DAOStewards Funding proposal

Grants/Funding
1

authors: @jengajojo, @0xBaer

squad: @0xBaer, @senad, @links, @thinkdecade, @graud, @jengajojo, @paulito

Summary:

This proposal aims to incentivize contributors to the DAOstewards work group, who are involved in metagovernance on behalf of banklessdao. We aim to establish two work streams, one for BanklessDAO governance and the other for governing the DAOspace.

Our total ask for S6 is 300,000 BANK.

Background:

The governance of BanklessDAO is scattered around different ‘Org levels’ without proper coordination. The DAO needs a single entity to maintain the BanklessDAO constitution and oversee the BIP process. The Governance solution engineers (GSE) established in Season 3 only had ideation power and lacked proper coordination and execution mandate. As a result, the recommendations of the GSE would be limited to forum posts without further action from the community. Lack of a point of coordination between different governance initiatives will result in groups working in silos, ineffective spending of DAO resources and eventual coordination failure. A classic example of Molach in a DAO.

DAOstewards was initially established as a coordination group to consolidate the SAFE tokens associated with BanklessDAO multi-sig to a single, value-aligned entity which can propose and vote in the governance of Safe DAO. However, this coordination effort quickly exposed some loose ends in the BanklessDAO governance and the urgent need to fix it.

The members of DAOstewards - mostly a comparison of current and ex-BanklessDAO grants committee members - have a proven track record of introducing thought-provoking governance discussions in Bankless DAO and elsewhere.

Specification:

DAOstewards initiative aims to increase its mandate from Safe DAO governance to a broader approach. The new process is to coordinate itself into two workstreams, one with a BanklessDAO first mandate and another to execute the values of Bankless in the wider ‘Daoverse’. These two workstreams ensure the development of the BanklessDAO governance and spread the Bankless Mission to a broader audience.

Steam 1: BanklessDAO governance

The BanklessDAO governance workstream will research the state of governance in the DAO and establish standard operating procedures for ensuring compliance with our governance contract = the constitution and suggest potential solutions when conflict arises. Besides this, the workstream will initiate new ways the DAO can grow and evolve. We will investigate the feasibility of a governance education course to increase quality participation. This gated workstream welcomes value-aligned individuals with a Level 1 Membership in Bankless DAO.

Ps: The workstream will not accommodate Guestpasses and ‘Level 2s’ without a Level 1 membership status.

To execute the above strategy, we request a total of 100,000 BANK, which will be cordinaped between contributors at the end of the season.

Expected Output:

  1. Guidelines and structure for exercising and maintaining governance in the DAO
  2. A pipeline of potential champions for the DAOstewards Governance Dept
  3. A pipeline of potential contributors for the Dept

Stream 2: Governing DAOspace

Recently bDAO multi-sigs received SAFE airdrops, but there needs to be more knowledge and interest in governing SAFE by each of the several multi-sigs. Additionally, many tokens, such as Optimism, and Element finance, were airdropped to banklessDAO members, and everyone Had to delegate to claim these tokens.

Collectively as the bankless community, we have enough governance power to propose and sway the DAOspace according to Bankless values, but we cannot exercise this power unless we are actively governing (i.e. voting with those tokens)

In the future, we expect most airdrops to ask receivers to delegate their tokens before claiming them. Therefore, it would be in the best interest of the DAO to consolidate this governance power within the DAOstewards department so that we can represent and exercise the interest of BanklessDAO in the DAOspace. Anyone Interested in joining this initiative can check the eligibility criteria here.

To execute the above strategy, we request

  1. 100000 BANK for compensating protocol leads
  2. 100000 BANK for compensating contributors via coordinape

Expected Output:

  1. A report on voting history and rationale if relevant
  2. Internal Campaigns to delegate future airdrops to DAOstewards.
  3. Extended visibility in the DAOspace to reach a larger audience for delegation

How can this benefit the DAO in the short term?

Many active projects in BanklessDAO want to be funded by other DAOs. For example, Bankless Academy recently lobbied Optimism governance to make an L2 course on the academy.

In the same way, other groups interested in getting funded by the DAOs where DAOstewards are delegates can use our connections and voting power to influence governance and get sponsored to forward their missions.

As an immediate example, we have enough tokens to propose SafeDAO to make an Academy course of multi-sigs.

How can this benefit the DAO in the long term?

MakerDAO is the only DAO in web3 which pays its delegates to exercise governance; however, meatspace lobbying groups often receive large sums of money to exercise governance in corporations and nation-states.

We are in the early stages of DAO and decentralised governance. As the importance of good management becomes apparent, more DAOs will allocate budgets to delegates and delegation groups to exercise governance. However, there is some time between now and then. One option is to wait till this happens and then ask folks to delegate to us and save costs. However, there is no incentive for folks to be active in governance today, let alone redelegate tokens to some group. Hence, the best strategy is to spend funds on accumulating governance power now and do the bare minimum to be active in governance. Then, when DAOs spend more on management, we’ll already have representation in several top DAOs as well as steady income streams.

Financial implications:

We want to request 300,000 BANK this season to kick start this process. Our suggested KPIs are

  1. number of proposals on bDAO forum
  2. number of external proposals voted on

What do you think about this proposal?

  • Yes, let’s do this!
  • No, this needs further changes (comment below)

0 voters

2 Likes
2

Appreciate more work on governance, it’s definitely something the DAO could use. I question whether or not this should be a DAOstewards thing - it feels like the group doesnt have a really wide representation of the DAO.

Have you thought about how you might use the BANK to onboard and encourage new governance contributors? I know @Bpetes and @hirokennelly expressed interest in having regular governance discussions in the Amphitheatre, is this something that could be done under this proposal?

How many protocol leads are there? And which protocols do they lead?

5 Likes
3

I love the idea of the formation of a ‘Governance Department’
I feel like a ‘meta-governance’ workstream like DAOStewards is a logical fit within this structure.

A department like this could:

  • Help bDAO ‘agents of change’ navigate the bDIP governance funnel
  • Ensure the bDIP funnel flows smoothly and stays aligned to the constitution
  • Host recurring governance ‘sessions’ where both internal bDIP initiatives and external meta-gov initiatives can share updates transparently and get broader DAO feedback and find natural ‘alignments, consolidations, redundancies of effort’

Basically host a space for governance at bDAO. I’d love to assist in forming such a space and call all related initiatives already underway to support where interested (aka. looking for folks to support proposal to form said dept.)

4 Likes
4

DAOs are the testing ground of the so-called 'Fluid- democrazy ’ model. There aren’t any, or somewhat ‘Shouldn’t’, any single group or person responsible for governance. There should be multiple groups working together. But as I have mentioned in the Background. Without an entity to build that environment where people can collaborate, The coordination moloch will be there, and people will work in their bubbles.

Most of the authors of previous governance proposals in BanklessDAO are in the group. But this group lacks Original thinkers who have structured the DAO as it or the ‘governance Nerds’ of guilds and projects. This might be because they aren’t currently in the DAO or are busy with their projects. That being said, the proposal post invites all value-aligned members of BanklessDAO.

Here is the current list of all contributors and leads in the project P.S: last updated on Oct 13

Yep. we are trying to build a path to form a governance department and incorporate the meta-governance group under it.

2 Likes
5

I feel like we’re running ahead of our skis a bit (i.e. request for 300k BANK to do stuff when a department to act as a healthy container to do stuff doesn’t exist yet).

When I read this proposal it seeks to activate 2 workstreams one internal facing and one external facing but it doesn’t feel like it’s requesting to form a department and host a space for stuff beyond this. This reads like a call to fund an existing and delightfully emergent group (which I love) and give it the mandate to jump into doing a specific scope of work (which I’m concerned about).

I feel like there’s a prerequisite need for the formation of a governance department to contain this work and most importantly shore up the health of our internal bDIP funnel and activate our existing constitution effectively first.

If there wasn’t a funding request and implicit mandate contained in this post I wouldn’t be taking this stance --no need to slow down awesome grass-roots stuff like DAOStewards. However, it gets real once it needs funds and I think we should prioritize the internal work first. Let’s activate a department in service to the entire DAO’s near-term governance needs in Season6. There’s lots of great change a brewin’ in bDIPs and a shiny new constitution to guide us …but there isn’t yet an internal service focused on activating that decentralized energy and channeling it.

2 Likes
6

I agree completely with the department idea, we choose to move with a project framework first so that we can establish some groundwork this season and identify a mandate for the governance department.

We don’t have any precedent on how new departments are established. The PM guild had a ‘vibe check’ sort of post Founding a project management guild before asking to form and fund a guild. We are using a similar methodology with a project this seasons and department next season.

2 Likes
7

Lot to like and support here but I have questions and think it needs more thought and work. For example, the phrase, when relevant. Determined by the subjective opinion of the few involved as Stewards or a consensus or at least consent poll. I also have concerns about centralized vs decentralized mechanics of choice and decision making. Keep adjusting based on questions and comments please

3 Likes
8

I appreciate this proposal, and bDAO needs more constructive thoughts on governance like in this proposal. As that being said, I think the governance workgroup such as designing/improving operating procedures should be separated from an execution workgroup for how to vote on SAFE token representing our community. It’s similar to how legislation is separated from administration.

I would suggest assigning the SAFE token voting execution to the treasury guild/treasury management department whose mission already includes managing treasury holdings and maximize the profit. Before the treasury management department provides the bDAO community with a suggestion/proposal on how to vote on SAFE token, it should advise the governance workgroup and grant committee if anything about strategic goal/plan needs to be taken considered for the SAFE token voting.

9

Thanks for your comments @marvel

The relevant part comes is when votes are casted against the values and beliefs of the voting party. In most cases, votes align to the value that the governors proclaim, but in some cases it may make more sense to take the opposite stance, and such cases are deemed relevant for further explaination

10

While I generally agree with separating legislation from administration, I just wonder if it’s a practical solution for each protocol that we represent to follow this process? We are in conversation with several protocols, imagine asking bDAO to vote on every single proposal that some other DAO has! Usually these snapshots last for 7-10 days, and making a proposal for the community, voting on it and then expressing this in the other DAOs’ snapshot takes more time than that in our experience.

However, if there is a mechanism where we can separate legislation and admin while scaling across 100s of protocols, then I agree with everything you say.

2 Likes
11

Based on this reply – I think I could get behind a truncated scope. I’m not sold on the internal facing ‘stream 1’. If this wants to be a project that moves autonomously w/the desire to fold into a governance dept in S7 and beyond then I’d suggest scoping this only to Stream 2 and getting more specific around the mechanics of stream2 and how it’ll work. Stream 1 conflates w/ what I think a governance dept should be and I don’t personally appreciate its inclusion/bundling into the meta-governance work of DAOStewards.

2 Likes
12

What I tried to suggest is that if DAOstewards wants to go with the “lawmaker” direction as Stream 1 proposes, it should probably not take the administration role such as making decisions on SAFE token voting.

As for how to manage many governance votes, I think if the treasury department takes this role, it can create workgroup(s) for this. I’m trying to give input more from an organizational structure standpoint.

13

So if the DAO Stewards were managing other folks tokens in order to spread DAO influence and represent the DAO with whatever value holding tokens would be, that seems like a simple Treasury Department Workstream that could be created. And Funded through.

Integrate Rather than Segregate is the principal of design for complex that we operate in. Instead of Creating another Segregated Group of folks that get paid and fail to meet member expectations (due to their segregation). Why not adopt Treasury Department Accounting practices and develop a side stream within the Treasury Department where all the tokens that are valuable to the dao are documented, managed, and reported back to dao members.

imo, the statement you use to support and justify the rest of your argument is based from your Biases and may lead a false Assumption:

The governance of BanklessDAO is scattered around different ‘Org levels’ without proper coordination.

it’s not scattered, and we don’t have ‘org levels’ we have specific types organizational units that all coordinate in Discord. With a proper understanding of how the DAO is organized your next statement is obviously not justified

The DAO needs a single entity to maintain the BanklessDAO constitution and oversee the BIP process.

the following just doesn’t make sense now

We have specific types organizational units that all coordinate in Discord. The DAO needs a single entity to maintain the BanklessDAO constitution and oversee the BIP process.

Is there a need to form a single entity to maintain the Constitution and oversee the BIP process?

I would like to see the research on this. I would also like to first see the question of how to integrate the maintenance of reviewing the constitution and operations associated with modifying the constitution?

Again we have a whole section of Discord where this coordination has a nest to exist.
image
If this is not an effective discord space by all means lets get active in this area of discord and update our communication channels. Creating new segregated channels will only continue this pattern and will not resolve the real issue, which is the folks always wanting this work to be done are just not informed of how to use discord well. Or you would already be active in those channels.

Also we are talking dao operations, what are we paying the operations department for if not to handle operaional processes like updating core infrastructure. ie, changing the constitution. Are they not planning a budget for that work? if not, then again integrating with the Operations Department and creating a budget for specific operational work is quite reasonable thing to do and the appropriate place to do it.

14

All Genesis Organizational Units are created the same way, using the Proposal Framework. you are correct there is no definition constructed in the constitution and so the creation of a new department is by default a new proposal. They are stand alone, need to meet consensus on the forums, then they get presented to GC and get vetted. The New Project does not get rolled up in the seasonal funding proposal.

15

The treasury controls actual tokens, delegation/DAOstewards only holds voting power over said tokens. The delegator has sovereignty to undelegate at any time, but tokens in the treasury cannot be moved without the multi-sig signers.

I agree

In my opinion, the problem is not that folks don’t know how to use discord. When folks really want to get into coordinape, or pick up a bounty, they figure it out. The problem is that governance is everyone’s responsibility, thus in practise it becomes no one’s responsibility.

If that were true, then the changes mentioned in the last two BDIPs would be reflected in the constitution on github, but that is not true. If OPS had ownership over governance then we wouldn’t have loop holes in our governance such as who evaluates and implements GSE recommendations, or who updated constitution etc…

16

Let’s do this, I can create a dune dashboard for the onchain analysis showing amount of governance tokens each guild members is holding with time.

1 Like