Community Driven Development

We are Impact Stream. We use emerging technologies to create foundations for accountable, transparent, and community-driven impact.

Donate

We created a web app that uses blockchain technology to let communities worldwide propose, vote on, and fund the projects they need.

We believe in giving local people the power and tools to solve local challenges. We want local people to be the heroes of their communities - not us.

About Impact Stream

Our mission is to create a transparent and accountable impact between digital and real-world communities. We aim to revolutionize international development and poverty alleviation by empowering local people to solve local problems using blockchain technology. Blockchains allow everyone to see verifiable transactions, ensuring transparency and accountability. Our goal is to help NGOs use these on-chain capabilities, operate transparently, and empower the people they serve.

Unlike traditional non-profits, where it's hard to track donations, our platform promotes on-chain transactions to show exactly where your money goes. We strive to set a new standard for ethical non-profits and partner with digital and web3 communities to make a positive impact on our planet.

Project Locations & Verticals

In addition to our current locations, we’re expanding into new focus areas. While our work in Togo is underway, we’re also exploring other impactful verticals, such as anti-human trafficking, and advancing projects in new regions like Brazil, which are currently in the discovery phase.

Why Impact Stream?

Many nonprofits address poverty by bringing in outside solutions and teams, which often leads to a lack of agency for the local communities they aim to help. These approaches typically involve higher (often Western) salaries for outside staff, while the people in the target community have little to no say in the decision-making process. As a result, locals are excluded from shaping their own outcomes and denied the dignity of driving their own development. This top-down model overlooks the value of empowering communities to take the lead in solving their own challenges.
The nonprofit sector often struggles with transparency and accountability, leading to issues like fraud and corruption. This lack of clarity has caused growing distrust in NGOs, as donors have little to no way of knowing where their money is being spent or understanding the actual impact of their contributions.
We solve this with blockchain technology. Every vote and financial transaction is securely recorded on the blockchain, creating a transparent and tamper-proof system. This ensures that donors can see exactly how their money is used and the impact it’s making, restoring trust and accountability in the process.

Current Projects

Hello everyone 👋,
We have successfully created an initial prototype of our open-source web app and run our first round!
Over 100 people from Togo signed up for the web app using their local mobile phone number. We had 30 proposals submitted for regenerative public goods and poverty alleviation projects. This occurred in and around the capital city of Lomé and surrounding villages.
43 people participated in the quadratic voting process. Each person had 10 vote credits to apply to one or more of the 30 projects. The square root of their votes applied to each project was then tallied together to reveal the highest-ranked projects according to their local preferences.
The main idea of our open-source web app is to allow local people to submit proposals, in their own language, to suggest solutions for local problems. In addition to transparent, on-chain voting to determine community preference, money from a funding pool provided by our global community is then used to fund each project - from top to bottom in ranking order - until the funding runs out.
We successfully raised $60k+ USD earmarked to go directly to Togo for these projects! We are now in the process of actively funding the six projects listed below.
Additionally, we are ALSO trying to raise funds for two additional runner-up projects that would be amazing to see built:
Project # 7: A well for clean water access for the village of KLIKAME, near the pineapple demonstration farm our staff is involved with (and our western staff/board members visited last summer).
Project # 8: A well for clean water access for an orphanage in AMOUZOU-KOPE.
If you would be interested in donating to help us with these two projects, please visit this dedicated campaign page - which has a lot more detail - and ALSO feel free to jump in our Discord server to say hello. Thanks! 🙏

Technology Education Center

Cumulative Vote Weight: 28.08
Through Laurent's (2nd from left) leadership, plans are underway to establish an educational center aimed at equipping local adults with essential technology skills. Recognizing the growing need for tech proficiency as the regional economy evolves, this initiative will provide targeted training to help older adults secure tech-related jobs and continue their education from home, empowering them to meet the demands of the modern workplace.

Read More
Professional Training for Textile Manufacturing

Cumulative Vote Weight: 25.95
Togo has an unemployment rate of 55%. This proposal is aimed to help bring jobs and job training to the region in the market of textile and apparel manufacturing. Many young individuals, after dropping out of school, face financial barriers to professional training, hindering community and national development. The solution proposed by this project provides access to sewing machines - and covered training costs - for young people to foster self-sufficiency and contribute to community development in the area.

Read more
Community Library

Cumulative Vote Weight: 17.10
The community has voiced their support for a new initiative led by Jacques to establish a library in a region currently lacking educational resources. Recognizing the shift among children towards social media, this library aims to reignite their interest in reading through engaging activities and periodic contests. This project promises to be a beacon for learning, offering children the chance to explore the vast worlds contained within books and enhance their educational experiences.

Read more
Solar-Powered Clean Water Access

Cumulative Vote Weight: 12.67
The community has chosen to tackle the pressing issue of water access through a sustainable solution led by Jacques. A new project will introduce a water well equipped with a solar pump, designed to provide reliable and clean water to a local school and the surrounding village communities that currently rely on unreliable and unsanitary sources. This project will drastically improve the health of many individuals by reducing the incidence of waterborne diseases and other issues related to unsafe water.

Read More
New Equipment for an Elementary School

Cumulative Vote Weight: 10.30
Led by Kodjo Dodzi (pictured in the red shirt), this project focuses on updating the equipment at CS La Citadelle, a private elementary school. By improving the school's facilities, this project aims to enhance the educational environment for both teachers and students, enabling more effective teaching and learning experiences. This support is crucial for empowering young teachers who are beginning their careers and striving to make a positive impact in their community.

Read More
Health Clinic Equipment Upgrade

Cumulative Vote Weight: 6.38
Led by Kodjo Dodzi (pictured kneeling) the community has voted to address the pressing healthcare challenges by upgrading necessary clinic equipment. With only one doctor per 25,000 people - and where existing facilities lack essential tools - this initiative is set to significantly enhance healthcare delivery and ensure the clinic can offer better care and support to the population. This project is a critical step toward meeting the urgent medical needs of the community.

Read More

Meet the Team

Michelle

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Liz

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
Jacques

PROJECT MONITOR
Azaria

PROJECT MONITOR
Mark

DESIGNER
Dominique

PARTNERSHIP COORDINATOR
Roy

DEVELOPER
Will

BOARD CHAIR
Hans

BOARD MEMBER
Ashlei

BOARD MEMBER
Papii

BOARD MEMBER
Angela

BOARD MEMBER
Derek

BOARD MEMBER

FAQs

A blockchain is like a notebook that everyone shares. Whenever something is added, it’s copied to everyone’s notebook, so no one can change it or cheat. Everyone can see what’s written, so it’s safe and trustworthy. This technology allows for secure, transparent, and verifiable transactions, ensuring that everyone can see and trust the recorded information.
Quadratic voting is a method used to make group decisions in a more democratic and fair way. In this system, each person gets a certain number of credits that they can use to vote on various issues. However, the cost of casting multiple votes for a single option increases quadratically. This means that if you want to cast 1 vote, it costs 1 credit, but if you want to cast 2 votes (for the same issue), it costs 4 credits, and 3 votes cost 9 credits, and so on. This system helps to ensure that people can express the intensity of their preferences while preventing any single individual from having too much influence on the outcome.
We use quadratic voting to create a truly fair and democratic process, where everyone in the region has an equal voice. It allows unlimited participation in each voting round and ensures no single person or group can dominate the outcomes. The system is cost-effective, instantly compiles and organizes data—essentially performing a needs assessment—and provides real-time results. This makes it easier to identify and prioritize the projects that matter most to the community.
You can make your tax-deductible donation with traditional currency by using the donation form below - or you can donate using cryptocurrency using impactstream.eth.