How to fundraise on Gitcoin (OLD) 2aebf304370a8175958bef0beb7c3ff1

How to fundraise on Gitcoin (OLD)

Gitcoin is a popular platform for fundraising in the blockchain and public goods space. If you’re an impact project or ReFi DAO Local Node, Gitcoin is a great place to raise funds, establish brand awareness and build community. They have supported over $55M worth of funding towards Ethereum infrastructure, open source software and climate solutions. Each quarter they run a grant round with several match funding pools to support different types of projects.

Below are some high-level steps to help you get started with fundraising on Gitcoin. We’ll break them down into each section below.

1. Get your Twitter game on
2. Submit a great Gitcoin grant
3. Prepare your marketing campaign
4. Create your tribe
5. Setup a Gitcoin Passport
6. Donate to other projects
7. Setup a daily promotion workflow
8. Join Twitter Spaces
9. Monitor your progress

⚠️ Running a successful campaign on Gitcoin can be incredibly hard work. You can earn good money as a result, but it’s not easy—especially if you don’t have a big following on Twitter.

That’s why growing a Twitter following ahead of time can be so valuable! We recommend working hard in the 3-months leading up to the Gitcoin round to create a strong brand and loyal following who will support you in the round.

1. Get your Twitter game on 🐦

The first step in running a successful Gitcoin campaign is to have a solid, loyal Twitter following. We’re going to invest a bit of time into this before diving into the details of Gitcoin, so if you already have this sorted out jump straight to ‘2. Submit your Gitcoin grant’.

It’s impossible to build a Twitter following this overnight, so the more time you have to prepare your brand and Bprofile ahead of the campaign, the better.

Here are a few tips that we’ll dig into a bit deeper.

1. Establish an iconic, visual brand
2. Orbify your personal PFP
3. Make a strong introduction
4. Build a daily habit
5. Follow relevant influencers
6. Engage with the community
7. Create lists for your niche
8. Write great threads
9. Help people out!

i. Establish an iconic, visual brand

This is one of the most essential and often over looked aspects of building a social media following—and also of running a successful Gitcoin campaign. So many projects slap together a logo last minute and hope for the best. This usually doesn’t work!

Gitcoin is a brand recognition game. If people recognize you, know what you do and want to support your cause then they will donate to you.

So go ahead and take the time to create an awesome brand. Here are some resources that can help:

🤖 If you’re keen to get AI to make you a nice free logo, try out:

50+ Midjourney Logo Design Prompts: The Complete Logo Guide

👨‍🎨 If you are a top founder with an audacious vision who is willing to pay for a world-class design and branding agency, get in touch with the folks below. Expect to spend 5-figures on a brand that will provide an incredible return!

Pierre at WE3 Matt at Future Works and HooKooEKoo

💾 You can go ahead and download all of ReFi DAO’s brand assets and Local Node Brand kits to help you get started with your brand below:

ReFi Brand Assets (v1.1) - extended - Google Drive

Local Node Brand Kits - Google Drive

ii. Orbifi your PFP

If you want to show you’re apart of the ReFi Nation, you can oribifi your PFP! The steps are simple:

1. Find a strong, iconic photo of yourself
2. Remove the background using remove.bg
3. Download the ReFi Orb in the ReFi Brand Assets v1.1
4. Use Figma or Canva to overlay your photo ontop of the orb as a background
5. Export and upload to social!
6. Announce your new Orbified PFP and follow back any other Orbers

iii. Make a strong introduction

In the first few weeks of a new Twitter account you want to make a strong introduction. Make a daily habit, but don’t over do it. Be sure you are contributing content that resonates with you, your brand and your vision of the future—not just replicating what other people are doing.

Lead with a unique brand voice and be consistent. Pick a few themes and structure your messaging accordingly. Here’s a rough progression to cover over the first few weeks:

1. Introduce yourself and your brand
2. Outline your theory of change
3. Share your background, learning and introduction to ReFi
4. Ask good questions
5. Challenge accepted norms
6. Engage with other regens through comments, retweets and likes

iii. Build a daily habit

Now that you’ve introduced yourself to the space and have gained a few followers, it’s time to make a daily habit out of engaging on Twitter.

Try to find a rhythm that works for you where you actually enjoy posting. It’s essential to engage with the deeper parts of your curiosity and passion so it doesn’t become a chore.

Find a time every day—usually in the morning or evening where you carve out 10-15 mins to engage on Twitter and increase brand awareness in the space.

iv. Follow relevant influencers

It’s important to follow the right people as this will fill your feed with relevant content that you can retweet, comment and like. This will help also inform your own messaging and marketing strategies so you can build a stronger following based on your unique interests.

🗒️ Follow the #ReFi list on Twitter that I started back in October 2021 when #ReFi was going through a season of explosive growth:

[#ReFi Regenerative Finance List](#ReFi Regenerative Finance List) on Twitter by climateXcrypto

v. Engage with the community

In order to build brand awareness and loyalty, you want to engage with fellow regens who are on a similar mission. You can do this through comments, retweets, likes and DMs. It’s also really encouraging when you take action and engage with a protocol and screenshot your experience to celebrate the work that they are doing.

If you can lift up other members in the network and make them feel successful, they’re more likely to support you and the work that you are doing!

👩‍🎤 Find a project that you’re interested in, read their white paper and engage with their protocol. Share what you learn on Twitter and encourage them with positive feedback! If you have criticisms drop those in the DMs!

vi. Create lists for your niche

Similar to the ReFi Twitter List above, create a twitter list that allows you to build a niche within the community. Pick something you are interested in—either the impact area or vertical of your project or the geographic region for your local node. Start adding people to this list and celebrate the work they are doing!

vii. Write great threads

Twitter threads are great ways to build a voice and establish a sense of authority in the space. When I was first getting into ReFi I focused all my threads on carbon: markets, pricing, removals, etc.

It was something I was studying as apart of my entry into Toucan and I was genuinely interested in the topic. By sharing what you learn publicly, you not only have an opportunity to learn but also shape your personal brand and position in the market.

⌨️ We use [Typefully](https://typefully.com/) at ReFi DAO for all of our threads, and it’s a really great tool. You can also use [ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/) to help you write threads, just be sure to fine-tune the model so you get high-quality content that actually looks and sounds like you!

viii. Help people out!

At the end of the day, Twitter is a great place to find where you can help other community members. Either by answering questions, making connections or just contributing ideas where you can—this is an important step of becoming recognized as a valuable contributor to the ReFi space, and in turn people are more likely to want to support you when the Gitcoin round goes live!

💁 Try to find one person every day that you can help out. Check your DMs and see if there’s anything you can do. It’s good to have lots of 1-1 calls to get to know people early on as well to find out ways to contribute to the network.

---

2. Craft a great Gitcoin grant

As we mentioned, so much about fundraising on Gitcoin is about brand awareness. At the same time, it’s absolutely vital that you craft a grant that reflects who you are, what you believe, why you need money and what you want to do with this.

I have been fundraising on Gitcoin since GR12 in 2021 and have had some very successful campaigns with over $250k raised between my campaigns at ReFi Podcast and ReFi DAO. I’ve provided a number of our grants below as references, along with a rough outline for you to follow.

The basic steps for creating a Gitcoin grant are:

1. Create a new project on builder.gitcoin.co
2. Apply to a round for which you are eligible on explorer.gitcoin.co
3. Get approval for the round and start promoting!

---

Focus on the visuals

Before you obsess over the exact wording of your grant, make sure you’ve got a title, solid logo and banner image! They should be immediately recognizable as your brand.

That’s why the preparation work on Twitter is so important!

Don’t submit a grant with a crappy logo and banner image, it’s better to wait until the next round when you are fully prepared and can launch into the community with a splash!

Write a simple title

Many projects try to come up with fancy, long names. Don’t do this!

Use your brand or project name, and if you need to use some kind of modifier, keep it simple!

It should be short and immediately recognizable.

✅ DO use project titles like:

Water DAO: A decentralized water purification system Basin DAO: A platform for natural capital exploration

❌ Do NOT use projects titles like:

A multi-partite indigenous transformational geometric zero knowledge proof station Synthesizing Harmonous Capture Spatial Data

Outline

Here’s a rough outline you can follow for drafting your Gitcoin grant:

1. TL;DR
2. Introduction
3. Thesis
4. Technology
5. Objectives
6. Finances
7. Team
8. Call to action

Use quality images

Be sure to include images in your Gitcoin grant! You’ll need to upload them to a third-party file storage system like Twitter or IMGUR so you can link to the image in the Gitcoin grant using markdown like this:

![Tech architecture diagram](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F0g7rlUXgAAeDXZ?format=jpg&name=large)

Be specific, be honest

Try to get as specific as possible about the work you intend to do. It’s great to craft a long-term vision up front, but then you need to get clear on what exactly you plan to do to realize this vision over the next 3 months.

Given the quarterly nature of Gitcoin rounds it’s important to talk about what you can achieve within this time frame, assuming a reasonable amount of funding.

Set reasonable expectations

Given the current market conditions, it’s very difficult to raise more than $25kor$30k in a single Gitcoin round. Sometimes you don’t raise more than $2-3k, depending on how well known your project is or what round you are in.

Choose the right rounds

Be sure to check out Gitcoin’s Explorer and see which rounds are available. Read all the eligibility criteria and ensure that you are actually eligible. Only apply for rounds for which you are eligible, otherwise you will get denied and it won’t look great on your profile!

Check out Gitcoin’s tips

📒 Check out Gitcoin’s Tips for Grant Success which includes a lot of helpful considerations that you’ll definitely want to read before you publish your grant!

Tips for Grant Success

References

Gitcoin Grants Builder

ReFi DAO GR14 Grant Description

ReFi DAO GR14 Update

ReFi DAO Analysis of Gitcoin GR15 Final Results - 9 30 2022

3. Prepare your marketing campaign

Before the round starts it’s important to have a rough structure of your marketing efforts for the two-week campaign. Usually Gitcoin rounds have a large number of donations in the first 3 days, a lull in the middle and a surge of donations in the final 2-3 days.

Sometimes this differs, but over the last 6 rounds this has been the predominant trend.

At ReFi DAO we have experimented with campaign structures that look a bit like this:

1. Day 1
   1. AM
      1. Thread with video to announce the grant
      2. Newsletter & bog post
   2. PM - Quote RT other grants
2. Day 2
   1. AM - Thread with videos promoting other grants
      1. Podcast mention
   2. PM - Donate to other grants
3. Day 3
   1. AM - Thread list of hidden gems (help grants get discovered)
   2. PM - Thread list of adjacent round
4. Day 4-10
   1. Attend Twitter spaces
   2. Live podcasts
   3. Online events
   4. In-person events
5. Day 11-14
   1. Go hard
   2. Tweet a lot
   3. Donate a lot
   4. Do your best

4. Join or make a tribe

There are a few Telegram groups that support each other with cross-promotion, marketing and donations. If you’re a local node leader, you’ll be invited to a private group specifically for these nodes.

Gitcoin also sets up Telegram groups for specific rounds which is helpful.

If you can’t find any groups, ask around—they crop up right before the round.

You can always start your own with a small group of people who are interested in supporting each other!

5. Setup a Gitcoin Passport

In order to donate to other projects you’re going to have to setup your own Gitcoin Passport. If you are new to web3 it’s unfortunately impossible to do get a high enough score to get your donations match funded…

But that’s okay, because your donations in one round will give you on-chain history that you can use in the next round to get match funding for your donations.

The basic process is this:

1. Go to passport.gitcoin.co
2. Connect your wallet
3. Collect as many stamps as you can
4. Try to get your score to 15 so your donations get match funding

📓 Be sure to read the Gitcoin support article below to understand how the score is calculated and what you need to do to get match funding for your donations.

How is Gitcoin Passport’s score calculated?

6. Donate to other projects

Once you’ve got a Gitcoin passport setup you can start donating to other projects. Even if you can’t get a full score of 15 in the first round you can still donate!

Donating to other projects is key as it lets the community know you’re there to support them.

Go ahead and create a short list of projects you want to support—or ask your Twitter followers who you should donate!

Basic steps are as follows:

1. Go to explorer.gitcoin.co
2. Select the round you want to donate to
3. Add projects to your cart within that round
4. Check out and choose your donation amounts
5. Sign the transaction
6. Celebrate and promote!

👌 The way Gitcoin is structured is on a ‘round-by-round’ basis, which means that each round is a separate ‘checkout’ workflow, so to speak. That means if you want to support multiple rounds, you’ll have to do multiple batches of donations.

This can be a bit confusing but once you understand the concept, it’s easy to use.

7. Setup a daily promotion workflow

Now that you’ve launched your campaign, have your Gitcoin passport and have donated to a number of other projects—it’s time to get in your daily rhythm.

Go ahead and experiment with the following:

1. Starting the morning with a good ‘ol “GM” tweet!
2. Asking people who to support that day
3. Making a small batch of donations every day
4. Individually celebrating each project you support with a tweet and DM
5. Sharing your donation tweets in Telegram and Discord groups to encourage others to donate
6. Promoting your project whenever the opportunity arises (don’t be shy)
7. Sharing videos, photos and illustrations about your project
8. Joining Twitter Spaces, LinkedIN events and community calls

We’ll dive deeper into the Twitter spaces below…

8. Join Twitter Spaces

Over the last few rounds Twitter Spaces have become an increasingly central part of Gitcoin fundraising. The challenge is, finding the right Twitter space can be hard.

Our friends at the Solarpunk Guild ran a 24/7 Gitcoin Radio Twitter space marathon during the whole two weeks of the last Gitcoin Beta round. Many of the folks who participated in this ended up doing very well in the Gitcoin round as they were constantly online supporting the voice of the community.

Gitcoin also hosts major Twitter Spaces for each round, including one big space at the end of the round with hundreds of people.

Increasingly joining in the Gitcoin rounds, there are larger traditional organizations with significant followings like Kulture City. They don’t have a large crypto community, but do have big reach in the mainstream. You can get good brand awareness through events like this, but recognize that the only people able to donate on Gitcoin are those who are web3-native.

There’s no point chasing a bunch of mainstream donors who will never get their Gitcoin passport verified. It’s all about attracting Gitcoin passports with scores of 15+ to get the full match funding.

9. Monitor your progress

As you invest a lot of energy in the campaign, it’s important to check out your progress on the Dune dashboards that Gitcoin provides to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts.

You should be able to track how you are performing alongside other grantees. If you’re not in the top early on, you’re doing something wrong.

It’s very rare that a project makes its way to the top late in the round, it usually shows strong signs from the beginning.

That means you’ve got to make a good strong early start and keep up the momentum to maintain lead, or be in the running for the top place. A good healthy dose of competition goes a long way—just don’t forget this is all about collaboration, coordination and community.

Keep a cool head, even when the market is down there is more than enough capital to go around.

Be generous, be consistent and don’t be afraid to promote your project. You believe in it. Other people should too…