The Tāne Ora trial is an experiment to test whether a new, Web 3 inspired, community decision making approach can significantly improve the established community grant funding model.
The video below tells the story of Tāne Ora, a Māori mens health group associated with Waiwhetū Marae, in Lower Hutt and their negative experience of the grant funding system. It also explains how the new model works and outlines why our partners are supporting this approach.
How did we get here?
The trial is a result of a cross government team’s exploration into the question:
How might the NZ Government take its first practical step into the world of Web 3?
Throughout a 12 week accelerator the team identified the community grant funding process as a good place to start. We learnt that the existing grant model structure is hierarchical, siloed and presented numerous barriers to communities who were trying to access funding. The team concluded that the value coordination and governance techniques emerging from the Web 3 world could add significant value.
During this accelerator we connected with Sport NZ | Ihi Aotearoa who was looking for a better way to fund their priority communities. Propelled by our shared interest we held a series of workshops with a range of stakeholders to share knowledge and explore a new model. The outcome was an agreement to trial a new, technology enabled approach to grant funding with the Tāne Ora community. In early 2023 we confirmed the funding for the trial and we spent the next 4 months co-designing the software with the community.
In May 2023 we launched the trial and over the coming months the Tāne Ora community will be using the software to allocate grant funding provided by Sport NZ. You can follow along for updates and learnings via our social channels or by signing up to our newsletter.
The Funding Model
The funding model we've developed builds on participatory grantmaking concepts, where the goal is to shift the decision making power to the people closest to the issues. However, unlike other participatory grant making projects, at the heart of our approach is a simple smartphone app that leverages new Web 3 democratic voting techniques to help the whole community come to a collective decision while giving the funder the real-time transparency/accountability they often require.
The participatory grantmaking app being used in the trial is now available for other communities to use and has become a key milestone towards The Wellbeing Protocols vision.
A huge thanks to our trial partners