GovHack Series - Hack Humanity

Proposals
1

GovHack Core Series (1 year programme)

Abstract

GovHack Core Series is designed to bring together existing key stakeholders in the Arbitrum ecosystem for deep engagement and strategic decision-making. This proposal shifts focus from broad participation to a targeted approach, aiming to continually align and refine Arbitrum DAO’s Vision, Mission, Values, Strategy, and Goals and advance high-priority proposals in deep work sessions with core contributors.

Based on feedback and observation, it is our assessment that at this point in the DAO’s maturation, it’s more important to get deep multi-stakeholder engagement and key long-term decision-making occurring regularly with existing stakeholders in contrast to onboarding, educating and guiding newcomers to make proposals.

GovHack Core is a natural evolution that builds on the success of

  • GovHack Denver (NPS 67)
  • GovHack ETHcc (NPS 83)
  • the track record of Hack Humanity team to conduct complex multi-stakeholder engagement online and in-person, bespoke event programming and production under tight time constraints in multiple territories all over the world, and to design and deliver strategic facilitation with Arbitrum stakeholders.

GovHack Core Series 2025 is a series of three annual 3-day high-impact events, prior to DevCon, EthDenver, EthCC, designed for max 60-80 key stakeholders in the Arbitrum ecosystem with a total annual budget of 558,000 USDC.

It’s important to establish a regular yearly event calendar as a series for maximum continuity, and set organisational cadence IRL to complement online ways of working, this provides predictability for delegates and key stakeholders to plan the year ahead.

Motivation

The Arbitrum community implementing GovHack Core addresses several key governance challenges:

  1. GovHacks v1 and v2 were effective at activating and educating newcomers and providing DAO onboarding to produce a volume of proposals, with some standout proposals going the distance (M&A, AVI, Event Horizon), many proposals were not as aligned and maximally valuable as they could be. GovHack Core (v3) addresses this by laying the appropriate foundation.
  2. Need for deeper engagement and trust-building among core contributors
  3. Challenges in aligning on long-term vision, strategy and goals
  4. Difficulty in maturing and advancing high-impact proposals
  5. Desire for more focused, strategic discussions among key stakeholders
  6. Importance of in-person interactions for complex decision-making

By providing a structured 3-day environment for intensive collaboration, GovHack Core will enhance decision-making processes, strengthen inter-team relationships, and ultimately drive the ecosystem’s growth and effectiveness.

Rationale

GovHack Core aligns with the Arbitrum community’s mission and guiding values by:

  1. Enhancing decentralized governance through focused collaboration among key decision-makers
  2. Maturing the DAO’s organisation by addressing unresolved conflicts and maturing high-impact proposals
  3. Improving transparency and accountability in strategic decision-making processes
  4. Strengthening core community bonds and deepening engagement of key contributors
  5. Increasing efficiency in governance by targeting resources towards critical strategic areas
  6. Balancing the need for focused discussions with appropriate levels of transparency to the wider Arbitrum community

Key Terms

  • GovHack Core: A series of focused 3-day governance events designed for deep engagement and decision-making among existing Arbitrum ecosystem contributors.
  • Strategic Alignment Sessions: Facilitated discussions aimed at solidifying the DAO’s Vision, Mission, Values, Strategy, and Goals.
  • Proposal Development Tracks: Collaborative cowork streams dedicated to maturing and advancing specific high-priority proposals.
  • Synthesis Groups: Collaborative sessions where insights and decisions from breakout groups are consolidated and refined.

Specifications

GovHack Core will consist of three annual events, each lasting exactly 3 days and involving max 60-80 key stakeholders. The events will be structured (exact format to be refined) as follows:

Day 1:

  1. Opening Plenary: Setting the stage and objectives
  2. Strategic Alignment Sessions: Full-group discussions and facilitated exercises on vision, mission, strategy and long-term goals
  3. Breakout Groups: Initial deep dives into key issues

Day 2:

  1. Governance Workshops: Focused sessions on improving DAO processes and structures
  2. Proposal Development Tracks: Collaborative work on maturing the highest-priority proposals
  3. Expert Panels and AMAs: Insights from industry leaders and Arbitrum ecosystem experts

Day 3:

  1. Synthesis Groups: Consolidating insights and decisions from previous sessions and playing back insights to the whole group
  2. Action Planning: Developing concrete next steps and commitments
  3. Closing Plenary: Summarizing outcomes and aligning on follow-up processes

Throughout: Networking and Trust-Building Activities integrated into breaks and evenings

Participants will include:

  • DAO Delegates
  • Protocol representatives from various verticals
  • Key Service Providers
  • Arbitrum Foundation members
  • Offchain Labs representatives
  • Invited experts and advisors

This condensed 3-day format ensures a focused and intensive collaboration period, maximising productivity while respecting participants’ time commitments.

Steps to Implement

  1. Event Planning and Steering Committee Formation

    • Establish a steering committee with representatives from various stakeholder groups
    • Develop detailed 3-day event agendas and session plans
    • Source and decide in advance the top focus areas, and partially developed high-value proposals that will be accelerated together at the in-person event

  2. Venue Selection and Logistics

    • Secure appropriate venues for each 3-day event
    • Arrange necessary equipment, catering and materials

  3. Participant Outreach and Confirmation

    • Identify and invite key stakeholders
    • Implement vetting process to ensure all attendees are verified members of the Arbitrum ecosystem

  4. Content Development and Pre-event Preparation

    • Create comprehensive pre-event materials, including background on key issues and proposals
    • Develop confidentiality protocols for sensitive discussions
    • Prepare the team to execute

  5. Event Execution

    • Facilitate 3-day strategic sessions and workshops
    • Professional event organisation and strategic facilitation
    • Media production

  6. Post-Event Follow-up and Implementation

    • Compile and distribute event outcomes
    • Implement a robust follow-up process to track and support the implementation of event outcomes
    • Establish a clear process for moving in-person conversations and decisions to ratifying decisions through formal DAO governance mechanisms

  7. Continuous Improvement

    • Conduct post-event surveys and interviews
    • Analyze success metrics and adjust future events accordingly

Timeline

  • Months 1-2: Event planning, venue selection, and initial outreach for first event (either Devcon, Bangkok 2024 or ETHDenver Feb 2025)
  • Month 3: Participant confirmation and content development
  • Month 4: Host first 3-day GovHack Core event (aligned with a major Ethereum conference: Devcon or ETHDenver)
  • Month 5: Post-event follow-up and outcome implementation
  • Month 6: Begin planning for the second event
  • Repeat cycle for second and third events, adjusting timelines to align with major Ethereum conferences

Overall Cost

Total Annual Budget: 558,000 USDC

Breakdown:

  • Hack Humanity Base (Klaus): 108,000 USDC (9,000 USDC/month)
  • The base salary covers all events planning, prep, organisation and online and in-person facilitation, post-production, and year-round maintaining continuity, high-context understanding of the DAO and ecosystem, and responsibility for maintaining a series of events that are coherent and additive.
  • Event Costs (fully refundable to the DAO on budget under-run): 450,000 USDC (150,000 USDC per event)

Per Event Breakdown estimates:

  • Venue, Logistics, Catering: $60,000
  • Travel and Accommodation: $15,000
  • Media & Tech $15,000
  • Facilitation team and Materials: $30,000
  • Scholarships $20,000
  • Contingency: $10,000

The per-event cost is for an on average 70-person event, with a maximum 80-person cap.
The total budget covers both fixed costs (yearly base) and recurring costs (per-event expenses) for a full year of GovHack Core operations.

Success Measures

The success of the initiative will be measured by:

  1. Number and quality of strategic decisions made during the 3-day events
  2. Progress on maturing and advancing high-impact proposals
  3. Participant satisfaction and engagement (measured through surveys and interviews)
  4. Implementation rate of event outcomes in the following quarter
  5. Improvement in DAO operational efficiency and governance quality
  6. Increased collaboration and communication between different stakeholder groups
  7. Long-term impact on Arbitrum’s governance effectiveness and ecosystem growth

Considerations and Open Questions

  1. It may make sense to run a large-scale Open GovHack targeting and onboarding newcomers late next year once foundational organisational alignment and infrastructure are in place developed via GovHack Core events.
  2. Voting options

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  1. Note - Open GovHack ETHcc cost was $262k, GovHack Devcon in Thailand will be cheaper than this due to local costs in country being cheaper.

A year calendar combining GovHack Core and GovHack Open events can be refined with your feedback to determine the exact budget and voting options.
Based on sentiment of which option people are leaning to we’ll create estimated costs for each option.

What combination and number of each event type per year would you like to see?

12 Likes
2

how would these 60 to 80 key stakeholders get selected?

and look, this is a bit of a tongue in cheek kinda question to be honest… because I’m not even sure if an event where the participants are selected according to some criteria or in whatever manner, is a good idea for a DAO in the first place. I feel that it could easily become a self-serving event for that particular cohort of people that can find a way to get in the room, and not necessarily for the whole broader DAO.

so I believe we should start by recognizing that such an event format would concentrate immense power on it’s facilitators and organizers, particularly because they would be the ones that would get to choose the criteria through which, the attendees would get to attend, and also probably the matters being discussed. and sure, we could use some lazy criteria like “anybody that has more than ###k ARB voting power” or whatever, but I mean… no offense to the big delegates but that would be a very boring cohort of people to through up an event for =)

having said all of that, I do think that we might have the possibility to innovate a bit in here.
imagine that we would come up with some kind of contest to decide who gets to go to this event format, or some pairwise nomination system, or something else that we haven’t even thought of. The innovation that we should be striving for in DAOs is exactly on this issue of, how might we collectively decide who should be involved in what conversations and when, while still maintaining the openness and permissionless nature of DAOs as much as possible?

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The whole event is fabulous and all the details are crystal.
Here are two suggestions:
1. In the “Success Measures” part, could you give us a more quantifiable version, just like:

(1). Number and quality of strategic decisions made during the 3-day events

  • Target: 10-15 high-priority decisions per event.
  • Measured by follow-up actions implemented from these decisions within the next 3 months.

(2). Progress on maturing and advancing high-impact proposals

  • Target: At least 5 proposals significantly advanced per event, with 2-3 fully ready for governance voting within 3 months.

(3). Participant satisfaction and engagement

  • Target: Minimum 85% satisfaction score in post-event surveys.
  • Engagement score based on active participation in all sessions.

(4). Implementation rate of event outcomes in the following quarter

  • Target: 70% of strategic decisions and proposals made during the event to be executed or implemented within 3 months.

2. Have you ever considered the invitation of a small group of active users (7 or 10) to join the event even just as the audiences. you know, with broader community involvement.

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5

As a former GovHack Brussels participant, I salute the 12 months proposed structure. Having the GovHacks linked with flagship events dates makes a lot of sense, since a lot of people are already attending these conferences.

On the other hand, the focus change in regards to the stakeholder target group for this event might miss the general knowledge available in the DAO for example. A alternating model where 2 events focus on core stakeholders and 2 events are open for the active Arbitrum contributors might be a better fit. The active contributors can be those that have at least one proposal submitted to the DAO or through the service providers. This would prove that they are / were at some point active in the ecosytem. This is just an example.

All in all for me the GovHack Core proposal is well-structured, with a clear focus on deep engagement and strategic decision-making among existing stakeholders. It addresses key governance challenges within the Arbitrum ecosystem, offering a thoughtful approach to advancing high-priority proposals. However, the proposal could benefit from more consideration of inclusivity.

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One more question: Do I understand correctly that organizing something for Devcon is not actually feasible? I expect that a lot of people will be in Bangkok for Devcon and ETH Global.

Would be a great opportunity and it’s 4 months (more than 1Q) after the Brussels one.

I would be the first one to sign-up!

#LFG

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7

Thanks for your feedback @ostanescu.eth.

It’s our assessment on a yearly basis 1 event per quarter would be most effective, alternating 1 GovHack Core event, then 1 Open GovHack event.

The advantages are supportive and additive of each other, Core events maximise alignment and dual-track engagement with 1) core contributors and 2) Open events attract and grow top newcomer talent to ensure there is always fresh new dna of talent coming to the ecosystem.

Why a long-term proposal?

A long-term proposal provides a significant advantage to Arbitrum:

  1. to secure GovHacks as a unique competitive advantage for Arbitrum for the next year
  2. people can predictably plan their travel, fly in the required number of days earlier than each major conference
  3. know year round all the key places to be to deepen IRL connections in the Arbitrm community
  4. for HackHumanty to be able to book and secure the best venues for Arbitrum in advance
  5. to be able to train and retain a dedicated, consistent high-context delivery team across 2024/2025 across 3 or more continents. This is non-trivial. In addition many conferences rotate the city they are held i.e. ETHcc, Devcon which requires continual adaptation. While there are generalisable principles in event programming, production and facilitation, there are always idiosyncrasies to be handled in the way every country and culture operates. This requires an organising team that’s adaptive and capable to research, plan, deploy and execute in many new operating environments.
    We have this proven capability with Hack Humanity.
  6. a year long program allows tracking of longitudinal engagement, retention and proposal evolution and ROI
  7. It solves the issue of limited time for planning and marketing that occurs by having to do the full Forum/Snapshot/Tally process every 3 months.
  8. Personally, it’s a time and energy-intensive process doing one-off proposals every 3 months, and not a sustainable way of working as a service provider.

Regarding Devcon in Bangkok, the best dates I envisage are Nov 8-10. It can be done, it’s very tight though, it’s 9 weeks from now and the proposal process is 1 week on the forum, 1 week snapshot, 3 weeks Tally before funds are available, and most venues require at least 50-80% downpayment to secure the venue.

GovHack Denver was organised in 3.5 weeks, and GovHack ETHcc in 4.5 weeks.
It is doable I am in Bangkok right now and have hired a local event producer to research and scout venues already, we have a shortlist of candidate venues.

The main reason for the long-term proposal is to get out of this short-term crunch cycle of organising events with limited lead time in this manner. However, I’m willing to do this for Devcon, provided we get a yearly program in place so the following year of events have proper lead time for planning, marketing, and a sustainable way of working.

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I think IRL events are necessary to better coordinate actions and planning of any DAO. I’m making these questions on both posts, to get a better understanding:

What are the main differences (in terms of the event itself) between this proposal and the Off-site one? - specially the “Core Series”

Both initiatives are targeting DevCon. Does it make sense to have both events?

Is there a way to merge both initiatives if they are complementary?

Thanks for the proposal!

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Please see my answer here

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I don’t like the restriction to 80 people only. On the one hand how do we select the 80, and second we lose out on the opportunity to bring new people into the ecosystem.

I preferred what we did in eth denver: have an open event for anytime interested in arbitrum, and separate conference rooms for high signal delegates to meet together

If the cap on attendees stays & it’s for us delegates only , I would likely vote against. Whole point of events is bringing in fresh blood

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11

Hi @thedevanshmehta thanks for the feedback.

On a yearly basis 1 event per quarter is what I’m envisaging, alternating 1 GovHack Core event, then 1 Open event, they are supportive and additive of each other maximising alignment and dual-track engagement with 1) core contributors and 2) attracting and growing top newcomer talent to ensure there is always fresh new dna of talent coming to the ecosystem.

I have had multiple feedback that we need to cater to both demographics. A Core event allows the DAO to do the deep strategic alignment work and priority proposal development to then setup the Open Events to be much more effective.

Regarding how we select for who can come to a Core event, I think @paulofonseca above raises very valid points and I’m open to develop a fair methodology for how this can be done.

If we didn’t do a Core event I did have some ideas about evolving the current format to make Day 1 more like a mini-offsite.

How a yearly programme could work:

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Sorry why cant the core event happen during the public event? like it did for eth denver where we had some conference rooms booked out.

why do we need a dedicated core event instead of combining both into one?

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I love your line of thinking and final question here.

These are valid points @paulofonseca, I have a draft methodology for how this could work, do you want to collaborate with me to craft a methodology to select people to this type of event? and anyone else who wants to collaborate on this let me know.

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14

I have a question about the proposal:
I was not at GovHack, but I read your reports on these events and I think that such events are very useful for the development of Arbitrum.
Question - why are you not satisfied with the current funding of these events?
Why should there be exactly 3 of these events?

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15

For the abundance of clarity on scholarships, the principle we are currently operating with is the same as for the last GovHack, it’s a pool to enable people who could not normally afford to come to participate. Agree with your take @thedevanshmehta, a lot of the key people are already flying into the major ETH events and do not need to have their flights covered.

For GovHack Brussels, we had $10k for scholarships, ran a strict criteria-based application process, awarded 20 applicants, 15 showed up, and funds were distributed. The underused $2,500 was returned to the DAO in a fiscally responsible manner.

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I like the idea of having three GovHack Core events per year. It would be awesome to see them spread across different regions, like LatAm, Europe, and Asia, to ensure global participation and perspectives.

I also echo the questions raised by others about the criteria for selecting key stakeholders. It’s crucial to know how these will be chosen and how we’ll ensure a diverse representation within the group. The scholarships are a great touch, as they’ll help bring in voices that might otherwise be left out.

One thing I’d add is the importance of making sure that these events are accessible, not just to those already deeply involved in the ecosystem but also to emerging leaders who might bring fresh perspectives.

Finding the right balance between exclusivity for effectiveness and inclusivity for fresh ideas will be crucial for the success of these events.

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Hi @cp0x,

Thanks for your question, it’s a good one.

It’s taken a few iterations to workout appropriate pricing, and how to navigate the Foundation, the DAO, sponsorship to be funded.

The first GovHack in Denver cost $200k to produce, I personally made a loss of $10k going into debt to run the event of this quality. The funds supplied from the Foundation + Sponsorship didn’t cover what was required and I paid out of pocket to ensure a high quality event.

GovHack ETHcc with expanded scope we requested $309k including contingency, $272k was the actual final cost, full breakdown in the transparency report. Unspent funds have all been returned to the DAO.

Full cost breakdown for GovHack ETHcc here

Each time around it requires hundreds of hours pre, during, post GovHack by myself and a dedicated crew to produce a event of this nature, complexity and quality, often in new countries which we need to scout and adapt to. At Hack Humanity, we have the capabilities after years in the industry to execute, but I want to make it known that this is a non-trivial thing to do, particularly given the last events were produced in 3.5 and 4.5 weeks from when the green light and funding was accessible and produced in new cities we had not operated in before (Denver & Brussels).

With respect to am I satisfied with the current funding of these events, I believe we have now hit on a sustainable model, there is no “current funding”, this is a request for additional funds to continue funding future events.
Running large events have a lot of cost and low margins, yet the current structure used to deliver GovHack ETHcc is now in the right configuration where Hack Humanity can have our expertise covered and the DAO can have transparency of costs and trust we are fiscally responsible as evidenced by us returning unused funds from the original $309k budget.

Every new country where a GovHack needs to be run will have different supplier costs, the model we now have is to 1) ask for at least what is needed to ensure we are never caught short without enough funds to run the event, 2) have the DAOs trust and understanding we transparently report costs and return the unspent funds, this allows Hack Humanity to effectively operate and GovHack ETHcc proved the model works.

Why 3 events? either 3 or 4 Core/Open events in some combination we believe covers accessibility for people across multiple continents and is a good periodic IRL synchronisation cadence for remote digital workers to balance building trusted relationships in person.
Exact number and type of events is very much open for discussion.

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Hi @thedevanshmehta, this is a critical and time sensitive question.

I think it can, I like your suggestions on how to bring the Core elements into the existing GovHack format, and I have made my own suggestions above (and in GovHack ETHcc Impact Report - Future Recommendations section) for how I think the event time and space can be partitioned to achieve these effects. It requires careful consideration and programme design, I’d be for up speaking with you further on the design criteria for this if you are up for it?

In the interest of what’s realistically possible if the DAO wants a pre Devcon event this year, then this would be the path of least resistance.
We’d need to make this decision asap as it’s 9 weeks out, I am in Bangkok right now, have hired a local event producer who has researched and ranked 46 venues, of what fits our needs for size, quality, proximity to Devcon, a main open room + breakout rooms and availability, there is only around 4-5 venues left and I imagine those will start to book up fast.

Note I produced this Core/offsite event type variant in this proposal that can alternate with the current GovHack Open model because I was encouraged by multiple stakeholders to do so, but in the near term for an event for this year I am happy to rework this proposal to explore adaptation of the current GovHack to better fulfil the needs for strategic alignment and deep work among existing contributors in addition to onboarding newcomers.

I’d need a few more positive signals to this response to confidently shift in that direction.

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Hi @Bruce thanks for the feedback that the details are clear!

Absolutely for metrics that can be quantified we will, we do need to be careful of what targets and thresholds to set, it’s very easy to get this wrong i.e. number of decisions made. Actually less but more important number of decisions like the Vision, Mission, Strategy, Goals getting done is more important than targeting getting 15 decisions for it’s own sake.

Regarding having a small group of people in the audience it sparked an idea I have for a facilitation technique I’ve used called a fishbowl, key people debate a topic in the centre of the circle, those around the edges listen only, you leave an empty chair, to allow those in the audience to jump in and someone on the inner circle rotates out. This could be valuable for high stakes conversations and it is a mechanism for fair distribution of voice in a conversation:

fish2

I’ll give this some more consideration on how we quantify success, participant/audience types and facilitation methodology, thanks for the questions.

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Hi @jameskbh,

Thanks for your question. Some of my answers are now already spread out across other comments in this post.

To answer, there are 3 things that are particularly distinct.

  1. in addition to the GovHack Core format being specifically structured and facilitated for existing contributors to undertake deep exploration, prioritisation and decision-making we are going to do deep co-working sessions on high-priority proposals, a proposal accelerator with those present to rapidly advance and do real work across the days to prep proposals for wider distribution on the Forum, Snapshot and Tally voting.
  1. We believe innovation can come from anywhere and we need to factor for outside innovation, see this graphic from the Hack Humanity’s standard pitch deck:

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Thus we are reserving space for:

It’s worth noting there is precedent for this with Steve Job’s The 100 offsite format bringing a set of people together who have the context, skillset, not only all most senior/powerful (or in DAO terms high Voting Power) people in the room:

This inspires us to develop a DAO principled version of this kind of event with a novel selection rubic for who is in the room, for instance a person’s Karma Score can form part of the weighting:

We are very much open for this to be a community co-design process and to take suggestions for best practice others have seen in other events, offsites and in particular for DAOs.

  1. HackHumanity has the track record of successfully delivering 2 IRL events for Arbitrum with great quantitative and qualitative results, see:
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The more consideration on important Vision, Strategy does makes more sense and the success metrics could be adjusted accordingly when the events are on the run.
I love the idea of Fishbowl, the Governance does need a “a fair distribution of voice”.
Thanks you for the explanation and outstanding ideas.

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