This implicitely means that the natural duration of the program, plus the projects approved, is 1y from the voting. So
if the program gets approved the 1st of april, and a protocol applies and gets the green light the 7th of april, they will have up until the 1st of april of the next year to complete
if the program gets approved the 1st or april, and a protocol applies and gets the green light the 8th of august, it will still have up until 1st of april to deliver.
Also, realistically: as DA, we will try to setup timelines with the grantees that makes sense, and as a rule of thumb 6 months on average. But this can change quite a lot depending on the different proposals (and, I also guess in the different domains).
Hope this clarifies. If it does not clarify, did you had anything specific in your mind?
gm all, I appreciate the time and effort you guys put into creating such a detailed proposal with references to further check and balance the activities of the DAs and PMs in the previous iteration.
You have done a great job by setting milestones and achieving them (I understand that not all milestones have been achieved and some are still pending).
I fully support the extension of the program, I believe it’s been one of the most viable tools to boost the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Some thoughts related to funding builders. @DisruptionJoe would love your opinoin here if this could fit within the Pluralistic framework.
I wonder if there is a way to make the DAO even more effective with post-funding activity.
Once projects have completed their milestones and received the full grant, how can we keep nurturing them?
How can the DAO make sure those projects succeed?
There could be a sort of fellowship program where we keep in touch and maintain relationships with these projects and give the DAO updated information about them monthly.
This helps the DAO know important elements like:
Are we funding the projects that succeed?
Are we retaining talent?
If projects are being abandoned, why?
In the future, this could be run as an incubator style where, depending on their success and need, we introduce them to VCs, investors and further expose them to our community.
Today, it could be a simple report with the main objective is to monitor their progress and help wherever we need to.
Thank you for the feedback @SmolPhil. Based on the previous program, we are creating deadlines for Milestones instead of leaving them open.
The DAs of each domain will work with the respective grantees to set appropriate deadlines. Grantees that have not posted an update post 1 month of their deadline will be regarded as having abandoned their projects. In this case, we are evaluating two options.
The proposal can be taken over by a different team, for projects that are abandoned we will run a 2 week campaign for another team to come and take over the project, the DA will select the most appropriate team. (this does not apply to gaming domain, or education domain (IRL events).
The funds become unallocated and can be allocated to a different project now.
For Reporting templates:
As the PM I will be posting biweekly updates on the forum, and attending all the open governance calls to provide an update with the following information.
Total Proposals
Total Proposals approved
Total proposals rejected
Proposal numbers by domain
Approved proposals by domain
Grants committed and disbursed overall and per domain
Link to accepted proposals by domain (with milestone completion rate)
For the DAs, there will be a detailed report posted on the forum every 45 days.
for the template of the update from the DA side with the following details
Number of Proposals:
Number of proposals accepted:
Number of Proposals rejected:
Number of Proposals in review:
Propopsal wise updates:
Name of Proposal Accepted:
Funding Approved for:
Milestones completed:
Reason for Approval as DA:
Impact Achieved/perceived(if project is completed, impact is something we are still defining):
Appreciate the great comments on the current iteration of the Questbook DDA Program.
On another note, I believe there’s two key thing to this that we should also consider for granted projects and companies who should get incubated or raise from the DAO.
Ability to edit milestones and have a more flexible way to evaluate based on company or product pivots: Milestones sometimes are strict with the current implementation of grants and we see multiple companies that do a small change in the ‘north star metric’ of their product but are dependent on grant funding to kickstart user acquisition funnels or infrastructure cost which puts the grant on a standing of it is ‘abandoned’ due to a pivot or if it continues with a different evaluation criteria. A quick solution to this is starting to implement growth-oriented grants in the RFPs but we should also explore alternatives to provide the best possible funding funnel for a flexible and iterating product.
An in-house incubator/accelerator for Arbitrum native projects with terms similar to Codebase by Avalanche or Celo Camp. This can really help the DAO take positions either in equity or token on projects that are a priority to the current agenda while aiming to provide the most value as possible. If we leave early stage growth strictly to grant programs we might have a lot of churn in products and services based on Arbitrum that are going to take longer to raise and of course get less exposure than those who have centralized efforts to push the funding agenda forward.
I’d love to hear opinions about these two topics in this or in another post and also input about how we can start evaluating ways to scale the grant proposals from a 0 → 1 by mentoring projects into viable and sustainable businesses with healthy token practices.
I am Oyeniyi Abiola Peace from the Blockchain Innovation Hub. We are in support of the continuation of the Questbook DDA Grants program. The DDA program has been valuable for promoting and developing the Arbitrum ecosystem.
As a beneficiary of the DDA phase one, we have first-hand experience of how smooth the program was. We received timely support from people like @Manugotsuka and prompt fund disbursement.
At some point, we had an issue uploading images to the Questbook platform via comments, but I was pleased to see that the team quickly resolved the problem.
The DDA Grants helped us onboard 100 developers into the ecosystem and organized a hackathon.
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.
What we have observed is those that could not fit into the domains of Dev-Tooling, Gaming and Education, all ended up applying to New-Protocol Ideas domain, but even in the New Protocol ideas domain, there was a mix of DeFi, dApps, Integration and NFT based ideas, but none were very overwhelming enough where we think there is a need for a seperate domain here.
Yes. These can fit within the pluralist funding framework. This does not mean that it needs to be funded by the Plurality Labs proposal. The intention of the framework is to provide clarity and shared understanding of what is being funded, how we measure accountability, and how we provide pathways to success.
may make sense to move forward without the firestarter/special initiatives domain. We are going to wrap that into an OpCo with a separate proposal this week btw.
I’d recommend we use the framework to better clarify the questbook domains. The current “domains” are primarily aligned with “functions” in the framework.
I would like to request term limits of maximum 1 year on the domain allocation seats for individuals. i.e. each individual can occupy the seat for maximum 1 year.
Rationale:
Preventing entrenchment and foster new ideas: Long-serving members may become resistant to new ideas and less receptive to fresh perspectives.Term limits encourage a regular infusion of new talent and expertise.
Mitigating conflicts of interest: Long-serving members may develop close relationships with grant applicants or recipients, potentially leading to conflicts of interest.Term limits can help mitigate such conflicts and ensure the decision-making process remains impartial & fair.
Encouraging mentorship: offers opportunities for experienced members to mentor & train their successors.This can help build institutional knowledge and maintain consistency in the programs mission while still introducing new perspectives.
Reinforcing democratic principles: rotation in public office prevents the concentration of power while ensuring that decisions are made with the broader interest in mind.
We believe that as the domain allocators have been allocated for the community by the community, and as their performance is kept consistent, there need not be a term limit, as most applications as they come by are new.
However if there is a glaring request by the community to change a domain or all the domain allocators we can consider it, but we believe as long as performance is consistent there won’t be a need to set term limits.
Regardless, I do wish to revisit this discussion more towards the end of the next term and evaluate again on how to proceed then.
After consideration Treasure’s Arbitrum Representative Council (ARC) would like to share the following feedback on the proposal
TreasureDAO’s ARC will vote in favor (FOR) of this proposal
Thank you for writing this detailed of a proposal, and clearly substantiating the changes necessary for an improved continuation of the Questbook Grants Program. We are of the opinion that the Questbook Grants Program has been an important factor in Arbitrum’s growth and will remain to be an important contributor to accelerating the growth of projects in the lower funding requests range.
Besides our approval for the continuation of the Questbook Grants Program we are also in favor of the proposal for several other reasons:
Emphasizing transparency through on-chain operations and accountability through regular reporting and community engagement.
Improving on phase 1 of the program by addressing $ARB price fluctuations, milestone completion, communication issues, introducing a new funding cap range to accommodate funding requests between 25 and 50k USD and adequate funding for each of the domains.
Introducing a fixed monthly pay which eases reporting duties for DAs and PMs, creates better oversight and incorporates more stability into the cost of the program.
Overall, the proposal demonstrates a thoughtful approach to fostering innovation, supporting the community, and driving growth within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
After discussions within the team, we, cp0x, decided to vote FOR this proposal.
We have no questions about the previous stage of this program and we hope that the future stage will be even more successful for the development of projects in Arbitrum.
This does not mean that we agree with all points of this program, but in general the useful prevails here.
Hi, for new elections, if the DAO feels that the domain allocators have not been upto par, then we would hold new elections if there’s strong interest to change the DAs. In addition, if we introduce new domains to the program down the line, then yes, there will be new elections for it.
