Grassroots Economics is a Kenyan non-profit foundation that seeks to empower marginalized communities by helping them coordinate their collective abundance. We do this by co-developing Community Asset Vouchers inspired by indigenous practices of mutual aid, built on the best of modern technology. Since 2009, we’ve expanded our network to 65,000+ households across Kenya, Cameroon, and South Africa.

For GR18 we are specifically fundraising for the development costs of Sarafu.Network, an open source dapp that enables anyone, anywhere in the world, to create, view and interact with Community Asset Voucher (CAV) ERC20 tokens – which form the basis for Economic Commons and regional trade networks. This will add to our existing suite of tools such as our USSD wallet, enabling us to expand beyond Kenya to regions like Mississippi, Colombia, and India.

All funds raised during GR18 will go towards a) supporting a world-class team of builders and b) implementation costs like smart contract auditing, server fees, and field training. We have managed to bootstrap 10+ years of pioneering work with only 1 full-time engineer, a dedicated stream of part-time developers, and 12 field staff. We need your help to build this and every donation counts!