Catalyst Swarm Operations

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Catalyst Swarm is an organisation of highly engaged and dedicated Catalyst Community members from a diverse range of cultural and geographical backgrounds. We provide an environment for the community to meet, connect, and share ideas by organizing recurring community events, sessions, and workshops to build powerful and impactful collaborations and projects for the Cardano ecosystem.

Our success is measured by the success of others. Based on this spirit, Swarm supports new, emerging, and existing community projects on their journey by building of critical infrastructure, developing strong collaborations, and facilitating close contact between teams. Our previous efforts have become an emerging standard across the Catalyst Community that allows us to maximise each individual's experience and resources to benefit the broader community.

Since Fund3 we have provided a suite of services and supports to the Cardano Community that will continue under this proposal, including but not limited to:

• Organise participatory and interactive community events, workshops, and open spaces on a recurring schedule
• Onboard new people into the Ecosystem in a welcoming and low barrier manner 
• Support new and existing members in realising their ideas and projects
• Duplicate and adapt our efforts and formats to local communities
• Build an enticing Cardano ecosystem experience for Devs, SPOs, Doers and Lurkers, currently offered in 9 languages: Arabic, English, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili & Vietnamese
• Create community tools and platforms through collaboration and community engagement
• Share learned experiences and knowledge across the community
• Support existing and prospective proposers by helping them expand and grow their ideas into actionable products

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

Our proposal fits into the Developer Ecosystem Challenge setting in the following ways:

Support structures

The Catalyst Swarm provides a suite of support services to new and prospective community members. By creating an open, inclusive, and iterative space, the Swarm facilitates the onboarding and retention of community members. In this sense, the Swarm supports community growth by making important connections between ideas, projects and people. 

A primary example of such support structures is the expansion of the Catalyst Town Halls to a wide variety of international settings, such as the African Town Hall, Eastern Town Hall, and LATAM Town Hall. These necessary inflection points have increased the number of opportunities for the global community to get involved. 

Incentivization structures

The Swarm community is one of the first groups across the Catalyst ecosystem that has explored the use of bounties to assist in the decentralisation of its work. To date, the inclusion of a bounty system to complete tasks and activities has been extremely well received by the community and is now being extrapolated to other groups, such as the local Community Town Halls & Teams and to Catalyst Schools. 

This approach is also conducive to incentivizing a variety of participants by supporting autonomous work whereby individuals can self-select which tasks they are able to complete while avoiding the duplication of work. Future and existing developers can also collaborate on projects together through this process, further driving community expansion. 

Based on our open source mindset, once explored and established formats get adapted and adjusted to the wider Community by sharing Swarm’s experience and close collaborations to cross pollinate experience, expertise & tools for a greater benefit for all. We take care of including local community needs and visions into our general development.

Local input for global output

As Cardano expands and more people are introduced to the community, it is important that we develop global solutions by making sure to include local voices, needs and visions. We do this by providing reliable and consistent services to the Cardano & Catalyst Community over time. We also are committed to building and maintaining crucial community infrastructure that reflects global needs through localised input. To this end, we encourage proactive participation from a variety of voices when ideating, designing, and building vital processes for the Catalyst/Cardano Ecosystem

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

The Catalyst Swarm Operation relies mostly on Catalyst Funds. This approach is not able to offer financial security which we aim to provide to Catalyst Core contributors. As the Catalyst funding Cycle has been adjusted to 4 months, a missing voted & funded operations proposal could harm deep damage as next possibilities for funding appear in a 4 months cycle. 

We mitigate this risk by submitting this proposal with the highest quality which we can currently afford. Further we develop tools, systems and concepts which allow us to measure & showcase the impact of the catalyst swarm operations & contributions

We also strongly believe that we mitigate this risk through our proven actions. The Swarm has provided an extremely valuable community benefit that ADA holders and Catalyst participants have come to rely on for information, services, and support.

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

The Catalyst Swarm explores and maintains crucial community infrastructure to offer a great experience that maximises participation and collaboration within the broader Cardano Ecosystem. We have been active since F3 and therefore are quite convinced that after more than a year of mostly-volunteer based services we have proven our capacity to successfully deliver on our proposals. It is our goal to provide our services and contributions to the community for a long long time.This proposal covers the contribution and engagement of an array of community members through different activities. 

While the Swarm is perhaps best known for our events, sessions, and workshops there are many tasks which require constant engagement on a daily and weekly basis. To support these endeavours the Swarm will identify and attract a variety of highly engaged community contributors to fulfil the following roles which will be directly funded through this proposal:

Operations 

Maintenance

Website: http://catalystswarm.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatalystSwarm

Meetup ( all Events and Zoom links ): https://www.meetup.com/Cardano-Catalyst-Community-Network/

Github: https://github.com/Catalyst-Swarm

Gitbook: https://app.gitbook.com/s/WRaJlGTSIjkHNdNBhpUN/

Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/swarmlab2

Staying in constant contact with the community requires a lot of time and dedication but provides significant value to the community. Fast and direct communication allows the community to participate in an iterative environment where all kinds of questions and requests are taken seriously and addressed appropriately. We are always responsive to our community which allows us to sense and identify problems early on the ground, in a bottom-up grassroots manner.

We keep the community up to date for relevant happenings and events within the larger community and we take care to announce relevant Catalyst happenings to the community, however this only works if we can incentivize members to be present all the time.

Documentation and Website 

Another primary service needed is maintaining the documentation of the Catalyst Swarm via github and gitbook, which also requires constant engagement. Swarm documentation is a crucial part of our evolution as we are able to preserve our history and progress as well as our failures and challenges.

To maintain the Catalystswarm.com website requires attention and from time to time some additional focus when content and design updates are needed.

Networking 

One of the most beautiful parts of the Swarm is to build and maintain an environment of human based relations and ideas where individuals, groups, and projects communicate, coordinate and collaborate within the ecosystem. The formal and informal networking opportunities are necessary so that there is a place for everyone within our ecosystem and that interested individuals can meet other like minded people. 

Catalyst School, Eastern Town Hall, WADA, Gimbalabs or QA DAO are some of the projects that we have direct working relationships with and do whatever we can to support them on their journey. Newcomers often reach out to us, asking for guidance and orientation. By being well connected within the community we are able to forward people directly there where they can use their potential and transform those into real impact..

Incubation

Catalyst School & Eastern Town Hall are nice examples of how Swarm actually produces real value. At first there are just some people meeting each other, recognizing alignment in their visions and starting to build relation and trust. Out of this trust powerful collaborations occur and we see new projects emerge out of this process. The greatest reward is to see those projects become independent and stable on their own. 

We will continue to build such communities and support those projects looking to build necessary infrastructure on Cardano. We do this not only for technical developers, but also social developers who focus on making Cardano accessible to all individuals. To this end, we will encourage up and coming groups to use the Swarm as a platform to catalyse their work.

Management

While each of the included activities function as a standalone item (github, website , communications, events, sessions, and collaborations) there is also a need for broader project management to ensure their alignment and success.  

To keep the whole structure running and organized requires ample time every day and week, which we believe must also be rewarded.

Architecture

One of the major successes that has emerged from these activities and operations is that the Swarm is able to form a comprehensive and robust understanding of the interactions across the ecosystem and the community. This unique perspective allows us to sensor and identify gaps within the existing catalyst infrastructure and as necessary ideate, experiment, and implement solutions that may fill those gaps. In this sense, we do not only capitalise on the wisdom of the community to come up with solutions but in so doing create a cadre of very active co creators for our ecosystem.

Accounting

As we continue to experiment with the Swarm Treasury, a professional and neutral accounting service is required to ensure and fully transparent oversight on the Swarm Treasuries inputs and outputs.To ensure appropriate accounting services are provided, we will engage the Treasury Guild (https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/399116) to support the Swarm’s operations and remunerate them for their contributions. 

Tools and Services

We facilitate the emergence of many projects and offer support by removing the need for young teams to develop their own tools and services and providing clear structures to easily handle shared accounts and tools. Currently we support Projects like the Catalyst School with Zoom licences from the Swarm Zoom Enterprise Account and we cover zoom costs for the Catalyst School and the LATAM Town Hall Team. We want to improve our service and provide community-vetted infrastructure products and tools to new projects, so they are ready to begin working on their initiatives right away rather than spending valuable time duplicating existing solutions. 

PR & Marketing

To spread the word about our projects and activities, we must invest in effective public relations and marketing campaigns to ensure a wider participation and awareness of our actions to the Community. Professional PR and marketing is often an expensive endeavour and is concentrated in a limited group of entities. What we propose is to outsource the PR and marketing of the Swarm’s activities to the broader community. Such an approach allows interested individuals to develop or expand their skills while gaining important experience. 

Events

In addition to the ongoing organising and hosting of community events. Events are proposed separately and are implemented by different teams, however we feel it is important to list them within this proposal to better reflect the overall effectiveness and delivery standard of the Catalyst Swarm. While not part of this proposal specifically, the Swarm supports catalyst through the following community events:

Centres of Gravity

The Catalyst Swarm is introducing the “Centre of Gravity” idea which focuses on three main topics: Communication, Coordination and Collaboration.

The Centres of Gravity are intended to galvanise and catalyse community ideas for maximum impacts by accelerating the emergence of strong collaborative projects. True to it’s name, the centre of gravity offers a space for people and ideas to meet and merge, resulting in different independent projects , as seen with the emergence of the Catalyst School, the Eastern Town Hall and the LATAM Town Hall. In each of these cases, the original Swarm meetings facilitated the expansion of a small idea into a community gold standard for how to organise in a collaborative and decentralised manner. This is a primary example for the Swarm is able to multiply and accelerate itself from bottom up without the need for an central entity 

Saturday Swarm Sessions:

The Sessions where it all started. Each Saturday we open an open Zoom Call and invite the Community to speak about the latest happenings and relevant topics to project Catalyst, Cardano and the impact of Blockchain at generell. Also a place where constant innovation takes place and where the Community experiments on decentralised governance

After Town Halls:

In Collaboration with the Community and IOG, the Catalyst Swarm organise and hosts the weekly After Town Hall where the community hosts a various amount of breakout rooms to present projects, to host and visit workshops and to find the right partners for their Projects

Challenge Fest

Once each funding round, The Catalyst Swarm organises and Hosts in direct Collaboration with the Challenge Teams the Challenge Fest where proposers can get in touch with their Challenges and Challenge Teams. This Event helps Challenge Teams, Proposers and voters to fully understand the Challenges and how potential solutions could look like.

Idea Fest

Once each Funding Round, Idea Fest takes place. This Event is scheduled over a whole weekend where Proposer come and present their finalised Proposals and Projects to the Community. A place to find collaborators and partners, a place to meet the teams behind projects and proposals and a place to showcase your ideas to the Community

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Maintenance - 5000 USD

Documentation and Website - 1500 USD

Networking - 5000 USD

Incubation - 5000 USD

Management - 7500 USD

Architecture - 7500 USD

Accounting - 3000 USD

Tools and Services - 2000 USD

PR & Marketing - 4500 USD

Total: 41.000 USD

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

https://catalystswarm.com/swarm-fund/ and many more contributors. Meet the Swarm Community on Discord

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

The Catalyst Swarm offers a variety of ongoing services which are funded by the community. Given our community focus we plan to request additional funding in future funding rounds to maintain consistency of delivery that is expected by the community. 

[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?

The Catalyst Swarm rewards those who engage constantly over an extended period of time, from weeks to several months to a year, who are building and supporting the Catalyst Community and Ecosystem in an open, inclusive, participatory and empowering manner.  

Our primary KPIs are:

• Number of regularly rewarded Community Contributors for each of the above categories
• Number of regular rewarded Full-Time Community Contributors
• Measured Impact of our support Funds for Fund receiver

( Productivity, Motivation, Engagement, Availability )

All transactions and contributors' rewards are now fully transparently tracked on the Catalyst Swarm Discord Server. This process is an outcome of our collaboration between the Catalyst Swarm & The Treasury Guild. 

• https://discord.gg/9pbRF2PfcU 

We currently develop a community contribution track based on the distribution of Gimbal Tokens. This will help us to track and measure contribution in a open, transparent and auditable way 

Current Swarm Operations & Funding Allocations are presented at https://catalystswarm.com/swarm-fund/. 

All transactions are fully transpently tracked via Discord & Gitbook.

Discord: https://discord.gg/6jk8mVuYqA 

Gitbook: https://treasury-guild.gitbook.io/catalyst-swarm/ 

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

• Vibrant & constant community engagements & interactions on Swarm Discord

https://discord.gg/tU9umVcQNe 

• Vibrant & constant community engagements & interactions on Swarm Dework on Projects, public tasks and bounties

https://app.dework.xyz/catalyst-swarm 

• Vibrant & constant community engagements & interactions on Community Events

https://www.meetup.com/cardano-catalyst-community-network/

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

This Proposal is a continuation of the previously voted and Funded Catalyst Swarm Operations Proposals from Fund 7 & Fund 8

Catalyst Swarm Operations Fund 7

https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/fund/f7/challenge/26248/proposals/380972 

Catalyst Swarm Operations Fund 8

https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/fund/f8/challenge/26434/proposals/402129