[READY TO VOTE] Municipal Public Goods Funding Infrastructure on Optimism

Governance Fund Missions 🏹
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Mission Request made by tomislav and originally shared here.

Municipal Public Goods Funding Infrastructure on Optimism

Delegate Mission Request Summary:

Build open-source infrastructure (application / website) for cities to run municipal specific public goods funding initiatives (QF, RPGF, etc.) on Optimism. Taking some of the crypto models in the wild and testing them in the real world. We’re finally getting outside of our crypto online bubble.

S5 Intent

This Request aligns with Intent 3: Improve the Consumer Experience

  • Development of practical use cases covering areas like gaming, encrypted on-chain data ownership for companies and individuals, digital identity, ZK application infrastructure, social applications, and remittance/transfer infrastructure.

Proposing Delegate: Brichis (Sponsor)

Proposal Tier: Fledgling Tier

Baseline grant amount: 35.000 OP

Number of applicants: One

Submit by: To be set by Grants Council

Selection by: To be set by Grants Council

Start date: March or as soon as the Council selects applicant.

Completion date: December 2024

Specification

How will this Delegate Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

One of the best new practical use cases for Optimism is Public Goods Funding. PGF is the de facto whole governmental sector. Local, national and international governments and bodies manage trillions in budgets. If Optimism becomes the go to place for running advanced PGF processes, it could onboard millions of new users. It’s a long road to get there, but we need to start somewhere. With one small governmental body like a city, with a couple of grant programs. But essentially, learn along the way and more importantly build the tooling and knowhow:

  • technical, ie. apps;
  • legal, ie. laws and bylaws;
  • administrative, ie. documentation;
  • managing, ie. marketing, funding, etc.

By creating this infrastructure, we improve our consumer experience and set Optimism for onboarding millions.

What is required to execute this Delegate Mission Request?

  • Deliverable 1: Website for running municipal grant program
  • Deliverable 2: Integrated direct on-ramp service
  • Deliverable 3: Integrated wallet
  • Deliverable 4: Integrated grant protocols (Allo, etc.)
  • Deliverable 5: Legal templates
  • Deliverable 6: Administrative templates
  • Deliverable 7: Programme templates (eg. cultural projects, public infrastructure, local media, etc. )
  • Deliverable 8: Marketing playbook
  • Deliverable 9: Promo and sales materials, presentations, video explainers
  • Deliverable 10: Impact analysis and reporting playbook and tooling

How should the Token House measure progress towards this Mission?

Milestones

Milestone No. Title Deliverables Due Date Evidence of Completion
1 App development Website, Integrated direct on-ramp service, Integrated wallet, Integrated grant protocols October 2024 Link to website/app
2 Templates Legal templates, Administrative templates, Programme templates, Reporting tooling November 2024 Link to documentation
3 Playbooks Marketing playbook, Reporting playbook December 2024 Link to documentation

How should badgeholders measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

  • Number of municipal grant programs ran
  • Number of new users
  • Number of donations
  • Number of project proposals
  • Amount donated
  • Number of transactions

Have you engaged a Grant-as-a-service provider for this Mission Request?
No

Has anyone other than the Proposing Delegate contributed to this Mission Request?
No

13 Likes
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Are you thinking of this for every country? Presumably they will all be pretty different and need the employment of different local legal experts?

Maybe a prior goal should be evaluate where a tool like this would do the most good/be most feasible? Then focus all the legal documentation etc on just that one country to start with?

I do quite like the concept in general.

5 Likes
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Thank you for the insightful question, @MinimalGravitas!

You’ve touched on something we’ve been considering.

Creating templates in major jurisdictions is crucial. Initially, our focus is on the EU and the US. These regions are not uniform; there will be variations among the EU member states and the US states. However, these differences are manageable.

Our pilot project in Croatia will be the starting point for covering the EU. Following that, we plan to collaborate with a city in the US and apply a similar approach there.

Each jurisdiction requires compliant legal and administrative documentation. This doesn’t mean starting from zero in each new area. Often, we can repurpose existing templates, with adjustments made mainly for local legal compliance. The heavy lifting isn’t in devising the process of quadratic funding; it’s in adapting our existing models to local languages and legal systems.

I also anticipate that larger cities will shoulder some, or even all, of this workload. This is especially likely in smaller jurisdictions that may not be our initial focus.

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Are we sure that with time to adjust this proposal it will be possible to get the impact metrics? From what I see here the last milestone is in December.

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Hi @AxlVaz!

The plan is to run the first QF rounds as soon as the app is usable. Ideally already in May this year. The metrics listed will be observable immediately after that first round. We will then update the metrics after each next round. We don’t need to wait for the end of project to measure our impact.

I hope this answers your question.

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Did I misunderstand or are you already working on it?

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Yes, here is our website: https://muqa.org

The initial exploration and talks with the city of Split, Croatia, were funded by Funding the Commons.
We are now positive that this is not only doable, but also has a high potential to bring many new users to Ethereum. If we get this funding from Optimism, we will run Quadratic Funding rounds for green spaces on Optimism.

1 Like
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I think there is a mistake, the missions should be open tasks that anyone can apply for. Then the council decides which is the best candidate to execute the task.

What I mean is that based on the milestones presented in this proposal, I still think the timeline is too tight if they approve someone starting from zero.

4 Likes
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I might have misunderstood this process a bit. The work done so far is only the research.

If it’s not against the rules, I’d like to continue working on this. If someone else gets the grant to do it, we’ll be happy to collaborate. They can use our work and build on top of it.

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The process itself is confusing, the idea of this stage is to improve the proposals. My only question is that the milestones are commensurate so that anyone who applies has time to meet the requirements.

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If that is your concern, I believe the deadlines put in the proposal provide enough time.

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Awesome to see an effort of real world Optimism integration towards real world public goods.

Maybe it could be made clearer:

  • Specifically what kinds of funding initiatives would these municipalities be conducting? How does the execution of that look?
  • What scale of activity would be occuring onchain?
  • Elaborate on the biggest potential impact you see from all this, granted your experience in real world municipality funding?

@tomislav we appreciate your openness to collaborate on this. We’ll vote to approve in the spirit of furthering real world adoption, but feel more clarity on this vision could be flushed out.

Approval - I am an Optimism delegate 1 with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

1 Like
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Hello @AdvantageBlockchain , your support is much appreciated!

In our research conducted so far in city of Split, Croatia (population 130k), we have identified following topics of annual grant programs: Culture, Social care, Youth, Events, Veterans, Education, Sport, Environment, Neighbourhoods, Consumers, Media and Education. The city gives out more than 4 million euros each year to more than 500 different organisations, teams and individuals for their projects and interventions.

Besides these city’s direct grant programs, there are interventions and projects by utility companies (eg. Parks and markets, Local transport, Parking, Housing, Energy, Water and sewage, etc.) and governmental institutions (Theatres, Cinemas, Schools, Kindergartens, Hospitals, etc.). These amount to tens of millions of euros each year.

In case of Split, we are planning on running multiple rounds with following themes:
1. Green spaces
Here we would run 2 rounds of QF in May and September. There is a map of public land where interventions are possible. There is also a limited list of types of interventions possible (park bench, water fountain, tree and bush, kids playground, cleanup). Citizens will propose interventions on public land, and rally their neighbours, colleagues and other citizens to donate for their intervention. Then the city will match with their funding and public company for Parks will conduct the intervention, followed by 5 years of maintenance.
2. Cultural projects
Here we will run 6 thematic QF rounds in parallel in August. Themes are Theatre, Film, Libraries, Traditional, Literary and Independent. This will look very much like Gitcoin rounds. Adjustments will need to be made in final calculation to split the decision making between the QF results and a commission of cultural experts (as per law requirements).
3. Local media
This is specific round where we will explore both QF for media outlets and Retro funding for individual journalists. Also, we will explore options for private QF using MACI and clr.fund.

Technically we will run these on Gitcoin (Allo protocol). However, a new frontend needs to be built for these rounds (to decrease friction for new users), as well as integrations for KYC and onramping.

We would partner up with local organisations (like Split Tech City) on marketing (to reach more citizens) and business development (to raise donations directly from local businesses).

It’s hard to make any estimates, it’s all hopium right now.

We believe all this business could and should be conducted on Optimism. There are thousands of cities bigger than Split, and if we are able to create a suite of services based on Optimism tailor made for governmental bodies we stand to bring millions of new users.

The representatives of the City, companies and institutions have expressed interest in trying new funding mechanisms like Quadratic funding. They are open to using it to improve their decision making, increasing donations (so they can lower the taxes), decreasing the amount of work, and increasing citizens engagement.

Cities and citizens basically stand to gain the same benefits which web3 community has enjoyed from new public goods funding tools and methods and they are aware of it.

The challenge is onboarding citizens. This also the biggest value for Ethereum. And ability to influence their local public goods funding is a heck of a reason for citizens to get on Optimism.

The vision

Vision

Open-source web3 software as a main tool used by society to prioritise and fund public goods.

Mission

The mission is to onboard citizens on web3 through mature web3 tools like Gitcoin.

Strategy

The mission is achieved through a strategy which has two elements:

  1. Start with smaller branches of governments (ie. municipaities, cities) which more numerous and easier to approach
  2. Start with tools with biggest potential benefit like QF and RetroF which bring them money or visibility

How this request works

Municipal Public Goods Funding Infrastructure (this request) is not the same as Municipal Quadratic Funding Initiative (MUQA). MUQA is working on pilot QF round with the city of Split, and other cities which express their intent to participate. For each city, we will do the research of the legal, administrative and technical requirements and work with the city to run a round.

By no means are we the sole possible entity that can do this. The mission request here can be seen as a request for entities which will do some kind of top-down approach in creating these standard documents and guides for individual countries.

Also, it can be seen as a request for an entity which will build an app that will provide (any) city with customised templates for municipal grant programs which they can then run without much effort. I am talking about a ready-to-use grant program for green spaces, cultural projects, local media, youth projects, ecological projects, etc.

2 Likes
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Wow, I love this!!! I’ve had the idea of running QF rounds for municipalities in mind for a while, but as a round creator I would want to focus on the round itself and making it a huge success(which is demanding on it’s worn because it requires a lot of awareness and education around it) and not the legal/admin aspects of it. If Optimism can solve the friction points for people that want to do this I’m sure it will enable a receive volume of such rounds

1 Like
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Thanks for your support, @Zer8 !

I agree with you. We need to start with a decisive win. This mission request covers only the part of building the MVP infrastructure. Ideally and if possible, part of the funds would be also used to increase the matching pool. Also, hopefully, other sources could provide additional funding to increase the matching pool even more, but also cover the costs of running the round.

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This is a fantastic mission request.

Suggestions:

open the mission to multiple teams. I know many people connceted to municipal leadership, would be great to see yeams in different regions attempt this.

Increase the grant amount allowing compensation for grant managers, training of local authorities, onboarding projectas as grantees, and matching pools. These are laborious tasks.

Connect with @lanzdingz and @sejalrekhan , they have extensive experience in training tmround managers. Sejal also works at Gitcoin.

@Griff @karmaticacid - would love to see Giveth join this mission somehow.

@Sov would this be something @Gitcoin can support with matching the matching pool or visibility?

Tagging @cypherbadger for viz. Is this something that could be well received in ES if wBTC is used?

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Thanks for checking in. Yes, this would be something I would be open to exploring to see how Gitcoin could support. Happy to setup a call with stakeholders and jam on ideas. @sejalrekhan could join in as well.

1 Like
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this is a great mission request!

@brichis

@sejalrekhan and I facilitated the Gitcoin Grants Stack round manager training, and are currently facilitating the RetroPGF training. We also lead The GreenPill Network, with local chapters all over the world. We would love to collab on this mission where possible.

We already have our local chapters plugged into their communities, some of which have been running QF rounds locally, others raising funds and giving them out directly. They are also hosting onboarding workshops, general blockchain educational talks, launching regen-focused projects in their communities and more.

We could help with the distribution of this mission if it was opened up to multiple applicants and experiment alongside you.

3 Likes
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This is a very exciting request. I really appreciate this real world example. Hopefully, you can continue working on it if it goes to vote and will be approved.

We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

2 Likes
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You are thinking what I am thinking, but didn’t dare to propose as this is my first mission request. If a single mission request can contain multiple RFPs, I would suggest we split deliverables into these groups:

RFP 1: For developing reusable legal and administrative documentation

No of recipients: multiple
Amount per grant: 7k OP

Jurisdictions can be US, EU, UK, Argentina, Mexico, Nigeria, India…, whichever pose a better opportunity.

We can have multiple applicants and deal with each directly, or award one entity or consortium to create localised legal and administrative documentation and templates for cities in specific jurisdictions. Ideally, one applicant would source local legal teams for different jurisdictions and serve as an coordinator and provide the final report.

Deliverables:

  1. Legal documentation

Example from Split:
* Programme
* Rulebook
* Call for Proposals
* Guidebook
* Evaluation Criteria
* Contract
* etc.

  1. Administrative documentation

Example from Split:
* Ex Ante Evaluation Form
* Report Form
* Budget Report Form
* Ex Post Evaluation Form
* Application forms
* Project description Form
* Budget Form
* De Minimis Declaration
* Partnership Declaration
* Double Funding Declaration
* Truth Declaration
* CV
* Funding Sources Declaration

RFP 2: For developing knowhow and soft infrastructure

No of recipients: multiple
Amount per grant: 15k OP

Ideally these deliverables will be usable universally, but it also makes sense to make localised materials from scratch. I would suggest that these are covering the same jurisdictions/countries as in RFP1/4/5.

Deliverables:

  1. Programme templates
  2. Marketing playbook, education materials (presentations, video explainers, training material, courses)
  3. Promo and sales materials
  4. Impact analysis and reporting playbook and tooling

RFP 3: For development of technical infrastructure

No of recipients: multiple
Amount per grant: 50k OP

This RFP will be for building website and an app to be used for running municipal grant programs on Optimism. Providers will have to describe, in their project proposal, the purpose and requirements for the infrastructure they will build and in which grant programs/jurisdictions from RFP4/RFP5 and others it will be used.

Eg. A local team in Bulgaria could onboard several regional government entities and negotiate with them special type of grant program which will require modifications to the standard grant tools we currently have, custom frontend, custom integration with governmental KYC solution, integration with local onramp service, or even usage of a special token. They could work with a local dev shop to create project and apply for funding in this RFP.

Ideally this team and dev shop would continue developing their technical infrastructure well after this grant program is expired, and gain sustainability through running local grant programs.

Deliverables:

  1. Website template for running municipal grant program
  2. Custom frontend and backend
  3. Integrated wallet, direct on-ramp service, KYC solution
  4. Integrated smart contracts (Allo, Jokerace, etc.)

RFP 4: For gathering opportunities

No of recipients: multiple
Amount per grant: 2k OP

This RFP is for all individuals, teams and organisations with connections and relationships with local governments to start exploring possibility of running local grant programs on Optimism. This small grant will cover the initial effort of establishing the relationship, gauging the interest and exploring what kind of programs could be run, as well as what are the requirements and obstacles.

Deliverables:

  1. Bizdev report
  2. Programs outline proposal
  3. Report on obstacles and requirements
  4. Application for RFP5

RFP 5: For running grant programs

No of recipients: multiple
Amount per grant: 50k OP

This RFP is for teams that have done exploration and have an agreement with or an expression of interest from local government(s) to run their grant programs on Optimism. Applicants should specify in their application how will the grant budget be spent among costs of operation and matching pool.

Deliverables:

  1. Implemented legal and administrative documentation from RFP1 in at least 1 jurisdiction and at least 1 municipality
  2. Ran at least 1 grant program with at least 1 round
  3. Onboarded at least 2000 citizens
  4. Raised at least $10k from the municipal partner
  5. Raised at least $5k from local businesses
  6. Raised at least $5k from citizens