Transparency Impact Grants Platform for United Nations and agencies (porting over from Algorand) - untapped multi-billion development market

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Gabriel von Roda

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Teo Petricevic: UNDP IRH AltFinLab. Programme consultancy

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

7

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Grant management platform pilot for UNDP. Our solution will help the world's largest aid agency with transparency using Cardano smart contracts. Pilot in late 2024 with $1m in grants in 30+ countries

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

N/A

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

By making the smart contract code of our project open source, we aim to contribute to the global movement of shared knowledge and collaborative problem solving for solutions within aid and development. This approach ensures transparency, promotes the sharing of knowledge, and encourages a collective approach to addressing the challenges associated with the impact sector. Ultimately, we believe that open-sourcing key parts of our project will lead to a more robust, efficient, and impactful solution, thanks to the contributions of the global developer community.

As part of this project, we would like to establish a UN working group to ensure the smart contracts we develop for the UNDP pilot platform can be shared and adapted with other UN agencies who would like similar solutions to bring transparency to their money and transactional flows. A monthly call with UNICEF, UNWFP, UNEP and Switzerland for UNHCR officials will ensure best practices and challenges are swiftly shared and/or solved.

[METADATA] SDG rating

Our platform helps users design grant programmes according to SDGs. In this respect, it supports:

SDG17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

Our platform also helps to reduce the funding gap for CSOs in the Global South and 

thus contributes to: 

SDG10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

More broadly, Innofund’s platforms also use SDG projects and user data to create an SDG algorithm for matchfunding. This promotes and encourages visibility of all 17 SDGs and creates a mechanism for donors to engage more easily with civil society organisations and community leaders .

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

The problem: Taxpayers, shareholders and the public all demand the same thing from foundations and aid practitioners: proof of impact and transparency. Major INGOs and philanthropic foundations are under extreme pressure to reform and showcase their transparency. There is no one-stop tech tool that can securely deliver transparency. Existing grant platforms do not come with hands-on tailored support to customise their philanthropic dashboard to the needs, for example, of an individual UN agency, a global cancer charity or a grant maker on maternal health. In a nutshell: The benefits of blockchain - transparency and immutability - are not being properly deployed by aid agencies to achieve SDGs. 

As stated by UNDP: The process of sending out grants within the existing UN system is very time-consuming and relies heavily on manual work. There are numerous documents and pieces of information that must be verified before funds can be disbursed. Currently, all the back-and-forth communication with the grant recipient is carried out via email whenever information or documentation needs to be provided or altered. Therefore, implementing a blockchain system to automate the process is crucial for reducing costs and facilitating smoother and more effective operations.

Furthermore, since grants are typically disbursed in several instalments, reports are required from the grantees to initiate payments. Verifying all the reports manually consumes a significant amount of time and involves extensive back-and-forth communication with the recipients.

Lastly, due to political constraints, legal frameworks, and banking-related issues, grant recipients face challenges that sometimes result in them not receiving the funds they were granted.

The solution: A grant management platform for aid agencies, institutional donors and civil society organisations to successfully work together and transparently towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Grant relationships between donor and recipient managed with smart contracts. Deploying programmable money with smart contracts on Cardano governed by predefined milestones, co-financing thresholds, and project-specific terms and conditions to meet the needs of modern aid agencies and bring transaction and document trail transparency to international grant-making.

The pilot smart contracts (MVP) will be designed for a Tadamon Food Security Accelerator programme with the UNDP as part of “NGO Empowerment Program” implemented by UNDP and managed by the Islamic Development Bank and funded by Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development. The program is a USD1.5m grants program with potential to put a part of this on chain in USDM. Innofund is a preferred supplier to UNDP for blockchain software solutions, a relationship built over the past three years. 

Multistakeholder (varying permissions), multicurrency (fiat and USDM stablecoin), data-heavy (payment tracking etc). Brings together all ecosystem users under one hood and offers flexible management solutions. Stakeholder voting optional. 

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

Benefits to Cardano community

• Prestige and visibility: A UN agency is working on a real world application of blockchain on Cardano - huge visibility for the community and ecosystem.
• Cardano: go-to tech for aid! This project will mainstream Cardano as a key tool for supporting the management of grants in aid and development programmes, governing how large sums of money are administered by global agencies. Innofund's MoU with UNDP will see these new smart contracts on Cardano deployed in a real world pilot environment: with a real UN agency, institutional and private sector donors, as well as beneficiary civil society organisations. The smart contracts will govern the various relationships (institutional donor, administrator, recipient) in the lifespan of grant programmes. 
• Cardano in major new ecosystem: Through our partnership with UNDP’s AltFinLab, in coming years we are set to work with CSOs in 57 OIC member countries under the NGO Empowerment Program. See more on that in the press release below.

United Nations Development Programme partners with Innofund to harness blockchain technology for social impact

• Coming cross-chain: Our solution to date is built on another chain (Algorand) and we are aiming to move our development efforts to Cardano for building a full-fledged MVP. The current UI/UX is also built, back-end already tested on Algorand; relationships with major agencies in the sector already established. We will bring all this to the Cardano community. 
• New institutional users on Cardano: This will mean more transactions on the Cardano blockchain. 
• World’s largest development agency as partner: Approximately 4000 CSOs are currently registered with UNDP’s Tadamon Community Online Platform for CSOs: UNDP is targeting 25,000. This would mean Cardano governing extensive financial relationships between major Civil Society Organisations (CSOs: organisations working on impact-driven causes and not-for-profit) in the Global South and donors in the North. This work would complement existing Cardano work with Tadamon, because: Cardano is also building its own footprint in the UNDP ecosystem via Tadamon through a recent partnership including also the Cardano Foundation that will explore, among other things, digital identity for CSOs on Cardano. UNDP is particularly keen on web3 output and tools - and the transparency they can afford, as outlined by this study - so our project would be building on existing efforts by CF and Cardano ecosystem stakeholder
• Transparency with smart contracts: Administering grants with smart contracts will make aid and development fairer, more efficient and transparent: Cardano will be associated with this transformation  
• Scalable solution: The grant management platform we will white label for UNDP will be a pilot to scale the grant management ecosystem with programmable money to other aid agencies, philanthropic foundations and institutions, furthering the reach of Cardano in this $bn sector 
• Reinforcing Cardano relationship with UNDP: Cardano has its own burgeoning partnership with UNDP. By supporting this grant request, Cardano will strengthen this footprint 
• Gateway to new markets: Innofund and UNDP are separately working on ideation for blockchain events with major government agencies. Cardano startups will have a gateway and be invited to participate in these events, strengthening the global footprint of Cardano startups in this $trillion sector. 
• New users/economic sustainability: UNDP's Tadamon Academy currently works with 2500+ CSOs. As the project scales, they expect 50,000 CSOs to sign up. This would translate into new wallets and transactions. We'd expect each user to do an average of between 10 and 20 transactions p/project:

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

• Innofund has a proven track record of developing smart contracts for the aid and fundraising sectors via its MVP, Cashdillo, live on the Algorand mainnet as of June 2023. 
• Innofund built Cashdillo with the support of an ecosystem grant by the Algorand Foundation and has fulfilled all milestones and obligation thresholds in the process.  
• Strong team spread across the UK, USA and India. Continuous time commitment from founders. 
• Proof of concept work is already underway through MoU with world’s largest aid agency, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): this project will support a UNDP led Tadamon Food Security Accelerator program of grants, a pilot on chain.   
• The UNDP team already has hands-on experience with grant management within the existing team. Thus, we have identified challenges and lessons learned, which will play a crucial role in developing the solution to the challenges faced during the grant management process.
• Team with broad experience in aid and development, communications, tech startups and business
• Innofund partnerships and institutional memberships: INATBA, AcFA, Positive Blockchain, UNDP
• Feasibility and progress will be documented through milestone indicators and evaluated by our internal MEAL specialist
• There is demand from large aid agencies for web3 transparency tools. Large aid organisations like The Red Cross, Aga Khan Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and various UN agencies (UNHCR, UNICEF, UNEP) have all experimented with or expressed a public desire to make better use of web3 to achieve SDGs. This means there is huge scaling potential for the grand management dashboard
• Existing team of Cardano developers in India as well as links to GimbaLabs

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

The whole project is a 7-month commitment to plan, test, deploy, use, and report on four key milestones: 

Milestone 1

Title: Technical & Business Case Research for Deployment on Cardano

Outputs

Milestone 1 includes the following key activities:

• Onboarding 
• Conduct research on technical aspects of the project.
• Work with UNDP in finalising a scope for a grant-making project on chain (define product and smart contract parameters for UNDP grant program and learn lessons from their existing grants program)
• Develop a detailed plan of action for the project (technical and business implementation)
• Scope how Cardano / UNDP CSO identity program may be integrated
• Draft a technical and business implementation report summarising the findings above.
• Wireframes and system architecture plan for (any) new UI/UX Prototype design in Figma - production ready stage in Figma

Acceptance criteria

The technical and business implementation report is finalised and published on Notion. It is accessible for community review. The report includes the following content:

• Technical aspects of the project 
• Detailed business implementation action plans for the project, inc proposals for Cardano ecosystem and technical partners
• Outline of wireframes in Figma and systems architecture plan

Evidence of Milestone completion

Community members can access the report on Notion to find the following content:

• Technical aspects of the project 
• Detailed business implementation action plans for the project & on proposed technical partnerships
• Figma video walk through of wireframes and detailed systems architecture plan
• The Figma file will be published and made available to community 

Expected timeline for the delivery

2 months   

Milestone 2

Title: Build, Test, Self-Audit, Report

Outputs

Milestone 2 includes the following key activities:

• Based on Milestone 1 report: build MVP grant-making platform on Cardano testnet(s):
• - front end
• - back end
• - blockchain development
• - full Q&A and testing
• - Self audit security through bug bounty programme
• - testnet deployment 
• Focus on Security: bug bounty and internal audits 
• Conduct partner usability (UI/UX) feedback study with UNDP and write report 

Acceptance criteria

• The internally tested MVP is finalised and live on testnet. It is accessible to the community for review.
• A technical report on bug bounty and audit program is published 
• A product feedback and usability test report with UNDP as key user is published. 

Evidence of Milestone Completion

Community members can access the report on Notion to find the following content:

• A technical report on bug bounty program and tests
• A product feedback and usability test report with UNDP as key user is published.

The MVP is finalised and live on testnet. It is accessible to the community for review.

Expected timeline for the delivery

2 months 

Milestone 3

Title: Deploy on Mainnet and test in Real World Use Case with UNDP

1. Deploy on Mainnet 
2. Pilot project with UNDP grants as part of Tadamon Food Security Accelerator 
3. Provide detailed data report of 3-month pilot with UNDP, inc: how many CSOs, how many transactions, USD (or USDC), payments reports etc. This will outline the value-add of blockchain itself
4. Hold AMAs to explore partnerships in Cardano Community and Ecosystem; present project and findings at industry event(s)
5. 
   

Outputs and deliverables

Milestone 3 includes the following key activities:

• Deploy fully tested MVP on Mainnet
• Pilot first UNDP grant on platform and report 
• Data report
• Community and industry outreach initiatives to promote product and on-chain grant making

Acceptance criteria

• Product is fully deployed and live on Mainnet 
• UNDP is using the product 
• Community members can view the source code he features on GitHub (open source)
• Report on community and product promotion activities

Evidence of Milestone Completion

• Product is accessible to community and wider industry on Mainnet  
• Evidence and data report of UNDP using the product 
• Community members can view the source code he features on GitHub (open source)
• Report published on notion outlining community outreach and industry product promotion activities

Expected timeline for the delivery

3 months 

Final Milestone

Title: Close-out report to community

Outputs

Final Milestone involves the following key activities:

• Draft a project close-out report
• Record a close-out video of the platform & interviews with developers and UNDP key users
• Platform marketing materials 
• Managed PR & Joint press releases with UNDP 

These steps will produce the following deliverables:

• Close-out report
• Close-out video
• Marketing materials 
• Press releases 

Acceptance criteria

Available for the community to review: 

• Project close-out report
• Project close-out video
• Marketing materials 
• press releases

Evidence of Milestone completion

• Community members can access and review the project close-out report.
• The project close-out video is published on YouTube for the community to review.
• Marketing materials are published 
• Press Release is published

Expected timeline for the delivery

1 month 

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Gabriel von Roda, Strategy, Business/Tech Development

Gabriel is co-founder of Innofund and brings two decades of experience working for startups on business development in Europe, the USA, South America and East Asia.

Alex Macbeth, Strategy, Project Manager

Alex is the co-founder of Innofund and brings 15 years of experience working for aid agencies, media outlets and startups across five continents. He speaks seven languages. 

Teo Petricevic: UNDP IRH AltFinLab. Programme consultancy

Teo Petricevic has worked in innovation and startups for more than two decades. He works with UNDP’s Innovation team and AltFinLab in Istanbul. Teo will provide consultancy and feedback all along the process.

Heazry Salim

Heazry is an econometric-statistician and PhD in Finance based in Singapore. He brings 15 years of experience in financial modelling for start-ups and international companies. 

Dan Shephard, CTO

Dan came across computers in the 1980s. He was soon dismantling and reassembling them and studied computer science. In the last 30 years he has focused on software, working as a senior developer for medical institutes, messenger apps and augmented reality art projects. 

Chahat Bhateja, Chief Smart Contract Engineer

Chahat is a smart contract engineer with experience working in half a dozen blockchain ecosystems, including Algorand and Cardano.

Vikash Saini, Head of UI/UX

Vikash brings a decade of experience working on apps and frontend development. He is currently the lead designer with Webmob Solutions. 

Amit Walia, Senior Full Tech Stack Developer 

Amit has overseen dozens of small and large projects in the tech space as a senior developer and project manager  

Yiorgo Polenakis, Head of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) 

Yiorgo brings 30+ years experience evaluating international aid and country-level projects, including authoring various reports for the UN’s Evaluation Group and the World Bank. 

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

*Note: the project is taking into account an ADA cost of 0.5 USD with a 10% buffer for price going down. If the price goes up we will aim to add additional services.

Milestone 1: 75,000 ADA

UNDP need identification and partnership scoping with in-person meetings with travel, project initiation and activation:

ADA25,000

Product planning and drafting of architecture and Figma design with key-user feedback / tech team salaries: ADA35,000

Reporting and management team salaries:

ADA15,000

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Milestone 2: 125,000 ADA

MVP development (ready for testnet) - tech team salaries (frontend, backend, blockchain):

ADA65,000

Test, Q&A, audit and report, bug bounty rewards / management team salaries:

ADA40,000

UNDP product feedback solicitation and report and final tech revisions and additions:

ADA 20,000

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Milestone 3: 75,000 ADA

Deployment on Mainnet and maintenance fees (server, hosting, dev salaries): 

ADA25,000

Pilot project with UNDP (partner travel, stakeholder assessment, and CSO on-boarding cycle): 

ADA17,500

Industry promotion & marketing and outreach event attendance (Travel & admin & materials): 

ADA17,500

Reporting and management team salaries:

ADA15,000

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final Milestone: 25,000 ADA

Reporting and final video production (travel & management salaries):

ADA10,000

Marketing materials: 

ADA5000

Maintenance fees (server, hosting, salaries etc): 

ADA5000

PR agency and press:

ADA5000

TOTAL: 300,000 ADA 

*Note: the project is taking into account an ADA cost of 0.5 USD with a 10% buffer for price going down. If the price goes up we will aim to add additional services.

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

• Core costs of developing a bespoke grant management platform that meets the needs of major aid agencies have already been covered with funds from other foundations and investors 
• 4000+ developer hours already invested
• $250K+ already invested 
• Relationships with major target users in the sector already established (MoU with UNDP)
• Cardano Foundation also has MoU with UNDP: this project would strengthen that burgeoning relationship
• We will present the work at the Cardano conference, European Blockchain Convention, Paris Blockchain Week and/or similar events

Learn more about Cashdillo 

Current Cashdillo grant management demo.

Try Cashdillo here (current MVP requires Pera Wallet)