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Greetings all,

In this week’s episode of Ventures, I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle) introduce a new non-profit called Impact Stream (https://impact.stream), which is all about creating transparent streams of impact between digital communities and real-life communities. Our first project - in partnership with Gitcoin, Supermodular, Prota Ventures, International Literacy and Development, and Primordia - will create a software application to onboard 100 Togolese (West Africa) into Web3 and allow them to create, submit, and vote on proposals to fund public goods in their community with a global matching pool.

Check it out: Introducing Impact Stream: A new non-profit that helps digital communities create IRL impact

Blockchains should (and can) level-up NGOs

I’m excited about Impact Stream for a bunch of reasons:

1. There is WAY too much inefficiency and opaqueness in the global NGO world. Blockchains - at the very least - can (and should) create a mechanism where we can follow the stream of money from donors to IRL impact. This is what Impact Stream is all about.
2. Impact Stream’s first project is going to - in partnership with Gitcoin and the other organizations I list above - onboard 100 Togolese into Web3 and allow them to identify their own needs in their own local community. Web3 donors (and all global donors) can simply donate to a matching pool and the money will be distributed transparently to the projects the local community votes to fund.
3. We are using Quadratic Voting to help prioritize the projects where the most number of Togolese are excited about, not just those who have the most to give. This is the way that Gitcoin has been operating to fund Web3 public goods for a while now.
4. The team and partners behind Impact Stream have extensive experience in international poverty alleviation / development, Web3, software engineering, and building/funding startups. This is the right team to kick things off and build an organization to do a lot of good in the world.
5. In the future, Impact Stream will create open-source software to allow validators in any proof-of-stake blockchain to stream funds (e.g. fractions of validator rewards) into IRL impact.
6. We are actively going to help level-up NGOs into Web3 and partner with digital communities to stream funds transparently into IRL impact.

I couldn’t be more excited about this and I’ll be talking more about it in future podcasts / newsletters as well. My role in the organization is the board chair, which means I’m primarily helping with raising funds and ensuring the transparency and operational efficiency is in place with an excellent operating team. We have an amazing group to start with and we’d love your help. Please donate (impactstream.eth, we accept any coin/NFT that can be sent on Ethereum) and join us on Discord here. If you’d like to give via USD in the fiat system, email me back and I can send along bank account details for a wire/ACH.

Have a great rest of your week!

~Will