NFTs are online certificates of authenticity and ownership. The digital arts community was the first to leverage NFTs. Folks from other industries were quick to see the value as well as celebrities selling their landmark moments as video clips, pictures, tweets etc. NFTs have evolved to disrupt almost every industry for example proof of attendance NFTs are picking up in the events and meetup space, where organizers issue NFTs to attendees as a proof that the NFT holder attended the event.
NFTs present the strengths of the blockchain (public ledger, permanence, decentralization) in a visual and digital format that is easy to store and display.
NFTs have a huge potential to disrupt the social good space. In addition to fundraising through NFT charity auctions, NFTs can help grow a culture of giving. I recently wrote an article on how NFTs can fix slacktivism, a problem that got prevalent with the advent of social media platforms. The doers can now be filtered from the talkers via Impact NFTs
The big Idea - Impact Protocol
The Impact Protocol enables creation and distribution of Impact NFTs issued by nonprofit organizations to their contributors. Impact NFTs are proof that the holder has made an impact, the record of which is on the blockchain, publicly verifiable and immutable.
Owning impact NFTs prove that you are a supporter of the cause. The token proves that your copy of the digital assets are unique. The NFT creator's (in this case nonprofits) public key serves as a certificate of authenticity for that particular NFT. The creators public key, a permanent part of the token's history demonstrate that the token you hold was created by a particular organization, thus contributing to its legitimacy.
Good design is key to the success of Impact NFTs as an idea. People should feel proud and inspired to display it as their profile picture or watch face. Now that Twitter has enabled the support for displaying NFTs as profile pictures and Meta might soon do the same for Facebook and Instagram it’s important that the social good community be ready.
A well designed impact NFT has many advantages,
the holder will be proud to show it off as a profile picture and signal their commitment to the cause, potentially creating a buzz that would trigger:
A desire to own by others which would lead to more people signing up to do a good act.
Drive the conversation about the cause and the organization behind it creating cause and brand awareness.
The above image in an example of Twitter NFT profile picture. A click on the hexagon NFT profile picture leads to a bigger display, with the NFT metadata displayed on the right.
Why Impact Protocol?
Social good sector often lacks resources, money and artistic sophistication needed in the NFT space. The goal of Impact Protocol will be to make it super easy for nonprofits to create, mint and distribute impact NFTs
Create: Good design is essential and most times nonprofits lack design expertise. Similar to Unsplash, the Impact Protocol will have a free to use collection of high quality artworks representing various causes. Artists donate artwork under a creative commons license with attribution. Nonprofits can use this artwork in their Impact NFTs. Artists are awarded with recognition and royalties if the NFT is sold ahead.
Initially the aim will be to create a collection of artwork around the 17 themes of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGSs). SDGs are identified by UN and considered as "A blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all people and the world by 2030"
SDGs provides a framework for artists to design artworks that aligns with one of the goals.
Mint: The Impact Protocol makes it easy for nonprofits to mint. Nonprofits do not need to have any technical knowhow to mint an Impact NFT.
Distribute: The protocol will also make it easy for nonprofits to distribute impact NFTs to its supporters.
The goal is to provide an end to end solution to social impact organizations (nonprofits, social enterprises and cause driven DAOs) to create, mint and distribute impact NFTs. The artwork gallery offers designs that social impact organizations can use off the shelf but the protocol will also provide the capability to customize.
Few examples
A nonprofit can issue NFTs to its high value donors and volunteers with an image that represents them or their work. The NFT description provides the details of why the NFT was issued.
A nonprofit can have multi tiered NFTs to recognize different levels of donors or volunteers. A dynamic NFT that evolves as levels of contributions go up.
A social enterprise can recognize their loyal customers by issuing NFTs that depicts their ethos - fair wages, handmade, sustainable etc
NFTs for special campaigns. If a nonprofit organizes a fundraiser to build a school or a well in a particular place or to provide meals to x no of people, they can issues an NFT that depicts and details the impact of this special campaign.
Impact NFTs can be resold with 100% or 85% of the monies going back to the creator (in this case the nonprofit)
As people continue to live more of their lives online, they are looking for ways to create their online identity. The NFTs they hold are an expression of their online identity and impact NFTs will play a crucial role in the online identity composition. It will help display the “giving”, “charitable”, “generous”, “I’m making an impact” side of the person.
An open source idea
I’m really excited by the idea of Impact Protocol as I believe it’s the beginning of something big, that’s going to make a dent in the universe. If you are excited about the idea and would like to help bring it to life, reach out to me on Twitter or GitHub. It’s an open source idea to be built collectively on distributed infrastructure and owned by everyone. We need devs, artists and thinkers, reach out on Twitter.
Great ideas Deepa! Need to unpack this some more.