Volunteering on the Ledger

Workshop #1 - Identity Management Interim Report

Oct 29th, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh

Organised by Volunteer Scotland, with University of Edinburgh,

and Northumbria University

Dr. Chris Elsden (School of Design, Northumbria University)

Jonathan Rankin (Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh)

Ian Sibbald (Volunteer Scotland)

Alan Stevenson (Volunteer Scotland)

Prof. John Vines (School of Design, Northumbria University)

Prof. Chris Speed (Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh)

Foreword‘Volunteering on the Ledger’ is an open-ended research project between Volunteer Scotland, the University of Edinburgh and Northumbria University. Through a series of engagements and participatory workshops with organisations in the volunteer sector, the project aims to explore the opportunities and challenges that the emergence of blockchain technology holds for the voluntary sector.

This interim report summarises engagements and findings from a workshop held in Edinburgh on Oct 29th focused on exploring blockchain-based identity management through a bespoke interactive game, ‘PizzaBlock’.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all those who have engaged with our project so far, and in particular those attending this initial workshop. This research was supported by funding from the EPSRC ‘OxChain’ project (EP/N028198/1). We are also grateful to colleagues at in the Centre for Design Informatics (University of Edinburgh) for their input and support.

Table of Contents1. Introduction 81.1 Self-Sovereign Identity1.2 Control and Portability1.3. Tamper-Proof Attestations

2. Introducing Pizza Block 123. What Happened? 243.1. Playing PizzaBlock3.2. Post Game Reflections and Discussions3.2.1. What to Formally Record?3.2.2. Sharing Volunteer Identities Between Organisations3.2.3. New Volunteering Models

4. What we learned 295. Next Steps 326. Further Reading 33

Executive Summary This afternoon workshop set out to examine how blockchain technologies might be used to reconfigure volunteer identities and hence the organisation of volunteering as a whole.

Looking across other sectors, the research team identified three proposed features of blockchain-based identity management that warrant attention as regards volunteering.

Self-sovereign Identity - the ability for volunteers to generate and share their identity as a volunteer without relying upon any single volunteering organisation.

Control and Portability - the ability to selectively share and port aspects of their volunteer identity with a range of organisations and networks.

Tamper-proof attestation - the ability for trusted organisations to ‘attest’ to aspects of a volunteers identity that can then be widely shared and trusted.

To explore these features, and to communicate some of the fundamentals of blockchain technologies to workshop participants, we designed an interactive paper-based game - ‘PizzaBlock’. This game invites participants to play the roles of volunteers and local social enterprises, seeking to address a lack of good quality pizza in Edinburgh. Through playing the game, participants generate and use a paper-based distributed ledger, in order for volunteers to prove the skills they possess to social enterprises.

After the game, we asked participants to take their experiences of playing PizzaBlock into the wider voluntary sector, to consider potential application scenarios and implications of a blockchain-based volunteer ledger.

Our key findings highlight that:

1. Blockchain applications will demand highly specific definitions of what ‘volunteering’ is. Clearly such definitions are challenging, and the ‘hard’ transactional efficiency expected by blockchain networks can be in tension with the ‘soft’ need for collaboration and relationship building.

2. There are risks that blockchain-based systems may be exclusive to some volunteers. They could create tiers of volunteers, and overlook those who give their time generously, if less effectively.

3. Blockchains will be most effective in relation to specific and important aspects of volunteer identity, which can be reliably recorded and which there is value in sharing beyond a single organisation. They need not replace or compete with existing identity management schemes.

4. There are two diverging approaches to designing blockchains for the sector: organisation-led or volunteer-led. Blockchain applications may provide means for organisations to tighten and formalise the bonds and convergence between related stakeholders in the voluntary sector. A more disruptive potential can be envisaged where volunteers have their own ledger, and the ability to define themselves and their activity beyond any particular organisation.

1. IntroductionThis afternoon research event brought together researchers, practitioners and stakeholders in the voluntary sector to explore the potential applications of blockchain-based identity management tools for volunteering.

The event began with Dr. Chris Elsden (Northumbria) giving a high-level overview of blockchains and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). Beyond Bitcoin, the first, and most high profile application of example of the technology, a range of application domains have been envisioned for blockchains. The OxChain research team, with Volunteer Scotland, have identified blockchain-based identity management as an area of interest for volunteer involving organisations (VIOs) in three primary ways: Self-Sovereign Identity; Control and Portability; Tamper Proof Attestation.

1.1. Self-Sovereign IdentityCurrently, in most cases, when we make claims about our identity, we rely upon records generated and maintained by a third party, for example a government, bank, or social media company (e.g. Google, Facebook). This requires trust in those third-parties and also relies upon their security and long-term sustainability.

As a form of distributed ledger, which is maintained in a network according to a specific protocol, rather than any single third party, blockchains are proposed to support self-sovereign identity - in other words, an identity issued, and managed by oneself. Present commercial applications tend to rely upon biometric data to create an initial identity that is correlated with a real individual. The blockchain ensures that once created, this identity data cannot be tampered with, and can be checked by others in the network when an individual makes a claim about their identity.

Self-sovereign identity is perceived as being especially useful in contexts where typically trusted institutions have broken down, or for those who have lost access to, or are somehow excluded from traditional means of identifying themselves. For example, the UN’s World Food Programme is piloting blockchains to issue identities to Syrian refugees.

In the context of volunteering, it may be that smaller organisations may struggle to maintain accurate identity data about their volunteers, or over time, as old groups fade and new groups emerge, previous volunteer ‘identities’ are lost. We want to explore the potential applications and value of these new kinds of self-managed and independent volunteer identities.

1.2. Control and PortabilitySelf-sovereign identity also aims to provide individuals with a far greater degree of control and portability of their identity data. The basic principle is that the primary identity record is held with the individual, and then selectively shared with others in the network as required. For example, were a hotel to ask an individual to prove they were over 18, and an EU citizen, they only need to share these particular aspects of their identity, rather than handing over their whole passport to be copied. By using a blockchain, the fidelity of this individual record can be verified by others in the network.

Through ‘smart contracts’, computer code that is embedded in the network protocol, it is therefore envisioned that individuals will be able to control how their identity data is shared. Further, since their identity record is not stored with a single provider, they are able to move and share claims about their identity more easily.

In the voluntary sector, we are hoping to explore what it means for individual volunteers to be able to control and carry around aspects of their own identity in this way. Would volunteers value such a record and how would they manage it? What should it record? Could it allow them to volunteer more flexibly with a range of organisations?

1.3. Tamper-Proof AttestationsFinally, blockchains may be used to support the creation of tamper proof records, through maintaining a chain of transactions with the database, which can be used to calculate or detect if changes have been made. In the context of identity management, this allows for the creation of tamper-proof certification and the secure storage of attestations - or witnessed claims - made by third parties.

For example, Appii (https://appii.io/) propose to use blockchain technology to record claims about a candidates CV. A candidate may claim they have a first class degree from the University of Edinburgh, they ask the university to digitally ‘sign’ this claim, and then store this claim and signature in the blockchain. From then on, they can prove their qualifications to any number other parties by sharing the signatures in this ‘block’.

In the voluntary sector, we want to explore what kinds of claims and ‘attestations’ would be valuable to volunteers and VIOs. Perhaps there are legal checks that could be carried out once by one organisation, but trusted by another? Or it may be necessary to ensure that volunteers for an activity have sufficient prior credentials or experience to volunteer without supervision?

2. Introducing Pizza BlockIn order to help participants understand and envision the implications of these features of the technology, the team developed a bespoke interactive game called ‘PizzaBlock’. In this game, participants take on the role of either volunteers, seeking skills and volunteering opportunities, or social enterprises, seeking suitable volunteers for various activities they aim to complete.

The PizzaBlock game, shown below, creates paper-based versions of a distributed ledger, and requires participants to engage in and record various transactions with each other to complete the game. The underlying aim of Pizza Block is as a metaphor, introducing participants to digital blockchain identity management systems (IdMS) by producing a number of physical artefacts which relate back to their core features.

1. A personal ledger, unique to each volunteer which shows the order in which they learnt skills and completed jobs. This could be simply seen as a volunteering CV.

2. A tamper-proof public ledger which both volunteers and social enterprises can check if there is any question over the volunteers claimed skills.

3. The social enterprises have a record of completed jobs with a snapshot of the skills of the volunteer who completed each job (rather than a central database of volunteers).

These physical artefacts provide starting points for conversations revolving around how blockchain IdMS could be used in the future.

Volunteers start with

Time tokens - which they must spend to learn skills and complete tasks.

A blank personal ledger - this acts as a private CV listing all of their skills and experienece in order of completion.

Pizza Social Enterprises start with

Blank task sheets - These detail what skills and experience a volunteer needs to complete the task

A blank pizza base - which they use to keep track of the points they earn from completing tasks.

Volunteers start the game by talking to the Pizza Social Enterprises to find out how each of them is trying to solve Edinburgh’s pizza problems!

The social enterprises give the volunteers task cards which have a list of skills and experience they need to obtain to be able to complete the task.

Stage 1 - Starting Point

The volunteer has an empty task sheet which they need to learn some skills.

They pay a time token to one of the Pizza Training Centers and in return, are given a set of small stickers.

They use these stickers to fill out the task sheets.

They also get a label which they stick in their private ledger.

A matching label is used by the Pizza Training Centres to keep record of the training.

Stage 2 - Learn Some Skills

A record of the completed job is uploaded to the public ledger, The small skill stickers, the labels for the private ledger and public ledger all have serial numbers which match, referencing one another.

First 60 uploads to the public ledger

Stage 3 - Task Complete

The auditor checks that the task sheet has been correctly filled out by the volunteer, once they are satisfied they do a number of things.

A record of the completed task is uploaded to the public ledger.

A label matching the record on the public ledger is given to the volunteer.

The volunteer adds this label to their private ledger.

The volunteer also recieves a set of small stickers which they can use to prove their experience for future more difficult tasks.

Pizza Social Enterprises recieve a pizza topping sticker for each task that they complete. The ‘score’ is kept track of on blank pizza bases.

3. What Happened?

3.1. Playing PizzaBlockAfter a brief walkthrough of the different roles, rules and aim of the game, six participants took on the roles of ‘volunteers’, while three others each played as a pizza-loving social enterprises. Most had only limited knowledge of blockchain technologies. The workshop organisers played the roles of trusted ‘training centres’ and ‘auditors’ who would be responsible for checking and handing out stickers that validated ‘activity’.

The game is made complex by a number of different roles and processes, to produce distinct, distributed records. To begin with, participants worked quite collaboratively to understand what they needed to do, and went in waves between training centres, social enterprises and the auditor. However, over time, it became clear that each needed to only understand their own role for the processes to function.

Being given a limited number of tokens to begin with, prompted volunteers to be strategic about the skills and activities they took on. Volunteers approached the game in markedly different ways, some played different characters, some sought to haggle with enterprises and training centres, others simply followed the rules, even if they were unsure as to where this would lead them.

To begin with, the volunteers were largely driven by the needs of the social enterprises, who instructed them as to the skills they would need to complete different activities. However, as they developed their own skills, volunteers began to exercise more agency. As one volunteer put it:

“You see, I want to fill my cards up as much as I can – then I’m going to negotiate with the social enterprises to see what I can offer them, rather than they tell me what I need to train myself in”.

Replicating by hand many otherwise ‘automatic’ digital processes, made the game very evidently labour intensive, especially for the training centres and auditor desks. However, this itself drew attention to the invisible work that protocols and algorithms do, often behind the scenes, and brought into sharp relief what they do for and to us.

By making this work tangible, it became evident exactly the kinds of tasks that databases are most useful for, and also the extent to which we trust technology to do these for us. As participants progressed through the game, and began to think about playing more strategically or efficiently, the opportunities for data-driven systems to provide analytics, to help find well-matched volunteers, or identify key areas lacking capacity.

Where there were backlogs at a particular station, at training centres, or as application cards were audited, these created space for more conversation and collaboration between participants. For example - what if volunteers could train each other, rather than depending on a specific centre? Or whether it would be possible to apply for and audit multiple activities at once. How could volunteers collaborate, self-organise or even generate their own volunteering opportunities?

The game itself lasted just under an hour. The public ledger documented exactly 100 ‘transactions’, volunteers either gaining skills, or completing tasks with SEs. This ledger was updated in batches (or blocks) periodically throughout the game, and projected onto a screen. The content of the ledger rapidly became illegible in this format, but evidenced its role as an anchor, which, in theory, could be used to verify past transactions. At the conclusion of the game, 25 activities were completed, with ‘One More Slice’ being the only organisation to complete the most complex task, requiring multiple skills and volunteers.

3.2. Post Game Reflections and DiscussionsAfter the game - we asked participants to reflect on their activities, and the artefacts they had produced, in order to think broadly about potential application areas for a distributed ledger of identity in volunteering contexts.

3.2.1. What to Formally Record?

The game itself promoted some immediately interesting and strong reactions - in particular to note how the potential value of a volunteer often cannot be captured in a series of specific, validated skills. Indeed, any volunteer who comes to an organisation is seen as a raw resource, which good volunteer organisations should be able to flexibly accommodate. Though the pizza-making narrative focused on skills, it served as a catalyst for participants to identify clearly what aspects of volunteering cannot be so easily accounted for. In subsequent discussions, this concern about inclusivity was developed further. As one group summarised:

“One thing we came to quite early on, what we don’t want to do in this space, is just create repositories of what people’s skills are, but more importantly what people can’t do, and in a way making sure that we don’t end up looking like we’re just another [...] department of work and pensions, which exists to cut people off, and cut back certain services.”

Clearly there’s a need for identity records to be designed and used constructively, rather than to be focused solely on compliance, risk or narrowly defining opportunities. Another participant suggested that these records should ideally function as “different access points” for volunteering, and the provision of volunteer-run services.

Several groups hence grappled with what aspects of volunteer identity would benefit from more formal recording. One group considered:

“…actually getting out of the volunteer sector and then going into work, going into other forms of employment… what would it mean to support someone beyond volunteering?”

In effect, more formal and distributed reporting might be most valuable to external organisations and sectors, rather than between volunteers themselves. At best, a decentralised system should ensure the volunteer is in a position to gain the most from their identity data.

3.2.2. Sharing Volunteer Identities Between Organisations

One group focused particularly on the possible applications for sharing aspects of volunteers identities between VIOs working in a similar sector, where a distributed ledger would enforce and mobilise an agreed “shared charter of principle…and then use that to look at welcoming and induction and recruitment side of thing.”

“So every organisation could agree principles for like, expensive disclosure, interviews, ids, volunteer agreements, photographic, press and publicity, database permissions, that sort of thing. If you’ve got to do that organisation by organisation that can be quite fatiguing for a volunteer, and it can also very much help an organisation resource wise.”

This was viewed as a potential efficiency for both the volunteer and the organisations, however would depend on prior agreements being in place between organisations. However, such a system could extend beyond induction processes, to specific skills or training between two similar roles, such as managing museum collections.

On a wider scale, it was recognised that if there were a trusted, distributed recording scheme for volunteer activity, for example for the hours they volunteered, or other achievements, it would be easier to contextualise and co-ordinate larger sector wide volunteering events.

“So a volunteer might be part of a very small organisation, but take part in the award program that hosts all of the organisation in the blockchain.”

3.2.3. New Volunteering ModelsOne group also considered radical new models of volunteering that could be enabled by a trusted, distributed and portable record of volunteer’s identities and aptitude.

“Does it allow cohorts to be constructed really quickly. So suddenly if you wanted put a call out, the canal’s just burst its banks, and you find a whole bunch of wallets, you know what the job is, and a whole bunch of people just corral, with certain skills, and they can be pulled on at any point, so there’s that idea that the bot can assess the job, and have access to pull people together.”

This group considered that teams or ‘cohorts’ of volunteers could be rallied around particular needs in a community, and that this might even be facilitated by a degree of automation. At scale, what kinds of groups could be facilitated, and what activities would be appropriate for them to tackle? Perhaps this could be suited to one-off or emergency volunteering? The value of a blockchain-based system would be to have the ability to look across a range of volunteers form different organisations, and reassemble them in a different temporary organisation for an emerging challenge or need.

However, how could such a system remain inclusive to the values of volunteering? Would such a system create different tiers of volunteer, and what would be the implications of this? This group also feared that such an approach would benefit the most pro-active volunteers, but may leave others behind.

“And a bit like your problem, are we leaving out the people who just can’t get onto this accountant culture? Otherwise it’s going to keep pulling on the same people. So there was a question of how you design things to include people.”

4. What we learnedBlockchains demand quite specific definitions of what ‘volunteering’ isThe most immediate challenge facing the design of blockchains in the volunteer sector is to carefully define what ‘volunteering’ is - for the organisations and volunteers involved. This is true of many identity management schemes, but being a record that is very hard to change, and one which supports formal transactions and accounting make this especially important for blockchain-based systems.

— Who ‘counts’ as a volunteer?

— Who needs or would benefit from a formal record of their identity?

— What are the important things to know and share about a volunteer?

— What kinds of activities and attributes of a volunteer can be reliably recorded?

— How flexible or responsive can such a system be to an organisation’s needs?

This kind of administration and definition presents a challenge for the sector which relies on all kinds of informal arrangements and goodwill in order to function. How is it possible todefine and modularise volunteering in this way? And how would this kind of record-keeping transform the experience of volunteering itself? While there is value in ‘hard’ transactional efficiency, it’s important that any system support the creation of ‘soft’ relationships and collaboration so essential to good volunteering.

Blockchain-based systems need to be inclusive to all kinds of volunteers. A risk in defining volunteering is that systems may be exclusive to certain kinds of volunteers. Organisations want to make the most of anyone’s good intentions to volunteer and donate their time to a cause - to the benefit of the volunteer and the organisation themselves.

Such systems risk making explicit tiers or an evaluation of volunteers - those who possess certain valued skills or qualities, and those who do not. This may benefit and create opportunities for the most pro-active volunteers, while overlooking the value of all kinds of volunteers. How can such risks be mitigated or accounted for? What work do organisations currently do to ensure they are inclusive and could this be accounted for by a blockchain-based system?

Blockchains should focus on specific claims about volunteers and their activities, that can be made reliably, and are valuable to share. The PizzaBlock game presented a very simplified version of volunteer attributes - specific skills from verified providers. Any system depends upon the quality and fidelity of this kind of data input. Could this go beyond skills from official providers to include other forms of attestation - to recognise for example social proof or trust from a community?

These systems should also have a clear purpose and value - rather than necessarily being envisaged as a catch-all or replacement for existing volunteer identity schemes. For example it may be useful in recording just one or two specific features of volunteers and their activity. Or relate to a specific need, such as storing and sharing important checks or agreements between organisations.

Finally, it’s important to consider what such claims mean to whom. Is this a record for volunteers to share with each other, other voluntary organisations, or even stakeholders beyond the sector, such as fundraisers or future employers?

There are two diverging approaches to designing blockchains for the sector: organisation-led or volunteer-led.Blockchains may be a way for organisations to tighten and formalise the bonds and convergence between related stakeholders in the voluntary sector - for example through a shared and transferable welcome package for volunteers across multiple VIOs. This may produce efficiencies for the organisations themselves, and for the volunteers, who may more easily simultaneously volunteer in different roles and charities.

It’s quite possible to envisage a shared steering group, or trusted body being the authority to foster agreements to underpin such a network, and manage the implementation of such a shared system. This may not necessarily need to be a blockchain, but some features of blockchain technology may allow volunteers and organisations to have a greater stake and accountability for the network.

A more disruptive potential can be envisaged where volunteers have their own ledger, and the ability to define themselves and their activity beyond any particular organisation. Volunteering could become closer to a ‘gig economy’ - without the financial incentives. This could fundamentally challenge the existing roles of VIOs in how they recruit and manage volunteers. It may even be that automated agents are able to commission and corral cohorts of volunteers for one off jobs outside of any single organisations’ remit.

Most radically, some VIOs could be disintermediated to the extent they are responsible only for delivering voluntary work, and become divorced from the process of recruiting, training and managing volunteers. Clearly, such disintermediation would require great care, and could be quite inappropriate for some contexts and some volunteers. But it may open up volunteering to a wider range of actors, and greater self-determination of how volunteering takes place.

6. Further Reading The following are a list of further in-depth resources for a more detailed overview of how blockchains work, and their potentially diverse applications that we have found useful in developing this project.

Catlow, R., Garrett, M., Jones, N., & Skinner, S. (2017). Artists Re: thinking the Blockchain (Vol. 1). Torque Editions. http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/124584/1/ArtistsReThinkingTheBlockchain.pdf

Dunphy, P., Garratt, L., & Petitcolas, F. (2018). Decentralizing Digital Identity: Open Challenges for Distributed Ledgers. https://www.dunph.com/SB2018.pdf

Elsden, C., Manohar, A., Briggs, J., Harding, M., Speed, C., & Vines, J. (2018, April). Making Sense of Blockchain Applications: A Typology for HCI. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 458). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174032

Outlier Ventures. (2017) Community Token Economies https://outlierventures.io/cte-wp/

Rauchs, M., et al. (2018) Distributed Ledger Technology Systems: A Conceptual Framework Cambridge Business School https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/faculty-research/centres/alternative-finance/publications/distributed-ledger-technology-systems/#.XBPYuCfgpAY

5. Next StepsThis was the first workshop in a series exploring potential applications for blockchain in the voluntary sector. Our second workshop focused on Alternative Currencies and took place on Nov 27th.

This therefore remains an interim report, focused on developing the space for future research and development. We are also part of an ongoing development process, and hope to have a pilot technical prototype available in Spring 2019 that we can share with interested partners.

If you or your organisation is interested in these topics, we would love to talk to you further and help you consider the implications of blockchain technologies in your domain.

You can get in touch with us directly via email at: chris.elsden@northumbria.ac.ukalan.stevenson@VolunteerScotland.org.uk