Introduction

The Reimagining Power Project (RPP) was launched with the goal of exploring how emerging web3 technologies can be leveraged to redistribute power, mobilize capital, and transform systems toward more equitable outcomes. Focusing on decentralized governance models, the project aims to test new ways of coordinating resources and decision-making to promote social equity, sustainability, and community empowerment.

The RPP explores how to:

• Shift power from centralized entities to communities through participatory governance and decentralized coordination.
• Mobilize capital in more collectively intelligent, distributed and equitable ways that prioritize grassroots and community-led initiatives.
• Create and share open-source playbooks that enable others to replicate and build upon these governance models in their own contexts.
• Weave networks across organizations that share similar goals, fostering collaboration and the exchange of knowledge and resources.

Since the project’s inception, we have made significant progress in laying the groundwork for this transformation, building partnerships and coordinating with groups and individuals to strengthen our collective efforts.

Upon completion of the current RPP, we will have a growing library of open-source tools and practices for building new ways of decentralizing governance and capital allocation in philanthropy. We will also have an engaged network of organizations with a growing base of knowledge interested in exploring these new governance paradigms. Alongside continuing to develop our resources and practice, the next phase of the project will be to start to scale our impact by utilising these resources to support more and more philanthropic organizations to experiment with transformational approaches.

Progress to Date

Since the project’s inception, RPP has made significant progress in several key areas:

Governance Development

The governance development aspects of the RP project consists of 3 facets:

1. Formal research
2. Governance process design
3. Experimentation

However, a key aspect of the RP project is for the project itself to be a vehicle for experimenting with the governance innovations we are developing. So these three facets are woven together throughout the project.

• Partnerships - developed and tested a comprehensive governance framework and technical toolset to implement partnerships between philanthropic organizations and DAOs.
• Coordination primitives - Primitives are the building blocks used in the design of governance systems. We have developed and tested governance primitives for designing and implementing decentralized community and operational governance.
• Tools and infrastructure - developed, deployed, tested a core suite of tools for setting up and managing decentralized operations.
• Research partnerships - established research partnerships with other web3 organizations and individuals, including OpenCivics, MoreReese and BioFi.
• Onboarding & Orientation - Developed an onboarding process and orientation guide to onboard community members and contributors to the project in ways that enhance inclusivity and engagement across the network.
• Resource library - developed and began populating a set of resources to support and demystify web3 organizational design, including: lexicon of concepts, facilitation frameworks.

Knowledge Sharing & Network Building:

• Published a paper: "Reimagining Power: How web3 Can Transform Social Impact", offering thought leadership on the intersection of decentralized technologies and community empowerment.

• Contributed to a paper and podcast produced by the Menzies Foundation:

  • Paper
  • Podcast

• Co-hosted a web3 meet-up with Equality Fund, Sue Snider; Menzies Foundation, Liz Gilles; and Community Foundations of Canada, Michelle Baldwin at Skoll World Forum with 12 attendees

• Mapped stakeholders, identifying opportunities for collaboration across sectors.

• Coordinated with key partners to weave networks across web3 public goods, bioregional finance, traditional philanthropy, and sports for social good, creating an environment for collaborative innovation.

Partnerships & Collaborative Initiatives

• Following web3 practices of leveraging collaborative partnership, resource sharing and opensourcing of results, the RPP has established a set of collaborative partnerships to execute on the project's goals. These include partnerships with: Women Win, OpenCivics, Open Protocol Research Group, the Green Pill Network, BioFi, Ready Sport Global and ReFi DAO.

These achievements reflect our commitment to fostering collaboration and creating scalable, open-source solutions that others can replicate and build upon.

Current Work

The project is actively engaged in the following key activities and experiments:

Experiments in Progress

1. All In For Sport "Gatherings" Program: Hosting a series of monthly community gatherings from November to March, with a focus on participatory decision-making and local ownership. Decentralizing authority by creating a "Gathering Steward" role.
2. Institute for Community Sustainability (ICS): Developing a localized governance model, exploring DAO-like structures to guide future ICS initiatives. Identifying this as a potential model for federations of local nodes coordinating across communities.
3. Equality Fund Experiment: Completed a scoping session to explore using web3 tools for grant distribution, transaction approvals, and foreign exchange. Preparing a Discovery Report to identify ideas for experimentation.

Other Activities

1. Playbook Development: Playbooks are strategic guides that contain reliable "patterns" (high-level solution designs) and "practices" (specific tools and methods) that organizations can pick up and implement. We are currently advancing the playbooks operational plan, defining "what constitutes a playbook", and collaborating with OpenCivics on creating playbooks and pattern libraries.
2. Governance Development: Continuing to iterate on governance primitives and frameworks as they are applied in the ongoing experiments, ensuring inclusive, adaptable, and aligned organizational structures.
3. Exploring web3 and AI Intersections: Experimenting with using AI tools to enhance the accessibility and usefulness of project resources, while also researching topics like inclusive AI governance and data sovereignty.

Future Plans

Open-source tools take time and effort to create, but they can easily scale - a big theme for this next phase of the RPP is utilising the scalability of the open-source resources we have created to drive impact.

Upon completion of the current RPP, we will have:

• Refined a repeatable gatherings program format and set of tools to engage interested organizations from across the philanthropic and web3 ecosystems.
• Designed and tested a DAO-based community and operational governance model to support multiple philanthropic stakeholders.
• Created well-researched open-source playbooks, governance tooling and resource libraries accessible to the wider community.
• Demonstrated practical models for activating multiple forms of community capital (financial, social, and experiential)
• Established a rich network of partner organizations and individual contributors participating in the RP project utilising decentralized governance practices and web3 tools.

It is our intention to build on this foundation in a second phase by increasing the reach of the RP project and scaling its impact:

• Go beyond the initial 3 experiments - we intend to continue to work with our current experimental partners, but develop at least 3 more philanthropic partnerships within which we can work on applying web3 tools and practices in transformational ways to their existing systems and processes.

• Scale playbooks and resources libraries - Our tested web3 patterns will be transformed into practical tools that communities and organizations can easily adopt. We'll develop local facilitation networks to help organizations implement these approaches, ensuring tools and knowledge remain rooted in and controlled by communities.

• Scale community engagement beyond "early adopters" - Building on our tested gathering framework, we'll expand participation to a broader range of community organizations. This expansion will focus on strengthening information sharing between communities and institutions, creating resilient networks that can better mobilize resources and knowledge across regions.

• Develop web3 & AI intersections - We'll provide practical tools that put community data sovereignty first, ensuring new technologies serve local needs. This includes:

  • Open-source tools that help communities maintain control of their knowledge and resources
  • Systems for transparent resource sharing between communities
  • AI assistants that make collective knowledge more accessible while preserving community ownership

We are seeking additional funding to extend the RPP beyond its original scope into this next phase and continue our work toward transformative outcomes.

Conclusion

We are excited to continue our partnership with project stakeholders and build on the progress achieved so far. Additional funding will allow us to deepen collaborations, develop new tools, and further scale the impact of decentralized governance models across multiple sectors.

We welcome feedback on our progress and plans and look forward to working together to create sustainable, community-led solutions that benefit the non-profit sector and beyond.