Reshaping Community Decision-Making: Participatory Funding on Hylo
Through participatory funding rounds, communities can democratically allocate resources in a more equitable and effective manner.
What if the people closest to a problem could decide how to solve it? What if communities determined where resources flow? Through participatory funding rounds, communities can democratically allocate resources in a more equitable and effective manner.
In a world of institutional collapse and climate chaos, local resilience, collective action, and distributed power matter more than ever. We need tools that match this shift. Hylo’s governance toolkit is expanding to meet this moment, offering communities new ways to work together and make decisions collectively. Participatory funding rounds are a key part of this toolkit, transforming how communities allocate resources and set priorities together.
Funding Rounds Now on Hylo
Hylo’s participatory grantmaking and budgeting tool, Funding Rounds, was made possible through a grant from the 11th Hour Project, a program of the Schmidt Family Foundation. The collaboration included the 11th Hour and Raft Foundation in supporting Float, the Funding Lab for Open Agroecological Technologies. Float is experimenting with new models for co-developing and funding technology that advances food sovereignty.
After months of development and collaboration, Hylo officially launched Funding Rounds. This toolkit enables communities to run democratic funding processes from start to finish — from proposal submission to community discussion to collective voting and allocation. Float has completed two successful funding rounds involving over 50 community members in distributing nearly $700,000 USD.
Moving Towards Distributed Decision-Making
Traditional philanthropy involves a small group of decision-makers allocating grants in a top-down manner. With direct participatory and democratic funding, every stakeholder gets a voice in deciding what matters. Community members submit proposals, discuss and vet options together, and collectively vote on resource allocation. This results in decisions reflecting community values, needs, and experiences.
Participatory grantmaking distributes power from the center to the edges, where true innovation tends to occur.
The community members closest to challenges often understand them best. By inviting these stakeholders into decision-making, resources have a better chance of reaching deserving, impactful projects.
By adding Funding Rounds to Hylo’s existing collaboration tools, the platform creates a unique coordination space for handling money collectively. Hylo provides the pathways to develop relationships and trust needed for complex collaborations, plus the tools to execute them. With this expanding stewardship toolkit, Hylo aims to help communities build infrastructure for resilient, democratic, and self-determined futures.
