Financing, Subsidizing and Rewarding the Regenerative Renaissance

Seeking financial rewards or support for your cause to grow and serve the Regenerative Renaissance?

Here’s a guide on where to go to get support within the SEEDS ecosystem.

We’re setting out to build new financial systems where the people govern how money is spent. Opposed to an extreme minority governing humanities wealth (e.g. those who control government spending) we set out to create a system where all participants in the economy get to decide how public funds are distributed.

What’s important is that our system remain economically stable and financially viable. Meaning, we can’t spend more Seeds (e.g. bring Seeds into circulation) beyond what there is demand for. Otherwise, we create a situation where we have more supply than demand and the value of Seeds will drop. We want to avoid this. So, we’ve created a series of contracts and governance rules that can prevent this situation from occurring whilst still financing the change we wish to see.

Alliance Shares (Financing)

Examples include:

1. Alliance share for a global and public decentralised organisation designed to serve the SEEDS ecosystem (e.g. Samara, Hypha, Renaissance Explorers, etc.)
2. Alliance share for a marketplace platform giving communities tools to build online farmers-markets and local gift economies (e.g. Localscale, etc) ;
3. Alliance share for a non-profit planting trees and regenerating ecosystems (e.g. Forest Without Frontiers, etc);
4. Alliance share for a organization focused on supporting circular and regenerative local economies;
5. Etc…

Alliance shares are Seeds in escrow (not available for spending now! These Seeds will be slowly released to your org after “Go-Live”) for aligned organisations.

Alliance shares are providing an asset (Seeds) to organisations to tie their financial success to that of the whole SEEDS movement — and to give them an asset to back further investment into their cause or organisation (e.g. a new organisation may raise investments that are backed by the Seeds they hold in escrow).

Example:
Let’s say [Movement Making X] — an organisation focused on movement building — asked for $100k USD in Seeds as an alliance share.

If successful this would justify the valuation for X of at least $100k (as on-paper X is valued at $100k+ USD and can use these assets to raise funds from Hypha and others). This is helpful for Hypha investing in organisations (see Hypha incubator below, as it backs Hypha’s investment in Seeds).

How to apply for an Alliance share

Alliance shares are open for any aligned organisation and the expectation is that these organisations offer value back to the movement. Organisations are further rewarded by growing the value of their share (e.g. helping Seeds get increase in value, increases the value of the Seeds their due).

Organisations are encouraged to have the Seeds payment and invite widgets already set up on the organisation website or on-location for most support from the Citizens (those who are voting for the Alliance shares).

Financial Security: Alliance shares can be returned to the community (at anytime before they’re actually paid out of escrow), should the organisation not follow through in supporting the movement or otherwise behave not in alignment with the intention of the alliance. Citizens who voted in favour of an alliance can reverse their vote, and should the reversal bring the support below the pass threshold (e.g. go below 90% support) the allinace funds are recovered and returned to the allies.seeds account.

For example — Alliances from August of 2020 have seen a 3x+ growth in the USD value of their Alliance Share! It pays to get in early and help the movement grow!

Invite Campaigns (Subsidizing and Rewarding)

Examples include:

1. Gift N Seeds for the next 50 people who volunteer at a community gardening day over the next 3 months;
2. Gift N Seeds to 5000 people who make a video about local regeneration and shares it to these channels;
3. Etc…

SEEDS Campaigns are NOT intended for funding projects, they are for gifting Seeds far and wide to support and grow the movement via gifting Seeds to people for taking direct regenerative actions. Campaigns exist to help communities form and grow and for fully embodying an abundance and gift culture by creating pathways for people in need to be gifted an invite into this movement!

Campaign success is giving hundreds of Seeds to millions of people (distributing wealth)! Not giving millions of Seeds to hundreds of people (concentrating wealth)…

Campaigns are for people or organizations wanting to directly reward and subsidize regenerative behaviours, activating and inviting their communities to SEEDS or otherwise providing rewards to help this movement thrive!

Rewards for running a campaign

The member running a campaign gets rewarded by:

1. When a member who was invited through the Campaign becomes a Resident or Citizen you earn a referral award
2. Built into a Campaign proposal is a reward for every invite claimed for the person who’s running the campaign.

*Referral/invite rewards are temporary and there is only enough for approximately the first million Citizens.

Invite Campaigns vs Funding Proposals vs Donation Campaigns

An “Invite Campaign” is as detailed above. A proposal intended to send a relatively small number of Seeds to a diversity of people for taking a relatively simple and clear action (e.g. plant a tree, earn some Seeds).

Conversely, a “Funding Proposal” is intended to fund a particular project, usually consisting of a much more complex execution strategy, larger payouts in Seeds to a smaller number of people who are executing on the proposal (e.g. finance our community garden to buy tools, land and supplies).

It’s important to discuss the potential harm in pursuing funding proposals within SEEDS.

Fosters unhealthy competition

Funding proposal (donation campaigns carry this to a degree as well) disproportionately benefits the person, project or region making the proposal.

Whereas an invite campaign doesn’t contain the same self-interested motivations and rewards. A campaign to pay anyone for planting a tree is something anyone, anywhere can participate in — it doesn’t (by default) benefit one person, region or group more than another (a proposal to create a community garden, only benefits that community).

Where a proposal to fund a project in a particular region or organization only benefits that region (sowing competition between regional proposals and organizations).

A premise remains that we can avoid this competition if we focus on funding proposals that are global and non-competitive (e.g. something that equally benefits every participant and is open for all to participate in).

More examples include

1. “Do a good deed, make a video and share on social media #GoodDeedsGetSeeds and get N Seeds and an invite to a new economic system”.
2. “Plant a tree, make a video and share on social media with #PlantTreesGetSeeds, call out 3 friends to do that same and earn N Seeds”.
3. “Get to know 3 of your neighbours you didn’t know before, share about your experience with #LocalisingtheRegenerativeRenaissance and earn N Seeds”.
4. “Transform you lawn into a garden, share about your experience with the #growfoodnotlawns and #SEEDS and earn N Seeds”.

Proposals crafted this way:

1. help grow the movement by inviting new people in;
2. don’t require Seeds to be sold to fiat to have a regenerative impact;
3. are global and non-competitive;
4. are easy to run and manage. A campaign runner can earn a lot in referrals simply by scanning for the right hashtags on social media for their campaign and sending invites — low effort, high upside (all baked into the current designs).
5. are Regenerative by design (meeting neighbors, planting trees, good deeds, etc) and this is what Citizens are voting for (what’s the most regenerative impact).
6. are likely to cause much less frustration if your campaign idea doesn’t pass. As it wasn’t about you and your project to begin with.

Campaigns for donations

For those wanting to use Campaigns to finance non-profit or purpose-driven causes, there’s been a few successful models using the Campaign system to subsidize donations (and reward/invite a diversity of donors).

2 examples are Forest Without Frontiers and Barichara Regeneration Fund. This is a good model as it gets the projects the funding (in fiat currency) they’re needing up-front while still following the spirit of Campaigns (sending a small number of Seeds to a wide diversity of people without the need for Seeds to be sold to create impact).

Again, Campaigns are not intended for projects such as: “I want $30,000 in Seeds to fund my project (however regenerative it may be)!

If money is needed up-front to pay expenses, then there are other avenues to get funding in the movement — such as the Hypha Incubator, Hypha DHO and other DHO’s starting up (see below).

Campaign funds are not intended to give Seeds to projects that are looking for up-front pay.

If you need money to pay bills and meet your needs — then Campaigns are not ideal. Prepare a quest to bring to Hypha or another DHO keep reading for more on these…

How to propose a Campaign

Hypha DHO (Financing)

Examples Include:

1. Quest to build an API for wordpress for organisations to accept Seeds payments;
2. Quest to expand the Hypha DHO tools to better support villages, retreats and communities;
3. Role to develop the SEEDS Passport Game and tools;
4. Role to build a decentralized communication tool for supporting our fast growing global movement;
5. etc… (see here for more examples).

Hypha DHO exists to create tools and systems to scale the Regenerative Renaissance!

Hypha DHO is for product, tech and tool-centric contributions looking for compensation to create the tools the Regenerative Renaissance needs!

If you’re looking to get paid yourself, or for your project/organisation for building and providing tools for this movement, then Hypha is your place to go to co-create.

If you’d like to create with Hypha:

1. Join the Hypha Discord server and share your idea in the “Quests channel” for feedback;
2. Prepare a Quest outline detailing the value you’d like to bring and how much you’d like to be paid for bringing it;
3. Ensure this Quest is focused on building the tools, tech, products needed for this movement — or otherwise in direct support of Hypha’s stated milestones;
4. Attend a “DHO’sday Tuesday” call (reach out to a Hypha member for an invite) and share your idea.

See Hypha real-time at DHO.Hypha.Earth — you can login to Hypha using your SEEDS account (if you don’t have one yet, first connect with a current SEEDS member and get an invite). You can get your Private Key” to login from your SEEDS Passport or SEEDS Wallet in the setting under “back up Private Key”.

Screenshot of the “Hypha DHO” realtime showing people applying for and getting votes/funding for their Quests and Contributions.

Hypha’s Movement Building Circle and Samara DHO (Financing)

Examples map include:

1. Quest to create an “academy” to support the people of SEEDS in understanding all the tools of this movement;
2. Role for supporting new members joining SEEDS and how to find their way in this movement;
3. Role supporting organisations in adding “Pay with Seeds”, getting an Alliance share and joining the movement;
4. Role focused on aggregating and sharing insights about decentralized (and regenerative) finance and governance;
5. etc…

Hypha’s MBC & Samara DHO exists to support the people of the Regenerative Renaissance!

These two groups are for proposals around Movement Building and supporting the people of the Regenerative Renaissance!

If you’re looking to get paid yourself (or for your project) for supporting in movement building you may want to contribute to one of these groups!

Hypha’s Movement Building Circle

If you have ideas or would like to directly contribute to building the SEEDS movement such as:

1. Helping people learn about SEEDS and navigate this journey;
2. understanding more about the potential and current tools available for rethinking economics and governance;
3. supporting in running campaigns, onboarding alliance members, helping people use Seeds in their day-to-day lives;
4. Projects that are focused on supporting this movement and helping it thrive can find support in the Movement building Circle.

Connect with Dannie in the SEEDS Discord or anyone with the “Ambassador” tag and share your intention!

Samara DHO

Samara is currently forming a “generation 2 DHO” focused on serving the people and projects of the Regenerative Renaissance with running pilots and on-the-ground activations of movement building and more! They’re currently in the DNA stage and discovering what their purpose is. If you’re wanting to deeply commit to creating a new type of organisation focused on growing the Regenerative Renaissance — this may be the place for you!

Hypha Incubator (Financing)

Examples Include:

1. Samara (Movement Building org.)
2. Local Scale (Marketplace, Aggregator, Integrator org.)
3. dStudio (Content production house)
4. Bali Food Forest (Regenerative Food org.)
5. Events and Festivals
6. Local/Light Food (Regenerative and Local Food org.)
7. Etc…

The Hypha Incubator is for funding projects and organisations intended to serve the movement.

You have a proposal from your organization that you believe would add a lot of value to the Regenerative Renaissance and you need funding up front ?

Then you can make a proposal to the Hypha Incubator program to potentially get funding for your organisation, cause or movement.

Preference is for projects building and using Hypha’s DHO tools and using a project token (like Samara, Local Scale, Bali Food Forest, etc) as this makes it easier to integrate and share/co-build compensation and finance systems.

Many SEEDS campaign requests would have been more likely candidates for Hypha Quests and Incubation funding!

If you’re interested in Quest/Incubation funding — prepare:

1. A deck or document detailing your model;
2. A team that will execute;
3. Actionable month-to-month milestones (for at least the first 3 months!) and how they serve the movement;
4. A Quest proposal to Hypha for 1 month of operations for your team (if successful, you can continue proposing monthly quests) consisting of how much money you need to complete the first milestone and how this adds value to Hypha and the wider Regenerative Renaissance.

For more preferential consideration apply for, and receive, a SEEDS Alliance share for your organisation.

Reach out to a Hypha DHO Catalyst (Currently, Paulo or Rieki) for further directions on how and where to apply for incubation funding after the above documentation is gathered.

Global Public Funding

Examples include:

1. Hypha that’s building tools for SEEDS.
2. Samara that’s helping organise the movement.
3. Renaissance Explorers that’s focused on evolving the Guide and improving our systems.
4. etc.

SEEDS is evolving to start sharing the “SEEDS Sale” revenue amongst more organizations than Hypha.

Organizations wanting to support the movement that need upfront pay (so that members of these organizations may get paid) can petition the Citizens to receive some of these public funds.

This is the best route for organisations to earn up-front pay (e.g. money to pay bills) to fund their contributions.

Regional Funding Proposals (Financing) (Coming Later)

Examples include:

1. An interest free loan for $30K Euro in Seeds to buy land to start a regenerative market garden in your region.
2. A $20K USD in Seeds grant for running a “Regenerative Renaissance” event to spread the movement in your region.
3. Interest free loan to your project or business that’s focused on providing tools for global regeneration.
4. Any request for a grant for a project intended to serve people and/or planet.
5. etc…

Regional Funding Proposals are similar to the majority of proposals that have been going through as Campaign proposals (as of August 2021).

These types of proposals will best serve the movement when they are proposed to regions that have a minimum level of active participation (e.g. 144 Citizens). Further, more tools (like the DHO, and region-focused Passport) are needed to most effectively serve the local needs of communities.

Regional DHO’s will be the vehicles for financing on-the-ground regeneration in communities across the globe.

By the community, for the community and our planet.

So, if your proposal for funding consists of a start-up or project focused on serving your community (not growing the global movement or building scalable tools) then it’s probably best to wait until Regional Funding Proposals are up and ready to fund your project. In the meantime maybe there are other ways (listed above) that you can help grow this movement to get SEEDS to a point where it’s healthy enough to fund your project!

This is one of the ways SEEDS is designed to align all our interests. Giving pathways for people to meet their needs today while best serving what this new economy needs to thrive.