Description
Bloom helps more people participate in local grassroots climate action through a feature-rich social network that helps on-the-ground actors share knowledge and incubate their projects. Governed as a federated DAO of Local Bloom nodes, we've built communities around the world since 2008, through regional food security, Indigenous solidarity, and alternative economies. https://bloomnetwork.earth.
👋🏽 We are 33 Local Bloom hubs across 11 countries, and 30,000+ people on the ground. We've jumpstarted over 7,000 local urban and agroecology farms worldwide, 400+ community enterprises, and built permanent foundations for regenerative cultures. Our members have deep knowledge of how to achieve climate adaptation and watershed restoration, with decades of experience building local economies.
The problem: Community-led economic development tends to be invisible to philanthropy and social impact investing, because it is inherently collaborative, multi-issue, and builds power laterally.
The solution: Local Action Rewards is a unique RPGF protocol that incentivizes communities to share their knowledge to finance their labor and scale bioregional innovation.
pictured: Broadfield Enterprises, Uganda, food security and African economic sovereignty
Local Action Rewards
🌸 How It Works:
Local Bloom hubs and their members earn FLO (Flowers), our cooperative patronage token, by documenting the outcomes of their regenerative actions on a platform they collectively own and govern. This incentivizes IRL impactooors to share their knowledge and learn how to use Web3 tools. The public can easily read about the actions, allowing peers to learn and improve their own impact. Our social network, combining features of LinkedIn, Facebook, and Discord, supports effective mobilization around what is working well for climate adaptation and repair.
Each report is verified by at first our global grants team, and gradually more locally. FLO is then issued using Inverter Network's smart contracts. Bloom's grants pool, in stablecoin, is dispersed based on FLO earned in that period. Read more details.
Benefits of this approach:
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Kickstart flywheels for bioregional regenerative economies, by issuing capital to communities that have limited access to any other means of obtaining it.
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De-risk philanthropic contributions, by documenting the impact before payment is issued.
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Low international remittance fees via stablecoin payouts enable micro payments at scale on globally.
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Makes the unpaid labor being done by communities all over the world visible, and fundable.
Local Action Rewards do not rely on popularity contest dynamics, or who has the largest marketing and outreach budget. Instead of one-time sale ecocredits, Bloomers' impact reports can be used to receive rewards from multiple ecosystems that are offering payment for real world impact. The purpose is to route as much capital as possible into the hands of the people and communities doing the most highly scalable, cost-effective work to stabilize our climate and remedy common social problems.
Whitepaper summarizing our 16 years of global R&D. It outlines how the cooperative patronage token can be used for token-weighted voting in local DAO treasuries (as a measure of true investment and knowledge in local regeneration), and detailing impact reporting data interoperability for grants and investment decisions.
FLO can be used by other protocols as an on-chain marker of knowledge and experience in on-the-ground regenerative solutions, hopefully bringing more real world first wisdom keepers into the leadership structures of Web3.
Starting with our second grants round, we are adding a second pool specifically for Indigenous-led regenerative actions, to address the fact that less than 1% of climate-related aid goes directly to Indigenous organizations, despite Indigenous communities stewarding 80% of the biodiversity on planet Earth.
GG21 Contribution Allocation:
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90% to the Local Action Rewards pool.
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10% to platform development and training, including crypto education, integrating a small wallet directly into our app so the impact report and FLO bounty claim are converged into one step.
We will deliver a report after our grant round ends September 30, with metrics such as new Web3 wallets created, amount of FLO issued, # of impact reports written and verified, # of members who joined, funds distributed, qualitative feedback from members, normalization formula utilized, and recommendations for round 2.
What Now
🎡 We are exploring ways to add community currency properties to FLO to support local business discovery, further utilizing Inverter Network's smart contracts.
For example, say I live in the Lisbon area. I have 300 FLO / [X network token] from helping plant a local food forest, or mentoring a local farmer in business skills. I can see offers from near me that I can receive in exchange for the token. I learn about local businesses near me who are values-aligned with this network. Perhaps the dividend goes to the person who accepted the FLO. Our next development is about researching this.
Goal
Sponsors for the rewards pool are welcome. Our community could easily put $100M to effective use on proven local projects that are ready to scale, securing foodways and restoring watersheds for climate resilience.
Impact Since GG20
Milestone reporting on Karma GAP. Highlights:
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Education: Prepared educational materials and began onboarding our 30,000-person community onto Web3 via Bloom Network. Developed a Needs Assessment survey to help Local Bloom nodes write grants.
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Impact Reporting Interoperability: Coded an API to pull impact reports from Bloom Network into Karma GAP, aiding Local Bloom projects in securing additional funding.
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Local Blooms' Impact: Broadfield Enterprises Uganda obtained EU and US organic certifications. Earthist planted another hemp field to build community collaboration, enrich soil and biodiversity. Diamante Bridge Collective deepened relationships with Boruca matriarch-led restoration efforts and transformational conferences in Costa Rica. They received their Precious Plastics Shredder to form waste into usable materials.
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**Three new Bloom nodes joined:** Cooperativa Los Higuerones in Costa Rica, Northeastern US Bio-Economy Alliance, and Permatours.
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Platform Enhancements:: Customized Inverter Network's bounties app, added Global/Local toggle for social media timeline, integrated a Discord clone including dm's, introduced event listings, and launched "Digs" (Bloom's version of likes).
pictured: Ogallala Life, Texas, aquifer restoration. Rifai Sicilia, moringa agroforestry and web3 onboarding
Why Bloom?
👩🚀 Our platform team is 100% women-led, with decades of experience leading technology transformation!
👩👩👧👦 Local Bloom Organizers have been building communities together since 2008!
🌿 Bloom Network excels at achieving local food and economic sovereignty. Combined with Web3, we are rapidly scaling low-cost, proven solutions with low international remittance fees for mass mobilization.
We welcome you to contribute to this grants mechanism to support the profound work being done by Local Bloom hubs all over the world! ❤️
IntegriTea Cafe and community center, Vallejo