Proof of Philanthropy

Imagine if the public, huge brands, and other philanthropic validators could instantly see the proof of your philanthropic actions, verified on chain, and celebrate and reward you for your generosity.

Project Description:

Philanthropic data is currently fragmented, with no unified system to quickly and easily:

• Showcase philanthropic impact,

• Enable retroactive appreciation for past charitable support,

• Make it easy for anyone to add additional perks to celebrate support of Public Goods.

Proof of Philanthropy (POP) solves this by rewarding donors for all retroactive and current giving with a dynamic, demi soul-bound NFT, which evolves based on verified philanthropic actions. This new class of NFT can streamline recognition and the redemption of corporate sponsored perks of increasing value, based on easily verifiable NFT tiers - visible at a glance, and provable on-chain for those who wish to verify. This enables transparency, motivates generosity, and strengthens ties between individuals, brands, and causes.

• Over 110 of these prototype NFTs have already been minted by public-goods supporters and tracking DeSci, Zuzalu, and longevity-related donations, with further integrations planned with Gitcoin, Hypercerts, BetterGiving, and Endaoment (see below!).

Having such an easy to understand and utilize tool to unify the public goods regenerative space has been long-desired by the broader Gitcoin community. Furthermore, such a system facilitates donations to the verified initiatives tracked by the Proof of Philanthropy protocol in a credibly neutral manner, the importance of which blockchain technology pioneers such as Vitalik Buterin have highlighted:

“If there was a strong, effective, and credibly neutral pot - where you just know that if you throw money into the pot public goods projects and people behind them will be compensated in way that is reasonably fair - that’s something that lots of people would be willing to automatically airdrop to.”

New Updates for GG21: More Networks & Data Sources

Building on the success of our prototype Proof of Philanthropy NFT - currently recognizing contributions totaling over $60,000 on the Ethereum and Polygon Networks - we are now building support to make Proof of Philanthopy NFTs capable of tracking contributions on additional networks such as Arbitrum and Celo.

With funding of an additional at least 10k , we should be able to accomplish the following within the next 3 months:

• Proof of Philanthropy NFTs additionally supporting the recognition of ARB token giving on ETH mainnet, and giving on Arbitrum (ETH, ARB, USDC)
• Proof of Philanthropy NFTs additionally supporting the recognition of CELO token giving on ETH mainnet, and giving on CELO (CELO, cUSD)
• Proof of Philanthropy NFTs mintable on the Arbitrum network (in addition to the current minting on the Polygon Network).
• Data source integration with Endaoment, BetterGiving, and deeper integrations with Gitcoin, leading to total recognized contributions growing to $1 million+.

Additional funding beyond the minimum threshold will increase overall pace.

Open Source Technology to Support Public Goods

As Vitalik notes, it is incredibly important for such initiatives to be conducted in an open and transparent manner, and we are committed to seeing that the modern giving pledge is one founded on digital innovation, platform neutrality, and open source code.

• We are working with Gitcoin, the Hypercerts Foundation, BetterGiving, Endaoment and other organizations in the ReFi community to build on this to create new public goods funding models. For example - variations of quadradic funding suited to specific scenarios (such as Inverse Quadratic Funding, or IQF), and the "Ouroboros" endowment mechanism - originally presented at Zuzalu and described in detail at our 2023 Longevity and DeSci Summit:

If you’d like a deep dive on how this underlying technology works, you can watch the below video from Omar ElNagger of Weavechain, who worked with the well-known charity Lifespan.io to build the Proof of Philanthropy prototype on Polygon - based on the blueprints of Lifespan’s president and technology inventor - Keith Comito:

The Goals of Proof of Philanthropy:

• Create a unified system for tracking charitable giving and support of public goods-focused ecosystems: enabling philanthropic attribution, accountability, and innovative campaign mechanisms
• Align incentives to reward donors: on-board blockchain and corporate perk providers
• Expand from on-chain donation tracking: track and reward all on and off-chain philanthropic activity
• Create positive-sum interactions with other public goods attestation mechanisms like Hypercerts

We Already Have A Demo You Can Test!

By simply donating to this campaign you can see Proof of Philanthropy in action! After donating (or before!), Mint your NFT, and with as little as $10, you can see it power up and evolve based on artwork by Gitcoin community member Colton Orr. All donations to this campaign support the work of the Proof of Philanthropy Foundation and alternatively donations which support the US 501c3 nonprofit, Lifespan.io, as described on the minting website here, will also power up this limited prototype PoP NFT as well.

This is just the beginning of what we can do with Proof of Philanthropy; with the key steps on our current roadmap being:

Success in executing this roadmap will also create several additional opportunities for exciting new technologies and use cases, and if you’d like to understand this more deeply, you can watch the below video by Keith Comito: president of the charity Lifespan.io, and creator of the original Proof of Philanthropy concept / roadmap!

Which includes discussion of future plans to integrate Proof of Philanthropy technology into a forthcoming Longevity / DeSci game based on the "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant" that will raise money for life extension research. This will be built on the Arbitrum Network together with Skillcap Studio - makers of The Beacon!

The Team:

To drive this important project forward we have formed a charitable organization, Proof of Philanthropy Foundation, a Canadian T3010 (501c3 equivalent).

Our team brings together an incredible group of Web3 / Regen / Public Goods change-makers and is actively expanding our Board to encompass all Web3 charitable platforms.

The Proof of Philanthropy Foundation seeks to shape values on a societal level where generosity and collective impact become ingrained in our culture. Please help us in making this a reality!

Thank You!