Proposal: Ecosystem Growth Council Formation

Proposals
1

note: this proposal has been updated. amounts have been adjusted due to an initial miscalculation

Proposal Type: Growth

Proposal types include:

  • Growth
  • Community
  • Governance

Summary

This proposal is meant to outline the first formal council in Scroll DAO, the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC). The EGC’s goal will be approve, oversee, and evaluate growth programs that can help the success and sustainability of the Scroll ecosystem.

The EGC will oversee a budget of 2m SCR from the DAO to allocate across relevant growth programs. Using a combination of an RFP and sourcing new ideas through the DAO, this council will be responsible for standing up Scroll DAO ecosystem growth efforts that are aligned with overall activities in the network, as well as the interests of token holders.

The Ecosystem Growth Council will be a 7 person council, with 2 members from the Foundation and 5 chosen members. Members can be either delegates or relevant professionals interested in a committed part-time project. The envisioned balance could be something like 3 delegates, 2 Foundation members, and 2 hired professionals.

EGC roles should be viewed as committments that require appexorimately 10 hours per week. The proposal is intended to cover a 6 month window.

The expected outcome of the EGC is to have at least one focused ecosystem growth initiative in place by the end of August 2025, and in turn to support the goal of getting 20 highly aligned Scroll founders.

Motivation

We have had a few attempts at getting some kind of ecosystem growth effort off of the ground since we did our first Co-Creation Cycle at the end of 2024. While we get some quality high-level ideas, we have not been able to get a detailed proposal in this category that instills confidence in delegates.

As a result, we believe creating a dedicated council may be the best path forward. By combining a mix of delegates, growth professionals, and Foundation employees, this council would be well positioned to approved and oversee growth efforts that are aligned with Labs and Foundation.

We believe this process would help get the highest chance at a quality growth proposal.

Execution

Operational

A mix of forms and discourse will be used to receive applications. A template will be put forth for any public applications.

The first step would focus on recruiting the council. Once formed, the EGC would review the responses to the RFI and would decide on clear next steps from there (e.g. conducting a formal RFP or moving forward with a proposal).

The EGC will be responsible for producing a report before the end of the 6 months to help a) evaluate the program, and b) help position if there should be an extension.

Additionally, the EGC would have the expectation of having regular meetings (once a week or every other week). Meeting notes and recordings will be made available for transparency purposes.

The EGC would be able to use it’s budget to approve new growth initiatives. The council would need a 4/7 vote to pass any proposal that uses less than 25% of the total budget, and a 6/7 to pass any proposal that would use more than 25% of the budget. Requests for more budget would need to be put to a full DAO vote.

Once votes conclude, a 3 business day veto window kicks in. During this time, delegates are able to call for a veto on a EGC decision if they see fit.

In the case where the EGC makes a vote that the delegates want to veto, delegates would comment on the relevant forum post (or create a new forum post) requesting an offchain vote to confirm a veto. At least 5 separate comments from active delegates requesting the vote would be needed to iniate the veto. If that snapshot receives more than 50% voting for a veto, then:

  • the proposal is reworked and put forth to the EGC for a new vote. This can be done once. If that vote is vetoed again, then
  • the proposal would need to put to a full DAO vote.

Personnel & Resources

The 7 person committee would consist of:

  • 3-4 delegates
  • 1-2 professionals
  • 2 Foundation members, likely from the governance team

The recruiting process for the delegates and professionals would be managed by the governance team.

The EGC will be able to start operating once the 5 delegates and 3 delegates are identified. The delegates will be selected either by the Foundation or via an election.

Financial

This proposal would include a total budget of 2m SCR from the DAO treasury. Of this, 380k would be reserved for overhead costs (rewards, software / tooling, marketing, etc.).

If any of the 1.62m SCR is needed for anything besides a growth initiative, then EGC members can put forth a proposal that would require a 6/7 vote and would need to clear a 3 day veto window (if there is at least 25% voting against this non-growth spend in the veto, then it does not pass).

Passing this proposal is not a commitment to spend these funds no matter what. If this proposal does pass, that means the EGC has up to these amounts to spends. Any funds not used will be returned to the DAO treasury.

Evaluation

The primary goal for this council is to put an ecosystem growth iniative in place. As such, the primary outcomes will be the creation of the initial iniatives and any relevant metrics that emerge from that iniative. It’s important to recognize that a 6 month timeline would be challenging to recruit the council, review programs, approve at least one iniative, and oversee the iniative as it gets going. As a result, there will be limited available data on the impacts of the funded iniative itself, so the success of the council in the first 6 months will center on the operations and transparency.

Other aspects for evaluation include:

  • Has the EGC been hosting regular meetings (at least 2 per month)?
  • Do all meetings have public notes?
  • Is there a 6-month report?
  • Have all proposals been reviewed and given feedback?
  • How many proposals have been approved?
  • Were any vetos triggered?
  • Were any triggered vetos resolved?

Conclusion

This proposal puts forth the idea of forming an Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC) with a budget of 2m SCR (up to 380k for overhead and marketing, and no less than 1.32m set aside for growth proposals. This council would be require a commitment of at roughly 10 hours per week for 6 months. The EGC would have the ability to review and approve or reject proposals directly without requiring a full DAO vote, though their decisions could be veto’ed by the DAO.

8 Likes
2

I am eager to see this kind of structure and initiative evolve. My immediate questions are actually along the lines of potential underfunding.

At 300,000 SCR in total expendable budget, we can assume perhaps 2/3 goes toward compensation directly. That’s 200,000 SCR or ~$80,000. Distributed across 7 individuals for ~$7,250 per member. There’s an expectation of 6 months of work at 10 hours per week for a total of 240 cumulative hours. This comes out to just $29 per hour while the proposed retroactive compensation for delegates doing tasks such as attending calls commands a $120 hourly rate.

The concern which emerges is alignment. The only parties that are likely to find interest in a structure such as this are ones who may directly benefit from the allocation of the growth capital itself. Thus, baking in a conflict of interest. I’d rather compensate the members appreciably such that the hourly alone is warranting enough to be compelling.

3

I like to idea of a group who is clearly accountable to the DAO for the suggested topics

I was under the impression that these will be three distinct groups, however, I understand starting out with a single group and expanding it further as we gain more understanding of the responsibilites and tasks.

I am usually skeptical of running “elections” for this type of group since it often turns into a popularity contest which maybe fine if the group is meant to solely make decisions based on trust, but if this group is also meant to apply their skills in the context mentioned above, then the DAO does not benefit in the long run.

My final comment is that of entranchment of power over time as we have seen in many other DAOs. The group should have ways to ensure that there is healthy rotation. A policy to select new members for atleast 3/7 seats every 12 months would be beneficial.

4

Thank you for calling this out - I made a mistake in the #s last night. Will revise and post update #s today.

1 Like
5

This is a fantastic initiative and I strongly support moving in this direction.

A few comments on how to improve this. As someone with a background in business development there’s a couple ingredients needed to make a BD team succeed:

First, there should be a budget for travel expenses. I love seeing everyone’s face on community calls on on the forums but nothing comes close to the conference circuit. Crypto is decentralized geographically so these conferences are far for everyone, no matter where they’re based. Hotels also aren’t cheap. We’d want to make sure this team is well taken care of so they arrive at the conference well rested and, once they’re there, they are able to sleep well (that means no 1 star motels to save a couple bucks).

Second, I would consider adding 1 additional spot on this council for an event planner with a modest budget to spin up a side event at each of the major conferences. This doesn’t have to be fancy, but the best way to network with Scroll interested parties is to have, well, a Scroll party. It also provides an excellent Schelling point for delegates and builders to meet. These conference side events are also a great way of making the lives of these BD folks significantly easier as their target audience will be attending.

Overall, great initiative.

1 Like
6

The proposed numbers are meant to be: 2m SCR total budget, split into roughly 280k SCR for part-time work and 100k for other overhead / marketing.

Here are the assumptions going into those #s:

Measure Amount Currency
Hourly $75.00 USD
Hours per week 10
Weeks 26
6 Month Award $19,500.00 USD
SCR/USD 0.35
SCR 6 mo Award 55,714.29 SCR
# Getting Award 5
Total SCR 278,571.43 SCR

This is trying to establish an initial rate of $75/hr for those committing to part-time work. The 300 SCR as a base rate in the was also pegged to $75 at a price of 0.25 for SCR. I will add comments to the gov contribution recognition (GCR) post about this. These have been pegged to a USD value and we can choose to choose a different peg for the amounts.

Also, we will be providing some scenarios for the GCR to help make a choice of the most reasonable system, and there will be one showing what it looks like if giving a smaller amount for calls (e.g. half). Recognizing call attendance should be a one time thing.

The current in intention is to have a council for each of those, as each council requires different expertise. I am already writing up something for Governance. The next Co-Creation Cycle will focus on org design, so we will see what other councils might emerge. We’ll share more on the CCC and current thinking on council in the next week.

Interested to hear what others think, but I personally do not see this as absolutely necessary in the first iteration. If it were to be considered, there would need to be a clear commitment for reporting on events and having very clear outcomes to work towards. I think the EGC can be shown to be effective without travel, and then can explore adding a travel budget.

Simiarly, I don’t think we absolutely need this. We can figure out an activation in Devconnect independently (and Foundation can lead organizing), that can be assessed separate from this. Even if we need to request funds from the DAO for it, the Foundation team can help with organizing.

I do think it is important to work with events or organize small, targeted workshops/dinners. But I believe this would be beyond the purview of the EGC. I know this is the first council going live, but the way we’re structuring the next CCC and working on some proposals, we hope to have at least a few councils in place within a few months. I think something like events could be a potential inter-council vote, as that would pertain to all parts of the DAO, not just ecosystem growth.

2 Likes
7

Forgot to say, I think adding something about a rotation is reasonable.

1 Like
8

A much needed initiative that will hopefully streamline the efforts of both DAO and Foundation.

We very much support the overall proposal and the clarifications made by @eugene to @DonOfDAOs question regarding compensation structure. In that sense, there’s Velora Growth Committee share’s a similar approach if we want to consider it as a benchmark.

What is interesting is the autonomy of the EGC to execute the allocated budget which is expectedly aligned with the Councils structure thought for the upcoming months. The other option would naturally be for the EGC to request an ad hoc budget for a given proposal but we are keen to see how this semi-authartic structure would work. In that sense, the internal governance flow and the DAO veto mechanism should provide some sort of safeguard.

Scope

The current RFI call has been succesful in mapping out initiatives that the DAO might be interested in developing thus is reasonable that the first action of the EGC is to expedite on them. The list is rather comprehensive of growth initiatives, which is a broad topic within itself. A potential roadmap for the 6-month mandate could be:

  • Month 1: Council conformation and operational kickstart
  • Month 2: RFIs review
  • Month 3: RFIs feedback publication
  • Month 4: Growth proposal outline
  • Month 5: Growth proposal rollout
  • Month 6: Final report and potential renewal

Composition

We consider the 3 delegate, 2 professionals and 2 Foundation members would strike a good balance for the EGC considering what each of them is representing.

  • Delegates - We support building an application standard for delegates to run for the EGC, this naturally should include growth expertise, some record of DAO participation and abiding to a COI policy.
  • Professionals - At least one of those should be focused on the metrics side of the EGC, leveraging what has been done in the DeFi grants working group.
  • Foundation - If possible, both Governance team and Growth team should be part of the EGC.

We also agree on the rotation idea by @jengajojo_daoplomats

Operations

A 5/7 multisig could be set up for funds management within the EGC and in order to strive for consensus, we’d suggest that in each of these scenarios there’s at least one member of each of the organizations represented.

3 Likes
9

I support the creation of the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC). It’s a timely and well-scoped experiment that gives the DAO what it currently lacks: a small, accountable team focused on turning growth ideas into funded, milestone-tied initiatives.

I believe we have a solid balance in here: limited powers (6-month term, capped budget), internal vote thresholds, and a delegate veto window to safeguard against misalignment. I especially appreciate the open call for diverse skill sets, including data, devrel, and founder support.

One thing I’d love to see: every funded initiative should publish impact data in a shared public dashboard. If we’re going to fund growth, let’s also grow our visibility into what’s working.

Looking forward to seeing this Council become a model for future topic-specific working groups. Let’s ship it and iterate.

10

Thanks for calling out these things. We definitely want to see the kind of expertise you mentioned. Definitely need to commit to a COI policy. We definitely want at least one more to be much deeper on the metrics side of grants / growth. And we will request that someone from the growth team joins.

Didn’t include that here, but we do want to see the EGC and any future councils coordinate on shared infra, such as Karma GAP (as an example) to track milestones and outputs. The EGC will ultimately decide on those, but having something in place to track data is important.

1 Like
11

Thank you for bringing forward the proposal to establish an Ecosystem Growth Council. We strongly support this direction and would like to offer a few suggestions to further enhance the clarity and impact of the proposal. This initiative builds on discussions from the most recent weekly call. The sentiment among delegates strongly favored empowering a dedicated council to oversee and handle RFI proposals, emphasizing the need for a structured approach to drive ecosystem growth.

We also agree that a clear mandate is essential for evaluating performance, as highlighted by @SEEDGov particularly through the use of a defined six-month roadmap.

Establishing clear KPIs

To ensure effectiveness and accountability, we recommend establishing clear KPIs for the Ecosystem Growth Council. All KPIs should be reported publicly every three months, with results posted to the forum to promote transparency and invite community feedback.

  • Council Operations: Hold a minimum of one official meetings per month. Publish detailed meeting notes within three days of each meeting in a dedicated, public forum thread.
  • Transparency and Reporting: Publish an interim progress update at the three-month mark and a comprehensive six-month report summarizing Council actions, key decisions, outcomes, and lessons learned. Both reports should be accessible to the community.
  • Proposal Management: Review and respond to all submitted RFI proposals within 14 days of receipt. Track and report the total number of proposals received, the number of proposals that received feedback, and the number of proposals approved or rejected in each reporting period.
  • Community Feedback: Conduct a brief community survey at the mid-point (three months) to assess satisfaction with Council performance and transparency. Survey results and follow-up actions should be published and addressed by the Council in a public forum thread.

Overall, we believe the Ecosystem Growth Council (ESG), with clear KPIs and a transparent mandate, will establish a strong foundation for driving meaningful and measurable ecosystem growth. We look forward to seeing this initiative come to life and to the positive impact it will have on the continued growth of the ecosystem.

3 Likes
12

First of all, we would like to thank Eugene and everyone involved for putting forward this important proposal. We really appreciate the effort and thought that has gone into designing the Ecosystem Growth Council — we believe this is a very strong and necessary initiative that will help structure and accelerate the growth of the Scroll ecosystem.

We would like to offer a few constructive comments and questions for consideration:

  1. On member rotation: We feel that a 12-month rotation period may be too long, especially for a DAO that is still in its early stages. A 6-month rotation could encourage more dynamism and accountability within the council. Alternatively, it would be helpful to define clear criteria for member replacement, in cases where someone is not meeting expectations or fulfilling their commitments.
  2. On travel budget: At this stage, we believe that including a travel budget may not be necessary. The initial focus should be on building an effective structure and delivering tangible outcomes. Travel-related activities could certainly be considered in the future, once there is more clarity on the council’s needs and priorities.
  3. On scope and responsibilities: We strongly agree that establishing clear KPIs will be critical to ensure effectiveness and accountability. In addition, we would appreciate further clarification on the specific scope of the EGC’s responsibilities. Given that “growth” is such a broad category, it would be helpful to understand:
    • Which types of initiatives the council is expected to proactively design and lead; and
    • Which should be proposed by delegates or the broader community, with the council focusing on evaluation and oversight.

For example, one proposal that we are increasingly seeing as necessary is the creation of a Questbook-like program, similar to what Arbitrum has implemented. Many projects have been reaching out to us asking about grants and how to access funding opportunities to grow within the Scroll ecosystem. Having a permissionless system where anyone can submit a proposal and be evaluated transparently, would be extremely valuable. In this case:

  • Would this kind of initiative fall under the EGC’s mandate?
    • Could the council itself act as the reviewer for such proposals?
    • Or would it be better to develop a separate proposal solely focused on establishing a grant program?

Clarifying this distinction would help set shared expectations and ensure that initiatives like this are approached with the appropriate structure and resources.

Thank you for bringing this important initiative forward. We are excited to see how it progresses and are happy to continue contributing to its development.

13

Thank you for putting this together Eugene. I fully support the creation of a council to oversee growth. It’s a long overdue intiative. Can’t wait to see how this shapes up.

My only input is that I suggest the delegates go through a hiring process, not voting, the politics can often times end up stifling growth.

14

I’m glad to see this, I think we are at a place to start turning ideas into impact.

Mixing 3-4 delegates with 2 Foundation members and 1-2 specialists creates cross-disciplinary coverage. Delegates can bring governance legitimacy and community perspective, Foundation members ensure alignment and strategic coherence, while specialists contribute operational expertise across BD, partnerships, technical program management, etc.

The governance mechanics work well - 4/7 thresholds for smaller allocations with 6/7 for major decisions, plus the 3-day veto window maintains DAO oversight without creating operational gridlock.

Two focus areas that could maximize the 2M SCR allocation:

  • Builder retention programs that create pathways from initial funding to sustainable growth - successful ecosystems need more than grants, they need progression frameworks.
  • Cross-ecosystem coordination - opportunities that a dedicated council could pursue more systematically than ad-hoc efforts.

Strong support for this approach. Thanks to @eugene and the team for surfacing.

15

Thanks @eugene for this proposal. We’re excited about the idea of a potential Ecosystem Growth Council to steer growth programs and initiatives within the DAO.

Would the EGC also be empowered to propose fresh ideas / initiatives beyond those in the existing RFI responses?

+1 to this governance structure. We believe this is strikes the right balance between operational efficiency and decentralized decision making. This is a more streamlined approach as opposed to having the DAO vote on all EGC-recommended programs from the get-go. Eigenlayer’s DAO adopts a similar governance structure (more here), where (s)elected councils oversee specific focus areas (incl., grants, protocol, incentives and governance) and token holders retain veto rights through voting, as a power-checking mechanism without sacrificing efficiency.

It might be helpful to clarify that the veto window begins upon the EGC’s formal publication of its decision to the forum and not when the EGC’s vote concludes.

Given Scroll has only operated with on-chain voting, and perhaps as part of a broader constitutional discussion, what would be the duration of off-chain votes? Will it be the same as with on-chain votes? Currently, the Scroll DAO constitution does not envisage off-chain voting (1, 2).

To increase transparency, the forum post announcing the EGC’s decision should include a brief voting rationale from each member. This fosters alignment with token holders and reduces veto attempts due to unclear reasoning. As a suggestion, a dedicated Snapshot space for the EGC (and future councils) could streamline this by combining voting and rationale publication.

Rather than “active delegates” which is hard to define, we suggest limiting this to the same category of delegates who are eligible to signal proposals. This seems consistent.

We think the last step of putting the proposal to a full DAO vote adds unnecessary length to the process and is redundant. If a proposal has been vetoed twice by delegates following the proposed process, then that is sufficient signal that the DAO should not move forward with it. We don’t see a need of adding an extra third step requiring the same delegates to vote on something they’ve already twice voted on.

As a final minor suggestion we believe the proposal can benefit from some formatting improvements to clearly outline key pieces of information and make them stand out. We suggest restructuring the Operational section to include the following two subsections:

  • Responsibilities of the GRC
  • Veto Process
16

This proposal is a thoughtful and strategic leap forward for Scroll DAO. Establishing the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC) reflects a clear intention to move from ideation to structured execution, with a dedicated team empowered to evaluate and catalyze high-impact initiatives. The integration of Foundation members, delegates, and skilled professionals strikes a healthy balance between internal alignment and external expertise.

What stands out most is the governance transparency and accountability framework: the multi-stage veto mechanism, reporting mandates, and quorum thresholds for decision-making are all strong protections for the DAO’s treasury integrity.

However, a few areas could be refined for even greater impact:

  1. Diversity in Expertise: Consider specifying the ideal skill sets or verticals for the professional members — e.g., growth marketing, tokenomics, ecosystem partnerships — to ensure well-rounded strategic coverage.
  2. Founder Pipeline Tracking: Since a key outcome is to support 20 aligned founders, it may help to embed clear metrics or a funnel framework (e.g., awareness, application, approval, support) for tracking their journey.
  3. Budget Flexibility Guardrails: While the veto power is strong, a clearer breakdown of what qualifies as “non-growth spend” may reduce future ambiguity.
  4. Community Feedback Loops: Aside from delegate vetoes, consider adding a formal mechanism (e.g., community Q&A sessions) to capture broader contributor feedback mid-cycle.

Overall, this is a well-architected proposal that balances speed, strategy, and decentralization. With minor refinements, the EGC can become a cornerstone of sustainable growth for the Scroll ecosystem.

17

Thanks for the continued comments and engagement all.

I think it’s reasonable to have this as a tenative roadmap. What I mean by this, and to @Chris_Areta’s common on whether the EGC can propose new growth ideas, I was imaging the council would get to propose new ideas or request a more specific RFI/RFP (the one we did was RFI on all things growth, the EGC could request one just on liquidity programs, as an example). Given that, I don’t want to impose a roadmap that might limit their ability to propose and move forward with the best ideas for the Scroll ecosystem. At the same time accountability and clarity are important, so we will include some kind of tentative roadmap.

We will add a set of initial KPIs and frequency of reporting (3 months, so twice during this initial budget, seems reasonable).

We can explore a mix of a survey and having a dedicated thread on the forum where people can share concerns publicly (though maybe we should have an anon option as well to make sure all are comfortable sharing).

I would recommend that we don’t include this at this point. Instead, I would push for committing to the fact that the next budget approval will also require the creation of a charter for the EGC that would outline all of the points you brought up.

The intention is for the council itself to align on any more specific focus, though I do think a review of a broader set of ideas could be a good use of energy. Part of the problem seems to be that we don’t have an idea that a larger group has conviction in (or at least that hasn’t been apparent if it is the case), so part of the goal is sourcing and reviewing as many ideas as possible.

The EGC is not expected to lead the programs that get approved. The EGC would be able to approve an idea and then source the people to manage it, or could approve a proposal that includes a proposed service provider. The council could also request that multiple service providers work together on a joint propsal (or work together post proposal).

Ideas can absolutely come from delegates or the wider community. A number of the initial RFI responses were from delegates and it would be great to have more ideas come from delegates once the EGC is formed. What kind of delineation are you imagining?

I don’t know if it makes sense for the EGC to run the grant program, though it’s not out of the realm of possibility. I see the more likely version being that the EGC reviews and approves an appropriate grant program, which is something I would personally be excited about. We just have to be mindful that many grant programs don’t lead to clearly positive outcomes, so it’s important to have a well thought out structure (and I know at least 2 of the RFI responses were about alternatives to traditional grant programs).

I hope that the Local Node programs will start having regional grant programs attached to them with time to support the founders emerging there.

Agreed, that’s the main concern we have with an election.

For sure. I think it would be great to see this emerge as part of / alongside the first funding programs.

Yes

Fair point, we will clarify this.

I was thinking 3 business days as a starting point. I think adopting the same cycle as onchain voting is too cumbersome. Let me know if you think we should extend this window.

Especially as we solidify the council structures throughout the rest of this year, we can explore tooling to help automate such transparency. I’m thinking of what HotCRP does for academic papers (you could set it so that once someone’s paper is reviewed, they get an automated email with certain parts of their review so that they know how they can improve. To start, including it in the forum post is reasonable.

Sorry, can you please clarify this?

Fair, I’ll remove it. Please call out if you want to see something like this in the final proposal.

Will review and adjust the structure.

Yes, this will be outlined in the actual job descriptions, which the Foundation team will generate once this proposal passes.

The hope is for the EGC to develop such frameworks and metrics, though some KPIs will be outlined in the proposal.

I think this should be outline more clearly in the future charter, not at this stage.

Will share a revised proposal soon

1 Like
18

Thanks for the great detailed responses as usual @eugene

Agreed. 3-5 days seems like a fair timeline. Either ways, we’re aligned that the voting period for off-chain votes should be less than that of on-chain votes. However, since this implies introducing a new voting procedure, wouldn’t this require a separate proposal?

Sorry if the original suggestion was not clear. We’re referring to “verified delegates”, i.e., the same category of delegates who are eligible to endorse / signal proposals are ready to go to a vote. Only verified delegates should also be eligible to request an offchain vote to confirm a veto.

19

Here is a revised version of the proposal. Let us know if you have any additional feedback. Thank you to everyone for the feedback and to the @SEEDGov team for sharing the Velora DAO proposal, which help frame some of the revisions.

Proposal Type: Growth

Summary

This proposal is meant to outline the first formal council in Scroll DAO, the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC). The EGC’s goal will be approve, oversee, and evaluate growth programs that can help the success and sustainability of the Scroll ecosystem.

The EGC will oversee a budget of 2m SCR from the DAO to allocate across relevant growth programs. Using a combination of an RFP and sourcing new ideas through the DAO, this council will be responsible for standing up Scroll DAO ecosystem growth efforts that are aligned with overall activities in the network, as well as the interests of token holders.

The Ecosystem Growth Council will be a 7 person council, with 2 members from the Foundation and 5 chosen members. Members can be either delegates or relevant professionals interested in a committed part-time project. The envisioned balance could be something like 3 delegates, 2 Foundation members, and 2 hired professionals. The council will be able to start operating once there are at least 3 chosen members identified.

EGC roles should be viewed as commitments that require approximately 10 hours per week. The proposal is intended to cover a 6 month window.

The expected outcome of the EGC is to have at least one focused ecosystem growth initiative in place by the end of August 2025, and in turn to support the goal of getting 20 highly aligned Scroll founders.

Motivation

We have had a few attempts at getting some kind of ecosystem growth effort off of the ground since we did our first Co-Creation Cycle at the end of 2024. While we get some quality high-level ideas, we have not been able to get a detailed proposal in this category that instills confidence in delegates.

As a result, we believe creating a dedicated council may be the best path forward. By combining a mix of delegates, growth professionals, and Foundation employees, this council would be well positioned to approved and oversee growth efforts that are aligned with Labs and Foundation.

We believe this process would help get the highest chance at a quality growth proposal.

Execution

Operational

Recruiting

The first step would focus on recruiting the council. This will happen as a transparent recruiting process managed by the governance team. A mix of forms and discourse will be used to receive applications.

Responsibilities

Once formed, the EGC would review the responses to the RFI . The EGC is also able to propose new ideas (need to be mindful of potential CoI if the EGC members include themselves in the execution team) and call for more ideas from delegates and the wider community.

The council members should also familiarize themselves with some research on the topic, including, but not limited to:

The overall set of responsibilities of council members will include:

  • Attending regular meeting (at least 2 team check ins per month)
  • Reviewing and responding to RFI responses
  • Approving growth proposals, ensuring there is the appropriate alignment and oversight in place
  • Reporting on the results of the council’s activities
  • Sourcing potential external collaborations

Here is an example of what a tentative timeline could look like:
Month 0: voting cycle, approval, recruiting process (assuming this is June 2025)
Month 1: council officially commences, reviews RFIs, reviews research
Month 2: scope additional RFIs/RFPs, review, provide feedback, refine
Month 3: begin making decisions about which growth programs to support (specific projects that can be considered on an ad hod basis), initial reporting, continue sourcing new ideas as appropriate
Months 4-5: depending on the volume and quality of ideas/proposals, the EGC could still continue the review and approval process, and/or can shift to working with the awarded initiative to maximize success.
Month 6: Final report, charter draft and review, extension or renewal

Approval / Multi-sig

The EGC would be able to use it’s budget to approve new growth initiatives. The council would need a 4/7 vote to pass any proposal that uses less than 25% of the total budget, and a 6/7 to pass any proposal that would use more than 25% of the budget.

After the first 6 months, the council will need to produce a charter that outlines it’s duties and relevant governance processes. This charter will be needed to request more budget or to extend it’s window of activity beyond the first 6 months if there is remaining budget.

Reporting

The EGC will be responsible for producing a report before the end of the 6 months to help a) evaluate the program, and b) help position if there should be an extension. There should be a 3-month check in as well, where an update is shared on the forum and in a community call.

Reporting should generally capture:

  • summaries of council actions (including info on the individual members decisions)
  • overviews of major decisions
  • share information on funded activities, outputs, and outcomes,
  • lessons learned

The EGC should track and report on data related to proposals that come in. This should include:

  • the total number of proposals received
  • the number of proposals that received feedback
  • the breakdown of approvals and rejections

Additionally, meeting notes from the meetings will be have notes made available for transparency purposes, within 3 business days of the meeting.

Veto & Offchain Vote

Once votes conclude, a 3 business day veto window kicks in once the decision and rationale are posted on the forum. During this time, delegates are able to call for a veto on a EGC decision if they see fit.

In the case where the EGC makes a vote that the delegates want to veto, delegates would comment on the relevant forum post (or create a new forum post) requesting an offchain vote to confirm a veto. At least 5 separate comments from delegates requesting the vote would be needed to initiate the veto. If that snapshot receives more than 50% voting for a veto, then the proposal is reworked and put forth to the EGC for a new vote. This can be done once. If that vote is vetoed again, then the proposal will not proceed.

The EGC can choose to review a proposal beyond that on an ad hoc basis and will need to share rationale after on the forum within 2 weeks.

Personnel & Resources

The 7 person committee would consist of:

  • 3-4 delegates
  • 1-2 professionals
  • 2 Foundation members, likely from the governance team

The EGC will be able to start operating once the 3 delegates are identified. The delegates will be selected either by the Foundation via a transparent recruiting process. Concurrently, applications will be reviewed for the professionals.

Financial

This proposal would include a total budget of 2m SCR from the DAO treasury. Of this, 380k would be reserved for overhead costs (labor, software / tooling, marketing, etc.).

If any of the 1.62m SCR is needed for anything besides a growth initiative, then EGC members can put forth a proposal that would require a 6/7 vote and would need to clear a 3 business day veto window (if there is at least 25% voting against this non-growth spend in the veto, then it does not pass).

Passing this proposal is not a commitment to spend these funds no matter what. If this proposal does pass, that means the EGC has up to these amounts to spends. Any funds not used will be returned to the DAO treasury.

Evaluation

The primary goal for this council is to put an ecosystem growth initiative in place. As such, the primary outcomes will be the creation of the initial initiatives and any relevant metrics that emerge from that initiative. It’s important to recognize that a 6 month timeline may be a challenging one to recruit the council, review programs, approve at least one initiative, and oversee the initiative as it gets going. As a result, there will be limited available data on the impacts of the funded initiative itself, so the success of the council in the first 6 months will center on the operations and transparency.

Other aspects for evaluation include:

  • Has the EGC been hosting regular meetings (at least 2 per month)?
  • Do all meetings have public notes shared within 3 business days?
  • Is there a 6-month report?
  • Have all proposals been reviewed and given feedback?
  • How many proposals have been approved?
  • Were any vetos triggered?
  • Were any triggered vetos resolved?

Conclusion

This proposal puts forth the idea of forming an Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC) with a budget of 2m SCR (up to 380k for overhead and marketing, and no less than 1.62m set aside for growth proposals. This council would be require a commitment of at roughly 10 hours per week for 6 months. The EGC would have the ability to review and approve or reject proposals directly without requiring a full DAO vote, though their decisions could be veto’ed by the DAO.

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