Overview
Hi all. In this post I’ll outline some of the Foundation’s goals in terms of DAO related governance activities for this quarter. Sorry this is coming halfway through Q1. As you’ll see with our first goal, we’ll work on improving on that by next quarter.
The things we want to accomplish will be broken down into:
- Operational goals
- Ecosystem Growth goals
- Global Community goals
- Governance Iteration goals
While the operational goals are overarching priorities for the Foundation governance team, the other three areas (Ecosystem Growth, Global Community, and Governance Iteration) all map back to the priorities set forth in the Co-Creation Cycle 1 hosted in late 2024 upon the DAO’s inception.
Motivations
This is not necessarily a full list of every single thing we want to accomplish. Moreso, these quarterly updates are meant to serve a few specific functions:
- Increase transparency.
- Improve the dialogue between the Foundation and DAO on the specific tasks to be done, and how that fits into the overall strategy
- Create another way to help us improve and refine the focus going forward
Let’s get into it.
Operational Goals
Have at least 1 proposal go live in the first three months of the year (so at least 3 in Q1)
We want to make sure we start getting a certain baseline of activity as the year begins. The initial intention was that we would have at least one proposal up in Jan, one in Feb, and one in Mar. Given that we’re releasing this post in Feb, we know that we have already not fully met this goal as Jan did have one proposal while Feb did not have any proposals go to formal vote.
Metric: Did at least one proposal go up in each month?
Hire and onboard a gov facilitator
The governance team is in the final stages of hiring a governance facilitator. This person will help us accomplish more in terms of increased delegate and overall DAO collaboration, improve communication, and generally help make sure the various efforts we undertake succeed. We hope they will be hired and onboarded soon.
Metric: Was a governance facilitator hired and onboarded (or at least started onboarding based on timing)?
Post the Q2 goals before the end of the first week of Q2
We will look to get these goal docs out earlier going forward, ideally by the first week of the new quarter. So shooting for the first week of April, if not the last week of March, for an overview of the Q2 plans.
Metric: Have the Q2 goals been posted by Sun Apr 6?
Create an initial media content plan for Scroll governance
In addition to the work of establishing and improving governance practices in the Scroll ecosystem, we also want to spend some of our time producing content and supporting more public conversation about governance research, practice, and innovation.
Metrics:
- Does the governance team have a content roadmap through Q2?
- Has this been shared with the DAO?
Progress treasury diversification conversations for the DAO
As evidenced by the interest in treasury management surfacing early in the first Co-Creation Cycle, this is a topic that is on the mind of many in the DAO. It is important that we progress on this front
Metrics:
- Has the Foundation team met with at least 3 different treasury management service providers?
- Is there a clear RFP for the DAO’s treasury management?
- Has there been a meeting to review that RFP with the treasury management group?
Define an initial set of forum and documentation improvements
We are just getting started with governance at Scroll and we know there’s a lot that we can do better in terms of communication, ranging from our gov docs to our forum. In Q1, we want to outline an initial set of improvements and to start making those changes. There have been some small changes as we go, though we want to do a thorough review.
Metric: Has a forum post gone up outlining the forthcoming or active changes in regards to the gov docs and forum?
Ecosystem Growth goals
Prepare to publicly launch (open for applications) at least 2 grant programs (1 foundation program and 1 DAO program, targeting April 1)
We are keen to get the first funding programs from the DAO and the Foundation off the ground. While they are unlikely to launch in Q1, we do hope to see the first DAO grant program go up for vote by Mar 1 and to announce the first Foundation program on a similar timeline.
Metrics:
- Has the first DAO grant program gone live to vote for approval?
- Has the first Foundation grant program been announced?
Define clear desired outcomes and metrics of success for the first grant programs
As part of launching any new program, it is important to have a clear desired outcome, or a way that the world changes thanks to the introduction of this funding program (intervention). As such, we want to make it a norm that we have one clear desired outcome for each funding program and to have a suite of metrics for that program.
Metrics:
- Does each new program have a clear desired outcome?
- Does each program have a set of metrics that will be used to assess that program?
- Has a data and metrics group been established in the DAO?
- Has that group reviewed and provided feedback on the initial outcomes and metrics?
Establish a shared tooling and data architecture for the grant programs
While we envision a pluralistic grant future for Scroll, one where there will be multiple targeted programs for specific desired outcomes, we believe that having a shared data architecture across the programs is crucial to enable robust evaluation.
Metrics:
- Has a grant application and review tool been put in place?
- Has a tool for output tracking been put in place?
- Has a data lake been set up to more easily share our data in Open Source Observer.
- Is the program’s data conforming with DAOIP 5?
Global Community goals
Map the initial community partners in each of the 4 priority regions
In order to ensure that we are not duplicating efforts or unnecessarily fracturing local community efforts, it will be critical for the DAO to map out the existing communities organizing meetups, especially technical ones, in the cities that will be prioritized within the four regions.
Metrics:
- Have local partners been mapped for Brazil
- Have local partners been mapped for Kenya
- Have local partners been mapped for Malaysia
- Have local partners been mapped for South Korea
- Has at least one conversation taken place with local partners for Brazil
- Has at least one conversation taken place with local partners for Kenya
- Has at least one conversation taken place with local partners for Malaysia
- Has at least one conversation taken place with local partners for South Korea
Get initial local community node proposals focused on meetups live on the forum by Apr 1
As part of supporting and nurturing local communities nodes focused on Scroll (and more broadly on Ethereum) in our priority regions, we hope to see at least two proposals go live by Apr 1 to plug into existing meetups or to create new ones. These local nodes can have many elements to them and will likely look different across different cities and countries. We see the local nodes starting with a foundation of meetups and expanding from there.
Metric: Are at least two local node proposals focused on at least 6 months of meetups ready to go live on Apr 1?
Have a path to the next region to focus on beyond the initial four
While we are starting off with 4 priority regions, we are keen to expand beyond that in Q2. In order to make that possible, we should have some kind of structure in place for how we are going to choose the next region. This might naturally arise based on interest from the DAO, or we might produce a set of criteria to be met for the next region.
Metric: Has a fifth local node region been defined?
Governance Iterations goals
Have the Foundation outline some initial research projects to support in the form of an RFP (request for proposals) for a governance focused small grant program
As we develop a clearer series of research problems we want to explore, the Foundation wants to put together a series of RFPs for small (under $25k, preferably under $10k) grants relating to governance research and experimentation. These RFPs will touch on topics such as the use of AI for assisting governance onboarding and sensemaking, improving deliberation, experimenting with preference signaling, etc.
Metric: Is there at least one governance RFP live?
Plan and announce the next Co-Creation Cycle (2 in June)
After completing the first Co-Creation Cycle (CCC), we are inspired to shoot for 6 month governance seasons. These seasons will involve a 3-4 week CCC followed by roughly 5 months of executing the ideas that emerge from the CCC itself. As such, we want to provide some clarity on what folks can expect from CCC2 in June by the end of Q1.
Metric: Is there a forum post outlining the timing and high-level plan for CCC2 by the end of Q1?
Host a delegate day
Following the dinner we hosted in Bangkok, we want to try to host roughly 2-4 delegate events per year. Expanding on the dinner format, we want to host the first full delegate day where we can have a mix of socializing and workshops where we can both reflect on previous activities and plan future events.
Metric: Did we host a delegate day in Q1?
Propose the initial plan for how to increase the votable supply
As discussed in both the forum and via direct conversation with delegates, we are very aware of the various risks that having a low votable supply can lead to. While we have started a larger conversation on the forum, we want to make sure that a plan gets put forth by the end of the quarter.
Metrics:
- Has a plan for improving votable supply been generated by the Foundation?
- Has the plan been shared with the DAO?
- Is there a clear timeline in place of when this will happen?
Share the initial Foundation outputs with the DAO via the forum
From the first days of the DAO, we have started working on a series of projects such as a handbook relating to the Co-Creation Cycle, a series of posts on some features (grant programs, accelerators, etc.) relating to growth and community, and a post and report from the DAOstar crew on delegate incentives.
Metrics:
- Is there a series of 5 forum posts from Feems, all linked to within a single post?
- Is there a post from Sam on the delegate incentives work?
- Is there a post on the forum from Sarah on looking back on CCC1?
- Is the CCC1 Handbook posted online?
Have a first proposal on the first iteration of a delegate training program
Creating pathways for new delegates to join, or for new governance contributors, can potentially assist with strengthening governance. As a result, there has been interest in creating a program to bring in new delegates to Scroll DAO. If there is not a clear path to deeper governance contribution as a result of the program, it is important to reframe such a program to be more focused on governance contribution more broadly.
Metric: Is there a proposal in either Mar 1 or Apr 1 for the first iteration of the delegate training program (or a governance contributor program)