What You Can Build

You don't have to build the whole journey from project reporting to funding. You can make one part of it better, using information others publish and contributing something useful in return.

Here are some ways the building blocks in this Guide could come together.

Help projects tell their story once#

A project dashboard could help a team describe its work, organize activities, and publish updates with evidence. The team uses a familiar interface, while the application publishes shared records that other tools can read.

For a land stewardship project, that might mean grouping restoration activities and land areas, linking field observations, and showing progress across seasons. The resulting history can be useful to the next funder as well as to the team itself.

Make expertise easier to contribute#

An evaluation tool could help reviewers find work in their field, inspect evidence, and publish assessments. The useful contribution is the reviewer's insight, made available beyond the process that first requested it.

For research, this might mean an assessment of methods and findings. For open-source software, it might mean a review of maintenance quality and the experience of teams that depend on the library. Each field can choose its own questions and methods.

Bring existing knowledge into funding decisions#

A funding platform could read project information and earlier assessments, ask only for the additional context its process needs, and record support afterward.

Crowdfunding with matching funds is an existing application described on the landing page. Other mechanisms, such as outcome payments or milestone bounties, could use similar information, with their own selection and payment rules.

Make recognition easier to discover#

A network directory could show projects alongside certifications or endorsements from organizations its users recognize. It could explain who awarded each badge and link to supporting assessments.

A funder exploring a new field could use that directory to find relevant projects and people with expertise, then inspect the underlying records rather than rely only on a list of names.

Give agents useful sources to work with#

An agent could help a project prepare an update, find relevant evaluations for a funder, or flag a question that needs human review. Shared formats make it easier to distinguish a project's claim from someone else's assessment and follow each back to its source.

An agent's summary is still an interpretation. Keeping the evidence and its publisher visible lets people check the conclusions, compare perspectives, and ask better questions.

Choose the connection your users need#

A useful starting point is a concrete question: “What has this project done since we funded it?” or “Which assessments can we reuse?” Then identify the records needed to answer it.

Your app may begin by reading existing information, publishing one kind of record, or doing both. It gains value from the wider network without having to reproduce every other tool.

Next: Building on Shared Records, the final step before Client Integration.