Background

The seasonal funding process started in Season 1, and has slowly evolved over time. In its current form, the process is largely governed by the Grants Committee as per Section 7.1 of our Constitution.

Overview

The process looks like this from a high-level:

  1. Timeline - The current season specification on Snapshot will provide milestone dates for the season in the Operational Timeline, which includes when seasonal grant requests should be posted to the forum, Snapshot, etc.
  2. Posting Period - Departments/Guilds/Projects use the grant templates that are pinned on our forum to post their seasonal grant requests to the forum for review
  3. Review Period - Grants Committee assigns reviewers to each proposal who vet the proposal and the group, and decide whether or not to include the proposal in the seasonal funding Snapshot
    1. This will involve back-and-forth between the DAO unit and the Grant Reviewer to ask questions and agree upon KPIs (see: KPI Process)
  4. Seasonal Grant Proposal - Grants Committee will draft a seasonal funding Snapshot proposal to get DAO consensus on seasonal funding.
  5. Seasonal Grant Disbursement - Assuming the Snapshot proposal passes, the BanklessDAO Vault Multisig disburses the full amount to the GC, who then disburses grant funds as appropriate
    1. Note that only 50% of Project funds are disbursed up-front. The other 50% are disbursed mid-season if projects are up-to-date in reporting KPIs

Step-By-Step Process

  1. At the beginning of the season, Grants Committee checks the Operational Timeline dates in the current season’s seasonal spec on Snapshot, and creates tasks with due dates corresponding to the dates in the spec to help them remember when important dates are coming
  2. One week before the Posting Period starts, post an announcement in #announcements which…
    1. Reminds the community about the upcoming round
    2. Links to the funding templates (for Depts/Guilds/Projects)
    3. Reminds DAO units to include a poll in their proposal
  3. On the day the Posting Period starts, post an announcement similar to the above announcement
  4. During the Posting Period, GC members should feel free to start commenting and asking questions on the proposals themselves
  5. After the Posting Period ends, Grants Committee should create a spreadsheet to track all of the seasonal grant requests
    1. GC Leads should assign projects to reviewers in this spreadsheet
    2. post an announcement in #announcements which shares the spreadsheet with the DAO and encourages them to double-check it (turn on commenting, but NOT editing)
  6. During the Review Period, GC Reviewers will review proposals assigned to them (and others, if they wish). See “How to Review Grants Proposals” below for more details.
    1. Feel free to use our forum, Discord, or voice chats with contributors to vet their proposals
    2. Whether or a not a proposal is “approved” should be recorded in the spreadsheet
    3. Proposals who are not approved are free to go through the regular grant process (i.e. get forum consensus, then come to GC for a vote).
  7. After the Review Period, GC Leads will create a draft Seasonal Grant proposal for seasonal funding, and have it reviewed by the rest of the GC
    1. The more people who review the better, so feel free to share with more than just the Grants Committee
  8. The BanklessDAO Vault Multisig posts the Seasonal Grant Proposal to Snapshot for DAO consensus
    1. Post an announcement in #announcements to inform the DAO of this Snapshot proposal
  9. Assuming the Seasonal Grant Proposal passes, BanklessDAO Vault Multisig disburses the total amount to the Grants Committee
  10. The Grants Committee sends Departments and Guilds 100% of their seasonal funds, and sends Projects 50% of their seasonal funds as a Seasonal Grant Disbursement
    1. The next GC cohort will send the remaining 50% to projects after the report on their KPIs
    2. Post an announcement in #announcements to keep DAO units informed