How do we get funding for promoting Steem? $20,000+ a day is available on Steem for projects intended to help Steem grow including building apps, hosting meetups, publishing guides, pitching smart media tokens, creating communities, and whatever else we think of! The question is how do we participate?
Using the ten methods below, each of us can get the funding we need to help with building our community here on Steem! We begin with a quick look at the 10 methods and then take an in depth look at our updated budget proposal system which has paid out $100,000+ worth of Steem/SBD to projects and delegators in the last two months!
Note that while we talk a lot about money here because this is what many of us want to know about and are struggling with, the key to everything is our outlook on the world especially in seeing the big picture of why we contribute and giving back without an immediate demand for payment.
How to Fund a Steem Growth Project?
Author rewards from upvotes on the #steemit tag are the simple way to get started and can payout thousands of dollars within a week from the initial post. While most of us can expect little in rewards just from making one post without any previous history or following, many projects on Steem have been funded already completely with author rewards. @dlive was successfully launched just by using the #steemit tag with no previous history or following. Method #1 is funded by author rewards on Steem with the total amount being equal to about 63% of new Steem and SBD created according to https://steemdb.com/ by @jesta.
Add the tag #promo-steem and/or a variation by country to help those with voting power find projects promoting Steem. For example, promo-uk, teamaustralia, etc. These tags help for a more local connection to curators and greatly increases the odds of getting noticed for a newer author. Method #2 is funded by upvotes from curators with millions of dollars of Steem power checking this tag.
The @minnowsupport project at http://minnowsupportproject.org/ consistently helps members in Discord to collaborate on upvotes and get feedback which can be more important for improving a project than money. @aggroed and @ausbitbank founded this project which today has helped thousands of authors earn upvotes on hundreds of thousands of posts! To participate, join the @minnowsupport discord channel. Method #3 is funded by delegations providing more voting power for upvotes.
@utopian-io at https://utopian.io is a platform by @elear focused on open-source contributions that can be very helpful for earning rewards and gaining visibility on existing projects. Method #4 is funded by delegations.
@dsound at https://dsound.audio by @prc gives us a place to upload audio files to Steem especially music and podcasts. Explaining the idea in a podcast might be a lot easier than trying to film a video and more effective than just writing a post especially when combined with the #promo-steem tags. Method #5 is funded by a delegation from Steemit Inc.
@dtube at https://d.tube by @heimindanger allows any of us able to film and upload videos to explain a project and get initial funding through upvotes by @dtube and by top curators like @thejohalfiles. Method #6 is funded by a delegation from Steemit Inc and @dtube curators.
@dlive at https://www.dlive.io/ allows any of us to live stream with Steem giving us the chance to earn an upvote by @dlive and engage directly with viewers on Steem making comments! Method #7 is funded by a delegation from Steemit Inc and @dlive curators.
The Crowdfunded marketing protocol is Steemit Inc's official funding mechanism for projects on Steem. @andrarchy launched this a few months ago and at least one project received $10,000 in funding. While this method theoretically has the highest amount of money available, it is also very challenging to successfully complete. Method #8 is funded by direct payments from Steemit Inc.
Witness rewards from https://steemit.com/~witnesses are a primary source of funding for existing applications on Steem with the top 20 witnesses earning collectively 5,000+ Steem power a day while the remaining 100 or so witnesses collectively earn about 1,000 Steem power a day. 95% of witnesses in the top 20 joined Steem in 2016 meaning that witness rewards generally are not a practical choice to fund new projects today on Steem outside of a direct collaboration with a top witness. For those intending to do Steem full time indefinitely like me, being a #witness may be an ideal long term opportunity for service! Method #9 is funded by witness block production rewards which come directly from the Steem blockchain on each new block created every 3 seconds.
Our Steem budget proposal system intends to fill the gaps in our current funding structures by making larger amounts of immediate funding available to our most needed growth projects! We have paid out about $50,000 to fund projects in the first two months since launching and have about $30,000 more ready to go! The rest of this post explains how to get started earning payments from the @budgets account I manage which currently has about 7,000 Steem available to fund projects and receives about 300 more Steem daily. @budgets is funded by my voting bot as explained further in the funding section below!
How to Start Earning with the Budget Proposal System?
Hundreds of authors on Steem have already earned thousands of Steem/SBD in upvote bids to bots sent from @budgets by participating in contests, submitting initial proposal ideas, and writing posts that help add to the value of Steem. The easiest way to start earning is to use the tags #promo-steem, #steemit, and #jerrybanfield on posts you want me to read and send upvote bids for. I browse these posts in order of trending meaning I see the newest posts with the most upvotes first. Our funding limit for upvote bids is 100 Steem and/or SBD to support projects getting started and developing.
For direct payments of 100+ Steem, we now have new requirements intended to focus on the best projects with the most need and support. This helps those of us with ideas to avoid the huge time commitment of making a new idea with a huge budget only to then face the disappointment of not receiving funding.
How to Make a Steem Budget Proposal for 100+ Steem!
Earn a reputation of at least 58 OR have a user with a reputation of 58+ submit the project on your behalf because we are funding projects by those of us making a consistent effort on Steem with proven service to our community. For help building a reputation to 58 and/or finding a user with a reputation of 58+ to submit the project, see @minnowsupport, @curie, @ocd by @acid-yo, @adsactly, @busy.org, @teamsteem, http://steemspeak.com by @fyrstikken, @cervantes for the Spanish community, @clayop for the Korean community, @roxane and @transisto for French, @eco-train by @eco-alex, and hundreds more top curators and community leaders here helping new users that are making valuable contributions get recognized and upvoted every day. While I realize a reputation of 58 does not guarantee a project is worthy of funding, it is a good starting point.
Discover similar projects and find ways to collaborate. Giving to an existing project is much easier than starting something new. Many of us take offense when working on an existing project and we see a new project being proposed that is nearly identical. For example, many budget proposals have tried to start new curation communities. We are not funding any of these because we already have millions of Steem power funding outstanding curation projects that consistently upvote the best posts especially by lower reputation authors. When a clear gap in what exists is identified or a huge limitation can be solved simply with funding, then a budget proposal is appropriate.