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Release Grant Capital Only Against Verified Evidence.

Grant programmes already fund in tranches. What sits between the tranche and the payment is a self-reported update. FounderGrade puts an independent expert there instead.

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Grant programme team reviewing milestone evidence together

The Documented Problem

Tranches Are Standard. Verification Is Not.

Everything in this section is a third-party statement, attributed to its publisher and date. None of it is FounderGrade research, and no figure appears here that we could not attribute precisely.

The Arbitrum DAO adopted a bounty programme so community members can submit evidence-based reports of grant fund misuse, describing it as an accountability layer for DAO-allocated funds.

Source: Arbitrum DAO Governance Forum, proposal authored by Entropy Advisors, The Watchdog: Arbitrum DAO's Grant Misuse Bounty Program. Proposal posted 22 December 2024, reporting portal announced 8 September 2025. View source

What it means: A large, well resourced programme concluded that after-the-fact crowd reporting was needed because ongoing oversight of how granted funds were used was thin.

The Stellar Community Fund documents its Build Award as milestone-based, with funding split into four payments tied to deliverables the team sets in its application.

Source: Stellar Development Foundation, SCF Handbook, Build Award, Budget and Deliverable Guidelines. As publicly documented, SCF 7.0, accessed 2026. View source

What it means: Tranche structures are already standard practice. What sits between the tranche and the payment is a manual review by programme staff, not an independent verification.

Grant programmes across ecosystems publish milestone updates written by the funded team itself, and reviewers approve or reject those written updates.

Source: Observed from public programme documentation, Public grant programme handbooks and milestone trackers. Accessed 2026. View source

What it means: Self-reporting is the default input to a release decision. The reviewer is checking a claim, not the underlying work.

We deliberately publish no grants-administration cost percentage on this page. Figures of that kind circulate widely without a traceable source, and we will only quote one when we can point you at the exact study, table and year.

A Progress Update Is a Claim. It Is Not Evidence.

Workflow tools record what a grantee reports. Streaming tools release on a clock. Neither answers the only question that matters to a funder before the next payment: did the work actually happen, and would a qualified outsider agree.

End to End

How Programme Verification Works

Six steps, from tranche definition to optional public disclosure. The funder keeps every release decision.

01

Define

Programme

The programme sets the tranche schedule and, for each tranche, the milestone and the exact evidence that will prove it. Defaults follow the four-tranche 10/20/30/40 model used across public grant practice.

02

Commit

Programme

The full award is committed and visible to the grantee from day one, with each tranche amount and date on the record. Nothing is discretionary after the fact.

03

Evidence

Grantee

The grantee submits the evidence agreed at definition. It is timestamped and attached to the tranche, not written into a progress note.

04

Verify

Independent Expert

A calibrated expert, unaffiliated with both the grantee and the programme, examines the evidence and records whether the milestone was met, with written reasons. This is the step that does not exist in grant tooling today.

05

Decide

Programme

The programme authorises release, withholds, or opens a resubmission window. The verification is a finding, not an instruction, so the funder keeps the decision.

06

Publish

Programme, Optional

Verified milestones and released funds can be published to a transparency page the programme points its community at.

Independent reviewer examining a submitted technical report

The Console

What the Programme Operator Gets

Verification Queue

Every milestone awaiting a decision, with expert assignment, SLA clocks, escalation and a recorded reason on every approval or rejection.

Disbursement Control

Tranche schedules, holds and a multi-party release authorisation, so no single person can move capital alone.

Aggregate Reporting

Completion rates, average time to verification and withheld-capital totals, exportable for your board, your community or your own funders.

Public Transparency Page

A configurable public page showing verified milestones and released funds for a cohort, for programmes operating under community scrutiny.

Integrity Checks

Duplicate deliverable and recycled evidence detection inside your programme, with cross-programme detection sequenced for a later phase.

Conflict-Free Assessment

When the programme commissions the assessment, the assessed party is not the customer. That removes the issuer-pays conflict entirely.

The Other Side

What Grantees Get

Verification is not surveillance. A grantee who delivers benefits more from an independent record than from a subjective one.

  • A written definition of what proves each milestone, agreed before work starts, so the goalposts cannot move
  • An independent reviewer rather than a subjective read by the funder's staff
  • A permanent record of every assessment completed, with the grantee choosing which scores to disclose but never able to delete the record
  • Portable evidence of delivery that other funders and investors can rely on
  • A defined escalation path when a finding is contested

Where This Sits

Complementary, Not a Replacement

Three different mechanisms solve three different problems. Keep the grant stack you already run and attach verification to the same milestone record.

Grant Workflow and Attestation

Mechanism
Applications, milestone plans and progress updates are recorded, and in some tools published as on-chain attestations.
Examples
Karma GAP, Questbook, CharmVerse
Who Asserts Completion
The grantee writes the update. A programme admin reviews it.
Release Trigger
Admin approval of a self-reported update.
How It Fits
Keep it. FounderGrade attaches an independent verification to the same milestone record.

Streaming and Vesting

Mechanism
Funds unlock continuously or on a fixed schedule once a stream is opened.
Examples
Sablier, Superfluid
Who Asserts Completion
Nobody. Time is the trigger.
Release Trigger
Elapsed time, subject to cancellation.
How It Fits
Keep it. FounderGrade gates the next stream or tranche on a verified outcome.

Independent Verification

Mechanism
A calibrated third-party expert, unaffiliated with the grantee and the programme, examines the evidence and records whether the milestone was met.
Examples
FounderGrade
Who Asserts Completion
An independent expert, on the record, with reasons.
Release Trigger
A verified finding, then the programme's own release authorisation.
How It Fits
This is the layer that does not exist elsewhere today.

Named products are described only by their publicly documented capabilities as of 2026. Categories describe mechanisms, not quality. FounderGrade is designed to sit alongside these tools, not replace them.

Plain Money

Programme Pricing

Three components. Experts receive their full rate, and the programme service fee is half the standard rate because programme volume is what makes the network work.

Per Verification

$275 per milestone

Standard Verification
$275

Document and evidence review against a defined milestone.

Technical Verification
$495

Code, data or integration inspection with a written finding.

Deep Technical Verification
$880

Hands-on replication, audit-grade testing and a full report.

Per Assessment

$165 per company

Cohort screening on the same eight-dimension rubric. Because the programme commissions and pays, the assessed party is not the customer, which is why we call it conflict free.

See the Rubric

Annual Platform Fee

$6,000/year

PilotUp to 15 funded teams
$6,000/yr
ProgrammeUp to 50 funded teams
$18,000/yr
EcosystemUp to 150 funded teams
$42,000/yr
FoundationAbove 150 funded teams
On scope

Worked Example

A Cohort of 20 Teams, Four Tranches Each

Milestone verifications, 80 at $275
$22,000
Entry assessments, 20 at $165
$3,300
Annual platform fee, Programme tier
$18,000
Total for the cohort year
$43,300

That is $2,165 per funded team for the year, including every milestone verification. Experts receive 100% of their listed rate in every line above.

Under Scrutiny

Point Your Community at the Record.

Every programme publishes a configurable transparency page: verified milestones, released funds, withheld totals, and who reviewed what. Publishing is your choice, and you decide how much of it is public.

Read the Long Argument

A Layer, Not a Replacement

Keep the Grant Stack You Already Run.

Most programmes already run allocation, workflow, attestation and disbursement tooling, and those tools work. What none of them performs is an independent check of whether the milestone was actually met, because in each of them progress is reported by the grantee or reviewed by programme staff. FounderGrade attaches at that single point. Nothing else in your stack has to move.

See Where We Attach Read the Verification Standard

The Verification Standard

Evidence thresholds per milestone type, the three outcomes defined exactly, conflict rules, appeals and version history. Send it to your own stakeholders.

Data Handling and Confidentiality

What your programme provides, what grantees provide, who sees what, retention, export, sub-processors and the audit trail, with the current status stated honestly.

For Programmes

Run One Cohort Through Verification.

Scoped in writing, four to six weeks, and the first cohort is free.

Request a Pilot What a Pilot Involves

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