Impact Measurement of SPOs

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Creating the Impact Measurements Tool to help define KPIs, measure and report them, with a focus on SDGs impact for SPOs.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

200+ team of active Cardano community members. Cardano AIM team (voter-tool, CA-tool, vCA-Tool, SDG Proposer Tool, SDG Search Tool). Globally diverse multidisciplinary team of professionals: Catalyst, sustainability and impact research. Fund 5,6,7,8 winners.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The vision of the proposals is to create a service for Cardano ADA holders to measure the impact of SPOs through the impact measurement tool. The overarching goal is to create this tool that measures a company's impact and extend the service to evaluate SPOs impact. 

The tool will be a valuable asset to investors and allow greater transparency and trust for the companies building on Cardano. This enables a new level of trust ADA holders don't have today. This is a tool that would bring value to the Cardano community, and greater blockchain space.

Tracking the impact of SPOs in the Cardano ecosystem is something the community doesn't have access to. This can make it hard to follow impact when supporting a stake pool through delegation. Sustainable ADA, and Yoram from Cardano4Climate are taking the next steps to help community members track and trace the impact of the SPOs building on Cardano.

To create a strong impact measurement platform we plan to develop a model for Impact evaluation of companies and SPOs. We will do this following past research with the impact measurement tool, and are extending the research to focus on the impact of our Cardano community SPOs. 

Impact measurements platform (inc. whitepaper)

Continue the development of the impact measurement tool from our funded proposal in fund 7 the ‘Impact Measurement Tool’ (https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383628). 

We created a white paper for this research: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFC7zRNrdg/em1s_yQDnNU6sPW6KJ8hnA/view?utm_content=DAFC7zRNrdg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

From our evaluation of impact reporting mechanisms, we found the following template to be most suitable. The main reason is that this framework will help to define clear, simple and measurable KPIs based on each project’s activities. We foresee its usage helping proposers and project managers clearly define their proposal’s/project’s impact from the outset, and take the necessary steps in measuring it.

Our team proposes to continue to develop an Impact Measurements Tool with the support of this research, and a fund 9 proposal. We aim to develop a tool/add capacity to the SDG Proposer Tool we have been building, that can be used by all as a free, open access tool, with a particular focus on usage by Proposal/Impact Mentors for instance. In effect the tool can be used to facilitate consultation services with a proposer/team as a service, and help clearly define and communicate impact in understandable terms to multi stakeholder audiences. The tool will be adjusted also for blockchain related projects taking into account for example new models such as DAOs and tokenization.

Impact measurement and verification for SPOs, and impact companies 

We will take the first steps in providing a valuable service to investors by measuring the impact of 10 SPOs with a mission centered around the impact they are having on the outer world from Cardano.

• Get 10 SPOs to evaluate their impact 

(Ex. CO2POOL, ECO Pool, SHIFT, GAIA Stake Pool…)

Creating an evaluation model to track Stake Pool Operators' impact and how they are helping make Cardano the Blockchain4Good. Showing both the pros, and cons on how they are impacting the environment, and if they are trying to offset their footprint or work toward social change.

With the support of the Cardano community, it will allow us to continue the development of the model found in the Impact Measurement Tool whitepaper. This will allow us to finalize the structure of the Impact measurement tool and start the next steps of the process where we plan to track and trace the impact of SPOs on Cardano and use the research to finalize a model and create the impact measurement tool.

We will conduct the research to find the correct ways to measure a SPOs impact from our past and new research we plan to conduct at the beginning of the project.

By evaluating these first 10 SPOs it will allow us to make changes to our solution and develop the tool aiming to capture the most impact of the organizations. This will allow us to provide an elegant solution before we publicly launch this tool to the community.

Our service will have an impact on the Cardano community and stake pool delegators already a part of or entering the Cardano ecosystem. For community members who want to make sure the pool they delegate to and support is working towards positive change and creating a good impact on their communities, and the planet.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The project brief states:

“How could the Cardano technology be leveraged to build new solutions for positive impact valuation and monetization?”

This is exactly what our proposal is focused on, helping bring a new level of trust through the impact verification and measurement of companies. While impact focused SPOs continue to roll out stake pools and new type of impact on Cardano the community will want to know which SPOs are actually measuring and working towards impact focused goals and who is greenwashing and not providing the solution they are promising.

From our new tool we will be able to provide a new level of trust for SPOs operating on the Cardano blockchain, giving delegators a new cheatsheet into who is making a true difference in the world.

• Actors capable of defining criteria (standard) on what an impact means in different context (education, carbon cycle, biodiversity, etc) and/or geography

With the impact measurement tool community members will be able to verify the impact of SPOs operating around Cardano.

• Services and methods to issue impact credentials in a decentralized way with a peer-to-peer and expert review process

The impact measurement tool allows for impact credentials to be transparent and for SPOs to go through an impact evaluation process to help start tracking and validate their impact.

• Certification bodies for analyzing and validating the data points provided by impact-oriented projects

The impact measurement tool will act as an open source certification body where we help validate the impact of these organizations and SPOs providing the Cardano community an invaluable service.

• Mechanisms to give a financial value to impact - reflections on tokenizing impact

The impact measurement tool will also allow the impact of SPOs to connect with the valuation of their community on Cardano helping show a connection between impact and financial value.

• On-chain tools for recording impact proofs and bringing more transparency and traceability

This tool will allow the Cardano and greater blockchain community to have full transparency of the impact of the orgs building on Cardano and have more trust when supporting their activities.

• On-chain marketplaces to connect impact-oriented projects with potential buyers (corporations, states organizations, funds) for their impact proofs

This connects to another proposal we are submitting in fund 9 ‘The Sustainable Goals Token - (link to ideascale)

Impact valuation will be shown by connecting this open source tool to the SGT platform: 

We plan to create impact evaluations of the projects on Cardano and onboard this tool onto the SGT platform.

“Through our impact evaluation process we will be able to measure and validate the tangible contribution of a project from a social and/or environmental point of view. Our new solutions of measurement, and traceability will enable new forms of trust with impact projects. With our governance model we will enable organized governance through the blockchain helping our solution be locally adapted creating a new approach/standard of impact measurement in the Web 3 space.”

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

• Cardano community is not interested in the impact of SPOs
• SPOs are afraid to make their data transparent 
• Investors into Cardano projects using a ISPO model don't care about the impact of their investments business operations 

Cardano community and leadership, starting from Charles, is highly impact driven. The Cardano mission is to: Make the world work better for all. 

Blockchain is a technology for impact - transparency, traceability, verification, and decentralization all lead to impact on people's lives. 

By providing the impact measurement & verification tool evaluating SPOs impact, we could make decisions and drive more resources to impact driven SPOs to create more awareness of their activities and build a more sustainable and equitable world for all.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Roadmap:

Phase 1: 4 weeks: Research 

This phase includes: Finalizing white paper V1

• Star the research for the impact of SPOs
• Get suggestions from partners and supporters

Phase 2, week 5 to week 16: onboard 10 companies

This phase includes: 

• Finalizing research and adding our new model to impact measurement tool
• Reaching out to 10 SPOs
• Creating the onboarding resources for this first batch of 10
• Creating a deck with infographics on how the tool work and how its evaluating impact of SPOs
• Testing the tool and building out a good UX for companies public profiles

Phase 3, week 15-17: Release tool to the public 

• Create a challenge to get Cardano projects to list their impact on our open source impact database.

This phase includes:

• Talk with Catalyst team to integrate our tool into the onboarding form for funded proposals, and businesses 
• Create a database to upload details of SPOs impact for the Cardano community

The deliverable and KPIs will be:

• # of SPOs onboarded 
• # of community members using this tool to measure SPO impact

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Budget: $15000

Content creation: $7500 USD 

Creating all the content, and partnerships to for documenting the process onboarding 10 SPOs and track their impact $5500

Translation of content creation into multiple languages (TBC how many languages) using Deep L and proof reading from out network: $ 1000

Research: $2500 USD. 

For an estimated 12 group meetings, and the research to develop a framework to evaluate the impact of SPOs

Tool Development:

$5,000 Development of the Impact Measurement Tool

The total pot is 200,000 USD so we are asking for 7.5% of the pot, with a ROI that can have a far larger positive multiplier effect.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

The team has collaborated together on various projects and community activities for the last 6 months and more intensively for the last 3 months. This gives high confidence on the collaboration of the team also for this proposal.

Yoram Ben-Zvi, partnership lead: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoram-ben-zvi-446836

A social entrepreneur. In the last five years, Yoram is focuing on combining impact and business. A mentor with international board, operations, and startup experience. Yoram is an active catalyst member, CA, and part of the Cardano4Climate community. In Addition, active in promoting the Catalyst and Cardano community to impact companies and networks to connect them to the ecosystem (i.e. seedstars.com)   

Cole Bartlett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-bartlett

Is a recent UNITE 2030 Youth Delegate, a recent graduate in Economics & Sustainability, Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor for Positive Blockchains, Blockchain & Sustainability Researcher, & Social Entrepreneur, Ecoquest Education Foundation - Sustainability Research, B Impact Clinic part of UNH's Changemaker Collaborative - Kikori, Sustainability Splash Program Organizer, Bronze UNH Sustainability Award Winner

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cole-bartlett

https://twitter.com/cole_vt

Razali Samsudin:

14 years of experience as an interdisciplinary Educator from early years settings to postgraduate level, with a background in social sciences, humanities, and sustainability. Freelance Writer, Editor, Digital Economy, Blockchain, Sustainability and Impact Measurements Researcher (#Blockchain4Good, #Cardano4Good, #NFT4Good), Social Entrepreneur, Catalyst Proposal Mentor. Wada UN SDG and Education Coordinator, Co-Founder of Sustainable ADA, Contributor at Cardano AIM, PositiveBlockchain, Cardano4Climate, Catalyst School and Adatruth.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/razali-samsudin

https://twitter.com/SustainableADA

https://twitter.com/Razlosophy

Cardano4Climate.com (C4C) community includes overs 200 members and growing. C4C is organising weekly meetups and monthly events and collaborating with multiple impact communities (i.e. climateneutralcardano.org), companies (i.e. veritree, cardashift) and the Cardano companies (IOG, Emurgo, Cardano foundation)

SustainableADA.com team is focusing on research and communication of impact projects on the Cardano blockchain spreading the word of the work and impact of the Cardano ecosystem  

More on Sustainable ADA:

The Sustainable ADA team has experience working with Figma, Canva, Wix, Final Cut Pro, Da Vinci Resolve 17, Adobe CC, Microsoft Products (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc).

Sustainable ADA has experience and backgrounds in Sustainability, Economics, Humanities, Social Sciences. Along with work with NGOs, Social Enterprises, Freelance journalism, and blogging.

Sustainable ADA Platform: https://www.sustainableada.com

Recent long term partnership with and members of Cardashift, Positiveblockchain.io, Wada, Cardano AIM, and Cardano 4 Climate, Loxe inc.

**Check out our video:** 

Sustainable ADA Vision & Mission - https://youtu.be/CCwpO_I9D5c

Sustainable ADA is a platform that promotes education, inspiration, and sustainable development.

Sustainable ADA is helping connect the dots between Blockchain, Cardano, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and action on the ground by showcasing case studies of positive progress and potentially valuable opportunities to be unlocked.

This project is carried out by members of Cardano AIM

Cardano AIM (Assembly Inspiring Masses) brings together active Catalyst Community members and currently designs and builds tools that support the community.

Some examples include:

* the popular voter-tool (https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/)

* the Community Advisor Tools (CA and vCA-tools) (https://cardanocataly.st/ca-tool/#/ & https://cardanocataly.st/vca-tool/#/)))))))) 

* the community landing page (https://cardanocataly.st/)

* the recent Fund 6 funded proposal Proposer Tool - https://cardanocataly.st/proposer-tool-sdg/#/

AIM continues to focus on developing the best services and tools, by the community, for the benefit of the community.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

We may propose again to develop a platform to share the impact of the tokens on DEXs so we can scale this to evaluate most of the tokens on (X) exchange, and track all the active SPOs on Cardano's network.

As we have a globally decentralized, experienced, multi skilled and diverse team, working across timezones, and connected to various networks and communities, we can tap into our multiple connections and resources, to ensure we have a sustainable approach to managing our workload if we are to receive funding from Catalyst.

Here is a link explaining how members of our team, who are actively working on previously funded proposals and supporting this proposal, shall manage their workload:

Work Management:

Cole Bartlett: Cole Bartlett | Work Load Managment

Razali Samsudin:Managing workload: RAZ

Yoram: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hz4uUg4oMJGWugGxblLRtiR5ODfQM5if15YrKnIan9Q/edit#

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

KPIs:

• Number of POC trials that can be run with impact-oriented projects

We will measure the number of proof of concept trials with our first 10 SPOs evaluated

• Time required to validate the impact value 

We will do this by tracking the time it takes to evaluate each SPOs impact and the differences between the stake pools 

• How much financial value can be derived from impact-oriented projects 

We will show this by comparing the value in a stake pool to their actual impact evaluated with the impact measurement tool.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

We will show success by addressing and tackling the pain points of the impact ecosystem with the Impact Measurement tool and service, expanding it to the SPOs operating on Cardano. The service is based around the tracking of impact and providing financial attractiveness to impact projects. Our impact oriented solution will help bring more visibility of the impact of companies building around Cardano and will act as a standard for evaluating the impact of blockchain based companies. 

Success for this challenge:

We will be showing success by creating the impact measurement tool, and evaluating 10 impact focused SPOs to help increase transparency and traceability on the impact generated by these specific stake pools. This will be the first steps into publicly releasing a tool to evaluate SPOs impact by conducting the proper research to follow through with our goals. From this evaluation we will make changes to the impact measurement tool where we can then publicly share the information of these first projects. Making this tool accessible to all the SPOs operating on Cardano.

Success measurements

3 months:

• Development of impact measurement tool
• Partner with supporting and helpful organizations 
• Research new model for measuring impact of SPOs
• Onboard first 10 SPOs

6 months:

• Tool available to the public and all Cardano SPOs
• Integrated into a Cardano community tool (ex. Pool.pm, or pooltool)

9 months:

• Integrate tool into SGT platform helping community members delegate towards these impact SPOs
• Create a portal for SPOs to be highlights and shared to the greater world based on the impact they create and goals for Cardano

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

We have conducted research in the past that will be integrated into this proposal and help us scale the Impact Measurement Tool to support the impact of SPOs. We also will be applying our research and doing the first impact evaluations of SPOs with our chosen and new stake pool framework.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/383628

From the past work with our White Paper we will be able to develop and provide this open source tool for all so any SPO operating on Cardano can verify their impact generated while operating their business.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDGs:

• SDG 4: Quality Education for all

SDG subgoals:

SDG 4.7

• 4.7 By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development

• 17.16 Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries

• 17.6 Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge-sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism

• 17.9 Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the Sustainable Development Goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

17.16.1 Number of countries reporting progress in multi-stakeholder development effectiveness monitoring frameworks that support the achievement of the sustainable development goals

#proposertoolsdg