The Pillars of Value help Kokonut ask better questions before making stronger claims.

The Pillars of Value are six questions:

WHAT — What value is the farm trying to create?
WHO — Who experiences that value, cost, or risk?
HOW MUCH — At what scale, depth, duration, and confidence?
CONTRIBUTION — What does the intervention add?
RISK — What could prevent, reduce, reverse, or distort the intended value?
PUBLIC GOODS — What value extends beyond the immediate private transaction?

They can improve:

farm planning;
proposal drafting;
domain review;
grant applications;
MRV design;
reporting;
forecast-vs-actual analysis;
cross-farm learning.

They do not produce a funding verdict or impact score by themselves.

The pillars structure the questions. Evidence determines how confidently those questions can be answered.

Start from the farm baseline

Use the 13-field Common Data Schema to establish compatible farm context before applying the six value questions.

Categorize the forms of value

Use the 8 Forms of Capital to organize natural, financial, social, human, material, intellectual, cultural, and health value.

Plan the evidence

Connect material claims to observations, measurements, review, publication, and appropriate interpretation.

Use the right authority

Apply the pillars to a proposal when a proposal is actually the correct decision path.

A well-written value case is not evidence that the value was created. Keep objectives, forecasts, implemented activities, measured outcomes, and impact interpretations in separate claim classes.

The six pillars in one view

Pillar	Core question	Typical planning output	Stronger evidence later
WHAT	What value is intended?	Objectives, outputs, outcome hypotheses	Operational records, measurements, outcome evidence
WHO	Who is affected?	Stakeholder / beneficiary map	Participation, role, distribution, survey, transaction, or beneficiary records
HOW MUCH	What scale and duration are expected?	Baselines, targets, forecasts, reporting periods	Actual quantities, repeated measurements, variance analysis
CONTRIBUTION	What does the intervention add?	Intervention logic and plausible pathway	Before/after, comparison, attribution/context evidence where appropriate
RISK	What could go wrong or create harm?	Risk register, mitigations, owners, triggers	Incident, variance, quality, audit, field, market, and monitoring records
PUBLIC GOODS	What value extends beyond direct private exchange?	Public-benefit activities, access model, funding assumption	Actual allocation, delivery, use, access, beneficiary, or open-resource records

The pillars are not six independent scores. They work together. “How much?” is weak without “who?”; “public goods” is weak without evidence of delivery; “contribution” is weak if risk and alternative explanations are ignored.

What the Pillars of Value do — and what they do not

They can help	They cannot decide automatically
Make a farm thesis more explicit	Whether a farm deserves funding
Identify who may benefit or bear risk	Whether beneficiaries actually experienced the intended outcome
Turn vague goals into measurable questions	Whether a forecast will be achieved
Expose assumptions and evidence gaps	Whether an ecological claim is scientifically valid
Structure risk discussion	Whether all risks have been captured
Clarify proposed public benefit	Whether a public good was actually delivered
Make reports easier to compare	Whether two farms are equivalent
Improve governance inputs	What the final governance decision should be

A farm can answer every pillar clearly and still be:

too expensive;
poorly timed;
operationally weak;
legally unresolved;
evidence-poor;
exposed to unacceptable risk.

The pillars improve decision quality. They do not replace the decision process.

Where the pillars sit in the Framework

Framework layer	Role
Common Data Schema	Establishes a compatible farm baseline
Pillars of Value	Structures the value questions
8 Forms of Capital	Categorizes the forms of value being discussed
5 Principles of Regeneration	Grounds regenerative practice in operational design
MRV	Defines how observations and claims become reviewable evidence
SDGs / EBF / CRISP	Add interpretation and reporting lenses
Kokonut Intelligence	Implements data, lifecycle, analytics, reporting, and attestation infrastructure
Governance / farm authority	Makes scoped decisions using the relevant evidence and expertise

The Pillars of Value can inform a Moloch funding decision, but they are not owned by Moloch and are useful outside DAO voting: local farm planning, Guild review, grants, partner reporting, research, and retrospective learning can all use them.

The six pillars

1. WHAT — define the value being pursued

Core question: What is the farm, workstream, or intervention trying to create, protect, improve, or make possible? A strong WHAT answer separates at least three things:

Layer	Example
Output / activity	Build a nursery; plant syntropic plots; operate a training space
Outcome hypothesis	More seedlings survive; soil remains covered; participants gain useful skills
Higher-level impact interpretation	Biodiversity, soil condition, livelihood capacity, or food access improves

The first layer can often be documented quickly. The later layers require stronger evidence.

Useful WHAT prompts

What production system is being created?
What physical infrastructure is being built?
What ecological condition is intended to improve?
What economic capacity is intended to improve?
What knowledge, training, or coordination capacity is intended to improve?
Which claims are direct outputs versus outcome hypotheses?
What is intentionally out of scope?

Evidence discipline

Avoid:

“The farm restores biodiversity.”

Prefer at the planning stage:

“The farm will implement native/at-risk species propagation and agroforestry practices. Biodiversity outcomes will require baseline and repeated evidence.”

2. WHO — identify who experiences the value, cost, or risk

Core question: Who is directly or indirectly affected? WHO should not be reduced to a generic list of “beneficiaries.” Different stakeholders can have different relationships to the same intervention.

Stakeholder role	Questions to ask
Local operators / founders	What authority, responsibilities, income exposure, and risk do they carry?
Workers	What roles, compensation, safety, continuity, and learning opportunities exist?
Customers / buyers	What product, service, quality, price, or access do they receive?
Community participants	What activity do they actually access or use?
Contributors / Guilds	What work, review, or reusable knowledge do they provide?
Capital participants	What governance or treasury exposure applies without implying farm ownership?
Partners / funders	What commitments, reporting, or restrictions apply?
Future farms	What methods, data, code, or lessons are reusable?
Ecological systems	What land, habitat, soil, water, or species are within the claim boundary?

WHO requires distribution, not just totals

“Seven jobs” is useful. It does not answer:

which roles;
full-time or part-time;
for how long;
compensation;
safety;
who received the opportunity;
whether conditions changed for those people.

A total can describe scale without describing distribution or quality.

3. HOW MUCH — define scale, depth, duration, and confidence

Core question: How much value is expected or observed, for how long, and with what evidence quality? HOW MUCH should distinguish:

baseline;
target;
forecast;
actual;
variance;
reporting period.

Quantities that may matter

Area	Examples
Land	mapped area, agricultural area, plot area
Production	planted quantity, harvest, losses, saleable production
Finance	budget, actual spend, gross revenue, cost, price
Work	role count, hours, duration, compensation
Training	sessions, participants, completion, repeat participation
Public goods	modeled share, approved share, actual transfer, actual use
Ecology	ground cover, soil readings, vegetation indicators, survival, species records
Time	crop cycle, reporting period, duration of observed change

Forecast and actual must remain separate

For Adelphi:

15,725 m² total mapped area is a documented reference;
13,838 m² agricultural area is a documented reference;
7 jobs are documented;
110 hens are documented;
~100 eggs/day is a planning estimate;
crop production and gross revenue figures on the forecast page are forecasts;
the 10% public-goods figure is a current farm-model assumption, not a realized transfer.

Review the Adelphi forecast model →

HOW MUCH is not “put a number on everything.” False precision is worse than a clearly labeled unknown. Use ranges, confidence, assumptions, and evidence status where exact values are not justified.

4. CONTRIBUTION — identify what the intervention adds

Core question: What does this intervention add to the observed or expected change? Within Kokonut, CONTRIBUTION includes value the farm or workstream adds through:

ecological practice;
productive capacity;
local infrastructure;
jobs and skills;
coordination;
open data;
documentation;
reusable methods;
public-benefit activities.

But contribution should not be confused with automatic causal attribution.

A stronger contribution analysis asks

What existed before the intervention?
What exactly did the farm or program add?
Which other actors or conditions contributed?
What would likely have happened anyway?
Is the claimed change directly observed or only plausible?
Which part of the result can reasonably be associated with this intervention?
What remains uncertain?

Example

Weak:

“The nursery restored local biodiversity.”

Stronger:

“The nursery propagated documented native/at-risk species. Survival, distribution, habitat use, and longitudinal biodiversity outcomes require additional evidence before a restoration claim is made.”

Contribution is not ownership of the outcome. Farms operate inside communities, markets, ecosystems, weather, policy, and partner networks. Strong analysis should acknowledge other causes rather than assigning every observed change to Kokonut.

5. RISK — make uncertainty visible before it becomes a surprise

Core question: What could prevent the intended value, reduce it, reverse it, or create unintended harm? Risk is not a disclaimer section added after the proposal is finished. It changes:

assumptions;
milestones;
budgets;
evidence plans;
operating decisions;
governance decisions.

Risk register

Risk category	Example	Useful response
Agronomic	Pest, disease, crop loss, establishment failure	Diversification, monitoring, response plan, loss records
Climate / water	Drought, flooding, heat, storm damage	Water planning, soil cover, contingency, weather/context records
Market	Price change, buyer loss, weak demand	Multiple channels, sensitivity analysis, actual sales data
Operational	Labor gaps, maintenance failure, key-person dependency	Roles, training, procedures, redundancy, maintenance records
Financial	Cost overrun, delayed revenue, liquidity pressure	Milestones, contingency, actual-vs-budget tracking
Governance / authority	Wrong decision routed to wrong actor	Explicit authority boundaries and escalation
Data quality	Missing, stale, inconsistent, biased records	Validation, reviewer, provenance, lifecycle state
Claim / methodology	Evidence does not support the stated outcome	Narrower claim, better baseline, qualified review
Privacy / social	Sensitive data or participation exposed improperly	Consent, access controls, selective disclosure
Technology	Integration, schema, wallet, or automation failure	Compatibility, testing, rollback, human review

Risk should have an owner and signal

For material risks, document:

description;
probability or uncertainty;
consequence;
mitigation;
responsible owner;
early-warning indicator;
escalation path;
residual risk.

CRISP and EBF can support parts of the analysis, but they do not eliminate the need for farm-specific judgment.

6. PUBLIC GOODS — identify value that extends beyond the private transaction

Core question: What useful value is accessible beyond the immediate commercial exchange, and how will it be sustained and evidenced? PUBLIC GOODS can include things such as:

open documentation;
open-source software;
reusable methodology;
public evidence infrastructure;
community learning resources;
training or education;
shared spaces;
seedling distribution;
ecological restoration beyond a private production benefit;
shared datasets where publication is appropriate.

It should not be reduced to a single revenue percentage.

Public-goods questions

What public or shared benefit is intended?
Who can access or use it?
Is access open, targeted, conditional, or time-bound?
Who funds it?
Is funding modeled, approved, or already transferred?
Who delivers it?
What evidence shows delivery?
How is maintenance or continuation handled?
What private benefit also exists?
What risks could prevent access or delivery?

Allocation is one mechanism — not the definition

The Common Data Schema currently includes:

public_goods_allocation

That field can record a farm-specific percentage. It does not mean every public good must be funded from revenue. And it does not establish a universal Kokonut percentage.

Do not present Adelphi’s 10% model assumption as a Framework rule. The repository also contains a conflicting historical 40/40/20 model. Use the current approved farm-specific arrangement once reconciled, and distinguish modeled allocation from actual transfers.

Evidence classes for every pillar

Each pillar can contain statements at different maturity levels.

Evidence class	Example
Baseline / documented state	Adelphi has 13,838 m² documented agricultural area
Forecast / target	A crop model projects a future harvest or gross-revenue scenario
Implemented activity	A syntropic plot, nursery, training session, or biochar application occurred
Measurement / actual	A harvest quantity, sale, soil reading, attendance record, or payment was recorded
Reviewed / published record	The record passed the applicable lifecycle and is usable downstream
Interpretation	Evidence supports an SDG, capital, ecological, or public-benefit conclusion

Do not turn a lower class into a higher class through wording alone.

The pillar tells you what question to ask; the evidence class tells you how strongly you can answer it.

Pillar worksheet for proposals, plans, and reports

For each material value claim, capture:

Field	Question
Pillar	WHAT, WHO, HOW MUCH, CONTRIBUTION, RISK, or PUBLIC GOODS?
Claim	What exactly is being asserted?
Claim class	Baseline, forecast, activity, measurement/actual, published record, interpretation?
Stakeholder / boundary	Who or what is inside the claim?
Baseline	What was the starting condition, if relevant?
Metric / indicator	What will be counted, measured, or observed?
Reporting period	What dates does the claim cover?
Source	Which record or dataset supports it?
Reviewer / owner	Who records, reviews, or is accountable for it?
Risk / limitation	What could make the claim incomplete or misleading?
Status	Draft, submitted, verified/rejected, published?
Next evidence	What would make the claim stronger?

This structure works for:

a farm funding proposal;
a grant;
a partner report;
annual farm review;
SDG reporting;
EBF / CRISP analysis;
internal operational learning.

Relationship to the 8 Forms of Capital

The six Pillars and the eight Forms answer different questions.

Pillars = inquiry structure. Forms of Capital = value categories.

Pillar	Forms of capital that may be relevant
WHAT	Any form, depending on the intended value
WHO	Social, Human, Cultural, Health, Financial, Natural
HOW MUCH	Any form with a defensible metric or qualitative evidence
CONTRIBUTION	Any form where the intervention adds capacity, condition, or access
RISK	Any form exposed to loss, degradation, capture, or non-delivery
PUBLIC GOODS	Often Social, Human, Intellectual, Cultural, Natural; not limited to these

The 8 Forms should not be treated as a unit-conversion system. Natural, financial, cultural, and health value are not automatically interchangeable. Read the 8 Forms of Capital →

Relationship to the Common Data Schema

The Common Data Schema gives the pillars shared context, but no one-to-one mapping is complete.

Pillar	Useful schema context	What still sits outside the 13-field baseline
WHAT	`project_summary`, `revenue_streams`, `proposed_solution`	Outcome definitions, operating plan, evidence
WHO	`target_market`, `local_problem`	Workers, operators, participant records, distribution
HOW MUCH	`land_size`, `forecasted_budget`, `public_goods_allocation`	Actuals, reporting periods, baselines, quality
CONTRIBUTION	`proposed_solution`	Before/after, other contributors, causal uncertainty
RISK	Context across all fields	Risk register, triggers, mitigation, residual risk
PUBLIC GOODS	`public_goods_allocation`	Activities, access, actual transfers, delivery evidence

Schema completeness does not mean pillar completeness. The baseline record is deliberately small; the pillar analysis can point to supporting records outside the 13-field object.

Using the pillars in a farm funding proposal

The pillars can make a proposal more reviewable, but they are not a separate approval test. A proposal is stronger when reviewers can see:

what is being requested;
which value claims are forecasts;
who holds operating authority;
who may benefit or bear risk;
what budget and milestones apply;
what evidence will be collected;
what can change without renewed authorization;
how delivery will be accepted and closed out.

Readiness levels

Level	Meaning
Draft	Important pillar questions are still unanswered
Reviewable	Material claims, assumptions, risks, authority, and evidence plans are visible
Authorizable	The correct authority has enough information to decide within its scope
Executed	Any required treasury/on-chain/off-chain action occurred
Delivered	The real-world work happened
Closed	Acceptance, evidence, variance, and unresolved issues are documented

A passed proposal is not proof that the underlying value case became true.

Use the Farm Funding Proposal →

Adelphi as a worked reference — with evidence boundaries

Adelphi can illustrate the pillars without pretending every intended benefit is already an achieved outcome.

Pillar	Safe current reference	Boundary
WHAT	Live women-led regenerative farm with crops, poultry, nursery, syntropic plots, training/evidence infrastructure	Stronger ecological/social outcomes still require evidence
WHO	Yanny and Neury Hernández are documented founders/operators; seven jobs are documented	Broader household/community beneficiary outcomes should not be inferred
HOW MUCH	15,725 m² total mapped; 13,838 m² agricultural; 7 jobs; 110 hens	Egg, crop, revenue, and public-goods values include forecasts/assumptions
CONTRIBUTION	Adelphi adds farm infrastructure, production systems, documented regenerative practices, data, and Framework learning	Do not assign every observed social/ecological change solely to Adelphi
RISK	Long-cycle timing, market, weather, operations, data, economics, and evidence quality remain relevant	Mitigation reduces risk; it does not eliminate it
PUBLIC GOODS	Training/community infrastructure, nursery/seedling work, open documentation/evidence can support public benefit	10% remains a farm-model assumption; realized delivery requires records

Adelphi Overview

See the documented farm state, local operators, Framework status, forecasts, and evidence boundaries.

Adelphi SDG Evidence

See how alignment, activity, measured outcome, and impact interpretation are kept separate.

Forecast vs. actual

Inspect which production and economic values are still planning assumptions.

Current published records

Use the Kokonut Hub when changeable farm state matters.

Common failure modes

Failure mode	Better practice
“This project scores highly on all six pillars.”	Describe the material questions, evidence, uncertainty, and trade-offs instead of inventing an overall score
“The DAO approved it, therefore it creates value.”	Treat authorization as permission, not proof of outcome
“Seven jobs means poverty reduction.”	Report the documented roles; stronger livelihood claims require income/household evidence
“Women-led means gender inequality decreased.”	Report women-led ownership/operation; measure broader gender outcomes separately
“Syntropic means biodiversity was restored.”	Report the practice; measure biodiversity condition over time
“10% goes to public goods.”	State whether 10% is modeled, approved, or actually transferred
“The 8 Forms measure all value.”	Use them as categories; select evidence appropriate to each claim
“EAS proves the impact.”	EAS can support provenance; methodology and evidence determine the claim
“A public dashboard is automatically current.”	Check record status, reporting period, source, and freshness
“Every benefit belongs to Kokonut.”	Acknowledge operators, partners, ecosystem conditions, community actors, and other causes

How different readers should use the pillars

Farm operators

Clarify what the farm is trying to achieve while keeping operational decisions grounded in local conditions and actual performance.

Capital governance participants

Use the six questions to improve funding decisions without treating them as an automatic score or overriding local farm authority.

Guilds & contributors

Identify missing evidence, bounded work, domain-review needs, and reusable improvements.

Impact & research reviewers

Trace each material claim to baseline, metric, reporting period, source, limitations, and appropriate interpretation.

Partners & grant reviewers

Understand assumptions, stakeholder distribution, risk, evidence maturity, and public-benefit delivery.

Developers & agents

Use the pillars to structure analysis, but keep machine-generated interpretations as drafts until the appropriate review occurs.

Current maturity

Surface	Status	Interpretation
Six Pillars of Value	Active Framework methodology	Shared questions for value analysis
Common Data Schema connection	Active	Provides baseline context, not a complete pillar dataset
8 Forms connection	Active analytical relationship	Categories of value, not universal measurement units
Proposal use	Active	Improves decision inputs; does not determine approval
MRV connection	Active and evolving	Material claims should point to evidence appropriate to their class
Automated Pillars interpretation	Decision support / developing	Agent or software outputs should remain reviewable drafts rather than autonomous impact judgments
Cross-farm comparison	Developing	Requires consistent semantics, reporting periods, and evidence across more than one farm

Continue through the Framework

Common Data Schema

Establish the farm baseline before applying the six value questions.

8 Forms of Capital

Organize the different forms of value that appear in the pillar analysis.

Positive-impact Methodology

Connect farm practices and evidence to appropriately bounded impact interpretations.

MRV Methodology

See how source observations become structured records, review, publication, optional attestations, and interpretation.

Impact Calculator

Use scenario assumptions to plan SDG and evidence needs without manufacturing an impact score.

Proposal Templates

Apply the pillars inside the correct proposal type when formal authorization is actually required.

The Pillars of Value are most useful when they make a claim harder to oversimplify: what, who, how much, what the intervention adds, what could fail, and what value genuinely reaches beyond the private transaction.

​The Pillars of Value help Kokonut ask better questions before making stronger claims.

Start from the farm baseline

Categorize the forms of value

Plan the evidence

Use the right authority

​The six pillars in one view

​What the Pillars of Value do — and what they do not

​Where the pillars sit in the Framework

​The six pillars

​1. WHAT — define the value being pursued

​Useful WHAT prompts

​Evidence discipline

​2. WHO — identify who experiences the value, cost, or risk

​WHO requires distribution, not just totals

​3. HOW MUCH — define scale, depth, duration, and confidence

​Quantities that may matter

​Forecast and actual must remain separate

​4. CONTRIBUTION — identify what the intervention adds

​A stronger contribution analysis asks

​Example

​5. RISK — make uncertainty visible before it becomes a surprise

​Risk register

​Risk should have an owner and signal

​6. PUBLIC GOODS — identify value that extends beyond the private transaction

​Public-goods questions

​Allocation is one mechanism — not the definition

​Evidence classes for every pillar

​Pillar worksheet for proposals, plans, and reports

​Relationship to the 8 Forms of Capital

​Relationship to the Common Data Schema

​Using the pillars in a farm funding proposal

​Readiness levels

​Adelphi as a worked reference — with evidence boundaries

Adelphi Overview

Adelphi SDG Evidence

Forecast vs. actual

Current published records

​Common failure modes

​How different readers should use the pillars

Farm operators

Capital governance participants

Guilds & contributors

Impact & research reviewers

Partners & grant reviewers

Developers & agents

​Current maturity

​Continue through the Framework

Common Data Schema

8 Forms of Capital

Positive-impact Methodology

MRV Methodology

Impact Calculator

Proposal Templates

The Pillars of Value help Kokonut ask better questions before making stronger claims.

The six pillars in one view

What the Pillars of Value do — and what they do not

Where the pillars sit in the Framework

The six pillars

1. WHAT — define the value being pursued

Useful WHAT prompts

Evidence discipline

2. WHO — identify who experiences the value, cost, or risk

WHO requires distribution, not just totals

3. HOW MUCH — define scale, depth, duration, and confidence

Quantities that may matter

Forecast and actual must remain separate

4. CONTRIBUTION — identify what the intervention adds

A stronger contribution analysis asks

Example

5. RISK — make uncertainty visible before it becomes a surprise

Risk register

Risk should have an owner and signal

6. PUBLIC GOODS — identify value that extends beyond the private transaction

Public-goods questions

Allocation is one mechanism — not the definition

Evidence classes for every pillar

Pillar worksheet for proposals, plans, and reports

Relationship to the 8 Forms of Capital

Relationship to the Common Data Schema

Using the pillars in a farm funding proposal

Readiness levels

Adelphi as a worked reference — with evidence boundaries

Common failure modes

How different readers should use the pillars

Current maturity

Continue through the Framework