Project Funding Template -No longer in use. See 'Project Grant Template (as of S9)'

Grants/Funding
1

Title: Project Funding Template
Authors; Editors: Bananachain, senad.eth; tesa_fc, jengajojo, SprinklesForWinners
Date Created: Nov 23, 2022
Dated Submitted: Jan 3rd, 2023
Working Document: Google Doc
Helpful Orientation: Series Funding: A, B & C

Summary

The following course outlines the information we, the Members of the Grants Committee, seek to receive from Project Champions, who apply for a grant for their project.

This is to help us fund projects, which are set up for success by the folks responsible for doing so.

This Project Funding Template replaces the Proposal Template as well as Governance Proposal Template for the aforementioned purpose.

Funding Template Outline

Project Champion: (Discord handle and number)
Squad: (Discord handle and number of at least two further participants)
Purpose: (for-profit or public good)
Affiliation: (name the guild(s) you feel your project formation is closest connected with. You can name a maximum of three in descending order of priority.)
Authors; Editors: (separate authors from editors by using a semicolon)
Date created: (date at which the funding proposal was initiated)
Date posted: (date at which the the funding proposal was posted on forum)
Funds requested: (total funds requested for the project)
Project wallet(s): (ideally multisig, disclose all designated project wallets)
Own subDAO/Discord server: (provide link if applicable)

Table of Contents

  1. PROJECT TEASER
  2. SUMMARY
  3. RETROSPECTIVE
  4. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
  5. SEASONAL KPI
  6. COMMITMENTS
  7. BRANDING
  8. FURTHER PROJECT CHANNELS

PROJECT TEASER

(Brief, maximum one sentences, describing the essence of the project to be funded)

SUMMARY

Project Description

(Briefly outline the project (max. 200 words))

Past/preparatory activities

(Briefly summarise past/preparatory activities preceding your funding request, how did you come up with this idea?)

RETROSPECTIVE

(For projects which have received funding: Have you conducted a retrospective of the previous season? Findings could be e.g. proof of concept, securing any clients or grants, any products produced and/or sold, project infrastructure built, a project market fit, a proof of concept, a competitor analysis)

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Project Breakdown

(Describe in more detail your budgeting plans for the project.)

Compensation Breakdown

(How do you intend to compensate for work?)

SEASONAL KPI

(List the upcoming KPIs from your roadmap.) Example:

Factor KPI Success Metric
third party grants # of grants received #≄1
views # average BANK/view #≄50

COMMITMENTS

(How will the project propose to provide utility to banklessDAO. Please provide suggestions on what you think is most relevant and achievable for the project.) Examples: increase the number of transitions of guest pass holders to L1 membership tier level; being a launch partner of - time locked BANK (tlBANK); accept BANK as payment for your services or product.)

BRANDING

(If the banklessDAO brand is used by the project, how will it be used and how will the project ensure integrity with the bankless mission and vision?)

FURTHER PROJECT CHANNELS

(where applicable)

  • Project Notion Page
  • Pitch Deck
  • Roadmap
  • Website
  • Socials

Do you think we should obligate projects, which seek funding from the Grants Committee, to use the Project Funding Template?

Use the following link to vote on discord: Poll

9 Likes
3

Sooo
I’m very glad you are updating the project proposal template! That being said, this template seems to be geared towards seasonal projects, and it seems to be missing a lot that one might need to see whether or not the project is set up for success. Some examples:

  • what validation has the project team done to ensure that the project is feasible? (from a market and execution perspective)
    • for example
what TRACTION does a for-profit project have? Email signups? Twitter followers?
  • what problem/gap is the project going to solve (i.e. why now?)
  • does the team have the expertise to actually succeed (i.e. why us?)

That’s just with a cursory look
perhaps we could ask a VC-associated DAO like Fight Club or FTWDAO help us with some of these criteria?

Some more detailed feedback below:

Does the Grants Committee have a mandate to replace the governance proposal? Or are you just saying that you MUST use this to request project funding?

Somehow this feels like it would only be useful for seasonal funding requests. What if I don’t seek seasonal funding but still want to recognize a guild (assuming purpose-driven guild funding passes).

This makes me lol
why not have another line for editors?

Are both of these needed? If so why?

Can I suggest calling this section PROJECT ONE-LINER or PROJECT ESSENCE something like that? Project teaser sounds like projects don’t need to relate their value in this section, which I think would be really useful. Like a one-line value proposition.

Isn’t this the same as the teaser?

How will this success metric be used? If projects don’t reach their goals will they be penalized?

Is this different than the KPI section? Is it more long-term or something?

4

It also feels like this is missing a section for a poll.

Might I suggest asking people to link to a L1-gated poll on discord? Here on discourse anyone can vote, so it can be sybil-attacked

1 Like
5

Hey @links, as always, I appreciate your though-provoking questions!

Fair point. I’m for leaving the conversation here open. Further, this template can be revisited and improved over time with improvements suggested in the Working Document: Google Doc and here under this post.

Per our constitution, the GC responsibility is “To vet groups seeking midseason funding and consequently ensure funded entities provide ongoing transparency into the state of their development.” However, @Bananachain, @tesa_fc and I were tasked to create several proposal templates to incorporate the new changes to our governance structure, with guilds, departments and projects as our organizational units.

The goal is to align on a single source of truth, basically. Centralising knowledge, improving based on decentralised governance. Up until today, some projects were using the Proposal Template and some Governance Proposal Template to create their budget proposals. The goal is to align on a single source of truth, basically. Centralising knowledge, improving based on decentralised governance.

I don’t see an issue here. The project can in both cases reference to the respective guild. Perhaps I don’t understand your question though :thinking:

Love your level of detail. Feel free to suggest edits this improvement in Working Document: Google Doc and here under this post. We can revisit and adapt this post based on the input that’s going to flow into the google doc.

I think it’s in general a valuable piece of information. Sometimes proposal are a created and submitted within days, sometimes within months. This can be easily gamed as it depends on the trustworthiness of members though so no, we can scrap that part perhaps. :man_shrugging:

As far as I’m aware of, the purpose was to get a punch-line. So like “Cut through the noise with actionable & insightful research”. Or “Your passport to web3” :slight_smile: I thought of it as the first sentence on the first slide of a pitch deck that gets potential “investors” hooked.

We, currently, don’t have official agreements to enforce these rules/policies. However, it’s important to track them and hold PCs accountable. Going forward, tools like Outcome.finance and decision policies, we agree upon as a community and code into our constitution, will help us enforce rules and penalize projects for not hitting their goals.

One can understand this section as long-term alignment with the DAO, yes. A project is expected to either kick-back 10% of revenue to bDAOs’ treasury or create utility for the BanklessDAO token. I think the latter is more important, given that we can’t really enforce kick-backs, at least atm.

The idea has been going around on discord (not directly communicated by HQ btw) that projects, which kick-back x≄10% of their revenue for x≄1 year let’s say, could be eligible for an exclusive ‘ad’ spot on the Bankless HQ podcast. This would create incentive alignment with the DAO, HQ, and the projects we fund. It would close the loop. @rsa, @Trust_David & @0x_Lucas what do you think?

Good call!

1 Like
6

Are commitments and KPI the same?

Key Product Indicators seem like the same commitments you would be committing to.

1 Like
7

Hi @senad.eth. @Bananachain As I am filling this template out for the Governator, It seems like it is only asking what a project has done. We may have missed including what a project is planning to do.

2 Likes
9

I know this is an old document, now replaced by Project Grants Template, but I’m covering all bases.

The points @links makes can be covered by a project that is almost finished, critically looking to add “Market Assessment” to Project Proposals, emanating from the PM Guild and stored in their Notion.

Please contact @Oakfloors or @innov8tor3 for more details. The intention is to help restart this pivotal work that can really help bDAO become more sustainable. The idea is typically to replenish treasury, not treat it like some handout centre.

1 Like