WhitePaper Series: Impact Sellers

Hello ChangeMakers, It’s Proof of Impact here. We will be coming out with posts and articles called the WhitePaper Series. This series is meant to outline, define and explain the issues in impact investing, POI’s solution and application that we believe are necessary for the impact industry to bring forth the Purpose Economy and promote measurable and transparent progress in our world. In this fifth installment, we’ll be discussing the impact marketplace players and focusing on impact providers user experience, or as we refer to them as ‘impact sellers’

The Impact Marketplace

The Marketplace is designed for two primary users: Impact Implementers (sellers) and Impact Buyers:

1. Impact Implementers (Sellers) include anyone who has the capability to implement a relevant impact event. They can include any type of company or organization or individuals. A local hospital delivering immunizations. A non-profit distributing clean cookstoves. A school. A multinational or a small company wanting to demonstrate the social and environmental standards they adhere to in their manufacturing or production processes. Intermediaries in supply chains who want to make the economic distribution of their supply chain transparent. Local health providers that want to access additional sources of income. Local communities planting trees or cleaning beaches.
2. Impact Funders (Buyers) can include traditional institutional and individual impact donors (i.e., who give unrestricted funds that are not contingent on an impact event), investors seeking impact return only (i.e., who give donations that are linked to the achievement of impact events, but not linked to a financial return), investors seeking both impact and financial return, and payers who pay upon successful impact delivery (e.g., government entities, philanthropy)

Just like in any marketplace model, the two primary user types have different needs and different navigation options/ experiences in the Marketplace and, as needed, dedicated pieces of infrastructure (wallets, admin panels, dashboards). The Marketplace is in the public domain for anyone to view the available impact tokens, track their history, research their context and study the order book. As the Marketplace matures, more impact events will be added, others will be removed, and those with the greatest success will continue to be funded until the outcome is achieved.

Impact Seller: The User Experience

At scale, sellers have the ability to browse a searchable menu of impact event types and view how much they would be paid for successful submission of unique events. They also have the ability to suggest new categories of events and offer them to buyers.

The Marketplace will also indicate which impact event types have committed capital that is ready to be deployed. This searchable menu of impact event types, and associated price per impact event, will be publicly available and will allow Implementers to learn which impact areas funders care about and demonstrate why they should join the Marketplace.

Currently — as we grow the marketplace and define quality verification standards — implementers need hands on guidance on how to structure their data, proof points and operations to become suitable for platform access.

Step 1: Onboarding

Sellers complete a standard signup and account creation, followed by an onboarding process. The onboarding allows Sellers to create a profile that includes choosing their industry characteristics (e.g., industries, SDG focus areas) and selecting one or more of their preferred funding mechanisms (i.e., paid upon impact event, selling future impact events, and/or receiving non-contingent donations with no impact event). Implementers will be able to fill out and upload their organizational characteristics (e.g., tax status, prior audits, and annual reports).

Step 2: Selecting Impact Events

Upon creating a profile, sellers are directed back to the searchable menu of impact event types. For each impact event type, they will be able to look up the definition, price per impact event, delivery requirements, exclusion criteria, and other information needed to determine their capability to deliver verification that achieve the impact event. Sellers will then select the impact event types that they would like to add to their profiles, along with their track record and evidence base of completing these impact event types. Sellers also have the option to propose adding impact event types not on the menu for consideration. After the impact event types are added to the Seller’s profile, they will be able to see near- real-time which impact event types have open capital committed by Buyers (i.e., capital for any Implementer to gain upon completion of an impact event) and which impact event types do not have capital committed.

Sellers will also be matched with Buyers who have committed closed capital (i.e., capital in which Buyers choose the Sellers who will receive the funding). Sellers and Buyers will be able to view their matches and then have the ability to communicate and share information on an enhanced messaging platform. Sellers and Buyers can then commit to engage in a partnership based on a selected amount of capital or selected number of impact events or any other variables. Sellers and Buyers can also agree to pursue and set their own terms for a donation or loan on this enhanced messaging platform .

Step 3: Delivering and Tracking Impact Events

Sellers will then begin to deliver verification proof for their selected impact event types. For each impact event type, Sellers will need to track and input all required data points (as instructed on the impact event type menu) to verify their completion of each unique impact event. For tracking purpose, Sellers will be instructed to select whether they will submit their data manually (e.g., by uploading timestamps, photos, bar codes, vitals, and other necessary data points into the Marketplace data entry page), or automatically by connecting the organization’s existing data entry systems and delivered through an API connection. Once the data has been validated a corresponding token is created and added to the ledger. From this moment on, the impact event can be traded.

Step 4: Payments and Dashboards

The Proof of Impact Protocol has a payment layer that allows fiat and crypto deposits and withdrawals. The impact event payment will automatically be processed through the Proof of Impact payment and settlement platform and placed in the Implementer’s account. This can happen manually or through smart contracts, depending on the structure of tokens traded.

Implementers will be able to link existing bank accounts to the Marketplace and transfer funds accordingly. Implementers will also be able to view an interactive dashboard that tracks their impact events delivered (submitted, validation passed, validation failed), total funding, and total impact. This will be a downloadable and exportable document that can be used for future fundraising purposes.