Collective engagement and consent is key to building an autonomous, self-sustaining environment that embraces inclusivity and innovation. Simply put, more can be achieved collectively than individually. Since Cardano belongs to all ada holders, decisions about ecosystem development should be in the hands of the community. 

The Cardano community requires stability and certainty that ecosystem innovation funding is available. 

This category will accept proposals from parties interested in providing administration, operations and maintenance services for Project Catalyst (the “Catalyst Operator”). 

In its role of Catalyst Operator, the successful project team will be responsible for the administrative day to day functions of Project Catalyst including organising the Catalyst funding round campaigns, managing ongoing operations, ensuring project accountability, and carrying out treasury management functions.

Proposals in this category must provide detailed descriptions of:

• how proposer will actually carry out the day to day administration of the program, including the composition of what the team looks like and what team members’ prior experience is; 
• the process of how innovation funding requests are submitted by the community and how community voting take place without self-dealing and minimizing potential fraud
• the processes of how to ensure enhanced accountability and oversight over program operations including ensuring appropriate use of funds once distributed and ongoing project oversight to demonstrate that funds are being appropriately used;
• how the program’s outputs will be broadly communicated to the Cardano community and beyond; 
• the technical requirements which will be implemented to support the operations and administration, and evidence that they are in place and reliable;
• relevant and verifiable experience in managing funds, particularly incubator and/or startup accelerator funds;  

Only one service provider will be selected for this category to provide Catalyst Fund Operations services. As the budget is specifically for Fund10, proposals should also outline how resources will be allocated annually across all planned funds. A community review will evaluate the Fund Operator's performance and determine if they continue as the Catalyst Fund Operator after the first year. The chosen provider should be operational by October 2023.