The NEAR Foundation (NF), based in Switzerland, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering community-driven innovation globally. The foundation supports the NEAR ecosystem, which includes the NEAR Protocol, a scalable and developer-friendly blockchain platform for building decentralized applications, and is also at the forefront of the intersection between blockchain and user-owned artificial intelligence (AI). Operating as a globally remote first organization with members worldwide, NF champions decentralization with the ultimate goal of minimizing its own scope by devolving functions and resources to the ecosystem, thus enabling it to become self-sufficient.
NF’s core responsibilities encompass coordinating research and development for the NEAR Protocol, allocating financial and technical resources through grants and investments, advocating for the ecosystem to various stakeholders, and fostering community-driven governance. Governed by the NEAR Foundation Council, which oversees significant decision-making, NF manages a substantial treasury (worth over $1+ billion) used for current & future initiatives. As the NEAR ecosystem matures, NF continues to streamline its operations, focusing on high-impact activities, chain abstraction, user-owned AI, and mainstream adoption of the Open Web, while promoting further decentralization and ecosystem growth.
NF needed a streamlined solution for managing its complex and decentralized data sets. These data sets were spread across various departments and entities within the NEAR Foundation & ecosystem, each with its own workflows and business needs. The Foundation wanted to unify these disparate databases into a cohesive CRM system that would not only streamline workflows but also enhance communication and collaboration across nodes. Additionally, the client sought to avoid the high costs, technical complexity, and extensive setup time associated with solutions like Salesforce. They preferred Airtable for its flexible and customizable platform, user-friendly interface that enhances collaboration, data protection standards, seamless integration with third-party tools, scalable and cost-effective solutions, and global & mobile accessibility, all of which support efficient data management and decision-making across diverse departments and entities. Before engaging Caddie, each NF department used their own Airtable or spreadsheet based database, leading to fragmented data management. Caddie was tasked with unifying these into a single, efficient CRM system.
Caddie faced the challenge of identifying and consolidating data points across multiple departments & nodes within NF and more broadly the NEAR ecosystem. Each department & node required careful consideration to ensure they fit into the larger CRM framework. The primary challenge involved mapping the existing separate databases into one unified schema that all departments—Market Success, Founder Success, Blockchain Success, Marketing—could contribute to and manage. The process included creating a database schema mapping, building interfaces for each department, onboarding external ecosystem nodes with precise permission settings, syncing the ecosystem project registry, continuously improving the CRM's usability.
Caddie approached the project methodically:
Additional efforts were made:
Caddie successfully unified the NEAR Foundation’s previously fragmented databases into a single, coherent CRM system, improving communication, data management, and overall operational efficiency.
