In August, Bloom Network received a 20,000 ARB reward from ReFi in Arbitrum by Thrive Protocol! (Approximately $10,000 USD at the time). This is what we did! And a whole lot more. Read on to access Web3 onboarding materials for your organization, and learn about how Bloom's technical team is advancing the field of impact reporting to benefit grassroots community organizers and those who would like to resource their work.

Please note, Local Action Rewards are for local actions! Bloom International is the one Local Bloom whose geographic scope is global. We allow our marketing, technical, and community support team contributors to participate in the rewards, to provide transparency and mutual accountability about the labor making this platform possible. We hope this encourages more volunteers to help achieve Local Blooms' goals!

You can also read our proposal and all milestone verifications here! Blockchain granting communities are open and transparent by default. A huge improvement over the way traditional philanthropy handles applications behind closed doors. Here all applicants can view each others' applications to learn about each other and collaborate!

The Goal from our Grant Proposal:

By integrating with Arbitrum, we will be onboarding our 30,000 on-the-ground community to Arbitrum as one of their first exposures to Web3. As part of this grant project, we will be integrating with Karma GAP so impact doers can log their impact on Bloom’s web2-friendly website, and automatically push impact reports to Karma GAP for greater interoperability with the ecosystem of ReFi apps. With this integration, we are establishing a pattern of a simple shared set of fields, with extensible attestations around specific areas of MRV such as tree planting, local economy building, and more. Projects’ impact can then be legible to the broader ecosystem to facilitate intelligent impact coordination. With our 16 years of experience on the ground, we have deep traction and a strong reputation for high-quality regenerative impact.

Key steps done:

1. Integration Development: Technical integration between Bloom Network's bounty reports and Karma GAP's api.
2. Educational Resources: Creation of guides and materials for user onboarding.
3. Marketing Campaign: Promote Arbitrum adoption through social media, webinars, and community events.

Educational Guides created:

"What is Cryptocurrency and How to Get Started", a training by professional technology trainer and curriculum designer Meg Rivers:

Google Slides version for a non-video walkthrough. You're welcome to share these materials with your organization!

Graphic Assets Created:

These assets help boost the online reach of our community organizers and partners.

Announcement Graphic Templates

Video Class Template

Credit: Allegra d'Angelo, who is an industrial designer and whole systems sustainability designer, made these, with some styles conventions that over 20 people have contributed to across Bloom's history of developing a marketing aesthetic that can appeal to people across diverse social movements.

Technical Integrations

1. Capsule Wallet - shout out to Nestor Amesty from dOrg for assisting!! And also the Capsule team at https://usecapsule.com .
2. Karma GAP - thanks to the Karma GAP team for working with us on this integration!

We're really happy about how this grant empowered our tech team to support to grassroots regenerative projects, amplifying their impact while easing their reporting burden. This integration also helped Bloom's technical team develop deeper collaborative relationships with the Karma team, ReFi DAO, Regen Coordination, and Open Civics. We are now all collaborating on streamlining on-chain impact reporting across different tools and networks.

Challenges: Our original application was for four months, but after the awards were announced, the grantor made the execution period formally one month. There was no way for us to deliver on-chain impact without doing our full plan, and this meant that Magenta was working 80 hour weeks again during that time, and the effectiveness of our collaboration with KarmaGap was impacted. This also put stress on the Karma team because this timing just happened to be in the middle of a Gitcoin Round and they were very busy amidst us asking for their developer time on a short timeframe.

Thank you very much to the Thrive Protocol Team, ThankARB, Charmverse, the Karma GAP team, and everyone who contributed on this grant execution!

Lots of love,

Magenta Ceiba

Bloomers Without Borders Engineers Team Lead