Governance Services Guild

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

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Overview

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Cardano Governance Services 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. 

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Revisiting the Problem 

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Since Fund 3 of Project Catalyst there has been great growth in the number of Challenges proposed with over 300 proposals being funded so far. The significant influx of proposals and teams has led to many working in silos yet facing the same governance issues and challenges. While many have begun building and/or implementing, there is a distinct lack of governance, administration and project management support for these teams. 

At the same time, such issues are not only applicable to funded proposers but rather apply to many projects within the ecosystem looking to begin or expand on their governance issues.

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Solution

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Our proposed solution is to develop the Cardano Governance Services Guild in order to provide a network for the community to draw on to assist them with their Cardano & Catalyst projects. The services we provide will be designed and adapted to each team’s needs based on their existing circumstances. 

The Guild is a supporting service and is focused on getting teams successfully prepared to govern their projects. We do not dictate or decide the approach taken but rather facilitate processes and provide options and suggestions, as well as educational programs and “best in-practice” knowledge transfer. We believe that this approach will allow the Guild to remain impartial and not affiliated with any one group, while providing bespoke governance services to those groups that need them.

It is important to understand that there is no one sized solution for all projects. What we are offering is a convenient place to commission governance, administration, and project management support at a competitive cost. Depending on their development and backgrounds, projects may need more targeted, hands-on support while others may only need tools and resources which they will implement themselves. The benefits of having such a network is that all projects can find the appropriate level of services they need. 

In addition, the Guild is not a finite group of individuals, it is an ever-growing, iterative, and self reflective network of people passionate about the practice of governance. We strive to be as inclusive as possible in attracting and retaining new members, while upholding a set of standards that are required to complete the work and mission of the guild. We also believe that such an approach will appeal to individuals outside of Catalyst who may not be familiar with blockchain but have experience in governance and administration. If our core team cannot directly work on your project - we will seek resources from our extensive network of contacts.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

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We have chosen to submit to the Dapps, Products, and Integrations challenge because what we offer is a suite of products and services to allow teams to reach their maximal potential. We remove the need for groups to continually develop their own governance products and services by maximising the power of the Cardano community to avoid every team needing to recreate their own in-house governance models and services. Governance is a subjective application of our product offering. We model, in our practice and nature, a vision for the decentralised virtual offices management processes of the future. Examples of some of the products and services already being provided by this group can be found in the feasibility section. 

In addition to the products and services being offered by the Guild, we will also enable integrations between existing services and products. Currently, teams are left to navigate the governance in a vacuum with very little community support. We are a flexible team that can adapt to all sorts of deliverables in the Catalyst Ecosystem and have extensive experience with current processes. We, and more teams like us, can help high value proposers seeking funding from Catalyst realise success. We are interested in governance for a decentralised ecosystem where all are welcome, however we are not interested in governance for the purpose of control. 

Rather than developing a one-size-fits-all solution uniformly applied to all our potential clients, each project can identify their required services and commission only those which are needed. Each individual or team has their own strengths and weaknesses, we aim to assist clients with building and implementing their own processes while maximising the efficiency of the GSG by commissioning services on an as-needed basis. We believe that our approach will appeal to a broad range of groups and provide significant value to the growing ecosystem. Our goal is to provide support in a variety of areas that can be tailored to a team’s needs. 

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

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Insufficient human resources

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A major risk to any project is insufficient availability of human resources. Often the scale of a project is not matched by the human resources supporting it. This can lead to significant delays or failure.

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Mitigation 

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Our mitigation strategy to address human resource availability is to maintain a level of redundancy in our resource allocations and commitments. Since our team’s inception as Circle Admin in July 2021, we have paired resource roles such as Facilitator, Secretary, Treasurer and Mentor. Each role has 2 members, allowing for responsible flexibility in delivering on all of our commitments.

We are also part of an extensive Cardano network and have connections to a variety of other “sub-communities” within the community, such as Catalyst Swarm, Gimbalabs, Community Governance Oversight, and QA-DAO. Our participation in these additional community groups will allow us to expand our network and continue to grow our list of products and services. Our intention is to maximise existing tools, such as the Dework bounty system, to incentivize and reward additional contributions from the broader community. 

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Lack of groups commissioning services

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There is a possibility of a lack of demand for governance services from the Catalyst ecosystem, resulting in the Governance Services Guild being under utilised. 

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Mitigation

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We have consistently discovered a demand for governance support from peers in our network, particularly project management, treasury services, and onboarding, implying that a lack of demand is unlikely. Nevertheless we are not complacent. We are actively seeking governance commissions and plan to market our services through our network and the broader Cardano ecosystem. By offering flexibility in our services, we are prepared to constantly, learn, adapt and iterate in the management of key deliverables that will provide ongoing insights and processes for bridging the gap between our vision and robust implementation.

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Not being funded 

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We are not funded and are unable to pay our members

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Mitigation

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Not being funded will impact already commissioned services and could mean that Catalyst Circle Admin services (for example) are not sustainable. In this circumstance the community and IOG will need to assist in supporting any ongoing efforts, or the team’s bandwidth will be reduced until compensation is provided. We are here to provide value for the ecosystem and without funding will explore other opportunities where our time and energy is recognized.

We have separated this proposal so that services which are funded directly through this proposal are to support existing governance bodies, which have already obtained the Guild’s services. 

Going forward we aim to no longer be fully dependent on previously commissioned work and will engage in governance work in other areas of the ecosystem.The long term goal of the Guild is to be directly funded by the projects and groups with which we engage and provide services. Because of this, over time, the success of the Guild will not be strictly dependent on Catalyst for funding. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

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“Every role people take on is a commitment they make to their peers.” - Laloux, “Reinventing Organizations” (p. 110). 

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We are well positioned to undertake this work given the already existing services being provided to the community. As mentioned in the section above, existing members of the team already have extensive experience in providing governance products and services to the community. Initiated as the Catalyst Circle Admin Team, existing members have been providing these services since July 2021, and have been expanding the team as needed. While we started out offering services of only facilitators we adapted quickly to new governance needs by onboarding secretaries, and creating the Treasury Guild. 

Given that governance needs are not particular to the Circle (or any formal, small or large-scale community structure), we believe that pivoting from the CC Admin Team to the Governance Services Guild will provide broad community benefits, including but not limited to further inclusiveness, better transparency, and clear indication of our autonomy. We are not a governance body, we are a memory layer. We will implement a reward system that focuses not only on financial incentives but also skill validation incentives. We will do so by employing composable services:

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Composable Services

Composability is a key element in decentralized applications (dApps). We believe that governance products and services also need to be delivered in this way to support decentralization. A composite service allows a network of individuals to work together to provide on-demand business/project solutions by having them complete specific tasks and activities, sourced from the Cardano community. A composition fee is charged with each service to cover its commission and collective delivery. A typical fee will be in ADA with a gimbal token amount. 

The issuance of the token is intended to incorporate metadata to facilitate extended governance features via smart contracts. Specifically, Gimbal tokens allow the Guild to track the participation and contributions of its members. Through this approach rewards for contributing are not strictly financial (as paid in ADA) but also allows members to build their reputation across the community. Another benefit of this dual reward (ADA and the gimbal tokens) is that they provide a form of validation for members’ efforts while simultaneously informing the broader community of their capacity to undertake this work. 

We plan to fund the following composite services through this proposal:

• Catalyst Circle Administration 

We plan to fund the following composite services through commission:

• Administration, Project Management, Governance Services, Documentation, Networking and marketing, Innovation ideation and Treasury.

Planned composite services funded through this proposal

Catalyst Circle Administration 

Composition fee - 

2000 ADA and 2000 gimbals 

2 formal 1 hour meetings and 2 agenda driven working groups 

Cardano Governance Services in collaboration with Catalyst Circle

Description : Provide facilitation, secretarial, and treasury services to the Catalyst Circle in the same manner as has been done to date. To complete this work example tasks include, sending agendas before meetings, attending all formal and working meetings, record meetings in both video and written formats, tracking action items, and general project management services. 

Services that are not funded through this proposal but available to the community on commission

Administration Services

Composition fee - X ADA and X gimbals

Commissioned through Cardano Governance Services or the forthcoming Facilitators Collective (https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/403681)

Example : Meeting facilitation from X ADA and X gimbals per meeting (incl: organisation and agenda)

Project Management Services

Composition fee - X ADA and X gimbals

Commissioned through Cardano Governance Services

Example : Human project management facilitated by our team members

X ADA and X gimbals in proportion to scale of project

Example : Technical project management in collaboration with Treasury Guild & QADAO - GitHub Project Boards, automation, dework, etc

X ADA and X gimbals in proportion to scale of project

Governance Services

Events

• Design, Organisation and implementation
• We will explore integrating Governance Events held by Bridge Builders into the Guild 
• Example / Cost of previous delivery / what we offer and charge for

Documentation

• Composition fee - X ADA and X gimbals
• Either commissioned through QADAO or by SWARM bounty
• Example : QA-DAO Transcription Service from $265 per meeting (for timestamps and expert summary)
• Example : SWARM Bounty from 60 ADA and 250 gimbals (for timestamp chapters).

Networking and promotion

• Peer to peer consultation, onboarding and introductions by our mentors (SWARM, Bridge Builders, QADAO) …

Innovation ideation

• We have extensive experience in ideating innovative decentralised solutions and products. Add bounties, metadata, adapt blockchain standards etc.

Treasury Services

• Provided by André Diamond and Miroslav Rajh from the Treasury Guild
• https://www.treasuryguild.io/ 

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Roadmap / timetable

Q3 2021 - done

• The Catalyst Circle asks Community Members to help the Circle.on a volunteer basis as a direct Collaboration between the Circle & the Community
• Public recruitment of Facilitators, Secretaries & Treasurers takes place and start to build support structures and processes for the Catalyst Circle

Q4 2021 - done

• Recruited Catalyst Circle Facilitators, Secretaries & Treasurers emerge into a self driving CC Admin Team. All activities & operations are closely communicated & coordinated. The CC Admin Team builds the first Catalyst Sub-circle based on volunteer community engagement & commitment and highest level of collaboration. 
• Ongoing administrative support & services for the Catalyst Circle on a regular basis (Establish & Development of Project Management structures, Facilitate CC Meeting & Working Sessions)
• https://github.com/Catalyst-Circle/Catalyst-Circle-Admin-Coordination/issues 

Q1 2022 - done

• Ongoing administrative support & services for the Catalyst Circle on a regular base

(Establish & Development of Project Management structures, Facilitate CC Meeting & Working Sessions)

• Establishment of the Treasures Guild as an independent project in direct collaboration with the general CC Admin Team  
• Creating & Submitting the legal & financial Implementations Challenge Proposal (Challenge was voted & became a official Challenge for Fund 9)
• https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/campaigns/26596/stage/all/ideas/top 

Q2 2022 - done

• Restructure the CC Admin Team into Governance Services Guild & level up Project Management structure.
• Collaboration with the Treasury Guild for building tools and services for better Treasury & Accounting management on a fully transparent & accountable system
• Submitting a first Proposal for Project Catalyst Fund 9 to enable funds for further development. 

Q3 & Q4 2022

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Planned Work

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Cardano Governance Services are already commissioned to work on the administration of Catalyst Circle. While not successfully funded during F8, the continuation of this group was seen as integral to the continued operation of the Circle and so Guild members (previously the CC Admin team) will receive a minimal stipend from the Swarm community for these ongoing efforts until additional funding can be acquired. 

This continuous work reflects the existing practices of the Guild, which includes the ongoing facilitation and secretary requirements of the Circle. Guild members are responsible for supporting the ongoing project management of the Circle, such as onboarding of new members, tracking action items, organising meeting agendas and working group sessions, TownHall preparation and delivery, as well as necessary support for tooling (use of Slack, Zoom, Dework) 

We are commissioned to work on the administration of Catalyst Circle in a manner commensurate with the existing level of services provided, including ongoing facilitation and secretary requirements of the Circle, supporting the ongoing project management of the Circle, such as onboarding of new members, tracking action items, organising meeting agendas and working group sessions, TownHall preparation and delivery, as well as necessary support for tooling (use of Slack, Zoom, Dework). 

We will also commission the Treasury Guild to provide necessary accounting and financial services to the Circle, in support of our new distributed model. 

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Commissionable Services

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We seek commissions for external consultation services on an as needed basis by the community. Such examples of existing commissioned services by Guild members include, support for prospective proposers, proposal drafting and editing, and meeting facilitation.

We seek commissions for any of the services listed under the “Services that are not funded through this proposal but available to the community on commission” section. These tasks will be undertaken in line with the Guild’s capacity, and the successful expansion of the Guild’s network across the ecosystem. Additional activities that can be provided by the Guild include: managing and running of elections; facilitating retrospective meetings; facilitating brainstorming sessions, and consulting on governance strategies and frameworks. To the extent possible, the Guild will operationalize existing tools to decentralise our efforts to a broader cohort of contributors through the Dework platform. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Planned Work- Guild Support for Catalyst Circle 

Facilitation Incentive for 4 months (Nori / Nadim)

• Facilitators (2) $2k per 1 month x 4 months = $16,000

Secretary Incentive for 4 months (JP / Peter)

• (2) $2k per 1 month x 4 months = $16,000

Treasury Guild Commission (Andre / Miro)

• Treasurers (2) $1.2k per 1 month x 4 months = $9,600

Project Consultants Incentive - (Felix / Stephen)

• Consultants (2) $1k per 1 month x 4 months = $8,000

Contingency

• Supplies and Misc Purchases = $2,000

Total = $51,600

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

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Existing Guild Members

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Jonathan Postnikoff (JP) - Secretary

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-postnikoff-915b7062/ 
• 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.  

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Nadim Karam - Facilitator

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadim-karam/ 

Nadim is an enterprise consultant in the blockchain space; specialising in DAOs, DeFi, and decentralised identity. Nadim graduated from MIT Sloan School of Management in Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation & Application. Within the Cardano ecosystem, Nadim is part of the Catalyst Circle Admin Team and runs a mission-driven stake pool. Nadim also manages ‘Cardano Middle East’, the largest Cardano community in the Middle East and North Africa region.

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Nori Nishigaya - Facilitator

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishigaya/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Xeeban 

Nori Nishigaya is the Founder of the Salmon Nation Decentralised Alliance (SANADA) and co-founder of Bridge Builders. He is a current member of the Catalyst Circle Admin Team since it’s inception, core team member of Cardano4Climate, a Cardano Ambassador, PA, and Funded proposer. He is passionate about radical inclusivity and community and devoted to making Cardano the best community on the planet. Nori brings over 30 years of experience in software development, agile methodologies, leadership in managing teams, and founding and running technology startups. His current passion is discovering governance and organisational best practices for radically decentralised and self-managed communities through experimentation and hands-on practice.

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Peter Wolcott 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-wolcott-013358141/ 
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sirwolcott 
• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/sirwolcott 

Peter Wolcott is the CEO NeuroNova Project, Owner of Ansula Systems, Early Contributor to Done Collectively and a Catalyst Swarm Veteran. Peter joined the Catalyst Circle Admin Team as a Secretary beginning of September 2021. Peter is Freelance Project Manager and a Community Organiser. 

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Treasury Guild

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Andre 

• LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andr%C3%A9-diamond-45871242 

Andre has experience in small business operation and accounting. Andre joined the Catalyst Circle Admin team as treasurer in Nov 2021 and has expanded this role by starting the Treasury Guild alongside Miro to support projects across the Catalyst community. The Treasury team has integrated GitHub Actions to automate some of the tasks for Catalyst Circle and treasury work.

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Miro

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

Miro has 20 years of experience in managing finances and organising the business of NGOs and the University, and has also worked as a Human Resources Manager. Miro joined the CC Admin team together with Andre as treasurer in Nov 2021. Currently he is recording, documenting and managing all transactions for CC Admin Team (soon to be Governance Services Guild), Swarm, Cardano4Climate, Community Governance, and Bridge Builders. 

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Project Consultants

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Felix Weber

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-weber-339590209/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatalystSwarm 
• Dework: https://app.dework.xyz/profile/Felix%20%5BSWARM%5D 

Felix is the co-founder & community leader at the Catalyst Swarm. Felix recruited the participating members as facilitators, secretaries, and treasurers to the Catalyst Circle in CCv1. Since then, he continues to support & advise the team on its way forward. Felix is one of the first full time Cardano & Catalyst Community Members since Fund 3, CCv1, CCv3 Member. 

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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. 

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[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, given the ongoing work of the Catalyst Circle and the necessary support provided by the Governance Services Guild there may be a need to return to the community in a future fund to continue funding our efforts. However, as the Catalyst ecosystem explores additional ways to fund the necessary ongoing governance work, including the services provided by the Guild, there may be alternative sources of funding that remove the need to return to Catalyst for funding. 

Further, as we develop our products and services, we aim & envision self sustainability by providing our services to general Blockchain Community Governance Projects. This process might take place over the upcoming years. A defined & finalized roadmap is not yet created but will emerge by our own development.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Cardano Governance Services Guild Project Management is tracked via Dework, Github, GitBook & Discord 

• Dework Organisation : https://app.dework.xyz/catalyst-circle-admi 
• Discord: Public channels in preparation.
• Github Project Board : https://github.com/orgs/Catalyst-Circle/projects/4 (Circle Admin commission)
• F9 Proposal - The Dework task for this proposal is here - this will provide links to further audit documentation as they arise.
• GitBook documentation for Governance Services Guild is in preparation.

All transactions & payments are fully tracked and documented via the Catalyst Swarm Treasury & accounting system on Discord & Github.

• Treasury GitBook https://treasuryguild.github.io/Gitbook/

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

We will consider the proposal a success based on the following measures:

• Delivery of project management services, tracking and reporting of action items, and supporting community engagement of the Catalyst Circle.
• 100% attendance by at least one facilitator and one secretary at each Circle meeting
• 2-3 New groups commissioning the guild's services by end of Q4 2022
• 100% of composite services tracked and reported transparently for the community via github and Dework.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

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This proposal reflects a continuation of services provided to the Catalyst Circle, however it is being expanded to include a broader group of potential clients to avoid sole dependence on the circle for its operation. In this sense, the proposal presented here is a new proposal that distances the Governance Services Guild members from the Circle thereby making them more accountable to the broader community. 

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

At this time the Guild is not specifically addressing any of the SDGs directly, however, our goal is to support all communities, projects, or teams in their efforts to address any of the SDG goals.