[Community Vote] Grants/Funding Strategy for S7

Governance
#1

author: @jengajojo
Squad : Grants Committee

Summary:

In S6 The Grants Committee has held weekly strategy meetings to ideate on the overall grants and funding strategy for the DAO. In this community vote, we would like to know how to proceed with GC funding strategy going forward.

Background:

Quotes from the constitution about the Grants Committee mandate:

  1. This committee is responsible to vet groups seeking midseason funding and consequently ensure funded entities provide ongoing transparency into the state of their development.
  2. The Grants Committee is required to be transparent and communicative with the DAO, such as access to Committee meetings and an opportunity to voice opinions and feedback.
  3. Seasonal funding is largely dispersed through the Grants Committee.
  4. Before new seasons begin, all previously funded guilds and projects must submit a funding proposal to the forum for the Grants Committee to review. Funding proposals that pass the Grants Committee review process are packaged together in a single seasonal budget Snapshot vote.
  5. Groups seeking funding over the course of a season will be directed to the Grants Committee upon successfully passing their Forum proposal. The Grants Committee is responsible to evaluate these requests and has the liberty to accept or reject these requests for funds.

In line with these mandates, the Grants Committee held ‘Strategy’ calls each week to identify challenges in the current funding process and suggested 4 possible solutions. We would like to hear from the DAO on what should the next step be:

  1. Project proposal template

Adopt the new proposal template for projects?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

  1. Department proposal template

Adopt the new proposal template for departments?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

  1. Project Assessment Framework

Evaluate projects with the help of this assessment framework?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

  1. In Season 6, the DAO distributed >22M BANK, up 12.8% from S5, between departments, guilds and projects. In S7 we should:
  • Increase funding
  • Keep funding unchanged
  • Decrease funding

0 voters

  1. Grants strategy bonus

S5 onwards, a 250K bonus for the grants committee was initiated to compensate for “process improvements to the Grants Committee, initiate an evolution of the Grants Committee mandate or initiate an evolution of the DAO as a whole within the mandate of the Grants Committee.” However there is no criteria defined to measure the success of this bonus structure.

We suggest measuring the success of the GC by the “number of forum posts GC makes within a season” to unlock this bonus.

What should be the KPIs for GC?

  • Number of proposals passed
  • Number of meetings attended by GC members
  • Number of forum posts
  • Other suggestions [comment below]

0 voters

  1. In S6, including this post, the GC made 5 posts in total under this criteria. Should GC receive additional compensation for S6, to be distributed amongst the GC members via Coordinape?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

  1. If the above is yes, how much?
  • 500,000 BANK
  • 300,000 BANK
  • 100,000 BANK

0 voters

2 Likes
#2

For assessment of the GC, I think we would want to orient around the performance of the GC, and ideally quality over quantity. And so I think the measurement will need to be qualitative(overall review of the work) over quantitative (kpis).

As a result, I would prefer a forum post with a summary of aims and accomplishments for the season, with a poll for review of that work, and based on that unlocking tiers of bonus. (Still chewing on this…)

Ultimately, (and in my opinion) the measurement of the GC is a mix of all the metrics above(and more), which reflect a GC that is attempting to further the mission of the DAO and support a healthy project ecosystem. (Which I think the current GC has done a GREAT job at! :+1: )

8 Likes
#3

What if the 250k bonus was split three ways for the different criteria? 83k-ish for number of forum posts, number of proposals passed, and number of meetings attended.

1 Like
#4

I feel that this post is confusing - are you asking for another bonus in addition to the 250K seasonal GC bonus? What is the rationale for the GC to get another bonus this season?

Each GC member makes at least 50K BANK/season (leads make more), and there is a 250K BANK bonus, with 6 members. If you split that evenly, it would be 90K/season. Each season is 13 weeks, so basically that allocation is enough for 7 hours/week. Did GC members spend more than 7 hours a week on average this season?

The job of the GC is to review grant applications, not to write forum proposals, so why should there be additional funding for writing forum proposals? According to the Project Submission table, only 4-5 mid-season projects were reviewed by the GC this season, while 18+ were reviewed by GC last season.

As GC lead last season, I spent 5 hours/wk with a bunp to 10h/wk during seasonal funding time (2 weeks). I’m confused as how this GC spent MORE time than that while reviewing LESS grant applications. Perhaps there should be a poll to reduce GC funding based on this criteria?

4 Likes
#5

Yes, the 250K BANK was a test to see if it can incentivize the GC to fulfil the following mandate according to S5 CV:

We made this poll to test if the 250K comp for this work is enough or if it should be more. In the past GCs have not been transparent enough with how this bonus would be paid, which is why we suggested KPIs.

Proposals here are only written outputs of the whole process of discussions, feedback and suggesting changes which took all GC members several hours. In contrast to previous seasons, the GC held regular strategy sessions each week along with async work in smaller groups to come up with these suggestions.

I agree with you that base comp should be a function of the number of applications reviewed. However this ask deals with

1 Like