Gitcoin Grants 21 (GG21) was the 21st Gitcoin Grants round, held from August 7 to August 21, 2024. It marked Gitcoin's first fully community-led grants round, operating entirely through Community Rounds and Ecosystem Rounds without a Gitcoin-managed Open Source Software (OSS) Program.
Across 11 active rounds, GG21 distributed $933K in total funding — $743K in matching funds and $190K in crowdfunded contributions — supporting 517 projects. Nine Community Rounds and two Ecosystem Rounds ran concurrently, each managed by external operators with governance oversight from the elected GG Community Council.
GG21 was a deliberate structural experiment following Gitcoin's mid-2024 decision to shift the OSS Program to a twice-annual cadence. Gitcoin contributed $370K in matching funds to Community Rounds, while ecosystem partners including Arbitrum and Celo supplied an additional $373K in matching for their respective Ecosystem Rounds and community-raised pools. This allocation followed a $50K top-five / $30K bottom-five model determined by Community Council rankings.
The round introduced Ecosystem Rounds as a new category, piloting partnerships with established protocol ecosystems that leveraged Gitcoin's grants infrastructure while retaining independent governance and funding sources. Community Rounds covered a wide range of domains, including climate solutions, decentralized science, regenerative coordination, grants infrastructure, civic technology, collaboration tools, token engineering, and regional public goods in Asia. All rounds used quadratic funding and applied layered sybil resistance through Connection-Oriented Cluster Matching (COCM) and Gitcoin Passport's Model-Based Detection.
How It Works
GG21 operated through two parallel tracks — Community Rounds and Ecosystem Rounds — each using quadratic funding with round-specific governance and eligibility criteria.
- Community round proposals and council review: Community round operators submitted proposals to the Gitcoin governance forum by July 16. The elected GG Community Council reviewed proposals using detailed rubrics covering operator experience, fundraising capacity, mission alignment, and impact assessment plans, then voted on which rounds to accept and how to allocate Gitcoin matching funds.
- Ecosystem round configuration: Two ecosystem rounds — Thriving Arbitrum Summer (150,000 ARB matching, approximately $117K at distribution) and Real World Builders on Celo ($75K cUSD matching) — were invited by Gitcoin as a pilot program. These rounds were managed and funded by external partners operating on Gitcoin Grants Stack.
- Project applications: Applications opened July 24, with deadlines varying by round. Each round defined its own eligibility criteria and review process. Projects applied directly to the rounds aligned with their domain or ecosystem.
- Contribution window: From August 7 to 21, donors contributed to projects across all 11 active rounds. Contributions functioned as weighted preference signals under the quadratic funding formula, with matching funds allocated to projects attracting broad community support.
- Sybil resistance: COCM applied social-graph-based adjustments to reduce the influence of coordinated clusters. Gitcoin Passport's Model-Based Detection scanned wallets in the background and assigned scores based on onchain history, requiring no additional friction from donors.
- Fund distribution: Matching funds and crowdfunded contributions were distributed to grantees following round completion. Each round operator managed fund distribution for their respective round, with Gitcoin providing matching disbursements for rounds receiving Gitcoin funding.
Several Community Rounds experimented with QF variations, including the Climate Solutions Round's hybrid model (50% standard QF, 50% COCM), the Regen Coordi-Nation Round's Tunable Quadratic Funding (TQF), and the CollabTech Round's threshold funding mechanism.
Eligibility
Eligibility in GG21 operated at two levels: round-level requirements for operators proposing rounds to the Gitcoin Grants program, and project-level criteria defined independently by each round. Baseline ethical standards applied across all rounds.
Community Round Operators
Community Round operator eligibility emphasized demonstrated capacity, fundraising commitment, and alignment with Gitcoin's mission and essential intents.
Operators were required to designate a lead organizer with prior experience running a grants round, supported by at least two additional team members with relevant operational or domain expertise.
Community-raised matching pools were expected to be proportional to round scope and goals. Gitcoin allocated additional matching funds ranging from $30K to $50K per round based on Community Council rankings, using a $50K top-five / $30K bottom-five allocation model.
Proposals were evaluated for mission alignment and included explicit plans for assessing grantee impact.
Ecosystem Rounds
Ecosystem Round participation was by invitation during GG21's pilot phase. Partners were selected based on ecosystem scale, alignment with Gitcoin's platform capabilities, and capacity to supply independent matching pools. Project-level eligibility within ecosystem rounds was defined by the partner organization.
Project-Level Eligibility
Each round defined its own project eligibility criteria based on domain scope and round goals. Project requirements varied significantly across rounds — for example, the Thriving Arbitrum Summer Round required projects to be building within the Arbitrum ecosystem, the Climate Solutions Round required demonstrated focus on greenhouse gas reduction or climate infrastructure, and the DeSci Round supported multilingual applications for decentralized science projects.
Results
Funding outcomes
- Projects funded: 517 across 11 rounds
- Total funding distributed: $933K ($743K matching + $190K crowdfunding)
- Gitcoin matching contribution: $370K across Community Rounds
Participation
- Unique donors: 7,700 across all rounds
- Crowdfunded contributions: $190K raised through community donations
- Crowdfunding-to-Gitcoin-matching ratio: 51.35% (exceeding the 50% target)
Highlights
The Asia Round recorded the highest participation of any round, attracting 3,900 donors and $59,471 in crowdfunded contributions, signaling strong regional community engagement.
The Climate Solutions Round piloted a hybrid 50% Quadratic Funding / 50% Connection-Oriented Cluster Matching model and distributed matching funds in Glo Dollars, generating over $10K in additional climate-focused funding.
The Regen Coordi-Nation Genesis Round brought together GreenPill Network, ReFi DAO, and Celo Public Goods, mobilizing $110K in combined program funding across partners — of which $50K was allocated as the GG21 matching pool — while testing Tunable Quadratic Funding (TQF).
The CollabTech Round introduced a threshold funding mechanism requiring projects to meet minimum contribution levels before receiving matching funds. Sixteen of twenty-nine projects reached their thresholds.
What Changed
GG21 validated that fully community-led rounds can function at scale. Compared to GG20, community round matching increased by 15% and community round crowdfunding increased by 30%.
At the same time, the absence of the OSS Program resulted in a 70% decrease in overall crowdfunding and a 59% decrease in total funding. Historical data showed that the OSS Program had previously accounted for approximately 65–85% of total Gitcoin Grants funding volume.
These outcomes directly informed the decision to reinstate OSS funding as the primary program track in GG22, while retaining the Community Rounds model. GG21 also led to stricter eligibility requirements for Community Round operators in subsequent rounds, including a minimum $5K self-raised matching threshold introduced in GG22.