18th Jun 2024 Gemini 1.5 Pro
Matthew Monahan, after a successful stint in Silicon Valley, was troubled by the ecological and climate crisis, realizing it was a much larger issue than just global warming. This led him and his family to a 1,000-acre pine plantation in New Zealand with the aim of transitioning it into a regenerative farm. Over the past decade, they have implemented numerous initiatives, including:
This large-scale endeavor, encompassing approximately 25 individuals across multiple generations, aims to be a model for regenerative land management. The farm operates within a charitable trust structure, utilizing proceeds from Monahan's previous venture to fund similar projects in New Zealand.
Monahan's experience in philanthropy highlighted a crucial gap:
"We have, globally, trillions of dollars in this philanthropic ecosystem, well over a trillion in the United States. And those philanthropic assets are in endowments, and those endowments are invested mostly in traditional equity and bond portfolios in the kind of economic patterns that are very much what we're trying to disrupt and change."
Despite the vast sums held by philanthropic institutions, a minuscule proportion is directed towards environmental causes. Monahan emphasizes that only around 2-4% of the 5% granted annually goes to such initiatives, a figure that remains disappointingly stagnant. This realization underscores the need for more efficient and impactful funding models within the environmental sector.
Inspired by innovations in the Web3 space, Monahan delves into content creation and actively engages with communities focusing on regenerative finance and climate action. This led to his involvement in Gitcoin Grants, a platform leveraging quadratic funding for public goods. He views this as a potential solution to some of the limitations observed in traditional philanthropy.
Through Mont Earth, Monahan aims to bridge the gap between Web3 funding mechanisms and on-the-ground regenerative land projects.
"So we're throwing our hat in the ring on the next Gitcoin grants round, GG20, with a mashing pool of $100,000 worth of ETH. for place-based regenerative land projects. We're inviting a lot of the network that we have in New Zealand and people doing this work who are largely not connected to Web3 at all."
This initiative seeks to onboard organizations and communities, particularly in New Zealand, to this novel funding model. The goal is to create a more direct and democratic process for allocating resources to projects that are actively restoring and regenerating the environment.
Addressing a question about the mechanics of quadratic funding, Monahan explains that it prioritizes projects with broader community support:
"And essentially the allocation from the matching pool is a blended formula that looks not only at the dollars donated, but also the number of people who donated. So if you have two projects and they both raised $100, and one of them raised it from one donor, and one of them raised it from 50 donors, right that that one in 50 governors is a signal that that has broader community support"
This system encourages wider participation, as smaller contributions hold greater weight when pooled together. By incorporating the number of donors into the allocation formula, quadratic funding aims to move away from a top-down approach and empower grassroots initiatives. Monahan sees this as a powerful tool to drive resources towards projects with genuine community backing, fostering a more equitable and impactful approach to funding regenerative land management.
Airtable