by Will Corcoran on April 19, 2022

To date, the Stacks Foundation has supported over 200 grantees. If you’re one of them, thank you.

Each grant has been an incredible learning experience for our team and played a role in the program’s evolution as well as today’s launch of the ‘Grants Dashboard’, a streamlined grant application and management portal.

What was once a simple Github repo is now a fully supported program complete with ambassadors, docs and resources, and a revitalized application and payment system. To guide you through the new Grants Dashboard as well as the associated people and tools, we’ve created four important resources:

Grantees have a major positive cascading effect on the ecosystem, so increasing program throughput is one of the best things we can do to support the Stacks network.

Notably, the Grants program delivered as much in grant funding last quarter (Q1 2022) as it did throughout all of 2021. Along the way, we’ve deliberately worked our way from offering smaller starter grants that marked the beta era to a program that now offers a variety of grant types that support projects from small to large. Other new grant types provide a clear path for talented builders such as Stacks Residents, Stacks Accelerator teams, agencies, and others to contribute to the ecosystem in a sustainable, ongoing way.

This growth means we’ve had a chance to see what’s working about the current process, as well as identify opportunities to reduce friction. We only see further expansion of the program in the future and believe it will remain a key pillar in the continued growth and the Stacks ecosystem.

The new Grants Dashboard represents the sum of our learnings to date and will ensure the Grants program can support the continued growth of the Stacks Ecosystem.

The goal of the Grants Dashboard is to clarify and simplify all aspects of the grants process from application to completion and ensure the following:

• Maximize the velocity of the grants review process.
• Ensure the review process provides grantees with a positive experience.
• Maximize the quality and impact of all the work the amazing builders in the Stacks community produce with the support of grants.
• Ensure that work is shared and provides the entire Stacks community with added value.

The Grants Dashboard will service several programs including Stacks Grants, Stacks Residents, Chapter Grants, and Wishlist Grants. The Dashboard houses a range of essential information that is organized in the following sections:

1. My Dashboard: A homepage for each user to quickly see their activity and any action items they need to take care of so their their review process can advance.
2. Program Details: Where users can learn more about each of the grant programs and their respective application, assessment, and administrative processes.
3. Explore All: A database of all applications and wishlist items with comprehensive filtering options to facilitate ease of research.
4. Knowledge Base*: A community-focused repository of tutorials, solutions, and smart contract templates powered by grantees, ambassadors, and Stacks members.
5. Statistics*: A financial dashboard and collection of leaderboards designed to provide the community with insights into how the Stacks Foundation treasury is being deployed and who are the leading contributors.

*The Knowledge Base and Statistics sections of the Grants Dashboard will be released in the coming months.

The process of developing the Grants Dashboard provided us with an opportunity to evolve the complexion and organization of the Grants Program from top to bottom. We’ve broken down these considerations, as well as key processes and information about the program in the living resources linked at the beginning of this article and here for your convenience:

• Stacks Grants Program: Process
• Program Design Considerations & Information Architecture

To learn more, check out the Grants Dashboard. You can take part in defining the future of the Stacks ecosystem by submitting an application for a Stacks Grant, working on a Wishlist Grant, or providing current grantees with feedback.
The Grants Dashboard can be accessed at grants.stacks.org.