I am glad to see that Questbook is moving forward with a Phase 2 of their grants program. I think that last 6+ months have proven the value this project has added to the Arbitrum DAO and is a textbook example of how to run a project like this for a few reasons:
- The team has been very transparent and frequent with communications
- It has filled a niche, but valued, role with enthusiasm and remained cost effective throughout
- The Phase 2 request has provided the DAO with data on the first grant and it is appreciated that lessons learned are being incorporated into this request
As alluded to in earlier posts, I think Questbook fills a very important role in the DAOs grant space by targeting lower-cost grants. The reality is there are tons of smaller, start-up projects that simply can’t compete in a STIPP/LTIPP setting. The fact that this grant program was out of funding so quickly is a testament to the demand for something like this, and I think abandoning this group of applicants would be a detriment to the DAO’s grantsphere. It was also great to see a fairly even distribution among the domains.
As for administrative cost, I think the amount is a fair ask. It’s clear that the demand surpassed initial expectations and the job is closer to a fulltime role then note. I think too the nature of targeting lower value grants will always result in a ‘premium’ cost (as a % of total grant). i.e. a $1 Million grant does not take 100x the man hours to approve over a $10,000 grant. If there is concern the domain allocators overworked, a possible resolution is a ‘5th’ allocator who isn’t assigned a specific domain in return for being flexible to assist where needed. The benefit then being they can be an experienced replacement for a future domain or if one of the allocators has to step down.
Without going to long into a response, I pretty much just widely agree with all the proposed changes. They look to be thought out and as noted above the willingness to reflect and resolve issues that came up in round 1 is appreciated. I would vote “For” this proposal if it went to Snapshot.
Question for Questbook (or any of the allocators who wish to respond) - did you feel there was a subsection of the community that showed a lot of interest in apply for grants but due to not fitting the defined domains could not be helped out? Basically, is do you have any thoughts on if there would be a net positive to expanding to additional domains?
Edit 4/14/2024: Editing here to save forum space, as my opinion has remained unchanged since this post. Voting “For” the continuation of this Questbook on Tally. As I believe that they have shown both a history of doing really good work with the 1st round of Questbook grants, as well as a willingness to learn and grow by making some tweaks to the 2nd round to improve their processes.