Celo Public Goods - QF & RPGF Program for H1 2024 🌱

Ecosystem
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Overview

Summary

Following CGP115, this forum post details plans for the start of a Celo QF & RPGF program to increase the available support and recognition of Celo’s Public Goods - projects or initiatives that contribute to the well-being of the Celo community and ecosystem. This includes the allocation of 125,000 cUSD and 250,000 CELO through an integrated set of Quadratic Funding (QF) and Retroactive Public Goods Funding (RPGF) rounds in H1 2024. This program aims to increase demand for Celo block space, rally community engagement, and provide accessible on-chain funding for Celo projects.

Motivation

With the rapid increase in Ethereum L2 blockchains, the competitive landscape is evolving fast. The ability for a blockchain to develop and nurture it’s key ecosystem resources is pivotal. As leading builders highlight, including Justin Drake and Kevin Owoki, building up capacity for effective onchain capital allocation is a key strategic advantage for L2 ecosystems.

The deployment of promising coordination tooling on Celo - such as Gitcoin Grants Stack, Allo V2, and EasyRetroPGF - creates new opportunities to enable effective and transparent allocation of resources in the Celo ecosystem. By combining mechanisms with an integrated strategy, documenting insights and learnings, and running successive rounds long into the future, we have the potential for a groundbreaking synergy in effective funding and support of Celo’s public goods. Building on learnings from this initial program we will seek to develop strategies that ignite a long-term regenerative cycle of funding, growth, and development of the Celo ecosystem.

Scope for H1

In alignment with Celo’s mission of creating a regenerative digital economy with conditions for prosperity for all, for this initial program we aim to channel support to projects across three key Celo Public Goods verticals:

  1. Celo ReFi - Support Celo’s ReFi and real-world impact projects.
  2. Celo dApp Ecosystem - Support Celo tools and dApps that create impact for a wide array of Celo users and stakeholders.
  3. Celo Community, Education & Adoption - Support non-software projects that help push Celo forward, including growing new communities, onboarding, providing educational resources, creating content, protecting users, and working on inclusion/diversity/advocacy.

Timeline & Key Deliverables

The following provides a high-level planned timeline for the rounds and key deliverables of the Celo PG QF & RPGF Program for H1. From here, and based on further input and insights from the ongoing Celo Public Goods Research effort, CeloPG Stewards will produce detailed eligibility, governance, and operational plans for each round.

March - Program Design and Platform Launch

  • Complete the program planning with detailed eligibility, governance, and operational plans for each round.
  • Create a comprehensive database and ecosystem map of active projects and public goods on Celo to help inform detailed eligibility criteria for the rounds.
  • Launch the CeloPG Platform, a portal with all CeloPG projects, programs, and resources.
  • Start the Deploy on Celo Campaign to attract (and reactivate) projects to build on Celo.

April - GG20 Climate Solutions Round (50k cUSD) + EasyRPGF

  • Partner with the Climate Coordination Network (CCN) during GG20 by contributing 50k cUSD matching for Celo’s ReFi and climate impact projects (on top of the existing $250K available in the round).
  • GG20 Round Reporting including results, payments distribution and supporting post-round analysis, documentation, and marketing.
  • Collaborate with the EasyRPGF team to plan Celo RPGF0 and deploy EasyRPGF on Celo.

May - Celo RPGF Pilot (250,000 CELO) + Gitcoin + Celo Gather

  • Celo’s first Retroactive Public Goods Funding program to begin with a round 0 pilot, rewarding top Celo public good contributions since launch on May 19th 2020.
  • RPGF Round Reporting: results, payments distribution and supporting post-round analysis, documentation, and marketing. Presented during Celo Gather on May 24th by Monty and Luuk.
  • Collaborate with the Gitcoin team to deploy Allo v2 and Grant Stack to enable Celo native rounds during GG21.

June - GG21 Celo Gitcoin Launch (75k cUSD) + CeloPG Report

  • Launch two significant funding rounds with a combined allocation of 75k cUSD, as well as potential for an additional $25k in funding from Gitcoin’s new proposed “matching on matching” pools.
  • GG21 Celo dApp Ecosystem Round - bolster tools and decentralized applications that generate meaningful impact for Celo’s diverse user base.
  • GG21 Celo Community, Education & Adoption Round - support non-software initiatives such as community growth, onboarding, and educational resources.
  • CeloPG H1 Report to highlight the progress of H1 and suggestions for future CeloPG Strategies.

Team & Operations

Coordinating closely with the Gitcoin, EasyRetroPGF, Climate Coordination Network, and Celo teams, the CeloPG Stewards will guide the operations and delivery of this program, with Monty Merlin Bryant taking project lead.

Key operations will also include managing the deployment of a 25k cUSD budget for additional planning, execution, and operations of the program with third-party communications and operations contributors to be pulled in when additional capacity is needed.

Thank you to everyone helping to push this space forward, very excited for what’s coming next :seedling:

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I think this updated CeloPG plan and outline will allow us to provide significant value for Celo Public Goods and gain critical insights and experience to scale Celo Public Goods funding effectively.

Looking forward to more stakeholder input, especially around the different types and individual Celo Public Goods they believe should receive additional resources and support!

Let’s turn our Public Goods Funding strategy into a strategic advantage for Celo :recycle:

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Excited for see this GROW

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Really happy to see that round coming. Please share updates on that topic. Good luck to team

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This is realy great @MontyMerlin - well done! Will Climate Collective be involved? Seems like they should; as well as CC grantees.

How can we get involved, help, and stay up to date?

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Congratulations on the planning, seems great!

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This is fantastic! Clarifying question: for the May Celo RPGF is this something that teams can apply to? If yes, when would the application process start?

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Hey Lauren, we’ll provide more details about the program later this week. However, any projects that have contributed to Celo in the past 12 months can apply for CeloRPGF0.

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awesome thank you so much! Looking forward to reading more about the details.

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Excellent news!

Looking forward to seeing more nature backed economies being built on Celo.

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This is great, was curious about CeloPG Stewards.

Link in the post is broke, but you can find them here.

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Applications for GG20 Climate Round and #CeloRPGF0 are open!

Start by filling in the CeloPG Registration form to receive an invite to the CeloPG Community Group and mailing list.

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