Decentralized Arts Season 7 Funding Proposal

Grants/Funding
1

Authors: Grendel#3875, nonsensetwice#3475

Date: January 19, 2022

MULTISIG ADDRESS

decenarts.eth: 0xCb525F65b007B2db2Dd6bE66dAB0129a63704C1b

SUMMARY AND BACKGROUND

Decentralized Arts was born to give greater depth to the artists featured in the weekly NFT drops in BanklessDAO, and to present the main authors and projects. It has since evolved to report on important events regarding the growth of NFTs and the metaverse, and educate readers on how this technology is being utilized.

Since its debut, it has grown from a loosely organized newsletter with contributions from various members of the Writers Guild and Newsletter Team to a more tightly coordinated organization with a set of regular contributors. As such, Decentralized Arts has decided to take on the responsibility of the team’s funding, as a separate project vis a vis Decentralized Law. Decentralized Arts will work over the next few seasons to become self-sufficient.

MISSION & VALUES ALIGNMENT

Decentralized Arts aligns with the BanklessDAO mission, which is:

“going Bankless means adopting decentralized, permissionless, and censorship-resistant technology. Through these means, we will achieve financial self-sovereignty, security, and prosperity.”

Decentralized Arts acts as a weekly meeting point for all fans of non-fungible tokens (NFT) the world over. Because NFTs represent a large part of this technology, and their adoption by institutions both large and small are becoming a vital entry point for many into the world of web3, the distribution of news in this sector is vital for newcomers to make the best decisions for themselves as they explore the potential of this technology.

Furthermore, the NFT art world is exploding with new and growing digital artists, collectors, collectives, and communities.

As such, Decentralized Arts seeks to become the premier newsletter for disseminating this information and spreading the Bankless message with regard to NFT adoption and utility, as well as providing a source for NFT newcomers and veterans alike to explore the best of emergent artists and art communities.

SPECIFICATIONS and FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

During Season 7, Decentralized Arts will inform and educate readers about NFT adoption and utility; report on the expansion of and creation of new metaverses; collaborate with new authors, artists, collectors, collectives, and communities; and promote the values underlying BanklessDAO.

In addition to the above stated purpose, Decentralized Arts will work closely with the Writers Guild Staff Editors team to develop future Staff Editors via an in-house mentorship program. The updated and expanded Editor-in-Chief position will be held by a Staff Editor and oversee edits to the publication made by editors who have not passed the editing test, yet hold promise as potentially strong editors. This will be a pilot program that, if successful, can be replicated across other publications with Staff Editors who are ready to take on this kind of oversight and involvement.

The following funded roles will facilitate production:

Publication Coordinator and Content Manager

  • Maintain a weekly agenda and content calendar.
  • Ensure consistent delivery and distribution of content.
  • Represent the newsletter.
  • Manage team dynamics.
  • Coordinate interview and draft questions.
  • Help authors choose articles and news summaries for the given issue.
  • Partnerships and Sponsors
  • 8000 BANK / week

Treasurer and Deputy Content Manager:

  • Co-Represent the newsletter
  • Ensure consistent delivery and distribution of content.
  • Tracking and recording bounties.
  • Responsible for paying contributors.
  • Collection of contributor payment information.
  • Responsible for partner and sponsorship funds collection and management
  • 6000 BANK / week

Editor-in-Chief and Artist Management

  • Coordinate writers, editors, and designers.
  • Oversee the development of incoming editors.
  • Provide support rails for editor & author collaboration.
  • Review edits and provide feedback/training.
  • Final edits and tweaks of the publication for quality control and SEO.
  • Ensure production schedule for each issue.
  • d’Art Drops coordination
    • Artist outreach
    • Art drop scheduling
    • Collect and mint artwork
    • Manage d’Art Drops collection
  • 7000 BANK / week

Social Media Manager

  • Social channels management
  • 2000 BANK / week

Bounties

  • Headline piece

    • 6000 BANK

  • Secondary pieces

    • 2500 BANK

  • Weekly news author

    • 2000 BANK

  • Weekly Design for headline piece

    • 5000 BANK

  • Weekly editing bounty

    • 2000 BANK
    • Provide developmental and content edits to all submitted articles and summaries.
    • Provide copy edits and submit to Editor-in-Chief for review prior to publication.

  • Weekly comic

    • Externally funded

  • The Rug collaborator stipend

    • 1500 BANK
Salaries
Coordinator 8000/wk 13 weeks 104k BANK
Treasurer 6000/wk 13 weeks 78k BANK
Editor-in-Chief 7000/wk 13 weeks 91k BANK
Social Media Manager 2000/wk 13 weeks 26k BANK
Bounties
Headline 6000/wk 13 weeks 78k BANK
Secondary 2500/wk 13 weeks 35.5k BANK
Content & Copy Editing 2000/wk 13 weeks 26k BANK
Design 5000/wk 13 weeks 65k BANK
News Research & Input 2000/wk 13 weeks 26k BANK
The Rug 1500/wk 13 weeks 19.5k BANK
Total
549k BANK

BRAND USAGE

Decentralized Arts leverages the BanklessDAO brand by shipping under its name and it uses the brand for marketing and promotional materials.

SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS

The growth goal for Season 6 was 20%. Subscriber count was 17,200 at the beginning of Season 6. As of the writing of this proposal, an additional 1300 subscribers were added, bringing the total to approximately 18,500 subscribers. This represents an increase of approximately 8%. Due to the nature of Substack, this count may have influenced and been influenced by other publications. As such, this 8% increase is a win for all BanklessDAO newsletters.

SEASON 7 GOALS

Subscriber Count:

  • Season 7 Goal: +20%
  • Sub count at the start of Season 7: 18,500
  • End of Season Goal: 22,200

As open rate didn’t really move, this is a metric that we will continue to track, but not rely on for growth. A higher subscriber count with a similar open rate means that more eyeballs are on the publication in general.

SQUAD BACKGROUND

  • Grendel#3875
  • Kouros#2107
  • nonsensetwice#3475
  • Frank America#0610
Fund Decentralized Arts for Season 7?
  • Yes, absolutely
  • No, absolutely not
0 voters
5 Likes
2

Thank for the proposal @nonsensetwice

According to the results of this poll Discord i urge you to resubmit the request with the new proposal template

3

Enjoy the product you ship and nice to see that subscriber bump!

Does Decentralized Arts get a cut of NFTs sales for featured artists?

4

Hi @nonsensetwice! I am the projects Season 7 GC reviewer. Could you help me clarify a few things please?

  1. I don’t see any funds in/out of the multisig, why is that?
  2. I am also curious why this proposal isn’t open for votes.
  3. Basically the same question as links has above.
    Thanks so much.
  4. Could you link me to any of the collections or the NFT’s purchased? (I tried using last weeks link in the CC, but couldn’t find where to purchase one)
    Thanks so much
5

There is a poll but it displays as a pie chart instead of a bar graph when ‘show results’ is selected.

image
image733×368 10.3 KB

1 Like
6

Thank you @Trewkat I couldn’t imagine that unconscious bias mechanism being part of the poll.

7

@nonsensetwice I do believe you just answered all of my questions in the community call!! Thank you! Connection
75% to artists
15% to projects
10% to bDAO

8

@nonsensetwice under the Success metrics or KPIs of your original post you say “As such, this 8% increase is a win for all of BanklessDAO newsletters”.

The growth goal was 20%, how is a reference to “the nature of Substack” sufficient enough to state this is a win?

9

Perhaps @nonsensetwice is OOO. I will tag the other project team members @Kouros and @Grendel, as there are some outstanding questions from others. I also still have a few, as part of the GC review process.

  1. GC currently has the projects KPI as steps to self sovereignty. Is the a reason that you have not included this KPI in this proposal?
10

gm @links! Yes, Decentralized Arts will retain a 15% cut from NFT sales to offset smart contract deployment costs for artist collections and other miscellaneous gas fees. Eventually, we hope to retain enough from this nominal amount to scaffold other initiatives that may help us become self-sovereign.

The breakdown from NFT sales is:
75% to the artist
10% to the DAO
15% to DA

1 Like
11

Hi @Sprinklesforwinners, to address your questions:

  1. We planned to make one big payout at the end of the season to all contributors, once we had the full allotment of funds. Because this was the first season Decentralized Arts (DA) was operating on its own, we worked to be better organized about how we managed talent and remuneration in-house. Moving forward, we plan to distribute funds on a monthly basis.

  2. This proposal is open for votes. I’m not sure what you mean by your comment regarding “unconscious bias.” Will you please explain so I can better understand?

  3. DA retains 15% from NFT sales, with a 75% distribution to the artist and 10% back to the DAO. I recognize you mentioned this in a later comment, but wanted to include it here to keep everything together.

  4. As of this writing, there are two drops:

  • Connection: Connection
    To date, there are 4 sales of this NFT.
  • Bloom: Bloom
    To date, there are no sales of this NFT.

Again, I recognize the link to “Connection” has already been posted, but wanted to include the information here for ease of access.

GC currently has the projects KPI as steps to self sovereignty. Is the a reason that you have not included this KPI in this proposal?

Great question. This is something we’re still working to figure out. One reason we did not list d’Art Drops as a means to self-sovereignty is that we’re in a testing phase to see how this is received and if it will make sense to continue long term. While the DA cut from these sales is nominal, it’s possible that this could be a step toward self-sovereignty, though it remains to be seen. Last season, we had leads for sponsorships but failed to secure any funds. We’re open to ideas and could use help in brainstorming other ways to either secure funding or create revenue streams outside of art sales.

I hope this helps. I appreciate your consideration :pray: Please ping me on Discord to draw my attention to any responses, as that is the quickest way for me to know that there’s more here to discuss.

2 Likes
12

Currently, all newsletters are shipping out from the same BanklessDAO SubStack account. Users who subscribe to BanklessDAO on SubStack subscribe to all newsletters provided by the publication. This can often work to the benefit of all sub-publications, unless the user specifies which newsletters they want to receive and which ones they don’t. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that any new subscribers coming in through Decentralized Arts may become new subscribers to other sub-publications as well. And vice versa.

Additionally, 20% is a steep goal, and I originally set it as such to help drive us to reach as high a growth as we could. It’s been my experience that higher goals lead to better performance when the project is focused. Even if the goal itself isn’t hit, the growth would be better than if it was set at lower amount. Setting the goal at 20% and hitting an increase of 8% is better than setting the goal at 5% and hitting an increase of 5%.

13

Thanks for responding! 8% increase in subscribers is huge for win overall! :clap:t2: For an additional KPI, let’s brainstorm some ideas to add Utility in a way that is feasible for the project!

Your poll is perfect
This was in response to Trewkat. A pie graph view of the current votes is shown - I was just pointing out how having unshielded voting can set up an unconscious bias.

15

Yes, please; brainstorming would be great. With the NFT drops, I feel there’s a huge opportunity to build in utility and gated access to premium content. We’re just not sure how best to approach it, especially as we’re currently working to involve more writers and artists. Season 7 will see a big push from us to seek out and bring in more contributors, so we can better position ourselves to provide more value to our audience.

And thank you for the clarification on the poll :pray:

1 Like
16

While I appreciate your response to my question @nonsensetwice, I am dumbfounded with the reasoning in the response.

To imply that an unrealistic goal was set and then say a win was still achieved is laughable at best. A goal was set and the result came in nowhere near that goal.

Besides a clear failure in not attaining the set metric, there was also a clear failure of leadership/the team to set an achievable goal.

Why bother going through any of this process if there isn’t a reasonable expectation of meeting growth targets? The typical rule of thumb is to set a low expectation and then overachieve, not the other way around.

Decentralized Arts is a newsletter, at best it should be a sub group to the Newsletter Team. Not another project that wants to do its own thing and be funded to do so. I’m wondering why this project was even allowed to wander off on its own and not reined in by the Ops team, like it should have been. Another failure!

I give you full props for wanting to be “self-sufficient”, I hope this is an achievable goal.