Ethelo processes have won various industry awards and the technology has been ranked the #1 digital democracy platform in the world for the past two years. We are a certified B-Corp and were recently named "Best for the World" B-Corp in Governance Impact.
More than $10B has been collectively allocated using Ethelo by various government bodies towards municipal budgets, major capital projects and grants. Ethelo’s 200 plus customers include local governments, businesses, nonprofits, health agencies, universities, indigenous communities, housing associations, foundations and the Canadian government. Ethelo has worked with approximately 100k participants across 400 decisions. Along with financial decisions, Ethelo is used for governance, policy development, strategic planning, conflict resolution, expert evaluation and much more.
We were founded in 2011 as a two-part social enterprise, composed of Ethelo (a company) and the eDemocracy Network (an NGO). We also have a charitable foundation, the eDemocracy Research Foundation, which receives grants and issues tax receipts.
We have a "Standing Order and Supply Arrangement" with the government of Canada, which enables purchasing without an RFP. Ethelo has a "Reliable" security rating and received a 9/10 evaluation rating in the federal Government's "Built in Canada" innovation program.
The Ethelo team has tens of thousands of hours of hands-on experience managing digital decision making processes and public engagement. No one is better positioned than Ethelo to help DAOs leapfrog over the limits of majority voting to vastly better approaches consensus and collective action.
An eDemocracy Leader
The Network's “eDemocracy Webinar” series has featured political and indigenous leaders from across Canada and the US. Through these webinars, our eDemocracy Blog and our Masterclass series we reach thousands of local government officials.
We prioritize processes around climate democracy. Ethelo has also been used for water conservation, forest preservation, clean energy transition, and environmental planning. More than a dozen communities have used our unique “Carbon Budgeting” solution to create community plans that meet GHG reduction targets.
A recent pilot project was our 2021 Canadian “green recovery” budget whose results were presented to the Canadian Minister of Finance. Funded by grants and donations, participants created a 10 year balanced budget for Canada that met the Paris Accord target while creating 1 million green jobs.
Our mission is to empower people through eDemocracy to collectively address the great challenges facing humanity that our current political and economic systems are failing to solve.
Ethelo is a world leader not only in group decision technology, but also in advancing the cause of decentralized democracy through our nonprofit eDemocracy Network and the eDemocracy Research Foundation, which promote cutting edge engagements such as our Carbon Budget and Green Recovery Budget processes that blend traditional community organizing with our innovative technology.
This Creekside Condo Story related one of our early engagements and the quickest path to understanding how Ethelo works in practice. For more in depth explanation, read What is Ethelo, or our White Paper
The participant experience is that of going through an online workflow, interacting with the tools and other participants, and arriving at a preferred solution which is then submitted as a vote. Often there is an opportunity to see the group results.
The Ethelo Granting Video (7min) explains how the technology can be applied to granting, with a corresponding Interactive Demo. We have also created a simple version of the Ethelo granting template for Gitcoin Grants, skinned to the “look” of Discord, a popular messaging app among DAOs: Gitcoin Grant Round 11.
Granting is only one application of Ethelo. The website has more than 3 dozen case studies describing how Ethelo has been used for budgeting and finance, governance and policy, planning, operations, design and conflict resolution - with dozens of specific applications..
The Ethelo Applications list is a fairly exhaustive list of different types of decisions for which Ethelo has been used. A number of applications are demonstrated on our video page or solutions page