What is Grants Maturity?

In the rapidly evolving Web3 ecosystem, grant programs have emerged as powerful vehicles for funding innovation and supporting builders. However, managing these programs effectively requires the right strategy and operational infrastructure. 

The complexity of running successful grant programs stems from multiple challenges: defining clear objectives, selecting the right funding mechanisms, establishing fair evaluation processes, tracking impact, and building community engagement—all while ensuring transparency and accountability. In the fast-evolving world of Web3, many teams are building grant programs for the first time without a playbook.

The Gitcoin Grants Maturity Framework is a strategic tool designed to guide grant-making programs through the stages of growth and optimization. It provides clear pathways for improvement in an emerging space where information can be scarce. 

Gitcoin has developed this framework by leveraging the collective insights of grants experts on its team and drawing from its experience supporting and advising 20+ ecosystems across various stages of maturity to disburse more than $16M in grants funding. This is in addition to 6 years of experience running our own grants program, distributing more than $68M in grants over 22 funding rounds. We work hands-on with programs just starting, as well as support scaled efforts with recurring, multi-mechanism rounds. As a guiding force in this industry, Gitcoin remains committed to keeping pace with the latest developments and sharing our knowledge with the broader ecosystem.

We recognize that Web3 grant programs represent a maturing industry that remains largely experimental, where best practices are continuously evolving. As a practical assessment tool with four distinct maturity stages, the framework offers actionable insights to drive systematic progress. Establishing benchmarks and providing clarity on best practices helps grant-making programs assess their current state and chart a clear path toward improvement.

Introducing the Framework

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Every grants program is different. Some start scrappy and grow quickly, while others scale slowly but steadily with strong strategic intent. Regardless of the path, all programs move through a maturity curve. This framework helps ecosystem leaders understand where their program sits today and what capabilities are needed to advance it.

It breaks maturity into four stages: Initial, Developing, Advanced, and Optimized. These stages are evaluated across four core pillars—Strategy, Tooling, Team, and Communication. Together, they form a comprehensive picture of how mature a grants program is.

This structured view makes identifying gaps, allocating resources, and driving more effective, goal-aligned funding easier. The table below offers a high-level snapshot of progression across each dimension.

Strategy

Effective strategy provides the foundation for impactful grant programs, ensuring that funding efforts drive maximum impact by aligning grants with ecosystem goals, preventing scattered investments, and creating clear pathways for builder success. As programs mature, their approach evolves from ad hoc to tactical to programmatic. 

In early phases, programs often operate without clearly defined goals. Funding may be reactive, responding to immediate needs without a broader ecosystem lens. Mechanisms at this stage are often discretionary—such as open calls or RFPs—without consistent evaluation criteria or strategic oversight. As programs grow, they adopt a tactical approach, orienting around short-term goals – often centered around project discovery or builder onboarding. Mechanisms like Quadratic Funding (QF) are introduced to support these goals, encouraging early-stage participation. 

More mature programs adopt a programmatic strategy. These programs develop annual funding plans aligned with ecosystem priorities and long-term KPIs. They deploy a plurality of mechanisms—direct grants, milestone-based funding, QF, and more—to support builders at different stages of the lifecycle. The most mature ecosystems develop custom mechanisms to serve unique ecosystem goals, enabling strategic alignment and nuanced funding flows.

Tooling

Appropriate tooling reduces operational friction, improves decision quality, enables consistent evaluation, and makes it possible to measure and demonstrate program impact over time. As grant programs mature, their tooling requirements evolve from fragmented solutions to consolidated platforms and customized ecosystem-specific tools. Decision-making processes similarly advance from rules-based to community-driven to metrics-driven approaches.

In early-stage programs, tools are often cobbled together—simple forms, spreadsheets, and manual tracking. There’s little to no structured impact analysis beyond basic fund disbursement totals. As programs begin to scale, they adopt grants-specific platforms with basic evaluation features, such as milestone tracking or scoring rubrics. While impact data may still rely on self-reporting, this marks the beginning of more consistent oversight.

Advanced programs use end-to-end solutions that not only streamline workflows for reviewers and applicants, but also start incorporating on-chain signals—like contribution history or voting behavior—to enrich impact analysis. These systems support structured evaluations and enable more objective assessments. At the most mature stage, tooling is customized to the ecosystem. Programs deploy platforms capable of capturing and analyzing quantifiable metrics across the builder lifecycle. These systems guide data-driven decisions and may include registries that track builder reputation, long-term contributions, and alignment with ecosystem goals.

This progression—from fragmented to custom tooling—unlocks better decision-making and deeper insight into the true impact of funding.

Team

The right team composition is critical for grant program success,ensuring grant programs have the necessary expertise, capacity, and governance to operate effectively at scale while maintaining quality standards and community trust. As programs mature, their team structure evolves—from a solo operator managing tasks reactively, to specialized pods and distributed ownership with clear roles and governance.

Early-stage programs are often managed by one individual, typically someone borrowed from marketing or business development. These teams operate without formal processes or prior grants experience, making it difficult to ensure consistency or scale. As programs progress, a small dedicated team forms, often led by someone with grants expertise. Periodic decision-making becomes more structured and may involve a grants council or working group to add oversight and reduce bottlenecks.

At the advanced stage, teams are cross-functional and include roles focused on marketing, developer relations, and operations. Processes are well-defined, and decision-making may involve the community or rely on pre-established review workflows. Fully mature programs have functionally specialized teams or pods focused on distinct areas—such as builder onboarding, strategic grants, or ecosystem incentives. Some also integrate downstream partners or delegate responsibilities to community contributors. This ensures scalability, transparency, and the ability to serve complex, multi-mechanism grants programs effectively.

Communication

Effective communication is critical to attracting quality applicants, building trust with your community, and amplifying the impact of your grants program. As programs mature, communications evolve from reactive or non-existent to strategic, targeted, and reputation-building.

Early-stage programs may have no structured communication. Applicants often receive little to no feedback, and there are no defined turnaround times or expectations. As programs progress, communication becomes more proactive—focused on activating the builder community with co-marketing, event support, or ecosystem storytelling.

Advanced programs treat communication as a strategic asset. They use program updates, grantee showcases, and ecosystem-aligned messaging to position grants as a key differentiator. Feedback loops improve applicant experience and trust. At the most mature stage, programs tailor messaging for specific audiences, and use impact data to tell compelling stories. They build and maintain reputation over time—highlighting commitment to builders, and trustworthiness across rounds.

Levels of Maturity

Grants programs evolve over time—from scrappy, one-off initiatives to strategic, data-driven funding engines. These four maturity stages help you understand where your program stands and what actions will move it forward.

Stage 1: Initial

At this foundational stage, programs typically operate with limited structure and experience. Grants are managed through open applications with undefined goals, using fragmented tools like spreadsheets and forms. Programs are usually run by a single individual without prior grants experience, often borrowed from marketing or business development teams, with minimal communication and feedback processes.

Recommended Action: Focus on establishing basic processes and defining initial program goals. Begin developing more structured application and evaluation methods. Gitcoin can help assess your current maturity and provide consultative services to establish fundamental processes.

Stage 2: Developing

Programs at this stage show emerging structure with a focus on short-term goals, typically around project discovery or builder onboarding. They begin using grants-specific tooling that supports rules-based decision-making and basic evaluation rubrics. A small, dedicated team with at least one experienced grants leader manages the program, with periodic decision-making that may involve a grants council. Communications focus on activating the builder community with co-marketing opportunities.

Recommended Action: Implement more consistent evaluation processes and begin tracking basic impact metrics. Work toward aligning grants with broader ecosystem objectives. Gitcoin can help assess your current maturity and provide support spinning up early-stage programs, including help with running strategic campaigns designed to meet short-term achievable goals, operational support services to compensate for smaller team sizes, and consultative guidance to establish fundamental processes.

Stage 3: Advanced

Advanced programs demonstrate strong alignment with ecosystem priorities and typically target time-bound growth goals with defined KPIs. They utilize end-to-end solutions enabling decision-making for selected evaluators or the community and beginning to incorporate on-chain metrics. These programs are managed by dedicated teams led by experienced professionals specialized across domains, with structured decision-making processes that may involve community input. The program is positioned as a differentiator, with marketing highlighting builder support and program impact.

Recommended Action: At this advanced stage, focus on scaling impact through diversified funding mechanisms and improved metrics tracking. Consider implementing specialized tools for data-driven decision making and exploring innovative funding mechanisms that align with your ecosystem goals. Gitcoin can support mature organizations by developing sophisticated custom builds for specialized use cases and advanced tooling that integrates with your existing systems. For select customers with specialized programs, we may serve as grants allocators with end-to-end management of time-bound programs, incorporating data-driven approaches to maximize your ecosystem impact.

Stage 4: Optimized

At the highest level of maturity, programs take a programmatic approach with an annual grants strategy aligned to ecosystem goals. They deploy a plurality of mechanisms supporting staged funding across the builder lifecycle, using customized tools designed for cross-program and ecosystem-wide application. Dedicated, functionally specialized teams guide transparent decision-making based on organizational frameworks like intents or principles. Communication leverages comprehensive builder profiles for targeted opportunities, emphasizing reputation-building within the community.

Recommended Action: Continue refining your program with a focus on maintaining your competitive edge by strategically positioning your grants program and technology that is easy for builders to navigate. A streamlined builder experience combined with sophisticated impact measurement creates a powerful feedback loop that attracts top talent and maximizes ROI. At this optimized stage, Gitcoin offers customized tooling solutions for larger ecosystems, capturing the entire grant journey from application to impact measurement. We can help plug gaps in your technology stack by building specific components or completely redesigning your grants management systems. For mature ecosystems, we also specialize in managing downstream programs that extend your grants strategy to specific verticals or technical domains.

Gitcoin can help you assess your program's maturity and provide consultative services including program review and strategic recommendations tailored to your current stage.

How to Evolve Your Program's Maturity

Advancing your grants program to the next level of maturity requires a structured approach. Here are four key steps to guide your evolution:

1. Assess

Begin by understanding your current state. Conduct a thorough self-assessment across all four dimensions of the maturity framework—Strategy, Tooling, Team, and Communication. Be honest about your strengths and limitations.

For a more objective perspective, consider engaging an external review from grants experts like Gitcoin. Our team can provide a detailed assessment of your program's current maturity level and identify specific opportunities for improvement across each dimension.

Remember that programs may be at different maturity levels across different dimensions. For example, you might have an advanced strategy but initial-level tooling. Understanding these nuances is crucial for targeted improvement.

2. Plan

With a clear understanding of your current state, develop a roadmap for advancing your program's maturity. Identify specific goals that align with your ecosystem's broader objectives and the mechanisms best suited to achieve them.

Reference our guide on How to Design Grants Rounds for Success for detailed insights on structuring effective grants programs. This resource provides valuable guidance on setting clear objectives, selecting appropriate funding mechanisms, and designing evaluation criteria that drive toward your desired outcomes.

Your plan should include concrete steps for improving across all four dimensions, with prioritization based on which improvements will deliver the greatest impact for your ecosystem. Remember that evolution is incremental—focus on progressing to the next stage rather than trying to leap multiple stages at once.

3. Test

Implementation should begin with targeted experiments. Launch focused campaigns to test new mechanisms, tooling approaches, or community engagement strategies before scaling them across your entire program.

Carefully measure results against predefined metrics to evaluate effectiveness. Pay special attention to which mechanisms and approaches resonate most strongly with your specific community and ecosystem. Every grants program operates in a unique context, and what works for one may not work for another. 

Gather feedback from all stakeholders—applicants, reviewers, community members, and internal teams—to identify friction points and opportunities for improvement. This real-world data is invaluable for refining your approach.

4. Optimize

Based on your test results, refine and expand your program strategically. Double down on the approaches that demonstrated the strongest results while making necessary adjustments to those that showed promise but need refinement.

Continuously monitor performance through meaningful metrics that go beyond simple disbursement numbers to capture true ecosystem impact. As your program matures, develop increasingly sophisticated measurement approaches that track both immediate outputs and longer-term outcomes.

Remember that maturity evolution is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. Establish regular review cycles to reassess your program against the maturity framework and identify new opportunities for advancement.

How Gitcoin Helps

Gitcoin can support you at each stage of this evolution, providing tailored services that address your specific needs—whether that's strategic guidance, tooling development, operational support, or comprehensive program management.

Gitcoin offers tailored solutions to help you advance:

• Strategic Consulting: Assessment of your current maturity and recommendations for improvement
• Program Operations: End-to-end support for running successful campaigns
• Custom Builds: Specialized tooling designed for your ecosystem's unique needs
• Impact Measurement: Solutions for tracking and verifying program outcomes
• Team Augmentation: Flexible services to complement your existing capabilities

Ready to take your grants program to the next level? Contact Gitcoin today to learn how we can support your journey toward grants program optimization.