Governance Election: Season 8 - Grants Committee Election Submission

I would say that is the purpose of this forum, what do you think? Would make sense to use this forum to ask questions, candidates answer so anyone who comes on this topic at any time can get all the info and make an informed decision who to vote for. As not everyone would be able to do the call at the same time, and everyone to attend - but can review all the discussion in one place. What do you think?

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And as you should! Any contribution counts. :smiling_face: Thank you for asking questions, it helps to learn about each other :slight_smile:

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Definitely.

Discord handle: Saurabh QB#2821

Reason for applying: I am interested in helping the community grow and believe that serving on a grants committee would be a great way to do so. I have experience in running grant program and I am familiar with the application process. Additionally, I am passionate about supporting innovative and impactful projects. I look forward to contributing to the committee’s efforts.

Qualifications
I was previously working very closely with the Program manager of Polygon, where I facilitated the disbursement of approximately $1 million in grants. I have received a grant from IoTeX to establish their grant program, and I work closely with the Program Manager of Compound Grants Program 2.0. I have also spoken to more than 100 builders and teams over the last 6-8 months and understands what it takes to make a grant program successful - from both program manager and builder perspectives.

Sponsors
@0xbaer

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That is an interesting thought. But what did you implement that was significantly changed in S6/7 and by who? I can only recall that any attempt to change anything regarding procedures was blocked. In particular there was an inistance to adhere to “Member Based Guild Funding”, based on"Automatic Funding" while no useful criteria to apply it was available.

A more general issues, and “to whom it may concern” would be the following: many candidates standing for GC are also strongly engaged in the Governance Department and its multisig, and are furthtermore in the bDAO multisig or may be striving for a position in bDAO multisig, too. I am surprised I have not heard any complaints about “concentration of power” in only very few hands going forward. Would be interested to hear the thoughts of those to whom this applies.

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Well here’s a post written in S6 in which your cohort of the Grants Committee requests a 500,000 BANK bonus (received only 100,000 BANK) for all of the extra work you did in S6 (you only reviewed 5 mid-season grants, but added a whole bunch of other initiatives during the season for which you felt entitled you a bonus). If I recall correctly, you were one of the proponents of this bonus.

Another more precise example: your cohort has every GC review every seasonal budget. We did that for S3 and it was a lot, so we rolled out a system where each DAO unit had two reviewers for seasonal budgets and one reviewer during the season, significantly reducing work per GC member.

IMHO, the GC needs to go back to optimizing the grants process.

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The fellow has a point.

@Icedcool , @DAOlexa @links @LiviuC , @0xbaer what are your thoughts?

What is a good first start to building cohesion between the two sets of grants committees? It seems as if there was a different focus for each set, and perhaps season 8 can bring it back together!

Is there a happy medium to this? To capture the essence of projects and their value to the DAO, without burning out members? It seemed as if this past grants committee got burned out, but it seems like previous (not grouping all because I haven’t been as active in understand grants until about season 4) committees may (or may not) have let some projects through that may not have shined as bright as perhaps others projects/guilds?

Hey Bankless DAO Community!

I’m Steff#7452 and I’m applying for the Grants Committee position because I’m all about supporting sustainable projects that keep Bankless DAO kicking for years to come. I’m super pumped about innovative projects and think this new way of collaborating is the future of the crypto world.

As a contributor since September 2021, I’ve seen firsthand how much Bankless DAO has grown and evolved. I believe in this community and its potential to change the crypto game. My strengths include being a critical thinker, empathetic, and not being afraid to speak my mind on issues that matter.

I thrive when collaborating with people who rock, regardless of their background or profession. I get excited about identifying untapped opportunities and bringing innovative projects to life. Whether it’s working with developers or other talented individuals, I’m committed to seeing projects through to the end and making a positive impact.

I know I can evaluate grant applications that align with Bankless DAO’s mission and values. Plus, my experience as the Talent Coordinator for Dev Guild and Product Support for DEGEN & Mad Hatter means I can manage resources, communicate with team members, and provide support like a boss.

I’m passionate about the success of Bankless DAO and will work my butt off to make sure the grants system is run like a well-oiled machine. I’m all about taking risks and making tough decisions, so you know you can count on me to do what’s best for the DAO.

Thanks for considering my application. If you believe in my vision for Bankless DAO and think I’d be a good fit for the Grants Committee, please show your support by voting for me.

Sponsors:
p8ul.eth#1559, Icedcool🏴#4947, Tiki#0503, LiviuC#7835, nonsensetwice#3475, Trewkat#1933, SpiritedF#7303, tony.stark#5145, Cisco#7413

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It took me a minute to come up with a question for you! I’m so excited to see you apply!

But I’ve had questions for everyone, I’m here to ask you too!

So, I know that communication, transparency, and cohesiveness have been a bit tricky for the grants committee this round. What are 2 suggestions that you can consider (or think of) that can help GC get on the right track towards having a cohesive message for grants matters?

Great to see so many amazing contributors applying for the Grants Committee :slight_smile:

Please note that the application period is over now

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Hey Homie! Thank you, so happy to hear that :slight_smile:

I really haven’t been following around much lately but from what I’ve seen, and as we know, the DAO is an ever evolving community and we’re discovering many practices to improve as we go. As an example, the issue about Treasury Dept not being funded because they were late.

Do we apply some wiggle room so people have enough time to submit on time or is there anything we can do in between to help keep up with reminders, make it easy for our contributors to submit their proposal, and get paid on time? We need processes and systems that involves thinking about our contributor’s experience. People already feel like participating in governance is so hard and tedious, we don’t want to make it harder for everybody to get paid for the valuable effort they’re putting in to make this DAO running well. I believe everybody that still remains to participate here sees the revolutionary difference of working in this kind of environment.

So what do we do? Let’s evaluate our processes and systems for S8. How do people feel with the current Grants Committee process? Is it easy? Difficult? What can we improve? Does it have a great contributor experience? Get feedback and apply changes when it makes sense and so it doesn’t create confusion or disrupt current expectations from people participating on an application.

I get it. People want to do their best and refer to the rules we’ve written and created before, but community experience and DAO health should be a priority. We are not robots and for me, it is important to factor in the human aspect in decision-making.

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Glad to see you step up @Steff

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Thanks for coming back on this @links but still some things unclear.

I don’t know how your reply relates to what you yourself said above:

Perhaps some more enlightenment here, please.

Also, the concentration of power throughout bDAO was not addressed. (does not only concern you).

Bonus:

image
You got me there! Whereby I cannot recall we ever got one, thank you for reminding us! Yes, now I remember your campaigne against “over compensation”. @Jengajojo may be able to recall this better. We will measure you by it then when you make all your compensation plans public once in office.

In general compensation is weighing heavy on your mind throughout given that, in line with your last stint at the GC during S4 & 5 you would:

and I suppose you mean not only by taking into account the extra weeks.

You also note:

This does remind me of a payment regarding the coordinape incident report. (The participants had done a thorough job btw.) And there, in particular, a very liberal, if not to say arbitrary, interpretation of the poll result involving weighing of votes to establish the level of compensation. Is that the style of process optimisation we can look forward to?

Well, reforming the processes from where you left off would certainly be a good first step, I agree, even if:

So, next up:

Cool! All with you there. How? Among other:

Aha.

We are coming back to the opening question there.

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Apparently nobody cares that all of the admin power for the DAO has been concentrated into the hands of a few

Hey @Bananachain, your post is exactly the kind of adversarial relationship I was talking about above, but honestly, it’s my fault. Reading back, I can see how some of the criticisms I levelled at the current GC could be read as harsh. So let me start by saying sorry if I offended, and also that I think the current cohort of GC has done the DAO a huge service. You took an extremely difficult (IMO unwinnable) job, kept DAO units funded, and experimented on the process. Thank you!

I’ll try to answer all of your questions inline without doing the whole back-and-forth quote thing, which I find pretty exhausting.

RE: concentration of power
Ideally, the multisig and the governance department and the GC would all be stacked with different, capable, willing, and value-aligned contributors. We had an ability to field a team of 21 such contributors during the bull market, but with the bear market, we are effectively all volunteers. We don’t have 21 people who are ready, willing, and able to take this on.

It’s a tradeoff - is it more important to have different “key holders” in each role, or more important to actually keep the DAO running? I lean towards the latter. Everyone has to make their own choice when they vote.

RE: compensation
We both agree the GC needs to be funded more to guarantee quality contributors. My issue with the one-time bonus wasn’t increasing compensation, but the way it was handled. It doesn’t promote resilience, and it encourages grants committee to do things other than review grants. From the post you linked:

RE: optimizations on the GC process
I think reducing the amount of work it takes to be a GC member is of paramount importance. I think reducing the friction for trusted DAO contributors to get the funding they need to pursue the mission is also quite important.

For the coordinape incident funding, I tried something that had never been done, and was given feedback by the GC. The next time I try to get something funded, I can take that feedback and do better. I don’t have any regrets over how the situation went, and I am glad that I was able to get funding for the people who did the investigation.

I think I have answered most of your question, but if I missed something I’m sure you’ll let me know. Thanks again for taking the time!

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I am happy to support LivivuC’s nomination for the grants committee for season 8.:Always helpful , honest, transparent and value aligned imho.

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Still waiting for my dad joke. :joy:

I don’t consider this adversarial, more a faint echo actually, and I have not noticed you holding back either in the past when sharing your opinions. Labeling something as “adversarial” to try do deflect from the more important content does not make it so. But agreed, lets move on.

True, but this was already pointed out AT LENGTH during the discussions leading up to the formation of the Governance Department and ignored. This too, I suppose, was cast off as a trade off. OK, so we may need 21 (or so) people now. The Government Department posts were already filled long before the entity was even formally in the approval status btw.

That said, if setting up this additional entity creates this impasse in the first place, then the conclusion cannot seriously be that we abolish the time tested division of power/checks and balance because of it - far from it. Rather the individuals running should be forced (or transparent?) to decide what they want to go for and resign from any other seat, be it from the Grants Committee, as role holder in the case of the Governance Department or from bDAO main treasury - the vote to which is coming up soon, too, as we all know.

I am convinced we can find sufficient able and willing people - I have met many of them myself. In particular since it is not, as you suggest, only voluntary, but paid. And I don’t think it is fair to force the voters to have to uphold this division of power principle all on their own in particular in a transparent voting mode as is ours and in an environment full of mutual dependencies. Rather it is up to bDAO to establish and safeguard this.

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