Grassroots Governance Community Forums

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Governance Guild

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Not Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Governance Guild Members (Alphabetically)

• Vanessa Cardui
• Jonathan Postnikoff
• Miroslav Rajh
• Tevo Saks
• Stephen Whitenstall

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

8

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

Organize and deliver four Community Forums to bring together diverse individuals and projects across Cardano and other web3 ecosystems to address pressing governance questions. 

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Project will be fully open source.

All documentation resulting from each Grassroots Governance Community Forum will be made available through our GitBook under Creative Commons License CC BY-SA-4.0.

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

With the adoption of CIP-1694 and the beginning of the Voltaire governance era we need more spaces and opportunities to discuss the various organizational structures, development of roles and responsibilities, development of processes and procedures, or any process of reciprocal learning and peer support. 

In 2023, Governance Guild addressed these issues by running 3 successful “Grassroots Governance Forums” where communities could discuss these issues. In this proposal, we are seeking funding to run 4 more sessions.

We plan to deliver 4 sessions over 8 months, with groups of up to 50 individuals and teams from Cardano and beyond who are interested in the issues around how we govern ourselves in Web3 spaces. 

Potential topics for these sessions include:

• Trust within decentralized governance: how do DReps build trust? How do we measure it? 
• Sustaining momentum in decentralized governance: challenges of volunteerism
• Values and Ethics in decentralized governance 
• Selected case studies: major governance challenges and teams that overcame them.

The Governance Guild is well connected with other community groups such as Swarm, SingularityNet, Gimbalabs, etc. and will tap directly into these networks to distribute invitations. We will also seek participation through our outreach, such as posting on Twitter, Telegram, and Discord. We also remain committed to involving other individuals through other Cardano events, such as After Townhalls. 

We will also conduct a short retrospective after each session, to understand in what ways it was useful, the key directions and ideas that are emerging, and which voices might be missing and might need to be included next time. All material will be publicly available to help anyone else who might want to run similar events.We will continue to share the documentation widely to the community via Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and the Cardano Forum, and will use the documentation from each session as the basis for planning the next.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

Currently, decentralised groups mostly develop their governance practices in isolation, often without support, know-how or tooling. By creating community spaces for broad governance discussions, groups can learn from their peers about best governance practices, innovative tooling, and/or community-driven solutions. 

Having individuals and projects working in silos will not deliver the promise of decentralization. On the contrary, cross community and broad web3 ecosystem discussions on governance will begin to break down these silos and have us learning from each other. 

In addition, all outputs of the grassroots governance community forums will be open for use by any interested individuals. Groups will also be able to use any of the discussions and outcomes from the forums, including any potential solutions and tooling that are needed to support a project or team, to launch their own governance initiatives. While teams will need to determine their own level of comfort making their solution open-source, the Governance Guild will encourage such behaviour. 

The benefit of open source solutions is that we need to solve particular problems only once as a community.

As we plan to conduct four grassroots community forums over a eight month period, we will measure our successes in the following ways:

• Number of different Cardano community groups/projects or individuals who participate in each forum.
• Number of non-Cardano (other Web3 ecosystem) participants at each forum.
• Number of decentralised governance conversations, services, solutions, and/or tools resulting from the forums.

Sharing our outputs:

All grassroots governance community forum outputs will be shared on the Governance Guild Gitbook (https://catalyst-swarm.gitbook.io/governance-guild), such as meeting readouts (key takeaways), community position statements on a particular governance issue or question, and decentralised solutions or tools resulting from the forums.

As this is a community-wide proposal, we will also share all outputs with meeting participants and distribute them through our network of Cardano community groups (e.g. Swarm, SingularityNet Ambassadors, WADA, QA-DAO, Gimbalabs, Community Governance Oversight).

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

Our Capability 

Cardano Governance Guild is a network of individuals with a broad range of experience in Blockchain governance, administration, and project management. We support the exploration, development, and implementation of decentralised solutions to help teams govern their own initiatives. We do not prescribe or require particular ways of working but aim to identify appropriate mechanisms and/or tools that suit each team’s individual needs. 

Our goal is to offer nonpartisan and pluralistic services to a variety of groups and teams within the broader Cardano ecosystem. We seek to accommodate and work with a wide variety of individuals, groups, and communities from a diverse range of geographical and cultural backgrounds.

Our previous experience

We have held three Grassroots Governance Community Forums to date. 

1. July 15, 2023
2. August 31, 2023
3. December 31, 2023

In total approximately 80-100 unique community members participated across all sessions. 

Each workshop addressed a series of questions by groups undertaking governance activities.

The topics for the workshops were as follows:

July 15, 2023

1. What have been your biggest governance challenges so far? (legal, capacity, resources)
2. What tools, services, or supports would help your team succeed? 

August 31, 2023

1. What is a DAO?
2. Photrek, Cardano Governance: From Open Corporation to Digital Nation
3. singularityNET, Governance Challenges and Collaborative Solutions 
4. Wada, dReps: A critique of representation based on traditional African paradigms

December 1, 2023

1. Internet Native Organization: Decentralised Treasury Management Models and Legal Requirements. 
2. José de Gamboa and Governance Guild: Community, Governance, and Intersect (the Cardano MBO).

The final output documents of all our Grassroots Governance Community Forums can be found on the Governance Guild Gitbook following the meeting. 

To underscore our capacity to deliver future events such as the one mentioned here, we’d like to highlight some of the feedback collected directly from forum participants. 

One hundred percent (100%) of respondents to the feedback form rated the event as “Amazing” or “Pretty good” and also were “Very Likely” or “Likely” to participate in future events. 

Participants described their key takeaways as: “Great insights and knowledge sharing from participants”, “Loved hearing from different communities and had some questions answered”, and “Need to work on confidence building to lift people up to be part of governance”. 

Many participants noted the benefits of these events, including “we need more events like this one to move things around”, “The discussion was well organized and inclusive in terms of ideas and interest”, and “I enjoyed the civility of the groups. High quality conversations.”

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1 - setup and planning; Event 1 + retrospective

We will set up our documentation space on GitBook and our basic event processes such as a shared calendar; plan and deliver Event 1; and run a retrospective on Event 1

Milestone outputs:

1. Governance Guild Calendar is created
2. Event 1 - a 2 hr session on Zoom - takes place
3. Session 1 documentation on GitBook
4. session 1 retrospective is conducted, using info from feedback forms and our analysis of the event; may include the development of community position statements on the relevant governance issue, and recommendations for issues on which community education might be needed. Retrospective is captured on Miro Board and as text.
5. Documentation and retrospective shared via Twitter, Telegram, Discord, Cardano Forum, and by email to participants
6. a forward plan for forthcoming sessions, based on retrospective

Acceptance criteria

1. Session 1 engaged at least 15 participants, and 2 breakout room leads per session
2. Participants, and breakout room leads, were from more than 1 ecosystem and a wide range of communities
3. At least 75% of participants rated the event as “very good” or “excellent”
4. Documentation is clear and readable, and covers 
5. Key topics and items discussed 
6. Key questions raised
7. Solutions identified / Solutions initiated 
8. Final decisions / position statements
9. forward plan is clearly informed by the learning from session 1

Evidence of milestone completion

1. Event 1 documentation on GitBook
2. Event 1 feedback forms
3. Event 1 retrospective
4. forward plan, including learnings from Event 1

Milestone 2 - events 2 and 3 + retrospectives

We will deliver Events 2 and 3, and their associated retrospectives

Milestone outputs:

1. Sessions 2 and 3 take place
2. Session 2 and 3 documentation on GitBook
3. Session 2 and 3 retrospectives are conducted, using info from feedback forms and our analysis of the event; may include the development of community position statements on the relevant governance issue, and recommendations for issues on which community education might be needed. Retrospective is captured on Miro Board and as text.

Acceptance criteria

1. Sessions 2 and 3 engaged at least 20 participants each, and address governance issues
2. Participants, and breakout room leads, were from more than 1 ecosystem and a wide range of communities
3. At least 80% of participants rated the event as “very good” or “excellent”
4. Forward plan is clearly informed by the learning from all previous sessions

Evidence of milestone completion

1. Events 2 and 3 documentation on GitBook
2. Event 2 and 3 feedback forms
3. Event 2 and 3 retrospectives
4. Forward plan, including learnings from all previous events

Milestone 3 - Event 4 + retrospective, and close-out

We will deliver Event 4 and its retrospective, and will present a closing report and video

Milestone outputs:

1. Session 4 takes place
2. Session 4 documentation on GitBook
3. Session 4 retrospective captured on Miro and via feedback forms
4. Gitbook Guide to how to run these kinds of sessions effectively
5. Closing report and video based on learnings from all the retrospectives, and including recommendations, insights on governance derived from all the sessions, and suggestions on how to progress building spaces for the community to discuss governance in future

Acceptance criteria

1. Session 4 engages at least 25 participants, and addresses key governance issues
2. Participants, and breakout room leads, were from more than 1 ecosystem and a wide range of communities
3. At least 85% of participants rated the event as “very good” or “excellent”
4. GitBook “how-to” guide draws together practical tips from all the sessions
5. Closing report and video are accepted by IOG

Evidence of milestone completion

1. Session 4 documentation on GitBook
2. Session 4 retrospective captured on Miro and via feedback forms
3. GitBook guide to running governance sessions
4. Closing report and video

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Jonathan Postnikoff (JP) 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-postnikoff/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JDPostnikoff   

JP has been a member of the Cardano Community since December 2020 and has been active in Catalyst since Fund4. Originally beginning as a Swarm member, JP became a proposal assessor (previously CA) during F5 and has participated as both a PA and vPA in all subsequent funds. JP has also fulfilled the CC Admin Team’s secretary role since the election of CCv2, and is a funded proposer in F6 and F7 in support of the Circle and admin team. On a professional level, JP’s strongest skills include meeting secretarial services, one-on-one and group facilitation, proposal drafting, editing, and ideation support, and community engagement.  

Stephen Whitenstall

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-whitenstall-166727210/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/qa_dao 

Stephen is the co-founder of Quality-Assurance DAO, https://quality-assurance-dao.github.io/. Stephen has provided project management consultancy for many Catalyst governance projects since Fund 4 including Catalyst Circle, Audit Circle, Community Governance Oversight, Training & Automation (with Treasury Guild) and Swarm. A Circle V2 representative for funded proposers. He has 30 years experience in development, test management, project management, social enterprises in Investment Banking, Telecoms and Local Government. A philosophy honours graduate with an interest in Blockchain governance. 

Vanessa Cardui

Community engagement professional with 20+ years' experience of working with communities to record and collate their information, archive it, and make it discoverable (see for example https://creationofacommunity.wordpress.com and http://feministarchivenorth.org.uk). Part of QA-DAO, where she leads on documentation (see for example documentation of Catalyst Circle, https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/catalyst-circle-oversight-v3 ); part of CGO (Community Governance Oversight), where she has facilitated meetings and edited closing reports; founding member of The Facilitators’ Collective; founding member of the SingularityNET Archives; part of the SingularityNET DeepFunding Focus Group.

Tevo Saks

Tevo is a long-standing Cardano community member and participates in a variety of activities across the ecosystem, including as a proposer in the last several funds. His focus is specifically on connecting decentralised open source services and contributing to community governance documentation.

https://linktr.ee/tevosaks

Miro (Treasury Guild)

Miro has 20 years of experience in managing finances. He also worked as a Human Resources Manager (HRM). Currently he is managing transactions for Swarm, Singularity Net, Governance Guild, Catalyst Training and Automation, Community Governance Oversight, Lead Generators, Edify.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miroslav-rajh-94566845

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Proposed budget activities and amounts in ADA:

Session admin 

• Managing Zoom and invitations, creating supporting info for breakout room facilitators, coordinating session topics, liaising with breakout facilitators
• 1200 ADA per session x 4 sessions = 4,800

Facilitation

• Governance Guild members or people from outside Governance Guild are invited to facilitate a room and are rewarded for their participation. 
• 2 Plenary facilitators and 2 breakout room facilitators per room/per session x 4 sessions x 700 ADA = 16,800 

Documentation

• In-meeting note taking: 
• 3 documenters per session for plenary and breakout rooms x 4 sessions x 550 ADA = 6,600
• Summarising, organising, adding to GitBook: 
• 4 meetings x 850 ADA per meeting = 3,400

Publicity

• Sharing material collated from sessions via Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Cardano Forum, etc: 
• 4 meetings x 140 ADA = 560

Retrospective 

• Retrospective sessions by Governance Guild to assess where sessions are leading and lessons learned for future sessions.
• 4 sessions x 500 ADA x 5 team members = 10,000 

Monitoring and reporting 

• Monthly and milestone reporting, close-out report and video creation & sharing 
• 5,500

Total ADA Requested: 47,660

[VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

This proposal is requesting only those funds that are necessary to run four Grassroots Governance Community Forums over a eight month period, and a small administrative cost to deliver the proposal. 

As per the budget above, the complete cost breakdown for each forum (in ADA) is:

• Session admin = 1200
• Facilitation = 4200
• Documentation = 2500
• Publicity = 140
• Retrospective = 2500

Each forum is planned to cost 10,540ADA

These are self-employed rates that take into account the employment overheads of the resources contracted. The rates are based on the low end of US and European averages. The amounts are calculated for each milestone based on the hours to complete.

In addition all the resources working on this project are taking on the currency risk of being paid in ADA. This means that a fall in the ADA price will result in being paid less or delivering less in each milestone. Any rise in the ADA price will represent a reward for investing in the Cardano ecosystem.

Consequently, given these factors, we believe this proposal offers excellent value for money in a volatile cryptocurrency environment