By the numbers

• 204 PRs merged

• 115 issues shipped to production

• 15+ new features and capabilities

• 10+ UX improvements

• 30+ bug fixes

• 47 Filecoin-focused updates supporting the ProPGF Batch 3 round

A research platform for donor advisors

The biggest story of the month: we built out the donor advisor product, a research platform that helps advisors match their donors with the right nonprofits. It starts with data. We loaded IRS Form 990 and 990-PF filings going back to 2016, so every foundation and nonprofit in the system carries real financials: income, expenses, and assets for the last three years, right in the report.

On top of that data we shipped the advisor workflow. Advisors describe their donor once, and an LLM refines that into a donor persona: structured fields for org maturity, geography, faith stance, gift size, and advocacy stance, each one confirmable and editable. That persona then drives everything downstream: it pre-fills filters and weights when you create a research report, and it shows up as its own section in the synthesis. Advisors can also customize scoring weights directly, so a donor who cares more about financial health than growth gets rankings that reflect it.

Reports are built to be shared. Advisors send donors a shareable report that looks exactly like their own view, donors and advisors can leave comments on it, and when a donor wants to go deeper on a nonprofit, they can request diligence or an intro with one click. We also added deep research on individual nonprofits, including social channel activity as a signal. The whole loop, from persona to research to shared report to intro, now runs end to end.

Tool to research philanthropic funders

On top of the 990 data, we also built a tool to help nonprofits research the foundations who fund nonprofits. There are many tools in the market to do this research but surprisingly none of them allow you to do complex natural language queries. We are already seeing organic growth of this tool. We will continue to improve this tool.

Powering Filecoin ProPGF Batch 3

June was launch month for Filecoin's ProPGF Batch 3, and we supported the round end to end on filpgf.io: 47 shipped updates covering the application window opening, the timeline and content updates through the round, and the application close.

A lot of that work went into the AI assistant that applicants, reviewers, and grantees use. We tuned prompt suggestions to adapt to who's signed in, fixed response quality issues (project names instead of IDs, accurate pending-review lists, correct citations), tightened the knowledge base so program docs actually get picked up, and made sure AI evaluations always use the latest application data. Running an AI interface inside a live grant round with a demanding ops team is the best quality loop we could ask for.

We also shipped real workflow upgrades for the program: a redesigned reviewer inbox, bi-weekly snapshot reports of everything pending review (by staff, reviewer, pod, or grantee), invoice age tracking in check reports, and required Funding Requested and Completion Criteria fields on milestones so applications come in complete instead of half-filled.

An open standard for funding opportunity data

Funding opportunity data is scattered and inconsistent across every ecosystem. In June we published v1.0.0 of an open schema for funding opportunities, validated against 20+ real entries from the Karma Funding Map before locking it. The standard is public: CC0-licensed schema, MIT-licensed repo, with contribution guidelines and governance docs.

We didn't start from scratch. The schema ships with a crosswalk to DAOstar's DAOIP-5 Grants Metadata Standard and schema.org/Grant, so it plugs into the standards work the ecosystem has already done.

And it's not just a spec on paper. We shipped the core of a public read API: opportunity endpoints with full filter, search, sort, and pagination support, loaded with a 100+ entry seed dataset where every entry validates against the schema. Full public docs land in early July.

More highlights this month

• On-chain milestone completions: milestone completion state now lives fully on-chain as EAS attestations, one verifiable source of truth instead of two parallel records.

• Admins can complete milestones for grantees: when a grantee goes inactive, admins record the completion directly from the Milestones Review workspace instead of being stuck.

• Milestone management on project pages: community admins can now complete and update milestones right from project pages.

• Team member invites: community admins can add team members, and accepted members get admin access by default.

• Agentic knowledge base: the KB can now register whole sites as skill manifests, so agents can use data portals and query interfaces instead of just reading chunked text.

• Trusted agent identity: API calls made by our MCP agent now carry the verified caller identity end to end, hardening authorization across the platform.

• Search our funder database from ChatGPT or Claude: we published instructions for querying Karma's nonprofit funding data straight from your AI assistant.

UX polish

• Redesigned the reviewer inbox page.

• Cleaned up the funding applicant dashboard.

• Foundation, grant, and nonprofit URLs now use clean name slugs instead of UUIDs.

• Monthly reports now default to holistic graphs, with per-project breakdown a toggle away.

• AI interface prompt suggestions adapt to whether you're signed in and who you are.

Performance and reliability

• Fixed an out-of-memory issue in the indexer.

• The in-product chatbot now degrades gracefully on heavy turns and continues reliably instead of stalling silently.

• Killed a request storm on project pages that fired hundreds of duplicate fetches.

• Ported legacy V1 write endpoints to V2 with proper server-side authorization, closing a real security gap.

• Our Sentry-to-PR automation now spins up an agent to fix new production errors and open a PR automatically.

Notable fixes

• Editing a milestone no longer creates a duplicate, it updates the original.

• Embedded wallets (email and Google login) now confirm chain switches before signing, and Google login no longer creates duplicate wallets.

• Fixed a nonce collision that broke gasless milestone deletion.

• Community admins can now download invoices (previously blocked by an owner-only check).

• Admins and reviewers can submit to closed funding programs as intended, apply surfaces now respect roles.

• Fixed application submission errors that could wipe an application at login.

• 10+ Sentry-tracked production fixes across the indexer and frontend.

What's next

July picks up right where June left off: public API docs for the funding-data standard are already live at /v1/docs, and there's more coming on the donor advisor side. As always, huge thanks to our dev team for the hard work behind all of this. Got feedback or feature requests? Join our Telegram group and let us know.

How do you give funders real visibility into where their money goes? How do you measure the impact of grants once they're deployed? How do you efficiently match causes with the people who want to fund them?

The deeper we got into these questions, the clearer it became that they aren't web3 problems. They're funding problems. The same questions are wide open in the much larger philanthropic sector, just at a scale that dwarfs anything happening in crypto.

Traditional philanthropy does have one signal that doesn't exist in web3: IRS 990 filings.

Every foundation and nonprofit in US has to file one. They contain a remarkable level of detail about who funded who, how much, in what year, for what cause. Decades of data, hundreds of billions of dollars of giving. All public.

The catch is that it's painful to access it. The data is locked inside PDFs. The search tools are paid, fragmented, and surface level. To answer something as basic as "how has the Packard Foundation's giving evolved over the last 3 years and where did the money actually go" you'd spend hours stitching together filings by hand.

We needed this for our own research, so we built a tool that indexes every 990 filed in last 10 years (which is millions of filings) and lets you ask questions in plain English.

A few things you can ask:

• How much did the Packard Foundation give in the last 3 years, and to whom?

• Find foundations that have funded youth literacy programs in the Midwest under $500K

• Who has funded nonprofits like ours recently?

You get back actual grant data. Amounts, recipients, patterns, trends. Real evidence of who funds what.

It turns out this is exactly what nonprofit fundraisers and grant writers spend most of their week doing manually. So we cleaned it up and made it public.

One more thing we're proud of: you don't have to come to our website at all. Connect the tool to ChatGPT or Claude through MCP and do your prospect research inside the tools you already use every day.

This is the start of Karma working on funding beyond web3. The problems we care about exist everywhere, and we want to work on them everywhere.

Free to try:

https://www.karmahq.xyz/nonprofits/find-funders

May was a big month at Karma. We closed out the multi-phase migration that moves all offchain milestone state onchain, shipped a new AI Interface that puts the chatbot at the center of any community grant program, and stood up the infrastructure to let AI agents (both ours and yours) connect to Karma directly. Across 276 PRs and 134 issues, here's everything that landed.

By the numbers

• 276 PRs merged across our repos

• 134 issues shipped to production

• 25+ new features and capabilities

• 14 UX improvements

• 30+ bug fixes

• 27 Filecoin-focused updates as we prepared for ProPGF Batch 3

• 3-phase on-chain milestones migration completed

The AI Interface for funding communities, plus AI evaluation for everyone

Filecoin is one of the most active grant programs we work with, and ProPGF Batch 3 opened on May 26. In the weeks leading up to it, we rebuilt the grant interface around the AI assistant. The chatbot is no longer a panel off to the side. It's the primary way applicants explore programs, ask about eligibility, and figure out how their work fits.

A lot went into making that experience worth using. We ingested the full Filecoin documentation into the RAG knowledge base, rewrote how the bot returns answers (no more "Based on the knowledge base..." preamble, step-by-step instructions inline instead of pointers to external guides), and added a thumbs up/down rating system tied to Langfuse so we can see what's working. We also taught the agent to answer reviewer-scenario questions like "what's Eva reviewing this week?" and to surface cross-project context when a reviewer is evaluating someone they've seen before.

Alongside the Filecoin work, we shipped general-purpose AI evaluation of grant applications. Paste your evaluation criteria, upload a CSV of applications, and get scored results back in minutes instead of weeks. Reviewers also get richer context now: when they open an application, AI pulls the team's historical milestones, impact metrics, and past program participation from their Karma profile and surfaces it right in the review workspace. Less tab switching, better decisions.

OAuth for AI agents, and Hermes for non-profits

The third big shift in May is harder to see in screenshots but is going to matter a lot. We stood up an OAuth server as a separate service so external AI agents can connect to Karma securely. That's the prerequisite for the next wave of agent-assisted grant workflows: applicants who use an AI agent to draft applications, reviewers who delegate triage to one, program operators who build automations on top of Karma without us having to bake every integration in by hand.

We also shipped Hermes agents, the per-org AI assistant for non-profits. Any non-profit on Karma can now spin up its own AI employee with org-specific context loaded in. No engineering required, just configuration. And to back the funder research side, we ingested IRS Form 990, 990-EZ, and 990-PF filings back to 2020 so grantees can find aligned funders from inside Karma instead of bouncing between five different tools.

The last quiet shift: Sentry alerts now spin up Claude to open PRs that fix common production issues automatically. It's how we kept the bug count down while shipping this much.

Onchain milestones, end to end

For most of the past year, milestone state on Karma has lived in a hybrid place: some onchain, some offchain, and a lot of careful merging in between. That was always meant to be a step on the way to something cleaner. In May, we finished the trip.

We shipped the migration in three phases. Phase one backfilled every legacy completion onchain and tightened up indexer dedup so old and new milestones tell the same story. Phase two cut every reader over to on-chain as the source of truth and demolished the off-chain writers. Phase three surfaced server-merged milestone statuses to admins, plus on-chain delete and cross-community auth hardening on top.

More highlights this month

• Karmagrants and Grant Atlas merged into the main app: one product surface for browsing grants, applying, and tracking progress instead of three separate destinations.

• Slack and Telegram DMs for reviewers: reviewers get direct nudges when something needs their attention, configurable at the program or community level.

• Async portfolio reports: monthly and biweekly portfolio reports now generate in the background, so admins keep working while the LLM does its job.

• Safe multisig claim queue: multisig grantees can queue claim transactions instead of needing the whole quorum online at the same time.

• Reviewer reuse across programs: pick from existing community reviewers when launching a new round instead of re-adding them every time.

• Completion criteria in the review workspace: reviewers see what counts as "done" for a milestone right where they review it.

• Custom metrics in intake forms: programs can define structured metrics in application forms instead of relying on free-text fields.

• Per-community access messages: customize what users see when they hit a "not allowed" wall, with clearer context on which role they need and who to contact.

• Required Funding Requested and Completion Criteria fields on milestones, so reviewers always have the bar to grade against.

• "How to review" walkthrough link attached to reviewer notifications on Telegram and Slack.

UX polish

• One Telegram nudge per mention: if a reviewer is tagged across N items, they get one consolidated message instead of N pings.

• OAuth consent page redesigned with role-grouped scope copy (operator, grantee, non-profit) so people understand what they're approving.

• Updates page redesign plus milestone review page cleanup.

• Markdown tables in application form descriptions actually render now.

• Multiline text areas are no longer bold by default.

Performance and reliability

• Admin-wallet nonce coordination hardened across every on-chain write service, preventing dropped or stuck transactions.

• Smoke-test coverage expanded across pages.

Notable fixes

• EIP-7702 nonce fix so embedded-wallet users (email, Google, Farcaster login) can sign gasless attestations again.

• Closed an access-code gate bypass where the application form was unlocking on wrong codes.

• Rabby chain-switch error on cross-chain submits, resolved.

• Privy auth fetch failure on the program apply flow, resolved.

• Edit-application crash on form fields with digit-leading labels, fixed.

• Milestone-edit duplication bug (editing a milestone created a duplicate and broke ordering), fixed.

Thank you to every funder and ecosystem builder who trust Karma with your work. Your feedback shapes everything we build.

The shipping in April was dense at Karma. We shipped across every layer of the product, a foundational architecture shift to make Karma agent-native, new Telegram and Discord notifications for grant reviewers, a batch of milestone workflow fixes, and a handful of UI improvements that have been on the wishlist for a while. Here's everything that went out the door.

Headless Platform & Agent-Native Architecture

The biggest strategic move this month was to make Karma as a headless platform. The team rearchitected the entire middleware so that Karma's webapp is just one interface — not the only interface. Programs and builders can now interact with Karma through:

APIs and Skills (already live)

MCP (Model Context Protocol) — for agent-native integrations

Any AI agent or automation layer

This opens the door to workflows we couldn't support before: AI agents that review grant applications, automated milestone tracking, and custom interfaces built on top of Karma's data layer. It's a quiet but significant shift from "grants web app" to "grants infrastructure."

Telegram Notifications for Reviewers

We shipped full Telegram notification support for grant workflows:

When an applicant posts a comment on a pending application, program reviewers get notified. Once an application is approved, milestone reviewers take over the notification thread. Each notification includes the title in bold, up to 500 characters of context, reviewer tags, and a direct link

This matters because review cycles have historically relied on people checking Karma manually. Now the work comes to reviewers, not the other way around.

Milestone & Invoice Workflow Fixes

A couple of long-standing pain points in the milestone flow got resolved:

Invoice verification no longer gets overwritten. There was a potential edge case where a grantee would: complete a milestone → forget to add an invoice → admin verifies → grantee adds the invoice → and accidentally trigger a second on-chain completion that overwrote the original verification. That flow is now blocked.

Project updates ordering and milestone status filter. Milestone completions are now ordered first on project pages — exactly what Filecoin admins asked for during a live call. A second-level milestone status dropdown filter was also added, consistent with how status is displayed elsewhere in the app.

Data Quality & Identity Improvements

Filecoin applications now show project names. When 1,013 Filecoin programs were ingested as applications, they were missing a projectName field, so every title just showed a raw reference ID. Fixed.

Names shown wherever addresses were shown. A sweep across the UI to replace raw wallet addresses with display names wherever a resolved name is available. Small change, big readability lift.

Filecoin project data synced from OSO. Open Source Observer data for Filecoin projects is now synced into Karma, enriching project profiles with external activity signals.

Funding Program. ChainID no longer required for funding programs. The requirement was removed, but errors were still surfacing. The backend was audited and remaining references cleaned up.

UI & Platform Polish

Landing page refresh. The home page, for-projects page, and communities pages were updated to speak directly to funders and grant operators.

Login button on Filecoin/Optimism static pages. Now appears correctly on the static-page versions of those grant portals.

Whitelabel navbar crash fixed. A TypeError: Class extends value undefined was crashing every whitelabel page whose first SDK evaluation was a deep import into the Karma GAP SDK. Fixed at the import level.

Project settings button hidden from non-owners. Non-owners no longer see the settings dropdown at all.

Frontend report logic. Report generation logic shipped to the frontend, enabling in-app reporting workflows.

Closing This month's work balances depth and breadth. A major architecture unlock with the headless platform, real-world workflow fixes requested by Filecoin admins, and a steadier system underneath. If you're a grant program running on Karma and want to explore the API or MCP integrations, reach out. We're building this for you.

Website: www.karmahq.xyz

Schedule a demo: https://calendly.com/mvmurthy

Major Updates

KYC/KYB Integration We integrated with compliance provider Treova so programs can verify grantees before disbursing funds. This has been a long-standing need for programs operating in regulated environments, and it's now live.

Stripe Onramp Funders can now support projects using fiat and card payments. This removes one of the biggest friction points for funders who aren't web3-native — no wallet required.

API Key Authentication AI agents and scripts can now authenticate with Karma using long-lived API keys, enabling programmatic access without browser-based login flows. This is a foundational piece of our agentic platform.

Control Center The payouts page has been reimagined into a full Control Center. Admins can now track KYB status, agreement signing, invoice status, milestone progress, and disbursements — all in one place.

User Dashboard When you log in, you now land on a personalized dashboard showing your projects, applications, and activity — not a generic homepage.

New Features

Team Management Applicants can now add team members to their application, so the person who submitted it isn't the only one who can track and update it.

Application Editing & Revision Workflow Admins can request revisions on submitted applications, and applicants can edit and resubmit — no more starting from scratch.

Pending Verification Tab Milestone reviewers now have a dedicated tab showing everything awaiting verification, making it easy to see what needs attention at a glance.

Grant Verification Gating Program admins can prevent unverified projects from adding grants to their profile, keeping program data accurate and clean.

Email Notifications on Submission Applicants now receive a confirmation email when their application is submitted. No more wondering if it went through.

Funding Allocation vs. Distribution Tracking Dashboards now show how much was granted versus how much has actually been distributed for each project — a distinction that matters.

Milestone Review on Project Profile Reviewers can now verify milestones directly from the project profile page, not just the admin panel.

LLMs.txt We added AI-friendly documentation so LLMs can better understand and interact with Karma — part of our broader work to make the platform accessible to AI agents.

UX Improvements

Admin Dashboard Redesign A fresh, modern admin dashboard that surfaces the most important information upfront with a cleaner layout.

Browse Applications Redesign The whitelabel browse page got a full visual overhaul — filter chips, improved cards, skeleton loading states, and a more polished overall feel.

Project Profile Page Redesign Updated project profiles with cleaner design and better information hierarchy.

Projects Page Enhancements Better filtering, including a new "Raising Funds" filter, plus visual feedback when filters are applied.

Role Tags in Whitelabel Users can now see their role — admin, reviewer, or applicant — displayed clearly within the whitelabel app.

Smarter Navigation "Applications" is now a default nav item for all tenants, and new admin helper buttons make getting around faster.

A lot of this shipped directly from conversations with our users and community. If you have ideas on how we can make Karma even better, reply here or join our Telegram at t.me/karmahq — we're listening.

Our first three skills

1. Find Funding Opportunities

Discover grants, hackathons, and bounties all in one place. Built for both humans and agents — so you can scan for opportunities manually or let your agent do it automatically.

2. Create and Manage Projects

Set up your project profile, update details, and keep your onchain presence current — without touching the Karma UI. Agents can handle project setup as part of any onboarding or deployment workflow.

3. Milestones and Updates

Add milestones, mark them complete, and post project updates directly through your agent. Keep your funders and program managers in the loop without context-switching.

Installation

A few ways to get started:

1. npx skills add show-karma/skills

2. Point your AI agent here: github.com/show-karma/skills

3. Set up an OpenClaw cron job to have your agent automatically scan for new opportunities, post updates, or sync project progress on a schedule.

You can also continue to browse directly: gap.karmahq.xyz/funding-map

What's next

The goal is for Karma to be the single source of truth for every type of funding opportunity out there — and for your agents to act on them, manage your projects, and keep your community updated without any manual effort from you. We're moving fast. More skills coming soon.

Highlights

Integrated Payout Disbursement System

We built a complete payout management system that transforms the Payouts page from a passive tracking tool into an active capital disbursement interface. Program managers can now select multiple projects, configure payout amounts per milestone, and create Safe transactions directly from Karma. The system tracks disbursement status and history per project, with full visibility into what was paid, when, and via which transaction.

AI Prompt Management

Program admins can now manage AI evaluation prompts directly within our platform instead of through external tools. We've retained Langfuse for tracing and tracking while making prompt configuration more accessible. Admins can also re-evaluate all applications with an updated prompt in one click.

Ecosystem-Level Impact Metrics for Filecoin

We added support for ecosystem-wide metrics tracking for Filecoin. This includes importing data from parquet files to display aggregate indicators like daily active clients, total deals, data stored, and network revenue on the community impact page. This is a shift from per-project metrics to ecosystem-level visibility. You can see all the metrics here https://www.karmahq.xyz/community/filecoin/impact

OSO Integration for Optimism Impact Data

We rebuilt our Open Source Observer (OSO) integration from scratch to fetch TVL and transaction fee data for Optimism projects. All data now has proper tracking and visualization on the impact tab https://www.karmahq.xyz/community/optimism/impact

Targeted Reviewer Notifications

Reviewer email notifications are now smarter. If reviewers are assigned to specific applications, only those assigned reviewers receive notifications. If no reviewers are assigned, all program reviewers get notified as before. This reduces notification noise significantly.

Application Reviewer Assignment

Admins can now assign specific reviewers to individual funding applications. The applications table includes new columns for app reviewers and milestone reviewers, displayed as multi-select dropdowns for easy assignment management.

Donation System Enhancements

We expanded the donation feature with chain-specific payout addresses. Project owners can now enable donations and configure separate payout addresses for Base, Optimism, Celo, Lisk, Polygon, and Scroll. We also added a "My Donations" page in user profiles to show donation history.

Application Form Gating

Programs can now be publicly visible while requiring an access code to submit applications. This is useful for invite-only programs where admins share codes with specific applicants.

Other Improvements

- Payment distribution enhancements: Admins now configure payout settings once (address, amount, milestones) and simply select options during disbursement

- Explore projects page refactor: Cleaner, more intuitive browsing experience

- Community page filters: Added more filtering options for better navigation

- Application search: Added search functionality for applications on whitelabel sites

- Funding opportunities tab: New tab on community pages showing active funding programs with direct navigation

- Program onboarding UX: Improved the entire flow for creating and configuring grant programs

- Application editing post-approval: Community admins can now update post-approval information

- Inline approve/reject forms: Replaced modal popups with inline forms for faster application review

- Gas fee tracking: Now storing gas used as a new impact indicator for linked contract addresses

- Karma profile link in applications: Custom field for applicants to link existing Karma profiles, improving project sync accuracy

- Rejection reason now optional: Reviewers no longer required to provide a reason when rejecting

- Program registry moved offchain: Simplified by removing blockchain writes and using our database directly

- Simplified dates in program registry: Cleaner date handling for funding programs

- Daily donation summaries: Discord notifications when projects receive donations or link payout addresses

- Locked funds display: Shows vesting lock status when users claim funds on whitelabel

- Sentry exception tracking: Added to both frontend applications for better error monitoring

- Dependencies audit: Evaluated and updated outdated dependencies in gap-indexer for security

Bug Fixes

We had about 40 bug fixes go into production in January!

Questions of feature requests? Reach out to our team on Telegram: https://t.me/karmahq

The PL Filecoin Impact Fund is excited to announce that it has chosen Karma as the platform to manage the ProPGF Batch 2 funding program - a $4M initiative designed to accelerate innovation across the Filecoin ecosystem. This partnership brings modular grant management infrastructure to one of the most established decentralized storage networks.

Why Karma for Filecoin?

Filecoin's ProPGF program supports teams building critical open source infrastructure, research, governance tooling, and user experience improvements across the ecosystem.  Managing a program of this scale requires infrastructure that handles complexity without creating friction for grantees. Karma provides exactly that: streamlined milestone tracking, onchain reporting, and transparent progress visibility from application through payout.

Built for Complexity, Designed for Simplicity

Karma's modular infrastructure lets Filecoin configure each component to match ProPGF's specific workflow. Each module works independently while integrating with the others:

Application Management: For Batch 2, ProPGF is using Karma's AI-assisted application system to collect and organize proposals across five distinct funding categories, including SDKs and APIs, governance frameworks, and end-user interfaces. The AI helps reviewers quickly parse applications and identify key information.

Milestone-Based Tracking and Payouts: Since all ProPGF grants are milestone-based with payouts tied to verified deliverables, Karma's real-time tracking system becomes essential. Grantees will submit milestone updates with proof of work, creating complete transparency from funding decisions through final delivery. Payments are triggered based on verified milestones.

Onchain Attestations: Every milestone completion, evaluation, and funding decision is recorded as an onchain attestation using EAS, creating a permanent and verifiable record of accountability within the ecosystem.

Impact Tracking: Karma now tracks the four core metrics ProPGF has identified as critical to ecosystem growth. Grantees can showcase their real contributions, and the foundation gets a clear, data-driven view of how grant funding translates into tangible outcomes.

The Filecoin Advantage

For Filecoin, this partnership introduces accessible, onchain, and sustainable funding infrastructure to empower grantees and drive ecosystem growth. 

Portable Reputation: Karma powers programs across Optimism, Celo, Scroll, and now Filecoin. Teams applying to ProPGF can bring verified track records from other ecosystems, and work completed for Filecoin builds a reputation that carries forward to future opportunities.

Welcoming New Builders: Karma's project registry and documentation tools make it easier for newcomers to understand what success looks like and how to demonstrate progress effectively.

Real-Time Integration: Through Karma's integrations with GitHub, Dune, and custom data sources, Filecoin can automatically track technical metrics alongside milestone submissions, ensuring that funded projects deliver measurable impact to the ecosystem.

What This Means for Applicants

If you've applied to Filecoin ProPGF Batch 2, you'll experience grant management designed around builder success:

• Clear expectations: Milestone-based funding means you know exactly what needs to be delivered and when

• Transparent tracking: Real-time visibility into your application status and milestone progress

• Proof of impact: Your work gets recorded onchain, building a portable reputation across ecosystems

• Streamlined process: From application through final payout, everything happens in one place

Looking Ahead

This partnership reflects how leading ecosystems are rethinking grants infrastructure. Manual tracking and fragmented tools are giving way to integrated systems that let foundations focus on what matters: identifying great projects, supporting builders, and measuring real impact.

Batch 2 applications are now closed and under review. Approved grantees will manage their milestones and reporting through Karma at filpgf.io.

Want to learn more about Karma? Discover how we're helping leading ecosystems fund smarter and grow faster at karmahq.xyz. 

This partnership represents Polygon's commitment to providing founders with comprehensive infrastructure and support as they build and scale across the Polygon ecosystem.

Why Karma for Polygon?

Polygon's approach to ecosystem growth goes beyond traditional grants; they're building curated support systems that help founders succeed at every stage. Managing programs at this scale requires infrastructure that can handle complexity while keeping the founder experience seamless. That's exactly what Karma delivers.

regan

@0xthegipper

we’ve been quietly creating new @0xPolygon
founder programs that go live before EOY. little sneak peeks already on the site in my bio

168

4:14 • 1 Dec 2025

Built for Scale, Designed for Founders

Karma's modular funding infrastructure enables Polygon to deploy exactly what it needs to support high-growth teams. Each module works independently while seamlessly integrating with the others:

Application Management: Karma's application intake system collects and organizes proposals across all of Polygon's programs, creating a single place to nurture relationships with every project in the ecosystem from first contact through scaling support.

AI-Powered Routing: With diverse programs and support options available, Karma's AI evaluation tools help Polygon route applicants to the exact programs and support options they need. Whether a team needs grant funding, BD support, technical resources, or introductions to the right partners, the system ensures every founder gets connected to the right team at the right time.

Real-Time Metrics Tracking: Through Karma's integrations with onchain data sources, Polygon can automatically monitor key metrics like transaction volume and TVL across its portfolio. This visibility enables the team to spot traction early and proactively provide support when projects are ready to scale.

The Polygon Advantage

For Polygon, this partnership means more than just program management software; it's about building sustainable infrastructure to support the next generation of breakthrough projects.

Holistic Support Matching: Polygon offers founders more than capital —from security audits to access to the Hadron Founders Community, liquidity support, and go-to-market assistance. Karma's comprehensive project registry helps match teams with the right resources at the right time, ensuring founders get exactly what they need to succeed.

Unified Ecosystem View: By consolidating all founder interactions into a single platform, Polygon gains complete visibility into its ecosystem growth initiatives. This means better coordination between teams, more strategic resource allocation, and the ability to build long-term relationships with projects as they grow.

/grow Founder Support Program: First Live Initiative

The /grow program is the first major initiative launching on Karma, with an 80M $POL allocation dedicated to helping projects scale. With funding ranging from $50K to $1M and 25 grants already awarded, this program is built for teams ready to make a significant ecosystem impact.

The program is designed for teams that have:

• A live product ready to scale

• Clear milestones and growth trajectory

• A committed team prepared to execute

• Alignment with Polygon's focus areas: DeFi, Lend/Borrow, and Infrastructure

More Live Funding Programs, One Powerful Platform

Polygon is collaborating with Abnormal Studios on a Creator Campaign Program to promote onchain builders and products within the ecosystem. Abnormal Studios will manage creators producing coordinated, high-quality longform and shortform content about top Polygon developments, with clear campaign reporting.

Polygon and Areta Marketplace launched the Polygon Audit Grants Program to help builders securely launch on Polygon. The program offers partial or full smart contract audit cost reimbursement and access to vetted audit providers via Areta. Projects must have a live or testnet product on Polygon, have an audit quote or be preparing for an audit, and complete the audit and report within 60 days. Optional follow-up support from the Polygon Founders Team (marketing, go-to-market, user growth) is also available.

Polygon is funding the next generation of prediction market builders who are integrating with Polymarket, offering support for tools and infrastructure. The Polymarket Builder Sprint program is specifically interested in projects focusing on UX tools for intuitive markets, analytics or data platforms for better market insight, novel prediction market applications, and infrastructure supporting the Polymarket ecosystem.

What This Means for Founders

If you're building on Polygon or considering the ecosystem, you'll experience founder support designed around your success:

• Single point of contact: All your interactions with Polygon programs happen in one place

• Smart matching: Get automatically connected to the right resources, teams, and programs

• Transparent tracking: Real-time visibility into your application status and progress

• Data-driven support: Polygon can see when you're gaining traction and provide support at the right moments

• Streamlined experience: From application through scaling support, everything is designed to be founder-friendly

Looking Ahead

This partnership reflects Polygon's commitment not just to funding projects, but to truly supporting founders throughout the entire growth journey. With comprehensive program infrastructure and multiple support pathways, Polygon is building one of the most holistic founder support ecosystems in Web3.

The days of grants being just capital deployment are over. With Karma powering their ecosystem growth programs, Polygon can focus on what matters most: identifying exceptional teams, providing the resources they need at the right time, and building a thriving ecosystem of successful projects.

Ready to apply to /grow? Visit the /grow Founder Support program on Karma to learn more and submit your application. Whether you're building the next generation of DeFi protocols, creating critical infrastructure, or innovating in lending markets, this is your opportunity to scale on one of Web3's leading platforms.

Want to learn more about Karma? Discover how we're helping leading ecosystems fund smarter and grow faster at karmahq.xyz.

We also took the team on the road to Devconnect in Buenos Aires. It was an awesome chance to soak up the incredible energy of the Ethereum builders and enjoy that vibrant city. All in all, November felt like a massive leap forward as we build serious momentum heading into 2026.

New Features & Capabilities

Grant Management:

We've made some major updates to make things easier for everyone. Now, if an application gets rejected, the applicant can actually resubmit it with improvements making the process much smoother! Plus, milestone reviewers can now directly mark grants as completed, which really speeds up the whole approval process. Thanks to the feedback from the community, we've also added the ability to reverse a grant completion and made the status updates much clearer, giving reviewers better control and transparency. And for our staff, we introduced some handy new tools for merging projects and managing permissions more efficiently, which is a common request from our community members.

AI Integration:

We've made some great strides on the AI front. We already had AI assistance helping grantees improve their applications to meet program requirements. Now, we've added internal AI evaluation tools that funding program managers can configure for their own review process, making evaluations more consistent and thorough.

Content & Customization:

We've officially launched markdown support for both project profiles and grant applications, which means you can now make your text much richer with both editing and preview features! 

Also, be sure to check out the new Case Studies section on our website as we've filled it with inspiring success stories and testimonials from happy clients. And for our Whitelabel partners, we've made things even better by adding customizable Success Pages and "What Happens Next" sections so you can really personalize the user experience. Overall we are building the best platform for funders in web3 to run the most effective programs at scale and speed.

Data & Analytics:

We made some big improvements to our data this month! To help everyone understand how the platform is being used, we can now export monthly user counts and filter data by specific projects. For even more accurate metrics, we started tracking unique users per program and counting transactions across different chains. Plus, we've added new CSV download options, making it easier for you to get and analyze the data you need. Running a successful funding program based on real time data has never been easier. 

User Experience (UX) & Design

As mentioned earlier we launched a comprehensive homepage redesign of Karma V2 featuring improved navigation and a new hero section that better communicates our value proposition. Visual updates included a revamped Navbar, dialogs, and typography for a more consistent look and feel across the platform. We significantly improved the mobile experience with better menu handling and responsive dialogs. On the "Browse Applications" page, we added infinite scroll and status filters for smoother navigation and easier discovery of relevant applications. Hands down, the Karma website has never looked or felt better.

Guru Ξ ₮ ₳ Ð Ł²

@harunaidrisguru

2/ First, understand Karma It's not just a funding tool it's a full-stack ecosystem for transparent, onchain project growth. Builders create profiles to track progress, earn endorsements, and get discovered. Ecosystems allocate funds based on real impact. Perfect for builders.

0

22:49 • 19 Nov 2025

Technical Improvements & Performance

We really focused on making things faster this month! We fine-tuned important parts like the Project Roadmap and Milestones List, and cleaned up our backend queries. This means everything should load quicker now. On the technical side, we boosted our infrastructure by adding better testing (E2E and unit tests), improving our deployment process (CI/CD), and optimizing our DB queries. Plus, we took care of essential security updates and dependency upgrades to keep the whole platform running smoothly and safely.

Conclusion

Overall this was an amazing month full of growth and progress for the Karma app and website, team, and community. We are looking forward to shipping even more improvements in 2026.

If you are interested in running a funding program on Karma, get in touch with us today.

First off, we've just launched the new version of the Karma website. No more GAP, but still the same on-chain registry and milestones you know and love, with the added benefit of more features, including AI-assisted application intake and direct payment disbursals within Karma. Read the full details about the new and improved Karma on our blog here.

October was a big month for our community members. Here are the stats by the numbers.

• 473 milestones created

• 217 project profiles created

• 83 project endorsements

• 245 grants created

• 1439 total onchain attestations.

Congratulations on our community members for all the hard work. Keep on shipping!

In addition to launching our new website and portal, our main application saw significant enhancements this month, focusing on improving the user journey and adding powerful new tools for grant and application management.

✨ New Features:

• Milestone Mastery: We've introduced a comprehensive suite of tools for managing grant milestones, including tracking completion, a streamlined review and verification process, and the ability to add comments for better collaboration.

• Smarter Application Management: We've made it easier to manage funding applications with new features like the ability for admin to delete applications and a smarter search function to quickly find what you're looking for.

• Instant Feedback on Contract Addresses: To reduce errors, we've added real-time validation for contract addresses, providing immediate feedback to users.

• Email Notifications for Forms: Users will now receive email notifications for important updates on their post-approval forms, ensuring everyone stays in the loop.

🚀 Improvements:

• A Polished User Interface: We've made numerous tweaks to the look and feel of the application, including updated buttons, a cleaner navigation bar, and improved layouts for a more intuitive experience.

• Enhanced Security: We've strengthened our authentication and authorization systems to ensure that users have the right access levels and that our platform remains secure.

Indexer: Our backend system, the engine that powers our applications, received critical updates to support our new features and improve overall performance and reliability.

✨ New Features:

• Advanced Milestone Reviewer Management: We've launched a new system for managing who can review milestones, allowing for more flexible and secure workflows.

• Dynamic Email Notifications: Our notification system is now smarter. We can send dynamic and targeted email notifications to reviewers, and we've reduced notification noise by filtering out unnecessary alerts.

• Cross-Chain Project Merging: We've improved our ability to merge projects that exist on different blockchain networks, making our platform more versatile.

🚀 Improvements:

• Streamlined Authentication: We've updated our authentication system to be more robust and efficient.

• Better Data and Analytics: We've added new capabilities for tracking community statistics and project updates, giving us better insights into how our platform is being used.

Whitelabel App: Our platform solution for partners has been expanded to welcome new organizations and provide a more customized experiences.

✨ New Features:

• Welcome to Our New Partners! We're excited to have added support for several new partners, including For the World, Polygon, Filecoin, Scroll and the Localism Fund. Each partner now has their own customized branding and domain. You can see all the open funding opportunities here.

• Milestones at a Glance: Partners can now view all grant milestones in a dedicated tab on the application page, making it easier to track progress.

• AI-Powered Application Review: We've enhanced our application form to include handling for AI-powered evaluations, bringing more intelligence to the review process.

🚀 Improvements:

• A More Personal Touch: We've improved the user interface with better wallet integration, showing user profile images and names for a more personalized experience.

• Customized Homepages: The homepage content can now be customized for each partner, allowing them to showcase their unique programs and branding.

We're thrilled with the progress made in October and look forward to bringing you more exciting updates next month. As always, we welcome your feedback as we continue to improve our platform for everyone.  Get in touch with us on Telegram or Discord.

What was Karma GAP is now Karma - With expanded functionality that transforms our accountability and impact measurement foundation into a complete ecosystem growth platform. The infrastructure has been continuously evolving based on real needs from programs and builders. Now we're bringing it all together.

The Problem We Keep Seeing

Ecosystems want to see a return on value for their capital allocations. But much of their time is spent stitching together a patchwork quilt of tools like Monday for applications, Discord for updates, Notion for documentation, Safe for payments, and spreadsheets for impact metrics. It works until it doesn't. And when you want to scale or try something new, you're starting from scratch.

The core pain point isn't just tool complexity. It's operational blindness, not knowing what's working, which projects are delivering, or where to allocate resources next.

A Different Approach

We've been continuously building Karma hand in hand with programs and builders for years around a simple idea: give ecosystems the infrastructure they need, not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Our modular design means each piece works on its own and together. Need to launch an application round quickly? Use the application intake module. Want to add milestone tracking later? It's there when you're ready. Planning to measure impact across your entire ecosystem? That module plugs right in.

Built on Proven Infrastructure

Karma has always been built around two core capabilities: our public onchain registry, where every project's reputation lives, and automated impact measurement that tracks what's actually working. These are our most-used modules, the foundation everything else builds upon.

The registry tracks thousands of projects across the entire crypto ecosystem, making cross-ecosystem reputation visible and actionable. Impact measurement connects to GitHub, Dune, or your own data sources, applying proven frameworks like the Common Approach to turn accountability into strategic insight.

Now we're adding the missing pieces.

What's New in Karma V2

Complete Funding & Disbursement

The biggest addition: create funding programs, set milestones, and disburse funds directly through Karma. Support direct grants, milestone-based funding, or retroactive rewards. Payments flow automatically when conditions are met, no manual transfers, no external tools needed.

AI Application Review

AI evaluates applications at scale, providing scoring and risk assessments based on historical performance and cross-ecosystem reputation pulled from the registry. You make the decisions with better information from day one.

Modular Design

Each piece works independently and together. Launch with just the registry and impact tracking. Add funding when ready. Layer in AI review. The infrastructure adapts to where you are, not the other way around.

Ecosystems using Karma configure what they need, launch their program, and get clear visibility into what's actually working—all backed by infrastructure that's been iterated for years based on the needs of programs and builders.

Proven by Leading Ecosystems

We've worked with ecosystems like Optimism and Celo, helping them run high-impact funding programs. The patterns we've seen have shaped every part of this platform:

• Ecosystems need visibility into what's working, not just more funding tools

• Operational clarity drives better capital allocation decisions

• Impact measurement can't be an afterthought

• Programs should get easier to run as they grow, not harder

What This Means for Ecosystems

If you're running a funding program, you get operational clarity to see what's working, measure impact, and make better decisions. Whether you are planning your first round or you have purpose-built infrastructure that's been built over the years, Karma meets you where you are and can provide a solution for your needs.

We handle the platform. You focus on growing your ecosystem.

Ready to see how Karma works for your ecosystem? Schedule a demo and we'll show you the infrastructure that powers some of web3's leading programs.

For example, Karma and Celo Devs' Proof of Ship program partnered to enhance project accountability and transparency. By deploying their programs through Karma, Celo ensures that projects provide regular updates on their progress, growing trust within the community and enabling program operators to track the impact of funded projects, making better decisions on which projects to allocate prize money to, both to specific programs and through the ecosystem as a whole.

While these programs operate independently, their outcomes are intertwined. That’s where we come in. Karma aggregates and tracks their impact, funding, and project progress. Celo benefits from this birds eye view and improved operational awareness, and the projects gain an onchain activity record that can be used for funding programs in other ecosystems like GoodDollar and Optimism. 

Celo has been using Karma for the last 15 months to track projects and grants. To date, there have been 361 projects, 748 total grants, and 100 total milestones tracked through Karma. One example of a Celo project that leveraged its onchain Karma reputation for cross program funding is Stable SL, which used its success in proof-of-ship funding rounds to be included in the Good Dollar builder program. All this information is easily accessible on the community page at https://gap.karmahq.xyz/community/celo.

The Challenge

Celo funds programs across mini-applications, DeFi, stablecoins, AI agents, infrastructure, and developer tools. Before GAP, tracking these diverse projects relied on scattered updates across X, GitHub, and other platforms—with many projects providing no updates at all.

The lack of a standardized system led to inconsistent updates; some grantees posted sporadically on platforms like X or GitHub, while others didn't provide any updates at all. This lack of visibility made it difficult for the Proof of Ship program operators and its community to assess if funds were being used effectively, potentially leading to reduced accountability and effectiveness.

• Inconsistent Reporting: Grantees utilized various platforms and formats, which complicated progress tracking.

• Limited Transparency: Token holders and community members lacked a clear view of project milestones and outcomes.

• Engagement gaps: Without regular updates, it was hard to maintain community interest and support for funded initiatives.

The Solution

Celo leveraged Karma’s modular solution to address these challenges. Karma GAP provides a structured framework for grantees to create onchain project profiles and submit updates, which are then verified and displayed on a public dashboard, ensuring that grantees consistently report progress. The Proof of Ship program operators then use Karma AI to analyze the GAP results and GitHub activity to determine prize allocations in a transparent and accessible way.

• Standardized Updates: Grantees use GAP to submit regular reports, including milestones, challenges, and next steps.

• Public Dashboard: A custom dashboard hosted on Karma’s platform displays all updates, making them easily accessible to the community.

• Reputation Building: Grantees earn reputation scores based on their activity, incentivizing consistent engagement and quality reporting.

The Results

Since integrating GAP, the Proof of Ship program has seen significant improvements in grantee accountability, program efficiency and community trust:

• Increased Transparency: Over 85% of grantees now provide regular updates, compared to less than 50% before GAP.

• Enhanced Community Engagement: Token holders actively use the dashboard to monitor projects, resulting in a 40% uptick in community discussions about funded initiatives.

• Increased Activity: The number of “ghost grantees”—those who receive funding but fail to report progress—dropped by 60%, as the reputation system encourages consistent participation.

The GAP dashboard has become a vital tool for the Proof of Ship program, offering a clear, data-driven way to assess grantee performance. Grantees, in turn, benefit from increased visibility, using their reputation scores to attract further support and collaboration opportunities.

The Testimony

"Karma has transformed how we manage our program by providing a central source of truth for impact metrics across projects, ambassadors, and regional DAOs. With their tracking capabilities and real time metrics at our fingertips, we've eliminated the chaos of managing multiple spreadsheets and manual reporting overhead. This infrastructure makes impact metrics transparent throughout the ecosystem crucial for scaling our program while freeing us to focus on what matters most which is supporting the projects building on Celo." - Lena H. DevRel Lead at Celo

Conclusion

Karma transformed how Celo's Proof of Ship program operates. The program now has clear visibility into project progress, while grantees build a portable reputation they can use across the broader Celo and Ethereum ecosystems. This implementation demonstrates Karma's core value: turning fragmented grant data into actionable intelligence that improves capital allocation across Web3.

This year, we've really made some great strides in building our full-stack funding platform with four key parts: application intake and review, onchain project registry, impact metric and monitoring, and finally, direct and retro funds payout features. That last one is super important, and it's where we've put most of our energy, which is now live and being used in the Optimism Season 8 grants round.

Here’s a rundown of our major achievements in September:

Major Features

We rolled out several significant new features designed to improve the application and evaluation process.

• Application Versioning & History Tracking: We built a complete versioning system for grant applications, which means you can now see every change made to an application over time.

  • Tracks all changes made to applications over time

  • Shows visual diffs between versions

  • Provides a timeline view of edits

  • Helps reviewers understand how applications evolved

• AI-Powered Grant Evaluation: We integrated AI capabilities to assist with grant review processes, making evaluations faster and more consistent.

  • AI scoring for applications with sortable columns

  • Admin controls for triggering AI evaluations

  • Reference-based evaluation system

  • Enhanced CSV exports with evaluation scores

• Post-Approval Form Fields: We created a new system for collecting additional information from grantees after their applications are approved, streamlining the post-approval workflow.

• Privy Integration: We seamlessly integrated privy.io into our backend, allowing users to log in with their wallets effortlessly.

• Communities Page Enhancement: We redesigned the communities experience to make it more intuitive and visually appealing.

  • Improved navigation and discovery

  • Better categorisation and filtering

  • Enhanced visual layout

  • Multi-chain community aggregation

• Whitelabel Platform - Shared Domain Hosting: We launched a new shared subdomain architecture for our whitelabel platform, allowing multiple funding programs to be hosted under a unified domain with custom client configurations, so communities can bring their own branding and style while Karma handles the backend.

  • Celo Public Goods, Regen Coordination, and Optimism are already live at app.karmahq.xyz. With the Karma-powered platform, you can easily navigate all communities, see funding opportunities, and apply directly in the app, making accessing grant funding easier than ever.

System Improvements

We focused on enhancing the platform's performance, infrastructure, and overall developer experience this month.

• Performance & Infrastructure: We made critical updates to improve the stability and speed of the platform.

  • Rate Limiting System: Implemented comprehensive global rate limiting to protect API endpoints and improve system stability

  • Goldsky Migration: Moved subgraphs (Arbitrum, Optimism, Celo) to Goldsky for better performance and reliability

  • Grant Indexing V2: Improved the grant indexing flow for faster and more accurate data processing

• Developer Experience: We improved our developer tools to make it easier for our team to build and maintain the platform.

  • Swagger Documentation: Added comprehensive API documentation for V2 endpoints

• Data & Analytics: We expanded our data and analytics capabilities to provide more comprehensive insights.

  • Impact Indicators: Added support for GoodDollar and other community impact indicators

  • External Data Providers: Integrated support for external data sources and custom datapoints.

User Experience

We rolled out a series of updates to make the platform more user-friendly and efficient for everyone, from applicants to reviewers.

• Frontend Improvements: We redesigned several key elements of the user interface for a smoother experience.

  • Redesigned grant card layouts for better information display

  • Improved application form state management

  • Enhanced navigation flows across the platform

  • Better loading states and error handling

• Reviewer & Admin Tools: We enhanced tools for reviewers and administrators, making their tasks more efficient and manageable.

  • Enhanced reviewer role system with granular permissions

  • Improved program validation workflows

  • Better filtering for expired programs

  • Enhanced CSV export capabilities

  • Streamlined faucet funding flows for Celo network

• Notifications & Communication: We improved our notification and communication systems to keep everyone better informed.

  • Improved email notifications in direct funding platform

  • Added approval notification workflows

  • Enhanced grantee communication templates

Technical Highlights

Our engineering teams made significant progress across all major repositories, ensuring a robust and scalable platform.

• Backend (gap-indexer): Our backend team focused on solidifying the core architecture and improving reliability.

  • 40+ pull requests merged

  • Implemented proper V2 architecture patterns

  • Enhanced error handling with Sentry integration

  • Improved test coverage and validation

• Frontend (gap-app-v2): The frontend team worked on improving the user-facing application with better code quality and integration.

  • 15+ pull requests merged

  • Better TypeScript coverage

  • Improved component architecture

  • Enhanced Web3 integration

• Whitelabel Platform: Our team focused on making the platform more flexible and accessible for custom deployments.

  • 20+ pull requests merged

  • Multi-tenant architecture implementation

  • Enhanced testing infrastructure

  • Better accessibility features

Platform Capabilities

The Karma platform now offers an even broader range of powerful features to support grant applications and evaluations.

• The Karma platform now supports:

  • Multi-chain grant applications and donations

  • AI-assisted grant evaluation

  • Comprehensive application version history

  • Post-approval workflows

  • Community impact tracking with custom indicators

  • Rate-limited, secure API access

  • Enhanced reviewer collaboration tools

  • Whitelabel funding platform deployment

Looking Forward

This month saw significant progress in making the platform more scalable, secure, and user-friendly, laying a strong foundation for future growth.

Total Activity: We merged over 75 pull requests across all repositories, addressing new features, improvements, and critical fixes, showing our commitment to continuous development.

Overall the Karma app has gone through a massive transformation combining multiple key modules that come together to create the best funding platform on the market. Thanks to our community for all the feedback and patience. We look forward to seeing what opportunities this brings to our builder community.

Finally the Karma team will be at Devconnect this November in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We are definitely looking forward to connecting with the extended Ethereum builder community. If you plan to be there too reach out and we can grab a coffee. You can always reach out to us on discord or telegram.

We're excited to announce the launch of our newsletter and we would be thrilled to have you as a part of our network of innovators, funders, and changemakers who believe that accountability isn't just a vibe—it's verified as the foundation of sustainable impact.

At Karma, we've witnessed firsthand how the disconnect between funding and outcomes has held back countless promising projects. Too often, brilliant ideas receive resources but lack the framework to demonstrate real-world impact. That's why we are building the best platform that bridges this gap, connecting distributed resources to measurable results. 

Currently there are over 5,000 registered projects, with 8,000 grants tracked, including 1,500 active builders, and dozens of active ecosystems on the Karma platform. Whether you're a DAO allocating treasury funds, a grant program supporting the next generation of builders, or a project seeking to showcase your impact, this newsletter will be your compass through the evolving landscape of funding in Web3.

In this newsletter, you'll discover:

• Impact Stories: Real projects using Karma to transform funding into measurable outcomes

• Ecosystem Insights: How leading Web3 organizations are evolving and scaling their accountability practices

• Funding Opportunities: Find fresh opportunities to power your project including funding programs, bounties, grants, and hackathons

• Builder Spotlights: The innovators who are proving that transparency and impact go hand in hand

• Platform Updates: New features and tools to help you track what matters most

We’ve come a long way in just two years, and the future is looking bright. From our public onchain registry of projects to verified reputation, distribution of funds and rewards, and measured impact, Karma is growing smarter and stronger every day.

Not feeling it? We'd be sad to see you go, but we totally get it—inboxes are sacred spaces. If this newsletter isn't the right fit, you can unsubscribe with no hard feelings.

Ready to make every attestation count? Follow us on X and Farcaster or jump in our Discord and Telegram.

With gratitude and excitement,
The Karma Team

P.S. Have a story about impact tracking or accountability in your ecosystem? Hit reply—we'd love to hear from you and potentially feature your insights in future editions.

The Big Picture

This month was all about making the funding platform better for everyone involved. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to make applications smoother, how to help administrators manage programs more effectively, and how to bring some AI magic into the mix. The result? A platform that's smarter, faster, and way more user-friendly than before.

Making Applications Actually Enjoyable

Let's be real, nobody loves filling out funding application forms. But we've been working hard to make the process as painless as possible. One of the biggest changes is that we now support markdown formatting throughout the platform. This means you can actually make your project descriptions look good with proper headings, links, and formatting instead of just a brick wall of text.

We also completely revamped how application statuses work. Instead of leaving people guessing about where their application stands, we now have a proper "Under Review" workflow that gives everyone clear visibility into what's happening. Administrators can leave comments and have internal discussions about applications, which makes the whole review process much more collaborative and transparent.

AI-Powered Evaluation (Yes, Really)

Here's where things get exciting. We've integrated AI-powered evaluation into the platform using Langfuse, and it's genuinely helpful rather than just being AI for the sake of AI. The system can automatically review applications and provide scoring based on configurable prompts that administrators can customize for their specific programs.

What's cool about this is that it doesn't replace human judgment - it augments it. The AI evaluation gives reviewers a starting point and helps identify key strengths and areas of concern in applications, but the final decisions are still very much human-driven. We're presenting these AI insights in a clear, understandable way so they actually add value to the review process.

Better Project Management All Around

Projects can now add custom external links, which might sound small but makes a huge difference. Whether it's your website, Twitter, GitHub, or that cool demo video you made, you can now organize all your project links in one place with proper names instead of just throwing URLs around.

We've also added comprehensive milestone management with custom fields. Different funding programs have different requirements, and now the platform can actually adapt to those needs instead of forcing everyone into the same rigid structure. Programs can define their own completion criteria and track progress in ways that make sense for their specific goals.

The community pages got some serious performance improvements too. Nobody likes waiting for pages to load, and we've optimized things so browsing communities and projects is much snappier than before.

Regional Focus and Community Building

One thing we've been hearing a lot about is the need for better regional management. We've built out a whole system for managing projects and teams by geographic region, which gives program administrators much better visibility into what's happening in different parts of the world. This is especially important for programs that want to ensure they're supporting diverse communities globally.

Export and Data Management

For administrators who need to analyze program performance, we've enhanced the CSV export functionality significantly. You can now export detailed information including completion data, payout information, and even social handles such as Twitter, Farcaster and others if that's relevant for your program. These exports now require proper authorization, so sensitive data stays secure while still being accessible to the right people.

What This Means for Everyone

If you're applying for funding, you'll notice the application process is much smoother now. The markdown support means you can actually format your proposals properly, the status tracking keeps you informed about where things stand, and the overall experience just feels more professional and polished.

For administrators and program managers, you've got way more control and visibility than before. The commenting system lets you collaborate with your team on application reviews, the AI evaluation provides helpful insights, and the regional management tools give you better oversight of your programs' global impact.

Developers working with our platform will appreciate the improved SDK, better error tracking, and comprehensive test coverage. We've also added proper documentation for all the new AI features, so integrating them into your own tools should be straightforward.

Looking Forward

We're really proud of what we accomplished in August, but we're not slowing down. This foundation of improved application management, AI integration, and better user experience sets us up for some exciting developments in the coming months.

Thanks to everyone who's been using the platform and providing feedback. Your input directly influenced many of these improvements, and we're always listening for ways to make things better. Keep the feedback coming - it's what makes this platform truly useful for the communities we're all trying to support.

That's a wrap on August! We can't wait to show you what we're working on next month.

A Perfect Match: Optimism's Scale Meets Karma's Innovation

Optimism stands as one of the most prominent Layer 2 solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem, with the Optimism Superchain securing an impressive half of all L2 Total Value Locked (TVL). This massive scale brings both opportunity and responsibility – managing resources across 19 layer 2 networks including Base and Unichain through seven previous funding seasons.

For Season 8, which focuses on increasing interoperability adoption within the Optimism ecosystem, the Grants Council is distributing 6.29 million OP tokens. To handle this significant undertaking efficiently, they've chosen Karma's comprehensive end-to-end funding platform to streamline the entire process from application to impact measurement.

Solving Real Problems in Decentralized Funding

Traditional community funding programs face numerous challenges that can severely impact their effectiveness:

The Pain Points:

• Reviewer burnout from processing hundreds of applications manually

• Builders experiencing weeks-long waits for feedback

• Exceptional projects falling through administrative cracks

• Lack of clear metrics to measure program success

These inefficiencies cost valuable time and resources that decentralized teams simply can't afford to waste.

The Karma Solution: AI-Powered End-to-End Funding

Karma's new platform addresses these challenges head-on with an integrated solution that covers the entire funding lifecycle:

For Communities:

• Accept applications through AI-powered forms that streamline the intake process

• Provide instant AI evaluation and feedback to builders

• Distribute funds seamlessly with built-in payment infrastructure

• Monitor progress and measure real impact with comprehensive analytics

• Continuously improve funding programs based on data-driven insights

For Builders:

• Receive instant feedback to improve applications

• Experience faster review cycles and clearer communication

• Access a streamlined application process designed for efficiency

For Reviewers:

• Evaluate applications 10x more efficiently with AI assistance

• Focus on strategic decision-making rather than administrative tasks

• Access comprehensive data to make informed funding decisions

Real Impact, Measurable Results

The partnership enables Optimism Grants to support builders and decentralized applications like Moonwell and Sake Finance that demonstrate measurable onchain impact through key metrics including transaction volume and TVL growth. With Season 8's focus on interoperability, these metrics become even more crucial for tracking cross-chain adoption and ecosystem health.

Karma's platform provides the infrastructure to track these metrics effectively, creating a clear data trail that demonstrates return on investment and guides future funding decisions.

Beyond Optimism: Democratizing Professional Funding

While Optimism Grants serves as the flagship launch partner, Karma's platform isn't limited to billion-dollar DAOs. Any community can now run professional-grade funding programs to grow their ecosystem, complete with:

• Branded community experiences

• Comprehensive application management

• Automated evaluation and feedback systems

• Integrated fund distribution

• Real-time impact tracking and analytics

The Future of Ecosystem Funding

This partnership represents a significant step forward in how decentralized communities can efficiently allocate capital while maintaining accountability and measuring success. By combining Optimism's proven track record in ecosystem development with Karma's innovative funding technology, Season 8 sets a new standard for what's possible in decentralized grant programs.

Applications for Optimism Grants Season 8 are now open at opgrants.io until November 12th 2025.

As the decentralized ecosystem continues to mature, partnerships like this demonstrate how technology can solve real operational challenges while enabling communities to focus on what matters most: supporting the builders and projects that drive innovation forward.

Ready to transform how your community funds projects? Karma is opening access to more partners soon. Contact our team to learn how Karma can streamline your program management and enhance community engagement. 

The Problem

Livepeer DAO funds multiple Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) across different domains, but these programs are scattered across various platforms. This fragmentation makes it difficult for community members to track program progress or measure impact on the ecosystem. The current system lacks centralized data, has no accountability mechanisms, offers limited transparency, and produces unclear outcomes.

The Solution

Karma GAP creates a unified platform that centralizes all Livepeer funding initiatives. The system tracks milestones and deliverables in real-time while storing all data onchain for permanent record-keeping. Community members gain complete visibility into funded projects, while the GovWorks team benefits from streamlined decision-making processes.

Key Features

The platform includes an Impact Measurement Framework that quantifies ecosystem growth and measures the real effects of funding decisions. Milestone Documentation creates permanent, verifiable project histories stored onchain. Karma AI provides a chat interface for quick insights into project performance, while Automated Reporting delivers real-time metrics without manual overhead.

The system introduces conditional funding releases based on verified milestones, currently in development. This approach builds reputation through consistent delivery and uses multi-stakeholder verification processes. Project records stored on Arbitrum create permanent accountability, eliminating projects that fail to deliver promised outcomes.

Community Access

A public portal allows community members to view every funded project's progress, team information, milestone status, and impact metrics. The complete tracking system is available at gap.karmahq.xyz/community/livepeer, with plans to integrate this data into the Livepeer explorer.

The technical infrastructure includes comprehensive data migration, multi-level SPE tracking, custom grant categorization, and integration with GitHub and Dune Analytics. Weekly platform updates ensure the system evolves with ecosystem needs.

Expected Outcomes

The partnership should significantly reduce delayed milestones and administrative overhead while providing complete funding transparency. Data-driven allocation decisions will become possible, and builder retention should improve through clearer expectations and recognition systems.

Broader Implications

This partnership demonstrates how DAOs can scale their operations while maintaining transparency and community governance. Other DAOs facing similar challenges now have a proven framework for implementing accountable funding operations. The combination of onchain accountability, AI-driven insights, and community transparency establishes a foundation for sustainable ecosystem growth.

The success of this collaboration will likely influence how future DAO funding operations are structured, offering lessons in balancing operational efficiency with community values.

DAOs interested in similar grant management solutions can explore Karma GAP's Grantee Accountability Protocol for transparent, community-driven funding operations.

Running effective grant programs is challenging, especially when distributing significant funding across multiple projects. GoodDollar, the blockchain-based Universal Basic Income project serving over 700,000 users across 222+ countries, experienced this firsthand during their GG23 round where they distributed $81,000 among 25 projects.

Tracking project progress, monitoring deliverables, and ensuring accountability across diverse initiatives became increasingly complex. Grant administrators struggled with fragmented information, scattered updates, and difficulty assessing real impact—making it hard to ensure community funds were being used effectively and transparently.

The Solution: Karma GAP's Comprehensive Grant Management Platform

GoodDollar has partnered with Karma GAP to transform their grant management process through a centralized, intelligent platform that brings clarity and efficiency to funding operations.

Key Karma GAP Features Now Powering GoodDollar's Grant Program:

• Unified Project Dashboard: All 25 funded projects consolidated in one accessible location with real-time visibility

• Automated Progress Tracking: Seamless monitoring of updates, activities, and milestone completion across all grantees

• AI-Powered Analytics: Karma AI enables intelligent querying and analysis of project data and performance metrics

• Impact Analysis Framework: Crystal-clear assessment tools to evaluate project effectiveness and community impact

• Streamlined Reporting: Simplified processes for grantees to document and share their progress

• Community Transparency: Public-facing community page ensuring accountability and trust

The Outcome: Enhanced Transparency and Improved Grant Effectiveness

With Karma GAP's comprehensive platform, GoodDollar has achieved significant improvements in their grant management capabilities:

For Grant Administrators:

• Complete confidence in program operations through real-time oversight and impact analysis

• Data-driven decision making for future funding rounds, ensuring top-performing projects receive continued support

• Streamlined administrative processes reducing management overhead

For Grant Recipients:

• Simplified reporting mechanisms allowing projects to focus on execution rather than paperwork

• Clear milestone tracking ensuring accountability while supporting project success

For the Community:

• Full transparency into how community funds are being utilized across all projects

• Increased trust and confidence that donations are creating measurable positive impact

• Easy access to project updates and outcomes through the dedicated community page

Explore GoodDollar's grant program transparency in action: https://gap.karmahq.xyz/community/good-dollar

This partnership demonstrates how innovative grant management tools can enhance the effectiveness of public goods funding, ensuring that resources dedicated to reducing global wealth inequality achieve maximum impact while maintaining the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

I'm Wasabi, a founder from the Dominican Republic with a passion for building solutions to our most pressing needs. With a background in IT and e-commerce, I founded my first VoIP company back in 2005 and have been an early adopter of emerging technologies ever since.

As a Public Goods maximalist and regenerative advocate at heart, I'm working to build, scale, and globally expand Kokonut Network. This project represents more than just another business venture—it's a systematic response to solving a critical problem that affects millions of people globally: the lack of funding for real-world projects within underserved communities that don't meet the standard criteria of legacy organizations.

My work is about challenging the status quo and sending a message of change through each entity within the Kokonut Ecosystem.

The Problem: Funding Gaps in Underserved Communities

Finding Purpose in Web3

My journey into Web3 was a natural progression as someone who embraces emerging technologies. I've been dealing with "magic internet money" since the early days, so the transition felt organic.

The Kokonut Network concept began with a simple domain purchase for a coconut-based marketplace. When someone suggested actually planting a coconut farm, my research into coconuts revealed their incredible versatility and potential. This discovery led me to build Kokonut Network around coconuts' diverse use cases.

Market-Agnostic Potential

What makes coconuts particularly compelling is their market-agnostic nature. By producing, distributing, or manufacturing coconut products, you can tap into multiple markets simultaneously. Long-term, coconuts serve as a hedge against market volatility while aligning stakeholder interests through the stability provided by coconut trees' extended lifespan.

Web3 Funding Challenges

In my experience, the most significant challenges in securing funding for blockchain and Web3 projects include:

Operational Sustainability: Making operations work with grant funding remains difficult. The biggest weakness of any Web3 project is often human resources and the outcomes those resources can deliver.

Data Quality: Many grantees struggle to produce high-fidelity data that unlocks additional funding over time, creating a cycle where promising projects can't demonstrate their impact effectively.

Treasury Management: Most DAOs lack outcomes-based treasury management. Many Web3 organizations have stagnant treasuries because they're not designed to be outcomes-focused and keep resources flowing effectively. Every DAO needs at least a basic treasury management approach that aligns with its goals.

The Solution: Karma GAP Platform

Our Experience

We've been utilizing the Karma GAP platform since November 2023, and it has transformed how we approach project management and funding accountability.

Most Valuable Features

The platform offers several standout features that have enhanced our operations:

Updates Tab: This feature aggregates all project data into a beautiful, comprehensive feed that provides clear visibility into progress and milestones.

Dynamic Data Integration: The ability to display dynamic data by ingesting wallets, contracts, or GitHub Repositories adds tremendous value to project tracking and transparency.

Strategic Grant Applications

When applying to Public Nouns DAO for funding, I followed a research-first approach. I thoroughly studied their mission, vision, and broader goals, then crafted our proposal to align with the Public Nouns Manifesto. This strategy of understanding grantor needs and aligning proposals accordingly has proven effective across different funding sources.

Kokonut Network 💚🥥🌴

@KokonutNetwork

We're pleased to introduce Kokonut Adelphi, a Nounish Syntropic Farm — an ecological initiative designed by @gerkery19, @WasabiNetwork & Orlando Amargós, Head of Syntropic Agriculture at Kokonut. With over 40 years of experience and academic training in Spain, Venezuela, and

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DAO vs. Gitcoin Funding Models

The difference between DAO treasury funding and Gitcoin Grants is significant:

DAO Funding: More predictable and milestone-based with fewer variables. It provides structured support with clear expectations and deliverables.

Gitcoin Grants: Functions more like a curation market where you can gain wider community support and access various forms of capital beyond traditional grants.

Outcomes and Impact

Enhanced Accountability

Karma GAP has significantly enhanced our project's development and funding capabilities through improved accountability. Putting goals, milestones, and funding onchain creates powerful motivation to deliver results. Grants aren't free money—your reputation is at stake, and Karma GAP helps build and grow that onchain reputation effectively.

AI Integration Strategy

While we haven't extensively implemented AI tools yet, we're researching how to best leverage them for our work. Currently, we're developing several scalable AI integration ideas that we're not ready to disclose.

What I can share is our plan to fully integrate the GAP Schema, Common Approach, and Ecological Benefits Framework into our API-ready Data Hub. We'll deploy an MCP Server to enable interaction with our Data Hub from any Large Language Model, laying the foundation for key AI integrations.

Addressing Funding Challenges

Our utilization strategy for Karma GAP directly addresses the funding challenges we identified earlier. By fully embracing the platform and leveraging its features for fund usage tracking, outcome measurement, and roadmap milestone monitoring, we've created significant value. Our reputation is now tracked via an open-source platform, providing transparency and accountability that funders value.

Treasury Management Solutions

Karma GAP's capabilities can specifically address DAO treasury management challenges by defining, tracking, and measuring treasury-wide goals. Packaging outcomes and milestones into an easy-to-manage grants program helps funding rounds run more efficiently and effectively. By enabling comprehensive tracking through Karma Communities, all projects are searchable in one place through Karma AI.

Looking Forward

Platform Enhancement

If I could add one feature to Karma GAP, it would be expanded customization options. More fields for milestones, roadmaps, and activity reports would significantly improve functionality. Adding status labels or custom options would greatly enhance readability and project management capabilities.

The Bigger Picture

Kokonut Network represents more than a Web3 project—it's a model for how blockchain technology can address real-world challenges in underserved communities. Through transparent project management, outcomes-based funding, and innovative treasury management, we're demonstrating that sustainable, impactful solutions are possible.

The combination of coconuts' natural market stability, Web3's transparency and efficiency, and platforms like Karma GAP's accountability mechanisms creates a powerful framework for sustainable development that can be replicated globally.

This case study demonstrates how innovative Web3 projects can leverage modern platforms and funding mechanisms to create real-world impact while maintaining transparency and accountability. The Kokonut Network's approach offers valuable insights for other projects seeking to build sustainable solutions for underserved communities.