karmanautHow it works
Five steps, repeated every month. These are our working rules, and we expect some of them to change as people poke at them.
Pledge US$2 a month
Everyone pledges the same. $1.95 becomes your monthly allocation and 5¢ goes towards running costs.
Browse the feed
Projects post what they want to do, what it costs and who's behind it. Schools, clinics, wells, flood response and more.
Ask questions
Is there a building permit? Can the students reach the school? What if the contractor bails? Answers stay public, as do refusals to answer. Here's a starter list.
Allocate your $1.95
Put it all on one project or split it across several. Any part you don't allocate rolls over for one month, then goes to a shared pool for emergency projects.
Earn karma when it's proven
Money reaches each project in stages as milestones are verified. Karma arrives as results come in, and keeps arriving if the project keeps thriving.
Try a sample month
Split your $1.95 between three invented projects, then fast-forward two years to see what happened. Read the clues first.
Bright Futures Global Academy
- Beautiful video and a very big promise: "1,000 students in year one"
- Asked about permits: "Details coming soon!"
- Asked about teachers: no reply after three weeks
Solar power for Lakeside Clinic
- A sensible project from a clinic that has been running for 14 years
- Three supplier quotes posted, and a named local technician
- Budget is modest and the goal is clear: keep the vaccine fridge cold
Village well repair co-op
- Blurry phone photos and plain language, with no video at all
- Answered all 31 questions, including "we got this wrong last time, here's why"
- Trains local people to do repairs, and each village pays a small upkeep fee
You earned 0 karma this month.
How karma is scored
Each cent you allocate is worth one karma point, multiplied by how the project turned out.
| Outcome | Karma per cent | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Failed or abandoned | ×0 | It ran into trouble that good planning should have caught, or it never happened. |
| Partly delivered | ×0.5 | Something real got built, but well short of what was promised. |
| Delivered as promised | ×1 | The project did what it said it would, on the evidence. |
| Still going strong | ×1.5 | Two years on, it's still open, staffed and in use. |
| Flourishing | up to ×3 | It has exceeded its goals, for example by growing or spawning more projects. |
Early-backer bonus: if you backed a project in the first quarter of its funding, before the crowd piled in, your karma earns an extra 10%. Believing in something early is the hard part.
Badges you can only earn
Badges mark milestones on your profile and the leaderboard. A few of the ideas so far:
First Orbit
Your first full year as a Karmanaut.
Good Question
A question of yours changed a project's plan.
Scam Spotter
You raised a concern that turned out to be right.
Sharp Eye
You backed a project early that went on to flourish.
School Raiser
You backed ten school projects that were delivered.
Long Hauler
Five years of pledging without a break.
Well Rounded
You've backed successful projects in eight different countries.
First Responder
You backed emergency relief within its first week.
The awkward bits
Who decides whether a project succeeded?
Our plan is a mix: dated photos and receipts from the project, reports from independent local checkers, and open challenges from Karmanauts. Nobody who backed or runs a project gets to mark its homework alone.
What happens to the money if a project fails?
Because funds are released in stages, a stalled project stops receiving money. Anything not yet released goes back to its backers as extra allocation for the next month. Money already spent is gone, and so is the karma.
What if a project doesn't reach its goal?
Like Kickstarter, nothing is released until the first-stage target is met. If it never is, your allocation comes back to you to place elsewhere.
Couldn't a rich person just make a thousand accounts?
That's what identity checks at sign-up are for: one person, one account. Even then, a thousand accounts of bad judgement would just be a thousand accounts with no karma.
What about a project that fails through no fault of its own?
An earthquake is not bad planning. We expect a review process for that, though "what's your plan if there's an earthquake?" remains a very fair question to ask beforehand.
Spot a flaw? We really want to hear it.