It has been one year since Lido Impact Staking (LIS) went live. What follows is a full account of where we are, what has been built, and what comes next.
For those less familiar: LIS allows anyone to stake ETH through Lido, with the generated staking yield directed toward vetted social and environmental organisations. Stakers retain full ownership of their principal and can withdraw at any time. The organisations receive a sustainable, recurring source of funding. It is not a one-off donation, but ongoing yield from capital that never leaves the staker’s control.
Two years ago, the Lido community voted to award LIS a development grant. This update is a direct report back to that community.
Growth: From One Organisation to Eight
At launch, LIS went live with a single partner: Treedom, a platform that funds the planting of real, traceable trees. Each tree can be followed and verified through Treedom’s platform, presented as a growing forest with data on CO₂ offset, community impact, and environmental contribution. To date, 33 trees have been planted through LIS-directed yield, offsetting nearly 34 tonnes of CO₂. There is currently 19.38 ETH staked by users toward Treedom.
Within the first month, we onboarded GiveDirectly - an organisation that delivers unconditional cash transfers directly to people living in extreme poverty. No intermediaries, no conditions. Their model is one of the most rigorously studied in the aid sector, with extensive evidence backing the effectiveness of direct cash. Currently 31.29 ETH staked by users.
Over the following month, five more organisations joined:
-
Giga (74.21 ETH staked by users) - a joint initiative by UNICEF and ITU working to connect every school in the world to the internet. Giga maps school connectivity globally and finances infrastructure to close the digital divide.
-
UNICEF Venture Fund (27.18 ETH staked by users) - UNICEF’s early-stage investment arm, providing funding and mentorship to startups in developing and emerging economies that are building open-source technology solutions for children.
-
Grassroots Economics (22.23 ETH staked by users) - a nonprofit building community currency systems (commitment pooling) in Kenya and , enabling local economies to circulate value and fund mutual-aid work even when national currency is scarce.
-
MercyCorps Ventures (20.24 ETH staked by users) - the venture and impact investment arm of MercyCorps, backing technology startups that serve underserved populations in frontier markets across financial inclusion, agriculture, and climate resilience.
-
UNHCR (10.25 ETH staked by users) - the United Nations Refugee Agency, protecting and supporting refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people worldwide.
The most recent addition to LIS is Speech Without Borders, an organisation working to defend and expand freedom of expression globally, supporting journalists, media workers, and civil society in environments where free speech is under threat.
Total TVL across all organisations: 204.78 ETH. At last year’s peak in ETH price, this figure approached the $1 million mark. To date, approximately 6.44 ETH in generated staking yield has been donated to partner organisations.
Permissionless Onboarding and Dedicated Pages
Joining LIS as an NGO is a permissionless process, provided a set of requirements are met. We continue to receive inbound requests from organisations that want to adopt the impact staking model.
Each partner organisation receives a dedicated staking page, built to integrate seamlessly into their existing online presence and follow their brand guidelines. These pages are live and operational:
Real Impact: Grassroots Economics Case Study
One of the clearest demonstrations of what LIS makes possible comes from Grassroots Economics, who published a report on the first round of impact generated from LIS-directed donations:
-
Staked: 21.98 ETH (≈ $78,000 notional principal - principal stays with the staker)
-
Yield directed in 2025: $1,000 to community endowments across Kenya
-
On-the-ground output from that $1,000:
-
43 groups carried out 173 activities
-
2,600 days of mutual-aid work - approximately 13,000 hours
-
Valuing labour at 200 KSh/hour (≈ $1.54/hour) → approximately $20,000 of community labour value created
-
A 20× community labour multiplier from $1,000 in seed funding
-
This does not account for spillover effects: skills gained, stronger social bonds, shared tools and infrastructure, and a louder, fairer community voice. It is a concrete example of how a modest yield stream, sustained over time, compounds into meaningful outcomes at the community level.
Institutional Adoption
GSR Foundation has become the first institutional donor to use LIS, deploying over 40 ETH across multiple causes on the platform. This is a significant milestone - it validates the model not only for individual stakers, but for organisations and funds looking for a capital-preserving approach to social impact.
Visibility and Advocacy
Over the past year, we have worked to bring LIS into the conversations where it matters:
-
Devconnect 2025 (Argentina): LIS was presented on stage to the broader Ethereum community.
-
Funding the Commons: We collaborated on a video - Open Conversations: Funding Impact with Ethereum Staking - exploring and explaining LIS in depth. Watch here.
-
MIT Impact Staking Working Groups: We hosted two sessions at MIT, bringing together a small group of leaders across TradFi, philanthropy, DeFi, social impact, and blockchain to discuss the LIS model and set direction for the space.
-
House of Commons, London (November 2025): LIS was discussed at a sustainable philanthropy gathering hosted by MP Sir Gavin Williamson, bringing the model into a traditional policy and institutional setting.
-
YouTube content: We have published a series of videos covering the impact each partner organisation creates and the broader case for impact staking as a new philanthropic model. Available at youtube.com/@impactstake.
-
Philanthropy 3.0 Podcast: We have launched a podcast series co-hosted with GSR Foundation, inviting leaders in social impact and philanthropy to discuss the merits of sustainable philanthropy and how to take it to the next level. Second episode goes live on April 15th, 2026. RSVP: Philanthropy 3.0 - Episode 2 · Luma
Why Lido
In every conversation, whether with NGOs, institutional partners, or prospective stakers, Lido is highlighted as the protocol LIS is built on. The reasoning is straightforward: Lido is the most successful, distributed and liquid staking protocol. It is among the most audited protocols in DeFi, with a robust security track record, deep liquidity via stETH, and governance-backed transparency. For an initiative that asks people to trust a staking mechanism with their capital while yield is directed elsewhere, the credibility of the underlying protocol is foundational.
What Comes Next
We continue to build on every front:
-
New organisations: Gainforest is next in line to join LIS, with additional onboarding conversations underway.
-
Retail and institutional growth: We are actively working to attract both individual stakers and institutional capital to the platform.
-
Platform integration: Several conversations are in progress with industry leaders on integrating LIS into their existing platforms, giving their user bases direct access to impact staking.
-
Stablecoin for Impact (SFI): As a direct spinoff from the LIS model, we have launched Stablecoin for Impact - a parallel product that allows users to deposit stablecoins, with lending yield (generated via Aave) directed toward social impact. Unlike LIS, SFI has launched with a focused approach: a single connected partner, Giga, so that the impact story leads and the philanthropy model follows. We are currently in discussions with Tether and Circle on potential partnerships and joint operations to raise awareness and grow TVL.
Summary
One year in, Lido Impact Staking has grown from a single partner to eight, attracted the first institutional donor, been presented at Devconnect and discussed at an event at House of Commons (UK Parliament) hosted working groups at MIT, and directed real yield into communities where it delivers real world impact.
The model works. Stakers keep their principal. Organisations receive sustainable funding via ETH staking yield.
We are grateful to the Lido community for the grant that made this possible, and we look forward to reporting back with the next set of milestones.
Lido Impact Staking - impactstake.com
