Participatory Funding
Participatory Rounds for RFPs, Grantmaking, and Budgeting
Participatory budgeting is a practice where resources are distributed through a collective process by the members of a group. For example, each person could be allocated an amount of money to distribute to projects in a grantmaking round. This can be a method to ensure transparency, fairness, inclusion, and increased satisfaction among group members, as they have a say in how resources are allocated, while getting to know each other’s projects and building deeper relationships.
A powerful way for groups to engage their stakeholders and attract more members is to run a participatory budgeting process to distribute a round of funding, or to collectively prioritize projects for the community to work on together.
Here are the aspects of the feature set we propose:
Participatory Round Management UI
This is the UI where group stewards can create and manage a participatory grantmaking round on Hylo. This can be used to run an RFP process where the group receives proposals from group members and collectively decides what to prioritize. It can even include how much money to allocate to each proposal.
Current Requirements & Spec
Create Participatory Grantmaking/Funding Rounds
Group stewards (with a certain responsibility) can create and manage a participatory grantmaking round on Hylo.
This is a new Funding Round Object Type
Icon will be a coin or stack of coins
Anyone in the group who joins the round can comment on a project or participate in the chat
Funding Round Fields
Title
Description
Images, Youtube, and Vimeo videos can be embedded in the description
Criteria for submitting projects/submissions
This includes the essential information needed in the proposal
Whether budget is a required field for submissions or not
Voting model/method
We are launching with distributed token allocation
We will have them choose if it is a currency (co-budgeting) or voting
If they chose Currency, there is a drop-down of currencies (we can customize the first version to a local currency based on the current user's location)
If you chose currency, this is co-budgeting
If they chose Voting
Default term for tokens is "votes". We don't offer the ability to change it for now
They can determine the number of votes that are allocated and the min/max amount of votes that can be allocated to a project
Token Allocation Options
A total number of tokens, allocated evenly to each voter
A fixed number of tokens to allocate per voter
Minimum number of tokens that can be given to a project by a person
Max number of tokens that can be given per project by a person
Other Fields
Roles/badges (if any) required to submit projects to the round (defaults to everyone)
Roles/badges (if any) required to vote in the round (defaults to everyone)
isActive - toggles from Draft Phase to Lobby/Round Announcement phase
Proposal submission Start date - (optional)
Proposal submission by date/deadline (optional)
Voting start date (optional)
Voting ends date (optional)
Terms to customize the name of things submitted to the round, defaulting to "Projects"
Editing Funding Rounds
There is a new Group Settings tab which shows all Funding Rounds, their current status, and allows Stewards with Manage Rounds responsibility to edit or delete them.
Phases of a Round
Rounds move from phase to phase automatically if there are dates set. Rounds can also be moved to a new phase manually. When doing it manually always show a confirmation that the round is progressing.
Draft Phase - only stewards can see
Lobby / Round Announcement
This phase is manually turned on
People can see and join the round
Discussion can begin in the Round's chat room
The start date for submissions is displayed
A chatroom is created for this phase for idea generation, finding collaborators, discussion around the requirements
Submissions Open
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
Submissions are hidden from non-stewards until the discussion phase
Discussion
New submissions closed
All submissions visible
Proposals shared can be edited
Voting
Option to manually start / end round, or automatically by date
Submissions cannot be edited
If you go back to the Discussion or earlier phase then votes will be reset
Voting Ended - Results phase
Members Viewing/interacting with the Round
There is a new View to see all currently launched Funding Rounds, which can be added to the Group Menu
Rounds have their own landing page which can be added to the Group Menu by stewards to make them more visible to group members
Discussion can happen on each submitted project via comments
There is a chat room w/in a Round
This is totally hidden inside the round
Uses a #topic connected to the group/round that is hidden elsewhere in the app
Cannot be added directly to the group menu
Cannot be posted to from outside the round (for now)
There is an indicator of what phase the funding round is in
Once voting starts new members cannot join a round
Event posts can be created and associated with a Round for synchronous presentations or discussions (might be in version 2)
Project/proposal submission process:
There is a project/proposal template with instructions
Members have to join the Round to see it and interact
Once the Round has launched, members can submit Projects up to the submission deadline
The ability to submit projects can be limited by role/badge for each Round
Project submissions UI
This will be a template for posts that populates questions/instructions into a new submission post
We will add a new field to the post type for budget - this can be required or optional based on a setting
Notifications:
Stewards are notified of all new submissions
Participating members are notified that there were X number of new submissions (in email digest?)
Submissions are hidden from non-stewards until this phase is done
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
Discussion
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
After submission, before voting there is a phase to discuss the submissions
Submissions can be edited or removed from the round by creators
Submission can be removed from round by steward
Discussion happens in comments on the submissions and in the chat room
Voting:
Option to manually start / end phase, or automatically starts by date
Stewards can limit who can vote in a Round by role/badge
Once voting starts tokens are allocated to all voters currently in the round
Once voting begins new members can still join to view but they won't have any tokens to vote with - Explain why
Submissions can no longer be edited - explain why
The only way for new voters to be added would be for the steward to reset to the discussion phase, and all votes would be reset
When voting starts, members can weigh in on the proposals they like through the voting mechanism selected by the steward of the Round
When viewing the list of proposals they can allocate any number of tokens to each one until they have 0 left. They can adjust their token allocations any time during the voting period.
Display of results
At the end of the voting period we display the results of the funding round on the Round landing page
Displaying voting results at the end makes less bias
Show list of projects sorted by total allocation
We send a notification about the round ending with the results to all participants
Include in email digest too?
Distribution of funds
Currently this will happen entirely outside of Hylo
Question: How can Hylo support transparency and accountability for how funds get distributed based on the voting?
object type
Icon will be a coin or stack of coins
Anyone in the group who joins the round can comment on a project or participate in the chat
Fields:
Title
Description
Images can be embedded in the description - YouTube or Vimeo support
Criteria for submitting projects/submissions
This includes the essential information needed in the proposal
Whether budget is a required field for submissions or not
Voting model/method - We are launching with distributed token allocation
We will have them choose if it is a currency (co-budgeting) or voting
If they chose Currency, there is a drop-down of currencies (we can customize the first version to a local currency based on the current user's location)
If you chose currency, this is co-budgeting
If they chose Voting
Default term for tokens is "votes". We don't offer the ability to change it for now
They can determine the number of votes that are allocated and the min/max amount of votes that can be allocated to a project
Token Allocation Options
A total number of tokens, allocated evenly to each voter
A fixed number of tokens to allocate per voter
Minimum number of tokens that can be given to a project by a person
Max number of tokens that can be given per project by a person
Other Fields
Roles/badges (if any) required to submit projects to the round (defaults to everyone)
Roles/badges (if any) required to vote in the round (defaults to everyone)
isActive - toggles from Draft Phase to Lobby/Round Announcement phase
Proposal submission Start date - (optional)
Proposal submission by date/deadline (optional)
Voting start date (optional)
Voting ends date (optional)
Terms to customize the name of things submitted to the round, defaulting to "Projects"
Editing Funding Rounds
There is a new Group Settings tab which shows all Funding Rounds, their current status, and allows Stewards with Manage Rounds responsibility to edit or delete them.
Phases of a Round
Rounds move from phase to phase automatically if there are dates set. Rounds can also be moved to a new phase manually. When doing it manually always show a confirmation that the round is progressing.
Draft Phase - only stewards can see
Lobby / Round Announcement
This phase is manually turned on
People can see and join the round
Discussion can begin in the Round's chat room
The start date for submissions is displayed
A chatroom is created for this phase for idea generation, finding collaborators, discussion around the requirements
Submissions Open
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
Submissions are hidden from non-stewards until the discussion phase
Discussion
New submissions closed
All submissions visible
Proposals shared can be edited
Voting
Option to manually start / end round, or automatically by date
Submissions cannot be edited
If you go back to the Discussion or earlier phase then votes will be reset
Voting Ended - Results phase
Members Viewing/interacting with the Round
There is a new View to see all currently launched Funding Rounds, which can be added to the Group Menu
Rounds have their own landing page which can be added to the Group Menu by stewards to make them more visible to group members
Discussion can happen on each submitted project via comments
There is a chat room w/in a Round
This is totally hidden inside the round
Uses a #topic connected to the group/round that is hidden elsewhere in the app
Cannot be added directly to the group menu
Cannot be posted to from outside the round (for now)
There is an indicator of what phase the funding round is in
Once voting starts new members cannot join a round
Event posts can be created and associated with a Round for synchronous presentations or discussions (might be in version 2)
Project/proposal submission process:
There is a project/proposal template with instructions
Members have to join the Round to see it and interact
Once the Round has launched, members can submit Projects up to the submission deadline
The ability to submit projects can be limited by role/badge for each Round
Project submissions UI
This will be a template for posts that populates questions/instructions into a new submission post
We will add a new field to the post type for budget - this can be required or optional based on a setting
Notifications:
Stewards are notified of all new submissions
Participating members are notified that there were X number of new submissions (in email digest?)
Submissions are hidden from non-stewards until this phase is done
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
Discussion
Option to be manually started/ended or automatically started/ended by date
After submission, before voting there is a phase to discuss the submissions
Submissions can be edited or removed from the round by creators
Submission can be removed from round by steward
Discussion happens in comments on the submissions and in the chat room
Voting:
Option to manually start / end phase, or automatically starts by date
Stewards can limit who can vote in a Round by role/badge
Once voting starts tokens are allocated to all voters currently in the round
Once voting begins new members can still join to view but they won't have any tokens to vote with - Explain why
Submissions can no longer be edited - explain why
The only way for new voters to be added would be for the steward to reset to the discussion phase, and all votes would be reset
When voting starts, members can weigh in on the proposals they like through the voting mechanism selected by the steward of the Round
When viewing the list of proposals they can allocate any number of tokens to each one until they have 0 left. They can adjust their token allocations any time during the voting period.
Display of results
At the end of the voting period we display the results of the funding round on the Round landing page
Displaying voting results at the end makes less bias
Show list of projects sorted by total allocation
We send a notification about the round ending with the results to all participants
Include in email digest too?
Distribution of funds
Currently this will happen entirely outside of Hylo
Question: How can Hylo support transparency and accountability for how funds get distributed based on the voting?
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