Celo Foundation Season 1 Funding Proposal

Status: DRAFT
Receiver Entity: Celo Governance
Author(s): Rene (@rene_celo), Celo Foundation
Type of Request: Funding
Funding Request: $1.5M equivalent to 4,545,454.55 CELO based on the 90-day average CELO price ($0.33 from April 17–July 15, 2025)

Summary

Over the past five years, Celo has grown from a bold idea into a mission-driven ecosystem focused on financial inclusion, real-world applications and impact. Now, as Celo enters its next phase of evolution, the community will play a pivotal role to help to scale that vision.

The transition to Ethereum Layer 2 marks not just a technical upgrade, but the beginning of a new chapter in Celo’s role as a frontier chain for global impact. As we look toward 2030, we envision a thriving, trillion-dollar onchain economy built on Celo that creates the conditions of prosperity––for everyone, everywhere.

From what we learned in the last few cycles, sustaining that vision and providing continuity to programs that bring that vision to life requires continuous resourcing, especially during periods of market volatility. At today’s token prices, continuing to fund critical scope exclusively through internal Celo Foundation resources would require deprioritizing some of the initiatives that have proven so valuable to the ecosystem.

This proposal requests $1.5M in funding from the Celo community treasury to support essential ecosystem work stewarded by the Celo Foundation during Season 1 (July–December 2025). These include, but are not limited to, developer growth and programs, industry and community events (technical and non-technical), strategic partnerships, marketing and PR, as well as critical operational support aimed at driving continued awareness for and adoption of Celo. This request is by no means intended to cover all of the Foundation’s operating costs, but rather, to ensure that this scope, for which the community already knows and benefits from, can continue without interruption.

The strategic objectives of these programs are directly aligned with Celo Governance’s Season 1 Intents:

1. Grow daily transactions on Celo

2. Grow Total Value Locked (TVL)

Current Status

This is the first-ever funding request submitted by the Celo Foundation to the Celo Community Fund, and we appreciate the continued trust bestowed upon us by the community to best serve our ecosystem.

Most of the scope outlined below is already live and has demonstrated positive growth and traction within the Celo ecosystem. These additional resources will enable us to continue scaling this important work and to put our best foot forward at leading industry events, among other activations and touchpoints.

We welcome everyone’s feedback and look forward to continued collaboration with the entire Celo community!

Motivation

The Celo Foundation has historically supported ecosystem growth through various initiatives, including developer onboarding, grants, marketing and communications, partnerships, and events. Up to this point, these efforts were funded internally, but as Celo enters its first governance-led funding season as an Ethereum L2, there is a growing opportunity to evolve how foundational ecosystem work is resourced.

Without additional support, the Foundation would need to pause or scale back these high-impact programs to preserve its operational runway, and at an inflection point of increased activity and momentum.

The intent of this proposal is to trial a first-time, small-scale grant for the Foundation’s most high-impact work, taking inspiration from other ecosystem models, from Arbitrum, Uniswap Foundation, Compound, dYdX, all of whom rely on additional community-funding mechanisms for similar initiatives.

This proposal not only provides a path for continued delivery, accountability, and increased alignment between the Foundation and the community it serves, but also ensures the long-term success of the Celo ecosystem, stood up by its diverse contributors, including the Foundation.

Specification

The proposed funding will support delivery across a wide range of categories. This includes partial support for full-time employees and contributors (10) across functions and teams, from developer relations to marketing and communications, and whose day-to-day work is required to keep these various initiatives running.

Category Description Estimated Budget
Builder & Ecosystem Growth Ongoing programs to onboard builders, from early-stage devs (e.g., Proof of Ship), to continuous support for later-stage projects and growth opportunities (e.g., incentives). $500k
Event Sponsorships & Opportunities Continued representation at large-scale events across Q3 and Q4, including Devconnect, among others. This includes planning and logistics, key sponsorships, misc. travel expenses, and affiliated production and operation costs. $300k
Marketing & Communications Brand awareness campaigns, tactical and operational growth marketing support, ecosystem co-marketing and partnerships, and ongoing PR and communications for Foundation-led announcements and initiatives. $200k
Foundation Grants Strategic partnerships and YOY renewals. $500k

(cont’d below)

5 Likes

Metrics and KPIs

Following this first-time proposal, the Foundation will publish a retrospective at the end of Season 1, consistent with the seasonal cadence of Celo Governance.

For continued transparency with the community, select OKRs/KPIs from the Foundation’s Season Planning sprint for H2 2024 are shown below, including team highlights, as a point of reference, and a baseline of metrics to expect for H2 2025. (NB: These are by no means comprehensive and serve as more of a snapshot of our essential scope, as some items, e.g., strategic partnerships or crisis communications, require confidentiality due to their sensitive nature.)

Ecosystem & Growth

Objective: Help scale MiniPay

KR 1: Grow to 5M users (Goal reached)

KR 2: Onboard more ramps & dApps to achieve increased DAUs (>550K)

KR 3: Unlock new geographies (Live in 7 countries in Africa & 60+ globally)

Marketing & Comms

Objective: Raise top-of-funnel awareness for Celo, across key audiences and platforms

KR 1: Reach 500K X followers (Goal Reached)

KR 2: Increase Ad Value Equivalency (AVE) by 25% compared to Q1 actuals (Goal reached; $7.2M)

KR 3: Active coverage of 15x quality placements/quarter (Goal reached)

KR 4: Launch a thought-provoking brand campaign reaching 200K+ impressions (Crypto is Useless* 475.8K+ impressions, or 2x)

KR 5: Grow Warpcast base from zero (9.2K followers)

Objective: Go beyond vanity metrics to increase onchain txs

KR 6: Drive 50K onchain txs through marketing/IRL activations, quests & campaigns (134,381 or 169%)

DevRel

Objective: Measure & amplify wins

KR 1 - Builder CRM engagement; maintain CRM system for Top 50 Builders, ensuring 80% engagement (Goal reached)

KR 2 - Organize and support three major hackathons with a combined participation of 200 developers (Goal reached)

KR 3 - Convert at least 25% of hackathon participants to active contributors within the Celo ecosystem (Goal reached)

Community & Governance

Objective: Governance Evolution & Ops

KR 1 - Lead governance evolution sprint to move to Seasonal cadence (Goal reached)

KR 2 - Manage Forum, documentation and process revamp, clarifying pathways for contribution (Above 500K page visits, 30% Active DAUs)

Timeline and Milestones

This proposal covers Season 1 (July–December 2025). Key milestones:

  • July – Funds received, initial disbursement
  • August – October – Ongoing events, strategic partnerships & grants, builder & growth activations, marketing and communications support, and program delivery
  • December – Season 1 retrospective

Funding Request

The Celo Foundation is requesting $1.5M equivalent to 4,545,454.55 CELO based on the 90-day average CELO price ($0.33 from April 17–July 15, 2025). As previously stated, this is not a request to fund the Foundation’s operations, but only targeted initiatives that would otherwise be at risk due to current market constraints.

Unused funds will either be returned to the Community Fund or rolled into a future season request, subject to community input.

Team and Multisig

The funds will be withdrawn to a Celo Foundation controlled multisig upon approval of the proposal.

Celo Foundation – 0x0f293B1548a55a7ba9541d4c27442e1591B068C9

8 Likes

Thanks @rene_celo and team for the proposal, at my end this proposal is fulfilling all the requirements:

  • Post a proposal in the Celo Forum and leave it for discussion at least for seven (7) days.
  • Present Proposal in a Governance Call and address the feedback received: Proposal was presented during Celo Governance Call #73 | Jul 24th, 2025

With the above said, from my end the proposal is ready to move into the voting phase when proposer wants to move forward or consider is appropriate.


:bangbang: Remember Current Celo Governance Overview & Procedures

To proceed to the submission and voting phase at least two Celo Governance Guardians must post explicitly that the proposal fulfills the requirements to be able to move into the Voting Stage in the proposal thread on the Celo Forum.


Remember next steps

  • Submission of PR to Celo Governance Repository
    Proposers needs to fork the Celo Governance Repository and add a PR including the proposal .md file and json file.
  • Approval of PR by Celo governance Guardians and merge into main branch of Celo Governance Repository.
    Celo Guardians are responsible for conducting a comprehensive review of every Pull Request (PR) to ensure that there is complete alignment and consistency between the final proposal posted in the forum post and the specific files that are being requested to be merged.
    This review process is strictly technical in nature, focusing solely on verifying the authenticity and good faith of the proposers. It does not involve any personal opinions or biases regarding the merits or content of the proposal itself. To maintain the integrity of the Celo Governance repository, it is mandatory to obtain approval from a minimum of two Governance Guardians for each PR before it can be merged into the main branch.
  • OnChain Submission of Proposal
    After PR is merged into main Governance Repo the proposers needs to fork locally the Celo Governance Repository and submit the proposal onchain using the guidelines described in the Celo Docs.

CC: Governance Working Group (@annaalexa @Wade @0xGoldo)

In my view, the proposal now satisfies all the necessary conditions:
• It has been published on the Celo Forum and left open for discussion for at least seven (7) days.
• It was presented during Celo Governance Call #73 on July 24th, 2025, and the comments received during that call have been addressed.

Therefore, I consider the proposal prepared to move into the voting phase whenever the proposer chooses to initiate it.

1 Like