Fueling Community-Driven Development
We are Impact Stream. We use emerging technologies to create foundations for accountable, transparent, and community-driven impact.
What is Impact Stream?
We are a team of technologists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and development experts on a mission to help digital communities create real-world impact.
Our platform uses blockchain technology to bring transparency and accountability to international development and poverty alleviation efforts, all while empowering local people to solve local problems.
Unlike traditional nonprofits where it's hard to track donations, Impact Stream’s verifiable on-chain transactions and community voting systems provide full visibility on exactly where your money goes - and why.
We strive to set a new standard for ethical nonprofits, and partner with digital and web3 communities to make a positive impact on our planet.
Submit a Project:
In addition to our current projects in Togo, we’re expanding into new focus areas. We are also exploring other impactful verticals, such as anti-human trafficking, and advancing projects in new regions.
Drop us a line at hello@impact.stream to get in touch if you’d like to work together.
We’ve 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.
Our Platform
How Impact Stream Works
[1]
Community Identification
Impact Stream partners with NGOs to identify local communities in need of funding for local projects.
[2]
Proposal Submission
Individual community members submit detailed project proposals (eg. Solar water pump, health clinic upgrades) that outline community need, potential impact, and usage of funds. These are uploaded to Impact Stream’s platform.
[3]
Community Voting
Through the Impact Stream platform, local community members use quadratic voting - an easy to use yet scientifically proven method to make group decisions in a more democratic and fair way, ensuring no single person or group can dominate the outcomes - to cast their vote.
[4]
Automated Needs Ranking
Impact Stream is able to calculate votes and rank the most necessary and valued projects - by the community - in real-time. Using blockchain technology, the votes are verified and fraudproof, providing an automated needs assessment based on true local needs.
[5]
Funding Distributed & Tracked
Donations made to support the top ranked projects are deployed on-chain to local accounts in local currency, enabling full visibility of funding and significantly reducing cost and friction of donation deployment.
[6]
Project Updates & Reporting
All on-the-ground project expenses and transactions are recorded on the Impact Stream platform, along with project updates for donors, creating full transparency of fund usage and impact.
Impact Stream Case Study:
On-Chain Quadratic Voting and Funding Pool for Togo, West Africa.
Our first pilot project was launched in villages around Lomé, Togo, West Africa, in 2024.
In partnership with a global nonprofit, Impact Stream’s open-source web app was used to allow local community members to submit proposals for local solutions in their own language.
Over 100 people signed up for the web app using their local mobile phone number, and over 30 proposals were submitted for regenerative public goods and poverty alleviation projects.
Each community member had 10 vote credits to apply to one or more of the 30 projects via the quadratic voting method. The voting was then tallied together to reveal the highest-ranked projects according to their local preferences.
The Impact Stream community raised over $60,000 USD to fund each project - from top to bottom in ranking order - until the funding ran out.
You can see the projects submitted by the community and successfully funded below!
Community-Voted Projects Funded
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![Four community members standing together outside in front of a lush garden.]()
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.
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![Two people standing together outdoors in front of lush greenery.]()
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.
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![A group of students and a teacher standing together in a classroom in front of a chalkboard.]()
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.
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![A map showing the location of Didokpo, marked with a red pin, in relation to surrounding areas and major cities in Togo and neighboring countries.]()
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.
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![A group of children and their teachers posing together outside in front of a building.]()
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.
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![A group of healthcare workers standing together outside a building, with one person kneeling in front.]()
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.
Why Impact Stream?
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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.
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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.
Meet the Team
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Michelle
BOARD MEMBER
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Jacques
PROJECT MONITOR
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Azaria
PROJECT MONITOR
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Mark
DESIGNER
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Dominique
PARTNERSHIP COORDINATOR
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Roy
DEVELOPER
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Will
BOARD CHAIR
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Hans
BOARD MEMBER
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Ashlei
BOARD MEMBER
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Papii
BOARD MEMBER
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Angela
BOARD MEMBER
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Derek
BOARD MEMBER
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Jonathan
OPERATIONS
FAQs
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Help us fund the building of public goods around the world.
Our Partners
