Gitcoin’s Grants Round 15 is kicking off September 7 – September 22. Here’s everything you need to know to donate to Grants Round 15!
Gitcoin’s Grants Round 15 is kicking off September 7 – September 22. Here’s everything you need to know to donate to Grants Round 15!
Gitcoin is where the world’s leading web3 projects are born, validated & funded. This includes @Uniswap, @poapxyz & @BanklessHQ, just to name a few!
In our mission to support people and organizations to fund their shared needs, Gitcoin’s Grants Rounds are the programs that make that happen.
All types of projects are welcome at Gitcoin. We’ve funded open source software, tools, critical digital infrastructure, media, community creation, and other impactful causes. If the project is freely available to everyone and has a positive impact on the world, it’s probably eligible for a Gitcoin Grant!
We’re proud to boast that we have distributed over $64 million in total, including $40 million through grants alone, as of the publication of this article. In just three years, we’ve helped provide funding for over 2500 grants from tens of thousands of unique contributors across 2 million+ contributions.
All of this is made possible by people (like you) who donate $5-10 (or much more!) to web3 projects & causes they care about on our Gitcoin Grants platform. All funds donated to Gitcoin Grants receive matching funds are multiplied with Quadratic Funding (QF), an optimal, democratic way to fund grants.
With QF, the number of contributors matters more than the amount funded, giving power to the majority and not the wealthiest.
Watch our 90-second video, “WTF is Quadratic Funding?” to learn more:
Grants Round 15 features three types of rounds:
A BIG thanks to our GR15 partners, without them the Gitcoin Grants Program would not be possible!
The GR15 Main Round will distribute $500k in matching funds – with Quadratic Funding, that $500k can go a looong way in helping fund and sustain the web3 projects of tomorrow.
The Main Round is our longest-standing Grants Round. The Main Round is designed to support early-stage open-source software projects in web3. Our main round matching sponsors are: Yearn, Polygon, ENS, Figment, Chainlink, Starkware, Wicklow Capital, and 1inch!
The main round is unique because there is a 2.5% matching cap of the total main round pool – once a grant has hit $12.5K in matching funds from the GR15 main pool, they’re no longer eligible for additional matching. This matching cap makes sure that less popular grants receive matching funds!
Curious to learn more? Read about the ins and outs of the GR15 round structure.
Ecosystem Rounds fund grants that support the objectives of a specific ecosystem, such as the Ethereum network, Polygon, or Optimism. For GR15, there are 12 Ecosystem Rounds including 3 brand new rounds!
In total, over $1.3 million in total matching funds will be distributed to hundreds of builders. If you’re interested in learning more about the individual ecosystem rounds, be sure to check out the Ecosystem Round Briefs.
We believe that funding projects that straddle the intersection of web3 and social impact can change our world for the better.
The GR15 Cause Rounds showcase projects using web3 to build and fund solutions related to four key social and environmental causes: Climate Solutions, Crypto Advocacy, DEI (Diversity Equity & Inclusion), and [NEW!] DeSci (Decentralized Science).
$1M of matching funds will be distributed to Cause Rounds in GR15!
The Climate Solutions round enables communities to build and fund a broad variety of digital and real-world climate solutions. This is a testing ground for new ideas, an opportunity for cross-pollination, and fertile ground for big ideas that could change the world for the better.
Thank you to our Climate Round sponsors:
The Crypto Advocacy round is focused on building support for trailblazing organizations at the forefront of good crypto policy and in defense of the open web. As crypto becomes a bigger issue on the global stage this is more important than ever.
Thank you to our crypto advocacy round sponsors:
The DEI round is a collective effort to help nurture and advocate for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the web3 community. DEI enables communities to build and fund projects that advance DEI in web3 — ensuring individuals from all backgrounds have an equal opportunity to participate. Our diversity is our strength!
Thank you to our DEI round sponsors:
The DeSci round seeks the expansion and distribution of humanity’s shared knowledge. It supports projects that are reimagining the incentives, culture, and infrastructure for research using web3 tools and technology.
Thank you to our DeSci round sponsors:
It’s never been easier (or more fun!) to support inspiring builders!
To prepare for GR15, don’t forget to:
To view the incredible variety of GR15 grants, visit gitcoin.co/grants and select the “View All Grants” button. You can also search various tags such as Climate or DeSci, and explore many different collections depending on your interests.
You can support your favorite builders at any time, but donations are only eligible for matching funds during grants rounds (for GR15 it’s September 7 at 3pm UTC to September 22, 2022 at 23:59 UTC).
In order to be eligible for a matching fund boost of over 50%, all donors must validate their identity with Gitcoin Passport. Passport is a decentralized identifier (DID). DIDs are a type of user identifier that enables a verifiable, decentralized digital identity.
To make sure that real, individual humans are allocating Gitcoin’s matching funds to the projects they care about most, Passport helps us filter out bots or multiple accounts that artificially drive funding towards a grant.
Learn more about how Passport Trust Bonus works here.
It’s easy to sign up! Simply visit passport.gitcoin.co and connect your online accounts (Twitter, BrightID, ENS, etc) to receive stamps on your Passport. The more unique stamps you collect, the more unique of a profile you have and the higher your trust score will be.
Unique profile = higher trust bonus score = more matching funds allocated to your favorite projects.
Identity Staking is one of the best ways to build your unique Passport profile and secure your trust bonus.
In simplest terms, Identity Staking is a mechanism for proving your identity in the Gitcoin grants ecosystem. It allows you to stake your $GTC to verify your reputation or the reputations of others.
Identity Staking is one of many Gitcoin Grants mechanisms that allow us to repel sybil attacks and to ensure fairness and credible neutrality for GR15, for all participants.
In return for staking your $GTC, you get Stamps (verifiable credentials that appear on your Passport account), and an increased Trust Bonus score.
The higher your Trust Bonus score, the greater the impact of your donations.
Trust Bonus is essentially a multiplier that applied to amounts matched to your donations via GR15 sponsors and partners.
Identity Staking is still in production but will launch for use during GR15.
Here’s how it works:
You will then be able to log in to Passport to see on whom you’ve staked GTC, as well as who has staked GTC on you.
Stay tuned next week for announcements regarding Identity Staking!
Celebrate the GR15 launch with us! We have a series of events for everyone and anyone who wants to participate in GR15.
Join us for our 3rd week of Grantee 101 where @renegaderegen will be interviewing @jruth and @sirsuhayb about their experiences as first time Gitcoin grantees with @spark_co and @themintfund . Come with your questions!
You’re invited to a fireside chat featuring past grantees who are now sponsors of GR15. Get a glimpse into what it takes to go from a web3 start up to a scaling organization who is successfully giving back and funding the future of the open web.
Join us in welcoming 3 of our new rounds for GR15 – DeSci, Greater China, and Forta! You’ll be hearing what they’re looking for in grant applications and how you can best show your support. Panel followed by Q&A.
Memepalooza returns for a special GR15 edition! Memelords, builders and everyone in between are invited to come together, meme about all things Gitcoin Grants and create buzz around their favourite projects. Come for the prizes, stay for the vibes…
You’ll be hearing from us again as Grants Round 15 gets underway! The best way to keep track of all GR15 happenings is to follow Gitcoin on Twitter.
Let’s make this our best (aka most generously funded!) round yet.
– Team Gitcoin