Our first experiment: AIFS IN THE WILD.

We have been a bit quiet in the blogging space as we have had our heads down, building/connecting and looking to share our big ideas.

Since All In For Sport’s inception, we have been keen to experiment with new ways of shifting power in the way capital and governance flows in communities, and have partnered with SuperBenefit DAO to explore the possibilities in this space together. Sport has been the aligning lynchpin to formulate our concept around because of its universal power to inherently connect, build relationships, and promote wellbeing in communities. Being spun out of Krause House DAO, and having built an extensive network within the basketball community both within North America and globally, working on basketball court refurbishment projects seemed to be a natural fit and the perfect playground to beta test our ideas.

We set on our path to understand the true value AIFS could provide to its partners, community, and most of all the people who we feel have not typically had a seat at the table when it comes to governance and decision-making in communities. Undertaking this work has involved many hours of conversation, listening, and understanding the needs, struggles and the fundamental flaws of the current system to be able to truly develop what we feel will be a transformative way to set a new path forward.

The process is complex, and we definitely have more questions than answers at this point, but we were given an incredible opportunity to test our specific assumptions around the crowdfunding piece with a basketball project in an unlikely location…Sitka, Alaska.

One of our early connections when exploring basketball court refurbishments was with Project Backboard. The passion they have for the game and refurbishment projects they have completed perfectly aligned with AIFS. We can’t say enough good about the impact that this organization is making for the game, the community and – most importantly – the kids. Our team had been thinking about ways to collaborate with Project Backboard when an opportunity arose.

Coming off a 2022 court refurbishment with renowned Indigenous artist Crystal Worl, Project Backboard set its sights on running a Five Star Basketball camp for youth in the community. As a steward of Krause House DAO, I was contacted by coach and past NCAA basketball player Brandon Reese to see if there was interest in supporting getting kids to camp. Not only was Krause House interested (and willing to kickstart the raise with 1K), but we quickly realized it was a great opportunity to see if All In For Sport could partner to assist in raising the rest of the funds needed. The amount to raise: 7K. The time frame: less than 4 weeks.

Off to the raises…

We set up our website, provided links for people to donate in either FIAT, or via CRYPTO and let the games begin! A larger assumption we were looking to answer was that given our relationships are mostly in the crypto native community we would expect to see a larger donation of crypto. We pushed it out to socials via Krause House and All In For Sport asked our partners, supporters and everyone they knew to help push our message far and wide.

Was it ambitious? Hugely for our first experiment and tight timelines.

Were we nervous? You bet.

Did we do it? YEAH WE DID!!!

We were able to raise $3680 in FIAT and 2.13E ($3967) in CRYPTO for a total of $7647 USD. The results indicated a clear value to having the ability to donate in both currencies. Upon reflection this makes good sense and allows us to sidestep the urgent feeling to onboard donations to the crypto side early on. All in all, a successful first test.

We are incredibly grateful to Project Backboard, Krause House DAO, Brandon Reese and the rest of the Five Star Basketball camp coaches and most importantly the supporters who have backed this crowdfund, this concept and AIFS in these early beginnings.

Where we are going next..

With this knowledge in hand, we are now keen to peel back the next layers of the onion. What does it look like to collaborate with a civic partner? What value can AIFS give beyond assisting to raise capital for infrastructure in communities? What does it look like to test our model in another continent?

We have many exciting opportunities to come and are so happy to have you on this journey with us.

The AIFS team