlying tech powering Gitcoin Grants Stack. Through Allo, the smart contracts powering Grants Stack will be available for any community to integrate into their processes or funding programs. Developers will also be able to use it to build novel applications in addition to what is included in Grants Stack.
The first wave of crypto tooling has led to an unprecedented ability for communities to accumulate and govern a shared pool of resources. We’ve seen treasuries worth millions come together in as little as one week. But there’s a piece missing: distributing that treasury back into projects that serve the community. Allo is the protocol for communities to fund their own public goods.
“We believe that positive global change starts with empowered communities,” said Nate Gosselin, Allo Protocol Product Lead. “Whether physical communities or digitally local communities, Allo exists to empower them with technology that allows them to allocate pooled funds to support their collective goals.”
The Gitcoin community has a rich history of empowering builders and setting them up to thrive. We want to decentralize, democratize, and scale that superpower.
Gitcoin Grants Stack will provide any community with the tools it needs to foster a thriving ecosystem by tapping into their community’s intelligence and democratically funding their most promising builders.
Now that we’ve tested our stack during the Alpha rounds with UNICEF, Fantom, and the Gitcoin Grants Program, we can feel confident that we can begin to permissionlessly ramp up usage of this tool in Q2!
For the next few months, we’ll be focusing on partnering with EVM-compatible organizations. We’ll also be rolling out upgrades to our smart contracts - check this space or Twitter for the latest product announcements.
