Abstract
We theorize that a good way to raise awareness, build support and grow our community is through acts of kindness that provide much needed volunteer hours to non-profit organizations. ApeCoin Good Deeds is a proposal to bootstrap community adoption by devising an economic engine that recognizes local community engagement on a global scale.
We have an early DRAFT whitepaper located at: DRAFT - ApeCoin Good Deeds WhitePaper - Google Docs
Please note, I am submitting this AIP simply as an idea. If someone would like to run with this project, I would be happy to assist but ultimately do not have the resources to turn this idea into a reality. A person with a lot of experience in the Non-Profit sector would be well suited to maximize this idea’s effectiveness.
Motivation
ApeCoin Good Deeds started off as a project in a small local non-profit, Code(Cayman) to demonstrate how a community of volunteers and Non-Proft Organizations can develop an economic engine centered around Web3 economies. The project is used as a theoretical framework within the Blockchain.Code(Cayman) program and has never been operationalized. The Code(Cayman) organization does not have the resources to realize this project but freely contributes the idea to the wider ApeCoin community as either a thought piece or something to actualize.
Code(Cayman) is a small registered non-profit organization in the Cayman Islands that provides free introduction to technology classes and is completely reliant on volunteers who commit their time and expertise. Our core value is to provide a non-intimidating, accessible and equitable learning opportunity to anyone who is interested, but is especially focused on providing support for our youth. In our Youth.Code(Cayman) project, we provide every participant with a free Raspberry PI to allow them the freedom to explore a computer without any limitations or worries.
You can learn more about Code(Cayman) at:
Rationale
We have seen that a good way to build momentum for a project is through direct community engagement. Because the ApeCoin DAO is a global, decentralized community, we thought this could be a good way to develop localized grass root support at a global scale. Code(Cayman) considers this idea as a completely open source, transparent project well positioned for a broader community to consider and lead.
Key Terms
ICT - Information Communication Technology
Specifications
Most of the work for this project would be operational and dependent on creative well intentioned people to bring to life. Therefore, it is probable that most of the funding for a project of this sort would be dedicated to staffing budgets.
Of course, living in the 21st century and working in Web3, there would be a bit of software development. At a high level (and subject to the communities thoughts) this would include:
- Obviously a website to provide a single place that correlates the messaging (maybe hosted on GitHub pages and open sourced for community pull requests)
- A dashboard to track pseudo-anonymous accounts that receive ApeCoin for their volunteered time or “Good Deeds”
- A dashboard to track “Qualified NPOs” and the work our community is helping them accomplish
- A CRM system to onboard new NPOs, keep track of their details and monitor their status
- A bot that hooks into Social Media API’s looking for hash tags (i.e #ApeCoinGoodDeeds) to provide the community an opportunity to reward individual acts of kindness, see the all the local good work being done and raise awareness for the project
Steps to Implement
Phase 1 (approximately 2-4 months):
High level steps:
- Establish a Foundation to operate the organization
- Define what a “Qualified NPO” means, this would be an important step so interested organizations have a clear understanding of their ability to participate
- Setup mail server, web servers, domains (basically ICT infrastructure)
- Take custody of phase one of funding
Funding in phase 1 could be estimated to range between US$52,000 - US$95,000
- Entity formation: US$2,000 - US$5,000
- Legal fees: helping define “Qualified NPO” and other constitutional documents: US$30,000 - US$60,000
- Other (ICT and miscellaneous, i.e. logo, brand development?) US$20,000 - US$30,000
Phase 2 (approximately 4-6 months):
High level steps:
- Conduct public search for Board of Directors
- Post Job ads, conduct employee interviews, hire staff
- Establish and submit KPIs and milestones to the ApeCoin DAO for review and consideration
- Develop a marketing campaign
- Take custody of phase two of funding
Funding in phase 2 could be estimated to range between US$530,000 - US$1,000,000
- Further legal fees: Iteration of constitutional documents, review of global employment ramifications, other jurisdictional dependent considerations: US$30,000 - US$60,000
- Recruiter engagement (generally 15%-20%) of employee candidate compensation (It is probable that recruiters are not needed since the ApeCoin community probably has capable and interested pool of qualified candidates to build upon)
- Employee Salaries: A 1 year commitment is probably between US$500,000 - US$1,000,000. This scale would obviously be dependent on when employees are hired, the agreed salary, experience and qualifications
Phase 3 (approximately 5-8 months):
High level steps:
- Employees develop an onboarding process for Qualified NPOs
- Develop software outlined in Specifications
- Develop operational business model (how is this going to be sustainable long term)
- Further refine operational expenses (salaries, legal, infrastructure, and report back to ApeCoin DAO
- Begin marketing campaign and start developing go to market strategy
TBD: Funding in phase 3 would be pretty dependent on the outcome and successful completion of phase 2.
Note: that since most funding is committed to salaries, phase 3 funding could be minimal or mostly dedicated to marketing
Phase 4 (timing TBD):
High level steps:
- Publicly launch, operate the organization, onboard NPos, analyze public data, conduct market research, publish trends
- Fund a ApeCoin Good Deeds pool, let’s say 1 Million $APE (this is a random number but the pool should be big enough to incentivize NPO’s to allocate resources and volunteers to join)
TBD: Funding in phase 4 would be pretty dependent on the outcome and successful completion of phase 3
Note: that since most funding is committed to salaries, phase 4 funding could be minimal or mostly dedicated to the launch strategy and funding the ApeCoin Good Deed Incentive Pool
Timeline
TIming has been included in the phases above. Please note that these are currently estimates and further project building would be required to develop an accurate timeline. Since this would be a global initiative, a lot of time and consideration would be dedicated to ensuring that this idea is legally compliant in different jurisdictions, or we could limit scope and focus on a few high value regions to start with.
Furthermore, a significant amount of time could be consumed by establishing the founding team, outlining the baseline roles and responsibilities, conducting interviews and entering into contractual employment agreements.
Overall Cost
Please see the funding note on each phase.
It would probably make financial sense to make funding available in batches and dependent on successfully progressing the project to the next phase. The DAO could either commit a total funding goal (i.e. we will deploy a total funding of $1M dollars but it would not be transferred until the start of each phase, i.e. phase 1: 100K, phase 2: 200K, phase 3: 300K phase 4: 400K) which could influence the ApeCoin Good Deeds incentive to be capital efficient or put each phase of funding up for another vote, which could slow progress but increase accountability and communication.
To reiterate, I will not be able to push this project into an AIP draft as I do not have the capacity to properly operate the initiative. I would be happy to work with anyone that would be interested in taking this to the next step.