Gov/en/Portal:Economy/Para-public-Funding

💡 In simple words: This page explains how WikiDeal can also receive money from public and "para-public" institutions — governments, inter-governmental agencies and public-interest foundations — as gifts for the common good, not as investments expecting profit.

🎯 In 20 seconds (expert summary): WikiDeal can accept public and para-public support (government & inter-governmental agencies, public-interest foundations, calls for proposals) — but only as donations / grants against deliverables, never as return-on-investment. Ynternet.org has a strong track record (20+ FP7/Horizon 2020, ~100 LLP projects), yet research calls rarely fit WikiDeal's wiki culture. Strategy: apply, but never depend — the primary engine is the agile "wiki mode" (donations + rewards via the bonding curve). Public money is welcome as a provision fund, channelled through pre-purchased subscription years, with no voting rights.

Para(public) Funding: Position & Strategy

From WikiDeal, the Wikipedia of e-commerce — Economy Portal

This page covers public and para-public funding: support that comes not only from public institutions, but also from governmental and inter-governmental agencies and para-public foundations pursuing public-interest objectives — the support of projects serving the common good. In practice this often takes the form of responses to calls for proposals, with the recurring difficulty that such calls rarely fit precisely into WikiDeal's approach.

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The key principle: donation, not investment

Public and para-public funding can run in parallel with private support. But it must take one form only: donation / grant against deliverables, in service of the commons — and in no case a guaranteed return on investment.

This is the number-one point. WikiDeal steps entirely outside the logic of investment funds: there are no guaranteed shares, no stock options, no shareholder return. The counterpart is a reward if the project succeeds, not control over equity.

A pure grant model — which, for a cold start, is actually well suited.

A track record in public programmes

The Ynternet.org Foundation is no newcomer to public and para-public funding. It has filed:

• 20+ projects under FP7 / Horizon 2020;
• close to 100 projects under the Lifelong Learning Programme (EACEA).

Experience in pure research programmes is more limited — and that experience taught two lessons.

The difficulties identified

1. AI has flooded the funnel. The sheer number of submitted projects is now extreme, and they all use the same keywords. It has become very hard for evaluators to see the genuine difference between proposals.
2. The Wiki culture is hard to evaluate. Several times the foundation reached the final shortlist, faced expert questions, and saw how difficult it was for evaluators to grasp the Wiki culture — leading to dysfunctional assumptions about how the project would operate.

A striking, even shocking, example: through public bodies such as the EU’s Research Executive Agency (REA) — which manages the Horizon 2020 research projects (and, before it, the FP7 projects) — billions, possibly tens of billions have been distributed worldwide through countless calls for proposals to build a decentralised Semantic Web (including approaches such as Solid, by Tim Berners-Lee, and decentralised data structures).

Despite those sums, we are still not there: there has been virtually no emergence, and nothing that today serves a project like WikiDeal. And as long as we are not there, the commodification of user data and habits remains in the hands of the GAFAM and others. The whole point is precisely to answer this need: the decommodification of user data and habits, so that there is more fairness — more equity — in the global marketplace and in marketplaces in general. (See also the structured-data discussion in the Data portal.)

The strategic position: deposit, but don’t depend

The conclusion is nuanced:

• Will we take part in publicly funded research projects (EU or otherwise)? Yes.
• Will we file applications? Yes.
• Will we count on them, or prioritise them? No — because of their all-or-nothing nature and the time lost (a failed call can mean waiting another full year).

The chosen strategy is deliberately different.

The “wiki” mode

WikiDeal’s primary approach is what we call wiki mode — simple, informal, flexible, fluid, participatory: a small, highly mobile team, able to receive tens or hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs in donations, and to promise rewards in return — for people whose key motivation is not equity control, but a reward if the project works, and belief in it.

Why public funding would still help

Public and para-public funding would nonetheless be welcome. If the bonding curve continues to be used, public money creates a provision fund for the Ynternet.org Foundation — a reserve to prevent risks and stimulate trends.

Concretely, the first prototype currently runs at an average ×50: for each franc of support, the reward is on average fifty times greater.

This is not enormous compared with the outcomes of successful start-ups — but it is enormous in terms of image. That distinction matters, and must be stated clearly.

How donations are channelled: pre-purchased subscriptions

WikiDeal accepts public and para-public funding and donations — including from foundations or others wishing to support this kind of approach — without giving them priority. The mechanism is deliberately simple: funders allocate the benefit as years of subscription, pre-purchased for target audiences. The money goes directly into pre-purchased subscription years, which in turn further stimulates private funding.

Two points must be stated clearly:

• No voting rights. Private funding grants no specific voting rights of any kind — only rewards.
• The ×50 is front-loaded and decreasing. The average ×50 multiplier starts to fall as soon as CHF 25,000 is reached, consistent with the decreasing bonding curve.

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See Also

• Initial Funding
• Why Fund WikiDeal?
• Bonding Curve
• Why and How WikiDeal Can Work