Cardano and impact
Impact is a key element of the Cardano philosophy. The first sentence at cardano.org is “making the world better for all” and you can see this line in practically every video of Mr. Charles Hoskinson as well as many of the Cardano ecosystem activities.
Following our successful fund 6 proposal, we have conducted research matching Fund 6 Catalyst proposals with SDGs and the results were very promising. 27.4% of the funded proposals directly intended to impact the SDGs and 68.5% indirectly impacted the SDGs. This is not a surprise as blockchain technology has the potential to have an impact on financial inclusion, governance, education, and other areas which align with SDGs objectives. We have also developed the SDG Proposer Tool which is now embedded in the proposal form processes to further highlight the ongoing alignment between Catalyst and the SDGs.
Here is the closing report for our proposal with more details: docs.google.com/document/d/1uZ0Ci6JWowLVUWijpOTSSf_G5Q-xLIQg4C4_bwaLAoQ/edit#
Reaching out/onboarding Impact businesses to Cardano has already started:
We have already started discussions with impact businesses, and presented them to Cardano and Catalyst. We are guiding and supporting them with not only the onboarding process but also how solutions in the Cardano ecosystem could serve their business. For example using Atala Prism as DIDs for students or collaborating with impactful Cardano projects and companies such as Cardashift.
Here are some examples:
- Seedstars.com
- Goodwall.io
- Ekofolio.com
- Accelerate2030.net
- Digifarm.io
- Positiveblockchain.io
- Cardashift.com
All those companies are in various stages of discussion with the Cardano ecosystem and have already proposed in Catalyst or are planning to propose in this current or next fund.
The solution:
The team is creating an open source, innovative model to collaborate with the community, to generate a range of opportunities for collaboration with impact businesses, and onboard them to Cardano. The goal is to create a new model that generates multiple opportunities as well as support for the onboarding process in collaboration with the community. Ultimately helping meet new businesses needs and increasing their ability to create a larger impact.
To incentivize the activity, community members will be compensated for generating leads that convert to conversations with businesses. For leads that will result in collaboration, the community member generating the lead will receive further compensation. The community member will fill up details of certain characteristics about the lead. Ex. (name, project description, website, socials, project lead contact info, github/gitbook) and will support to initiate and facilitate the conversation and ongoing discussions as needed. All this information will help to build up the model and with the post lead conversation and audit process.
The solution will be a great use case modelling how to include the community in business activities. It will give a space for many to contribute and will also provide funding for time and efforts dedicated to promoting the community. Through the work, we will evaluate multiple business models around lead generation compensation (i.e. by IOG) or success fee based on collaboration which includes financial elements, as well as tokens or other forms of incentives (i.e. receiving CLAP tokens for leads generated to Cardashift). The objective is to find a model that will enable and stimulate activities post funding, and support ecosystem growth with the community serving as remunerated business agents.
Long term vision:
Our long term vision is for in 6-12 months to have a working solution that can be used at a wider scale, by diverse groups within the Cardano community, or when trying to on-board a solution into their cross chain ecosystem. We will be creating a proof of concept tool and model, that can be used within the Cardano community, as this process will be documented, and open source. This tool, and the development of our new model will encourage and improve the entire onboarding process, and will help with data management when community members are trying to work with new projects joining the community from our leads. All of our research and final modelling will be shared, and connect Cardano based solutions to more businesses globally. An open source model will be a creation of a system with different subsystems. Then replicated and shared to help drive more businesses to join our community, and take full advantage of the opportunities Cardano unleashes.
<u>The challenge asks the question: How can Cardano-based solutions help meet real business needs and what would be their impact?</u>
Impact driven businesses or the transformation of business to be more impact driven is a growing trend and major business practice today. It has become a norm for large corporations, multinationals, and many small and medium sized enterprises to have ‘Social and environmental’ focused departments, with such themes growing in importance for all stakeholders. It is enough to look at major corporate financial reports to validate it.
Here is an example of Nestle’ 2020 annual financial report (The summary already includes some key relevant information), which highlights that Nestle’s internal stakeholders see climate and decarbonization, innovative business models, digital and technology having a major impact on Nestle’s success.
<https://www.nestle.com/sites/default/files/2021-03/2020-annual-review-en.pdf>
www.nestle.com/media/pressreleases/allpressreleases/nestle-annual-report-2020
The proposal suggests a model to contact a large number of impact businesses as well as developing the model for the onboarding process.
<u>Why it is important? Companies are finally discovering the power of blockchain technologies and Cardano is ready to onboard exciting B2B and B2C solutions.</u>
Transparency and traceability are huge opportunities for impact driven businesses to show their value, build trustworthiness and new models. DID, smart contract, open ledgers, credentials and more are all important building blocks that could support impact businesses work.
The proposal will enable further capacity to focus on approaching many relevant businesses and through the collaboration with Cardano’s ecosystem, help businesses increase efficiency, transparency, and stakeholder engagement, as well as expand business to new areas. All key success factors for the challenge.
<u>Key Metrics to measure for the challenge:</u>
- # of Cardano dApps supporting business solutions
- # of existing companies proposing Cardano-based solutions
- # of partnerships / joint ventures created between companies
- $ additional funding from other sources for the funded proposals
- $ projected cost savings
- $ projected revenue increase
- % growth in mainnet / testnet activity due to business solutions
Those KPIs will be part of the guidelines provided to the community for the lead generation activities, and each lead will be tagged with the potential impact on the relevant KPIs
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As we approach the community to generate leads, one risk could be to generate too many leads - need to ensure we are providing the appropriate guidelines to generate relevant and impactful leads.
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Companies might be suspicious. As we are focusing on impact related collaboration, it might be easier and faster to build trust and collaboration.
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As it is a multi lead opportunity, for each initiative we need to find the most sustainable contact and company within the Cardano ecosystem. Maybe it will be IOG, Cardano foundation, Emurgo, Catalyst initiatives, or Cardano based companies. Our team has already strong contacts with the community which will facilitate overcoming this challenge.
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Defining clear criteria of what is established as collaboration, in order to compensate community members, will be important to prevent conflicts. To mitigate this issue, we will define it in the guidelines provided and we will also allocate a budget for external auditing of the process.
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Incentive exchange rate risk. As significant funds will be dedicated for incentives there is a risk of ADA & USD fluctuation. To reduce the risk we will keep a record of the ADA & USD rate at the day of receiving the funds from Catalyst and all payments will be thereafter in ADA.