Impact Validation Protocol
Gitonga Miriam
Agnes Koinange
Summary:
The Impact Validation Protocol addresses a critical and deeply rooted issue within the philanthropic sector. It proposes a transformative approach by leveraging decentralised technology to ensure transparency and accountability in philanthropic activities. Using a decentralised framework with signed attestations displayed on a social graph and stored in the Ceramic network, the cryptographic-signed proof is used, compatible with EAS off-chain storage, including attestations for Hypercerts.
Q.Existing target protocol you are hoping to improve or enhance?
Impact Validation Protocol. Our validation protocol moves beyond the traditional reliance on organisational reports and unverified claims towards a system where proof of impact is immutable, transparent, and publicly verifiable.
Q. Core idea or insight about potential improvement you want to pursue?
The current system for impact validation in the philanthropic sector is not effective, relying on siloed organizational reports and unverifiable claims. This lack of transparency and accountability makes it difficult for donors to make informed decisions and for effective interventions to receive the support they deserve. The WE Charity’s donor deception in Kenya Documentary elaborates on the lack of transparency in charities and the philanthropic sector in Kenya.
Having recipients verify the impact of charitable initiatives on an open, decentralised ledger gives them real leverage over the use of funds, and publishing evidence anchored to a blockchain prevents duplication of photos sent to donors.
Q. Discovery methodology for investigating the current state of the target protocol?
Lived experience: Gitonga lives in Nairobi, has worked extensively in Kibera, and has observed the lack of clean water and “flying toilets” that NGO’s have failed to solve.
Anecdotal research: studying the WE Charity scandal.
Field-testing: LinkedTrust’s protocol, using granular attestations and social graph relationships, enabled Voice of a Child to validate the impact of relief efforts in Northern Syria after the 2023 earthquakes. This led to Voice of a Child providing $6,550 to fund a kindergarten for children and a training centre for refugees, demonstrating our solution’s potential in challenging contexts.
Q. In what form will you prototype your improvement idea?
Our reference implementation will use the open LinkedClaim vocabulary published to the decentralised Ceramic Network to validate the work of three different nonprofits, including photo evidence with signed metadata using ProofMode. The output will be an explorable graph of evidence and attestations, which can be rolled up, summarised, or examined in detail, including the cryptographic signatures. A live prototype is available at live.linkedtrust.us and needs UI/UX improvements and proofmode integration.
Q. How will you field-test your improvement idea?
We will validate the work of Voice of a Child in Nigeria, and Community Climate Trees in Costa Rica, compellingly demonstrating impact validity across different regions and purposes. Combining Proofmode photos and existing photo evidence anchored to the blockchain with corroborating attestations will exercise the idea in a robust real-world situation with a busy and low-overhead-effective nonprofit.
Q. Who will be able to judge the quality of your output?
Nonprofits: Kirit Dave of Voice of a Child & Jenny of Community Climate Trees.
High level: John Gonzalez & Wynne Chan from Candid/Guidestar.
Technical: Raymond Cheng & Marc Johnson, Hypercerts
Q. How will you publish and evangelise your improvement idea?
Automate publishing attestations/photos on social media
Embed in reports and present at conferences
Host workshops with relevant organizations
Publish protocol on a dedicated website and GitHub repository
Produce and distribute whitepaper through academic platforms, industry websites, and protocol’s communication channels
Q. What is the success vision of your idea?
If adopted in Kibera, it promises clean water, sanitation, and opportunities, transforming it from Africa’s largest slum into a thriving community. So we aim to;
Widespread adoption by NGOs, philanthropic organizations, and donors worldwide
Empower donors to make informed decisions based on verifiable impact data
Foster transparency and accountability in nonprofits
Increase public trust in charitable organizations and initiatives
Drive resources towards effective grassroots NGOs and interventions