Grant Proposal: Whitepapers Deciphered

Community Grant Applications
#1

Summary:

Building and developing education topics that bridge content in whitepapers for various chains and protocols in easy-to-understand language. I currently have the basic outline of the project detailed in within a Medium publication but want to grow and host the material on its own site and promote the content to a broader audience across social media. In addition to covering whitepaper “breakdowns”, there will be featured Op-Eds that will cover recent trends and news events going on. The plan is ro release 3-4 well-written articles a month that are roughly between 1,500-2000 words per article or a 5-7 minute read.

I have read and agree to the privacy policy:
Yes

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Individual

What type of grant are you pursuing?:
Project (One-Off)

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Education

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:
General web3 Community

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
2250

Have you received funding from somewhere else?:
No

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:
As mentioned above in the summary, the project is aimed at targeting technical content and putting it into a form that non-engineering/developers can easily understand to help build the competency of the crypto community as a whole.

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:
I have been writing on Medium over the past 1.5 years and have had numerous successful data science/Python articles doing this exact thing. I have 63 articles and just over 80,000 views in Medium and plan to build and expand in the Crypto space. Since the initial sponsorship of this project would come from The Graph, it will have one article dedicated to topics surrounding The Graph. My Medium profile can be viewed here: Miguel Saldana – Medium and my WPDeciphered publication page can be seen here: White Papers Deciphered – Medium

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
I have been in the web3 space for just under 2 years and am a senior ambassador for Sarcophagus
DAO ($SARCO), Creative team at Conceal Network ($CCX), and Project Catalyst Veteran Proposal Assessor for Cardano.

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
I believe that web3 and crypto are at an interesting crossroads where education is the key to mainstream adoption. A large part of the items either negatively attributed or perceived about web3 is largely due to ignorance and/or lack of understanding of how it works. The Graph is an ideal piece of the puzzle enabling data extracting to perform analytics and insights, which is why I personally became interested in becoming a part of The Graph community in this form.

Breakdown of Fund Request:
$2,250 for 1 year worth of content generation and web hosting and social media advertising

  • $1,800 = $150/month w/ 3 articles per month ($50/article)
  • $150 = web hosting and administrative fees
  • $300 = social media and advertising



Primary Community Poll

Do you fundamentally support this grant application, knowing that the final scope and grant amount may differ from the requested proposal?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters




Grant Committee Vote

Do you recommend this grant to the DAO?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

#2

Hi! Thanks for your well written proposal. I’d love to ask questions about it but you didn’t submit your proposal through the form, so the DAO members cannot see the proposal in their system yet! That makes it a pain to process your application so I recommend applying for the grant through the form here: ClickUp forms

This link is also found in the AdvocatesDAO discord server’s info channel if you wanna find it again later!

Thanks so much!

1 Like
#3

Hi Tim,

I did resubmit using the form… thanks for bringing it to my attention!

1 Like
#4

@USCMigs thanks for your submission.

-$50 per article that is 1,500-2,000 words seems too low. As the basic rates are from $0.05 - $1 per word. Curious how are you pricing that and how would that affect the quality of the writing?

-$150 web hosting/administrative fees: If you’re using Medium to publish then your web hosting is covered. Will it be published elsewhere? If so what is the name of the website, copy of the alexa ranking and analytics (people attending the website, bounce rate)? What are administrative fees and what does it cover?

-$300 for social media and advertising. Are you paying a social media manager? For what exactly (posting the link to the published medium article because there’s a built in social share feature for that). Are you running paid ads? On what keywords and to what website the Graph or your Medium article .

Looking forward to your response.

#5

Hi,

Thanks for the questions and provide some additional context/reasoning on your questions.

  • The price per article is purely just based on my own rate. I enjoy writing, building my skills, and I’m not dependent on this money for living. With that line of thought, maybe it’s a little altruistic of me, but I’m hoping to help build educational/insightful material and self-develop, the funds will likely just go back into building this even further. Maybe if it grows and I need funding to expand I’ll apply for an additional grant, but would like to start at a reasonable rate and then assess, rather than ask for more and for lack of better terms, waste it.
  • Medium in my eye is critical that it’s a go-to for a lot web3/blockchain content and there are a lot of talented writers looking for somewhere to help grow their reach. My idea is to use the content on Medium to help build and promote the publication along with other writers as it grows and then use a separate website to host and build/advertise about the writings/writers/web3 space in general. Also, it will help with SEO and getting the word out there. The website is yet to be created but will be used to help expand the brand.
  • When I first created the publication site, I grabbed Twitter, IG, and other social media handles to be used and would switch them to professional accounts and likely use search engine advertising like Google Ads. They offer flexible rates and it will likely be small campaigns to get a feel for how it works and if it’s effective. I think social media traction is a greater source of influence so things like twitter blue and investing more time on getting content out regularly (basically spending time) will be.

I think I mentioned this in the application, but I would definitely place in all banners/images that WPDeciphered is sponsored by The Graph Advocates or Graph DAO (whichever is more appropriate) and use tags appropriately based on the content of the articles.

Let me know if you have any other questions and/or feedback. Thanks.

1 Like
#6

@USCMigs thx for the follow up responses.

I fully support this initiative.

Would love to offer support in terms of your website setup and promoting it on social media through my own channels and connecting you with folks necessary. Reach out to me on Twitter

Also I want to personally collab with you on writing 1-2 of the Medium articles. Lmk if that is something that interests you

1 Like
#7

Thank you @USCMigs for submitting this application and sharing your body of work. I have read a couple of your articles and found them interesting, unique angles. Since you are also a Graph Advocate, I would envision that your proposed content you describe in this proposal would also qualify to be submitted as Advocate contributions. The proposed quantity of work you propose could potentially also qualify for Advocate grants, assuming that the work has not already been covered with recognition otherwise, such as a community grant.

In other words, there is a choice I would like to bring to your attention to select which path you would rather want to choose submitting this work as: Advocate program or community grant?

Just wanted to bring this to your awareness before proceeding with the process of this community grant proposal, so you can make a choice that works best for you :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
#8

I’ll reach out in the Discord as I’m not sure I understand the distinction between the two just yet, but thanks for that… trying to grow and making a collab-like place for content creators and tech teachers!

1 Like
#9

Hello @USCMigs ,

I wanted to follow up on whether you came to a conclusion on whether you’d like to pursue this contribution via Advocate program or Community Grant application. Looking forward to your respone.

Thanks!

#10

Hey @Mr.1776,

I listened into Darby’s talk today and I think I’ll go the advocate grant route on this one since it seems a similar process regarding requesting and receiving funds although through different formats. I saw them mention that we were supposed to get an email about the forms can you double check that it was sent out to me and then I think we can close this grant application and I’ll collect the information to submit the request for funding for the advocate side of things! Thanks!

2 Likes
#11

Sounds good! Here are the links you referenced you’re looking for:

Hope that helps! I’ll go ahead and close out this application but if you have any questions, feel free to message me on Discord at Kyle.Larue.1776#9619

Thanks again!