DAO Contributor Sentiment Tracker Proposal

Grants/Funding Season 4 Project Proposals
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Update on 30th June 2022: Thank you everyone for your support and votes. The grant was approved by the Grants Committee on 28 June 2022 . Voting is no longer required on this proposal. Comments, questions and feedback are always welcome and helpful

DAO Contributor Sentiment Tracker Proposal - Season 4 Funding

AUTHORS: Ashish G#1970, sandeepdas#2062

SQUAD:

• Ashish G#1920 (Project champion)

• infinitehomie.eth#4930

• sandeepdas #2062

• freedo_minant🏴#1013

• Leah_par #5932

DATE CREATED: 9 June 2022

DATE POSTED: 9 June 2022

SUMMARY:

The “DAO Contributors Sentiment Tracker” aims to be the first, data-driven measurement and evaluation survey about behaviors, attitudes and sentiments of DAO contributors. We believe that while there are several of data points and rankings on the fastest growing, most active DAOs etc., there is a lack of understanding around the motivators of contributing to DAOs and the sentiments after contributing to them. This is currently a vacant space, and an opportunity for Bankless DAO to take ownership and showcase itself as a thought leader. The intention is to make the tracker and the insights coming out of it a benchmark and go-to reference for DAO builders, community managers, onboarding specialists and governance teams. It will also act as a useful source for anyone who wants to get a pulse check about DAO participation and engagement sentiments.

The working group has been at it for a month now. The questionnaire has been finalized and can be accessed here https://forms.gle/JeBFBa7i1V3256o58 .

The insights from the survey, when effectively communicated and disseminated within the wider DAO ecosystem, will strengthen Bankless DAO’s reputation in the space. Depending on the reaction and interest we receive from the results, there is an intent to repeat the survey at periodic intervals to establish a continuous read of DAO contributor sentiments over time

In traditional industries, there are examples of strategic trackers conducted by specific brands becoming gold standards of benchmarking. Some of these examples include The American Express Global Travel Trends Report, Interbrand / Brand Z / Brand Finance rankings of brands on brand valuations, the EBRD’s Business Environment & Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) and S&P NetAdvantage Industry Surveys.

BACKGROUND:

We believe DAOs are only as strong as the contributor community they attract. While there is data available on DAOs (memberships, voting, etc.) there isn’t a piece that tries to understand things such as contributors’ attitudes, motivators, challenges, etc. The proposed tracker aims to fill this gap.

MISSION & VALUES ALIGNMENT:

We believe this tracker will reinforce Bankless’ reputation as a thought leader.

The tracker will also contribute the Bankless vision of helping build a decentralized world.

SCOPE OF WORK:

The questionnaire will be administered through an online survey methodology and will be open to contributors across all DAOs in the Web 3 space.

The survey will cover the following areas of exploration of the respondents:

  • Profile: DAO experience, time invested

  • Sentiment: Satisfaction of working for DAOs, belief in value of their contributions, availability of assignments

  • Attitude: Motivation of working for DAOs, preferred mode of engagement

  • Specific areas of explorations: satisfaction with compensation, what they like about working for DAOs, challenges faced

  • Forward looking intention: Plan to increase or decrease commitment in next 3 months

The data captured through the survey will be analyzed to address the above specified objectives, and the findings will be shared in the form of a PowerPoint deck.

SPECIFICATION:

The project will be split in 3 phases. These are listed below

  • Development of the questionnaire: The working group was formed in April and has finalized the questionnaire. A first draft was checked through 14 respondents. The final version has been administered to 37 respondents already and is working well.

  • Marketing of the questionnaire, to get responses: The plan is that bDAO members will be incentivized with Bank tokens, to get responses to the questionnaire. Each interested contributor will be given a personalized link, which will help track the number of responses generated. The reward pool will be distributed as per the formula “responses generated by the specific contributor x total reward pool / total number of responses received”

This phase is expected to take up to 4 weeks.

  • Analysis: The analysis will include

a. Analysis of aggregate answers, to get insights

b. To attempt different cuts of the data, if a sufficiently large number of responses are received

The output will be shared as a ppt and writeup. The analysis phase is expected to take about 4 weeks.

It is expected that the tracker will be repeated in 6 months. It is also expected that some modifications will be done the questionnaire basis the output from this round.

The project’s notion page and project charter can be found here

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:

This proposal covers only the 1st sentiment tracker survey, which is being rolled out currently. For each future wave we plan to apply for a specific grant at the time of rolling them out.

We are requesting for 100,000 Bank. The proposed budget is mapped to the 3 project stages listed above, under the ‘specifications’ section.

  1. Creation of questionnaire: 30,000 Bank. This will be awarded retrospectively

  2. Getting responses: 30,000 Bank. This will be a pool reward, open to bDAO community

  3. Analysis of responses and creation of a questionnaire: 40,000 Bank

The project’s funds will be handled by a multi sig wallet, with 3/5 approval requirement. The members of the multi sig wallet will be

  1. Ashish G#1920

  2. infinitehomie.eth#4930

  3. sandeepdas #2062

  4. freedo_minant🏴#1013

  5. Leah_par #5932

BRAND USAGE:

The Bankless name and logo could be used on 3 properties

  • In the questionnaire

  • In the final report

  • In an email template (with the survey link), which which we may explore to share the survey within private networks

SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS:

Robust level of survey completes (with or without grants) to allow for in-depth analysis. In traditional research, generally over 30 respondents is deemed acceptable. We believe atleast 100 unique responses will allow us to do an analysis and generate insights

NEXT STEPS:

The immediate focus will be on pushing out the questionnaire, to get a large number of responses

  • Create a reward pool for bDAO community to market the survey questionnaire and get responses

  • Communicate and raise visibility about the survey in all bDAO guilds

  • Request bDAO members with strong web3 relationships to share the survey within their private / public networks

SQUAD BACKGROUND:

“We can only improve what we measure”

We believe that in order to strengthen DAOs, there needs to be an ongoing on-ground assessment of things that are working and those that need to be improved. It is incumbent upon us, the early DAO enthusiasts, to invest the time required to build DAOs as a mainstream model.

The working group has a diverse mix of experience, what brings us together is the shared passion for DAOs

  • Ashish: Ashish has worked at the intersection of customers and innovation. He has launched and repositioned several leading brands. He has worked extensively in the startup space and also been part of setting up an early-stage VC fund. He is passionate about the promise of Web3.0 and DAOs.

  • Sandeep: Sandeep comes from an extensive market research background, which has been the foundational underpinning for his brand and growth strategy career. He has worked extensively in the web2 consulting space, both with clients and with agencies. He strongly believes in the power of data in driving transformative change and in bringing out valuable insights

  • Infinitehomie.eth#4930: Banker by day, organization guru by night. First learned about Crypto in 2017 with the 2017 Bull Run. Left with the rest of the world in 2018 during the down period. Focused on Human Resources, Philosophy, and Social Work. Wandered into Bankless DAO in October, 2021. Became interested in the human aspect of DAOs in late 2021. Homie’s goal is to learn about people who are interested in DAOs, and how to make the DAO world a comfortable place for people from all walks of life. (edited)

  • Freedo_minant: Social media manager, marketer and content writer

  • Leah_par: a writer of contents and copies who is rooting for a world-changing DAO and a promising Web 3.

Should this idea go forward to Grants Committee?

  • Yes I love it!
  • I’m for it, with some questions I’ll present below
  • No, I will tell you why below

0 voters

4 Likes
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  1. some of the answers would change due to current market (bear/bull)

I hope u add that to your analysis

  1. BANK also now at 0.019
5 Likes
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Another valid effort for bDAO performance improvement and will possibly assist with retention. A key issue of concern with me. Those willing to express their feelings and attitudes even if negative often feel part of the process and desire to remain contributing to make it better. I have worked with Homie and enjoy the dedication of effort and concern. LFG

7 Likes
4

This was already done by @saulthorin and team. Please reach out to her so that we don’t fund a repetitive project.

9 Likes
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Thanks for the tag. Hi team, talentDAO created a DAO Health Survey and open sourced the tool. You can edit or use as is. Only thing required is an attribution but outside of that you have complete discretion on how to use. Here’s a link to learn more and feel free to dm me on discord. NoDW #3: Developing the DAO Health Survey - by talentDAO

Obviously you can create your own measurement but I think I agree that funding efforts when there is already a solution in place is not an effective use of resources. Especially during a time where we need to be conscious of budget and market conditions. A better solution would be a budget request for the data collection and analysis as opposed to budget to build a new measure all together.

So maybe the ask here is to compensate your team for running the DAO Health Survey, collecting the results and analysing the data. The nice part about this approach is you’d have much greater support and technical expertise to assist you with any results interpretation.

It also would reflect well on BanklessDAO to be using community survey measures that have been developed using psychometric and survey development best practices.

1 Like
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Ok, I believe Ashish and I looked at the TalentDAO Health Survey (which is available on GitHub as an open source) and concluded that it was different to what we are trying to propose here in terms of question coverage and the intended target group. If we are indeed proposing something that is exactly like to like to the DAO Health Survey, then yes, we will look into running the DAO Health Survey and analysing the results. That inherently doesn’t address our strategic objective when we started thinking about this piece of work - which was to develop a BanklessDAO IP in this space, with the intent of repeating this survey over periodic intervals. There was also an Investor / VC survey, which we want to develop along the same lines

1 Like
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More importantly, I need to review the exact questions on GitHub before we take a call on whether we push ahead with this or withdraw our proposal. Kenneth from TalentDAO had sent me the link but I have lost it.

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Thanks for the input, @saulthorin ! I appreciate you!

I did a brief read of the DAO health survey. Where is the survey itself? It could be that I’m sleepy, but I’m having a difficult time trying to find the survey.

Does [the survey] focus on the health of the DAO structure itself versus the contributor sentiment?

It would be helpful to know, or it would be interesting to see if there is a way to continue the research.

I can’t speak for Ashish, but it seemed that the reasoning behind the creation of the DAO sentiment tracker was due to there not being one. Perhaps a better idea would be a DAO contributor sentiment form.

I’d have to say that there would be a difference if one is looking at structure and one is looking at sentiment. I’ll have to look at the actual survey itself to be 100 percent sure. Of course

@RunTheJewelz , could you help me the sentiment similarities between the structural health of a DAO and the contributor sentiment?

Thank you both for your input.

2 Likes
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Dear Homie,

The link to the survey questions is below. The questions are indeed exhaustive but the objectives of both the surveys are different. Our objective is to measure the sentiment levels of the overall contributor ecosystem across DAOs. It is not about calculating the Health score for BanklessDAO, which is what the DAO Health Survey allows us to do. The BanklessDAO IP that we had in mind is this regular, ongoing measurement of the contributor satisfaction and sentiment levels in the DAO space.

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Thank you!

Interesting.

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this is a repetitive effort to the ops guild coordinape sentiment analysis survey. if this is something you are interested in, i encourage you to come join ops

3 Likes
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There is a hell of a lot riding on the sentiment and morale of the bDAO, and I’m extremely eager to understand and continue to improve the bDAO’s vibe. I just don’t think this is the way.

I voted NO on this project for the following reasons:

  • 30,000 BANK to put together a 24-question survey? That seems outrageous.
  • 30,000 BANK to pay people to take the survey? Either make the survey compelling, or require it as the Ops Guild does during the monthly Coordinape rounds. Paying people is off the table.
  • 40,000 BANK to analyze the survey? I belive the going rate is 10,000 BANK for the Ops Guild survey analysis.

Further, I am not terribly compelled by the questions in the survey.

In addition, it seems prejudicial to state that “The insights from the survey, when effectively communicated and disseminated within the wider DAO ecosystem, will strengthen Bankless DAO’s reputation in the space.”

Full disclosure: I’m one of the original writers of the bDAO sentiment analysis dating back to Season 1.

8 Likes
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In general I’d say that I am for this proposal. I do believe that you are attempting something different than the TalentDAO and Ops guild surveys, and, in general, I’m not opposed to funding similar pieces of work as we explore what’s possible.

That being said, I just took the survey and it doesn’t feel like something I would take every 6 months. It’s wordy and long and I anticipate a lot of drop offs. What’s your conversion rate on this survey?

What was your methodology for creating this survey? You mention your squad has done market research before, but this survey doesn’t seem to be using standard methodologies and tools like likert scales, segmentation questions, etc. As a result I believe your analysis will be difficult and your survey will not easily translate to different cultures. As an example, you don’t ask which DAOs a user contributes towards, which feels like a baseline segmentation question.

I think it would be helpful to clarify what the 30k to fill in the survey is actually for - reading the proposal it sounds like you’ll actually be providing affiliate links for survey traffickers, which I believe is appropriate. Directly compensating survey respondents would taint the survey results IMO.

Personally I would prefer you analyze the responses you have already to “spike” a solution and show value before you start to traffick this survey. It will allow you to show value and uncover weaknesses in your methodology earlier.

Anyways, Id love to hear the answers to my questions above, and I do hope you’ll keep at it.

7 Likes
14

Although I initially voted yes, I want to hear some resolution between the points @Brustkern made and the ones @links made before I can continue supporting the proposal.

Both have my respect, and I wonder what a moderated / compromise solution looks like.

2 Likes
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I appreciate your reasoning! Thank you! You’ve got good points, and I’m wondering if there is a compromise out there to see what the answer is.

There is Definitely a need to get an idea of sentiment out there, because is the churn that exists in DAOs, but it’s Definitely going to make all the difference to find out the best way to go about the survey.

  1. What is your suggestion for an alternative rate? (For the survey, and the analysis).

I had suggested the 100k ask personally, but it would be good to see what alternative mindsets out there would suggest that have been in the DAO for longer, such as yourself.

  1. Would you have the link to the season 1 survey?

Thanks again, for your input.

16

Is this the survey that @Brustkern is speaking of?

Also! When is this the ops survey given out? I can say that I’ve never seen it, but that doesn’t mean much because lord knows how much is out there that I haven’t seen.

Let me know! Thank you.

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I’m thinking the same thing! I’ve never seen the season 1 survey nor have I seen the ops survey, so I’m quite intrigued to see what the compromise could be .

18

Thanks for adding this in!

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I always appreciate your insight. Being the passive assist here, I’d have to see what @Ashish will be stating in his response to your questions. I see that @saulthorin has the more quantifiable approach to answering the structure of the DAO, as a whole. This seems to answer the sentiment of the person, but yes, it would still need to have an aspect that can be measured.

Hm! Thank you for this.

1 Like
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Very clear question and I won’t beat around the bush - What’s your ideal way of measuring the contributor sentiment of DAOs (if this is not the way), leaving aside the funding requested for? I see one thing everyone getting wrong consistently - We have in no way suggested that we are going to measure the sentiment of bDAO. We have proposed measuring contributor sentiment in the overall DAO ecosystem (which is why your 2nd bullet point is completely invalid). I really don’t like personal attacks on individuals, which is best suited for web2 (which we all are desperate to change), so if you have a questionnaire writing masterclass, I would take it for free. I revised the questions that Ashish originally drafted, and I come from a survey research background in Kantar and Ipsos. But I still don’t seem to know much about writing questions from your perspective