WHAT YOU WILL NEED

You’ll need a custodial Web3 Wallet such as Metamask. You can watch the video below if you need help setting this up:

BEFORE YOU START

1. Head over to the Gitcoin Grants website and sign in. If you don’t have a Github account, you will be prompted to create one.
2. Once you are signed in, connect your Metamask wallet by clicking on the Metamask Fox icon in the top right-hand corner of your browser and following instructions to connect to the Gitcoin Grants site.
3. Be aware that if a page you are waiting for isn’t loading, select the Refresh icon at the top left of your screen. You may be stuck in a Catcha Loop and will need to click the “I am not a robot” button to proceed.

Step One: EXPLORE the Mind-Boggling Variety of Gitcoin Grants; select your favorites to add to the shopping cart

1. Scroll down the Gitcoin Grants website page and view all of the Matching Rounds e.g., Climate Solutions, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Advocacy, etc.
2. Click on the “View All Grants” button at the top of the page, or on one of the Match Rounds banners such as Climate Solutions.
3. If you selected the “View All Grants” button, then you will see a page with a “Grant Round” button in the left corner. If you click on this, you can also choose to view the grants in: 1. Main Round, 2. Cause Rounds, or 3. Ecosystem Rounds.
4. For the sake of this tutorial, let’s say you select the Climate Solutions projects. When you go to the  Climate Solutions page, you will see the Matching Partners for this round. In the GR14 Climate Solution Round, we have 5 partners who have contributed to a matching pool of $500K: Ocelot Labs, Regen Network, Filecoin Green, Momus.
5. Have fun reading about the innovative projects — there is something for almost every interest and passion — and when you find one you’d like to donate to, click the purple button that says “Add to Cart.” In the top right of your screen, you’ll see a little picture of a cart, and the number of grants you’ve selected.
6. Pro Tip: To help make it easier to find certain types of projects, we’ve divided the Climate Solutions into the following categories:

   1. Nature based solutions 

   2. Clean energy and decentralized grids 

   3. ReFi 

   4. Decentralized science, and open source hardware  

   5. Support for Indigenous communities and activists and innovators 

   6. Arts and culture

Step Two: ALLOCATE crypto & experience the magic of Quadratic Funding

1. Now that you’ve added projects to your cart, you are ready to experience the power of Quadratic Funding; here’s more about how QF works:

   Learn More: WTF is Quadratic Funding

2. Start the checkout process by clicking on the Shopping Cart button in the top right- hand corner of your screen

3. You will see a box where you can choose your “Amount/Currency.” We recommend funding using DAI because it has a 1:1 relationship with the dollar i.e., you won’t need a calculator to figure out how much you are donating.

4. You can give the same amount to each of your projects by selecting an amount at the top of the page and then clicking on: “Apply to All,” or you can go down your list and customize the amount for each project.

   * As you adjust the amount given, you can see the estimated match amount that they will receive, how fun is that?

   * Note that some projects are in multiple matching rounds and so will receive more matching for each DAI donated.

5. If you choose to go through each of your grants and add how much you’d like to give to each unique project; you’ll see that the automatic amount is $25 DAI, but you can adjust this lower or higher. This is one of the fun, gamified ways to figure out how much you’d like to give to each project!

   * One beautiful thing about Gitcoin Grants and QF is you can give even a small amount and it can make a real difference.

6. Now you are ready to look at the Summary of your funding in the box on the right-hand side of your screen. As shown in the picture above, you’ll see a “Give Back to the Gitcoin Match Pool” box with different percentages.

   * We encourage everyone to give to the Gitcoin Matching Pool and become a partner in Gitcoin Grants funding (you can adjust this percentage).

   * Note: The specific amount you will pay is shown as your “Grant Contribution” and the “Total Contribution” amount is actually your total impact including the estimated match.

   * Once you are happy with the summary, you are ready to select the purple “I’m Ready to Check Out” button and proceed to the next step.

Step Three: FUND, support & amplify (and sleep better knowing you made a difference in the world)

When you select the purple “I’m Ready to Check Out” box, it will ask you to choose your method of checkout as shown in the image above. There are three different options:

Standard Checkout (Ethereum Mainnet): This is the easiest and most straightforward method with the drawback that gas fees can be high. You will need to have enough DAI in your Metamask Wallet to pay for your donations and enough ETH to cover your gas fees.

• Gas fees are the amount of Ether (ETH) required for an Ethereum blockchain network user to conduct a transaction on the network.
• Try to find a time when gas fees are lower—this is usually in the evenings and on weekends. Metamask shows you an estimate of the gas fees and will try to get them lower than what it shows. Also, you can use the Advanced Options to set a limit for your gas fees. Learn more about gas fees and how to adjust them here.
• It’s less costly and more efficient to donate to multiple projects at one time than to do individual donations at different times.

Polygon Checkout: Polygon is the option for more advanced users. You will need some Matic (Polygon’s token) but then you will pay much lower gas fees than with the Standard Checkout. Also, using the Polygon blockchain is a more energy-efficient way to transact. There are three ways to use the Polygon Checkout:

• Transfer Matic and DAI to your wallet by bridging from Ethereum: https://wallet.polygon.technology/bridge
• If it works in your jurisdiction, you can use an on-ramp to load DAI and Matic into your Polygon wallet: https://wallet.polygon.technology/on-ramp
• Have a friend send MATIC to your wallet

Learn More: Branch_Out_Now’s Guide to Making @gitcoin Grant Donations Using Polygon

zkSync Checkout: zkSync uses Ramp Network to easily load DAI directly from a credit card. Ramp is supported throughout the world but not in every jurisdiction. Check here to see if your location is supported. Many prefer the zkSync Checkout option because although there’s a small one-time transaction fee (approximately $8-$10) and after that, the gas fees are low AND it’s easy to buy DAI with your credit card via Ramp Network. Also, using the zkSync checkout is a more energy-efficient way to transact than using the Ethereum Mainnet. Here are the steps for zkSync:

1. Choose the zkSync checkout option after clicking on the purple button that says: “I’m Ready to Checkout”
2. Connect your wallet by clicking on “ETH Connect” and then select “Metamask”
3. You’ll need to click on the “Signature Request” button to give approval for the Metamask transaction
4. On the right hand side of the page, you can buy DAI with a credit card using a third-party service called Ramp. There are two options to select from: 1. The green “Top Up With Ramp” button to add DAI to your wallet, or 2. The green “Buy with Ramp” button to fund the specific amount for your projects. We recommend the former and then you will have more DAI added to your wallet—perhaps to fund even more projects?!
5. Once you’ve added DAI to your wallet, you can click on the “Complete Payment” on the zkSync Checkout page. Click on the Metamask “Sign” button in the Signature Request pop-up window. This will  approve the transaction. You will receive a “Done. Thank you!” message that shows your funding is complete.

Now that you’ve funded your grants, when you return to the Gitcoin Grants page you will see two more optional but important steps:

1. You can select the “Share on Twitter” button to help amplify the projects you’ve supported
2. Don’t forget to click on the “Verify” button to maximize your match. Verified gitcoin users have 100% or more of their donation amount count toward the match fund algorithm while unverified users start with 50%. To ensure sybil resistance—protection against bots and scams—please take the time to verify your account by selecting this button.

Finally, when you make it this far, celebrate! Then take the time to further support your favorite projects by:

• Following their Twitter account(s)
• Joining their Discord(s) and offering to get involved
• Using this link to set up your own collection and help others learn about the projects you support: Create a Collection