Does exactly what says on the tin

IEF (Impact Evaluation Foundation) has ambition to become the Schelling point for all things related to impact evaluation.

We exists to organise (knowledge base wiki), document, cross-pollinate the best practices in the theme of MRV (measurement, reporting, verification), impact, evaluation, externalities, cobenefits.

Equipped with these tools and knowledge, markets can become more efficient by accounting for the full cost, without externalising it to nature, vulnerable communities, future generations.

Still frame from a great video about True Cost Accounting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sej0w33BW2E

History / background of the project

The IEF (ImpactEvaluation.Foundation) was initiated during GG20 Let’s Grow Live Twitter spaces… Many hours of conversations / research / brainstorming led to that moment.

We are all about impact evaluation in a fully transparent, collaborative, open-source, creative commons, Public Good from the start.

We also believe that getting started (however imperfect), sharing the lessons, improving along the way is much better than the existing status quo. We do not have all the answers yet but we know where we are heading.

Detailed plan of action / milestones / roadmap

This grant application outlines a comprehensive strategy to create a robust, open-source platform that facilitates best practices in impact verification.

We aim to provide a Public Good by developing a collaborative knowledge base, training programs, and a marketplace that connects impact verifiers with organisations needing verification services.

1. Creating a wiki knowledge base

Objective: Establish an open-source knowledge base that consolidates articles, tools, frameworks, protocols, companies, best practices, involved in ecological impact verification (MRV). Components:

• Comprehensive Database: Gather and document tools, metrics, frameworks, companies, organisations, protocols, everything in the ecological impact space.
• Best Practices Documentation: Provide detailed guidelines for various types of ecological impact verification. For example:
  • Tree Planting Verification: Guidelines on checking the spacing of planted trees, survival rates over time, etc.
  • Soil Health Monitoring: Methods to assess soil composition, fertility, and health post-intervention.
  • Water Quality Assessment: Protocols for measuring changes in water quality in ecosystems.
  • Biodiversity Surveys: Techniques for evaluating the impact on local biodiversity.

Benefits: Create a publicly accessible resource that supports and enhances the efforts of impact evaluators, researchers, lawmakers, and organisations, ensuring transparency and standardisation in ecological impact assessment.

In the initial stages focus is on ecology / climate / environment and collaboration with EBF (ecological benefits framework): https://ebfcommons.org/ Long term, our goal as IEF is to be comprehensive and account for all sorts of impact: healthcare, education, finance, infrastructure, everything.

2. Training program for impact verifiers

Objective: Develop a training program that equips impact verifiers with the necessary skills and knowledge. Components:

• Accessible Learning Platform: Provide a user-friendly platform accessible from any device, featuring video content and interactive modules.
• Curriculum Development: Cover key topics such as impact measurement methodologies, data analysis, reporting standards, and use of the platform.
• Practical Training: Include real-life case studies and scenarios to ensure practical understanding.
• Certification: Offer certification upon successful completion, enhancing the credibility and employability of participants.

Benefits: Build a global pool of qualified impact verifiers capable of conducting reliable and accurate assessments, fostering a standard of excellence in the field.

3. Marketplace for impact verification services

Objective: Design, develop, test and launch a marketplace for impact verification services, connecting verifiers with organisations needing verification. Stakeholders:

• Impact Verifiers: Individuals who have completed the training program and are certified to conduct impact verifications.
• Organisations: Companies requiring impact verification services, such as carbon credit companies, investors, and other stakeholders.

Features:

• Smart Contracts: Use blockchain technology to facilitate secure and transparent transactions between verifiers and organisations.
• Reputation System: Implement a reputation-based system and leaderboard to incentivize accuracy and reliability among verifiers.
• Impact Verification Marketplace: Provide a platform where organisations can find and hire qualified verifiers for their projects.

Benefits: Create an efficient, transparent marketplace that fosters trust and accountability, ensuring high standards in ecological impact verification.

4. Initial implementation and feedback loop

Objective: Start with Mars (one of the co-initiators) as the first impact verifier to pilot the process and gather feedback.

Components:

• Mars will conduct initial impact verifications and write detailed reports, most likely locally in the UK
• Lessons learned will be used to improve the wiki, training program, and platform.

Benefits: Continuous improvement of resources and processes, informed by real-world experience. Cross-pollination of best regen practices between projects.

Timing that makes it possible

• Urgency and awareness of the climate change: timing
• Data: satellites, drones, IoT sensors
• Ability to process it: machine learning, AI
• Trust, transparency, immutability: blockchain
• Community, crowdsourcing, incentives: token engineering
• Business model and availability of funding: impact investment

Check the TED talk: The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed. TLDR: Timing!

Existing impact

The project is relatively new so please have understanding about the current impact.

• Gathering the biggest 🧠 in the space: https://t.me/ImpactEval
• Internal infra, becoming ready to get rolling at scale
• Seeding the wiki knowledge base on Notion

Potential impact / impact metrics

• Number of entries in the knowledge base wiki
• Number of organisations using IEF
• The % of global GDP that is being evaluated through IEF

This sounds like big hairy audacious goal / "blue sky" thinking but is not without merit.

Reasonable example: Onboard 10 organisations from Gitcoin / ReFi / Web3 ecosystem... Together they generate $100k in monetary value and $1m in cobenefits and $500k in avoided externalities. That's $1.6m in total and give 100 trillion global GDP that equals: 0.0000016%

We like this metric as it is ambitious and provides a North Star towards onboarding more and more powerful organisations. Or even entire countries 💫

Regulatory and voluntary carbon markets are growing and we are almost certain that impact evaluation services will grow alongside with them:

Use of funds

Based on the roadmap.

• Rewarding most active contributors to the wiki (point 1)
• Creation of the training programme (point 2)
• Development of the marketplace (point 3)
• Visiting projects on the ground, gathering their insights, analysing the data (point 4)

Public Good, transparent, open-source, creative commons

The only non-public piece information is password to the email that is shared across the team members

We are Public Good from the start. At the same time, we also have robust business model in place that will enable us to achieve economic sustainability: marketplace fee. Connecting verifiers with organisations needing verification.

Team and contact ☎️

Many years in the climate space.

• Lead: https://x.com/marsXRobertson
• Collaborator: https://x.com/DanielofAnu/
• Message us on Telegram: https://t.me/ImpactEval
• Follow us on Twitter: https://x.com/ImpactEvalFDN

OpenCivics Collaborative Research Round (OCCRR)

This section is dedicated towards OCCRR eligibility criteria.

1. At least one project lead must be a member of the OpenCivics Consortium

Yes / in progress...

(we kindly request our application to be approved)

2. Projects must conduct research that is Creative Commons as a public good

We are Public Good from the start and we are proud to share our research under permissive Creative Commons license.

3. Research must fall into one of the focus areas listed in the round description

💯💯💯 on that, quote from OpenCivics notion, literally the top bullet point on the list:

We’re specifically looking for research initiatives that are exploring the following areas of focus: • Impact and contribution measurement, reporting, and valuation

4. Projects must agree to coordinate and collaborate during and after the round with other grantees to collate and present their research progress in a Grantee Impact Showcase prior to GG22

Yes. We will coordinate, collaborate and share our research. Most likely we will keep existing wiki structure with additional subpages and subcategories.

We think that a good way to share there research will be a production of 2-3 minutes video with the highlights of the conducted research. We are open to suggestions, we invite your feedback how to make it even better.

5. Grant applications must direct funds to a multi-signature wallet

Yes.

6. Projects must indicate what collaborative mechanism they will utilize to govern, evaluate and compensate participant contributions (Coordinape, DeWork, Charmverse, Notion, DAO Haus, Google Docs & Sheets, etc)

Currently we are using Notion and Telegram for coordination. For the purpose of evaluating contributions we intend to do self-evaluation: contributors listing their accomplishments and then peer review on the scale 0-10 by other contributors. Most likely Google Sheets because of the math.

7. Projects must indicate reasonable and verifiable milestones for the following possible funding amounts received: $1,000; $3,000; $6,000

Our plan is to follow the roadmap (mentioned above in this grant). Point 1 (Creating a wiki knowledge base) is always on, always fresh, always active, there will be always new items, housekeeping, editing, updating.

This is 💯 aligned with the requirement of this grant to focus on research. See this Telegram message: https://t.me/c/1859733621/1030

The amount of funding ($1k $3k $6k the larger the better) will enable us to get there faster, as it will relieve financial pressure and energy expense of seeking other sources of income. It is worth noting that we have sustainable business model (marketplace fee) that in the long run will enable us to operate without the reliance on grant funding.