[DAO:c7f8a3b] Renewal Grant Support Squad H1 2024

Governance
1

by 0xe6af22b8fd4a2fdfec9a0b18c6be9683882d70e6 (Yararasita)

Should the following $94,250 grant in the Core Unit category be approved?

Abstract

Since June 2022, the Squad had worked with more than 190 grantees. We onboard them and provide support along the way. Currently, we are providing support and monitoring for 40 active grants. The team participated in governance processes updating the grants program, developed a grants landing page, published articles to showcase grants, provided transparency in public roadmaps, launched initiatives such as Testing Sessions, sent welcome kits to strengthen Decentraland brand awareness, and published a Manual of Operations of our work. We have also created a Revocations Committee, and so far we have recovered $448.949 DAI since this squad was created, flagging grants that were not delivering as expected and projects that returned funds.

Grant size

94,250 USD in DAI

Project duration

5 months

Beneficiary address

0x658497d7681e4Fb18C65AbD5Ce066A1e3082c1e5

Email address

gia@decentraland.org

Description

The Grant Support Squad has been active and working under 3 main goals:

For supporting grantees these last 6 months we have onboarded 100% of the grantees that entered the Grants Program at Decentraland, to provide them with crucial information, while providing more than 115 hours of support per month, we have shipped more than 45 onboarding kits as a warm welcome, and to raise brand awareness. Since the squad was created, we have solved more than 128 problems/requests to lead grants to success. So far, we have also produced 20 articles, published in the Decentraland Blog about the work our grantees are doing. More recently, in March 2023 we have launched the Testing Tuesday Initiative, to give the grantees a space to demo their projects and get feedback from the community. So far we have hosted 27 Testing sessions.

For fostering transparency & accountability, we have launched Public Roadmaps, to make a follow up on grants milestones and impact metrics to 100% of the projects (Grants Framework implemented in 2023). With the spirit of making our processes open, we have also documented our processes on a Grant Support Squad’s manual of operations in a public Notion Page. We are proud of having built a grants program with community input, with 16 step-by-step guides on each of these activities to provide transparency about our work.

For taking care of DAO Treasury, and since the creation of the Revocations Committee on May 2023, 25 cases have been generated, 8 were elevated to the Revocations Committee, contributing to the recovery of $355699 DAI, added to $39750 that our team has recovered from uncomplete grants that voluntarily refunded money to the DAO following our advise, without passing through the Revocations Committee. This sums up a total of $395449 that we helped recover over our last grant and a total of $448.949 DAI since this squad was created.

On October 2023, we have also made public the concerns from grantees that arrive from Formal Requests Public, to provide transparency on the concerns raised, make the status of the process clear, and arguments on both sides.

And to make overall updates and changes to the grants program, we have published 11 governance proposals, and have done 9 pull requests made into doc.decentraland.org to update the Grants Program documentation. We have written security recommendations, and a sensitive data handling policy.

Even though it’s been very challenging, we have enjoyed this adventure so far, and we’d love to continue improving our grants program not only with the grantees, but with the broader Decentraland systems, listening to the grantees and applying ongoing changes to better serve Decentraland’s sustainable growth. Proposal on next steps are listed in the Roadmap and Milestones section below.

Here you can see our financial report (June to November 2023)

Roadmap and milestones

Support Grant Projects:

  • Periodic Follow-up with grantees to identify problems and requests, audit the grant projects with onboardings, updating roadmaps, monthly calls and facilitating contacts.
  • Analyze problems and requests, identify and solve them.
  • Ensure the accessibility of information about the grants program by updating the Landing Page, and promoting grants work on blogposts.

Foster Transparency and accountability:

  • Write a status update monthly on grantees public roadmap, and provide spaces to share their work and gather feedback with Testing Sessions and Townhalls.
  • Provide information about the accountability of grants, by publishing concerns raised, and analyzing the cases.
  • Update our manual of operations.

Take care of DAO Grants Treasury

  • Elevate cases to the Revocations Committee provide support with meetings, advice, and contacts.
  • Report on funds recovered.
  • Collaborate with bidding and tendering process

During the last 6 months, we have gathered feedback and we’d like to implement for this renewal:

  • Implement a promotion request button in the Grants Landing Page, as it was one of the most common requests from grantees the last 6 months.
  • Continue shipping welcome kits as part of our initiative of last renewal. Once they are all shipped, we will apply for a side-grant to provide this if the community finds it valuable.
  • Create a Board of Advisors o evaluate more objectively the feasibility and health of technical projects.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2

As for the impact metrics for this grant proposal:

Support Grant Projects

  • % onboarded grantees

  • % roadmaps updated per month

  • N° hs supporting grantees

  • N° blockers/requests identified & solved

  • N° articles produced

  • N° changes in the Grants Landing & monthly visitors

Foster Transparency & Accountability

  • % grantees with a public roadmap created & updated to make process transparent

  • N° Testing Sessions held

  • N° attendees to Testing sessions

  • N° Grantees showcased on Town Halls

  • N° concerns received & published for transparency and accountability purposes

  • N° concerns analyzed

  • N° New processes documented in the Manual of Operations

  • N° Updates from open source grants by forking them to the DAO Grants Github REPO -

Preserve of the DAO Grants Treasury

  • N° cases elevated to Revocations Committee

  • N° hs supporting the Revocations Committee

  • N° cases revoked / resumed

  • $ recovered to the DAO treasury

Make a better grants program

  • N° governance proposals published to adapt grants program to community needs

  • N° onboarding kits sent

  • N° pull requests made into Decentraland docs

  • The creation of an Advisors Repository

3

is there a budget breakdown? also how many grants has gss received and whats the total price of those grants?

2 Likes
4

Hi @dogman! You can open the Budget Breakdown on the proposal, and you can check out our open Financial Report on the description, as it is what we report once payments have been done, which includes a detail of each payment executed. Bare in mind that we are still missing November payments, as we are still working on the last month of the ongoing grant.

As of the grants received, first was on May 2022 with a total of $84,000, Second was on November 2022 with a total of $103,200, third was on May 2023 for a total of $114,600 and this would be the fourth.

5

can we get a breakdown of salary per team member per year? thanks

3 Likes
7

@Peanutbutta I think you’re mistaken… 365 hours/month*5 months= 1825 working hours. $90,247/1825= $49,45/hour :thinking:

8

doesnt this breakdown suggest the team is working 12 hours a day every day?

1 Like
9

I don’t want to vote for a squad that has done nothing more then stall for a month my very own project, while they could easily verify every doubt they had. This case made me wonder is there anyone on the squad that has knowledge about Decentraland itself, leading to these questions?

Which member here was online on decentraland before getting hired?
Which member here goes besides their working hours online on decentraland?
Which member has contributed by releasing a wearable, before being hired?
Which member has created something in Decentraland or contributed to Decentraland through livestreams?

If the GSS isn’t here to become community members, how can we verify the GSS believes that Decentraland is worth as a project. Are the people from the GSS only here to work and earn a salary?

Its time we hire people that understand Decentraland, someone that also understand SDK7, or when they test something they can atleast verify if it is working or not.

Also I believe that the GSS has onboarded 0 of the amount that you mention, most of us were already here and didn’t only come when we had an active grant unlike you.

Lets not forget the fact that you people are grantees aswell and dont hold the power to pause projects, but interestingly enough whenever the gss comments for a pause the DAO comittee always enacts it.
This is equal to centralizing the DAO, if you have doubts about a grant or received formal request that you want to send to the RC why not start a community proposal instead of dictating the outcome with just a comment.

In your previous grant the GSS mentioned a traveling budget, where did you guys go to, Zino mentioned going to USA to a musical concert.
What knowledge did he bring back from this experience?
Which conferences did you attend at?
What knowledge did you bring back from traveling around the world to the DAO?

Why didn’t we receive an update on this?
Where did this money go to?

117fa4d54c8775130e4f9bbf3c1b55aa
117fa4d54c8775130e4f9bbf3c1b55aa777Ă—129 5.69 KB

.

Impossible I believe the GSS is not active during the weekend which they admitted, they believe this is their only job. They aren’t here to be community members so even replieng on a weekend or outside their work schedule on discord would be considered as work.

Is the GSS taking the budget breakdown serious, putting 1$ everywhere just to include it, and making the hours the GSS works very vague?

735daa6f736a7b1657d84a7443e93d8b
735daa6f736a7b1657d84a7443e93d8b770Ă—293 14.2 KB

3 Likes
10

I am going to vote no and I think people should think twice before voting yes on such a expensive proposal. The GSS requested also for a traveling budget can we have an inside of where you guys are going to travel and why?

I feel like you guys put those cases to the revocation community at the last second to benefit your own proposal (this current proposal)

This is not a great achievement at all the money you guys have “recovered” is going back into your pockets, looks like the gss just revokes or attempts to revoke innocent grantees just to make your grant look worthy and cash out what you helped "“recover”.

All the grants you asked + this one together summed up.
94250 + 103200 + 114600 + 84000 = $396050

3 Likes
11

@yararasita @Zino Can we get a breakdown of salary per team member for this proposal?

image
image1020Ă—201 41.6 KB

You guys all live in Argentina and all you guys do is have zoom calls for 15-20mins per grantee. There are big language barriers and you guys are getting paid more than people in New York. Please explain how this makes sense? Why is the salary so high? There is no extra experience you all bring to the table. We would like to see a lower budget and a diversity in your team, especially more members from DCL the community.

1 Like
12

Crazy the timing of this proposal after going threw miscommunication between grantee and grant support squad. There was no communication before pausing my grant. For this amount a money, you would think a dm message or something. I was 100% not onbaorded by the GSS been here before this even exsisted.
There is a huge disconnect between grantee and all the members of the GSS. Only fifi was present through all the meetings, and seemed to be more on the supportive side of communciation, other then that i have not heard from the others during the problems i had during my process. Theres still lack of communication just redirecting me to someone else. Thats alot of money being spent when you dont even feel supported and its called the grant “support” squad. I can attest as a grantee that this was not a pleasent experience. I have so many questions and need to gather them together, I will be back.

2 Likes
13

**questions. So i can make a vote on this proposal. **

1. What specific steps do you as the GSS take to stay updated with the latest trends and developments IN WORLD in the grants funded besides monthly meetings ?

2. How do you prioritize and manage multiple grants or projects simultaneously while maintaining high-quality standards and making sure all grantees are getting the support they need?
****3. Can you describe the strategies you use in order to support grantees ? What are some of the tools you are using to help make the process easier for us to SUCCEED besides notion ****
4. How do you build and maintain strong relationships with grantees and help the project reach its benchmarks ?
****5. * How will the grant support team communicate with applicants and grantees throughout the process?

  • What resources or guidance will be provided to help applicants and grantees understand and meet the requirements? ****
    6. How do you evaluate the fillout forms for concerns on grants ? and how do you know the differences between trolling and real complaints ?
    ****7. What techniques do you use to help grantees to avoid toxic behavior and help protect grantees from attacks ? ****

8. when will GSS start attending IN WORLD events and are envolved in the activities to the grantees to provide the accurate support ?

**last question is sending grants to revocation, helps your grant look better because its looks like you are saving the DAO funds ? ****
not sure why these numbers needed to be added to your proposal if the goal is to support grantees succeed.

2 Likes
14

does becoming a grantee as the gss give you immunity in your case being sent to the RC.
Shouldn’t your previous grant be paused during the “notification”, this case was sent 18 september and the gss stalled the process by sending request that were submitted to the rc before yours was

IMG_3427
IMG_34271170Ă—2532 227 KB

2 Likes
15

Hi @dogman @InJesterr , @didiimakiii and @MetaTrekkers,

What the DAO has invested in, is a team that has designed a program that can be flexible enough to be able to apply changes as fast as our governance structure lets us, and that with time can depend less and less on a squad. The role of supporting and checking accountability of the grantees in a system that often fails in how it selects projects is truly exhausting, and we always act with the highest of responsibility to make changes, processes and mechanisms that mitigate that.

The program we have is far from perfect, and even though there is a lot of work to do, we are really proud of the processes and program changes we have done in only a year and a half to contribute to a program that serves the community of creators. Because we are deciding to spend most of our daily life here, contributing to this community, to this program, because we believe in decentralized protocols, in building virtual communities and experiences, and in economies of creators.

The travel budget was not used these last 6 months, that is one of the main reasons why we have remaining budget from the current grant to be used in the following. When we do, we always report on our learnings, as we have done in the past like DevCon on our first grant, or Eth Denver for the second.

Regarding what @didiimakii brings, posting that “this is not a great achievement at all the money you guys have “recovered” is going back into your pockets”, the money doesn’t go to our pockets, it returns to the DAO treasury. And even though as you are mentioning that our grants have cost (and if this one passes!) $396050 to the DAO, we did help recover $448.949 and our grant has basically paid itself, We have always been clear that our goal is to actually reduce those numbers. to @MetaTrekkers the breakdown salary per team member for this proposal is Yararasita: $ 17.500, Pablo: $24,750, Zino: $27,000, and Fifi: $ 21,000. And to respond to @dogman, we do not have a breakdown salary per year, as our grant is renewed every six months and it does not match a calendar year. Nevertheless, here is a breakdown for the grants per person so far:

Grant 1: Yararasita: $16,200, Pablo: $24,000, Zino: $ 21,600.
Grant 2: Yararasita: $24,000, Pablo: $24,000, Zino: 28,800, Fifi (2 months): $6600.
Grant 3: Yararasita: $24,000, Pablo: $24,000, Zino: $ 28,800, Fifi: 19,800.00.

I’d like to invite you to this Thursday’s Townhall, where we are presenting our 6-month grants program analysis, which we always do as a closure of our grant, to bring insights to the community on where the program is, and how it has changed along the way.

Have a good one,

Y

16

Please dont lump me in with everyone. I asked a simple yes or no question and did not get an answer. Does the GSS actually claim to be working 12 hours a day every day? I also agree w @didiimakiii and @InJesterr that the claim that you have saved the dao X amount of dollars is misleading due to the simple fact that yall serve little to no part in the revocation process. You rely on community members to submit the requests and gather all the evidence/info and the revocation squad to analyze those requests. Correct me if Im wrong but the only thing the GSS does is act as an intermediary, a far cry from “Saving the dao x dollars” Id ask what did you do to recover those funds besides read reports and retype them?

7 Likes
17

Cant find the place in my schedule for thursday, feel free to elaborate your answers on my question in the forums.

18

Wow, @MetaTrekkers “good information” I need to look into opening up a 40-man debt collection office in Argentina. :rofl: all jokes aside, now I question the founders’ and foundation team, intent in building this virtual world and initiating the coin offer.

1 Like
19

Hi @Serenaelis. I’m so sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience as a grantee during the last weeks, and I can imagine that many members who’ve gone through the revocation process might share your feelings based on the tone of their comments in the proposal. The Revocation Process involves financial matters and formal procedures, which can make it challenging. Even though we can offer more opportunities and notifications, it’s difficult to entirely prevent anyone from feeling uneasy, especially when money is involved.

I want to thank you for mentioning my work to support you these months, but in reality, we’ve always functioned as a team. Every month, we collectively review all the grants status, and every week, we exchange thoughts regarding the challenges presented by every grantee. This activities are key to build collective knowledge and support you better. For instance, when you presented your 13-page proposal, it was Pablo who reviewed your project and created a more straightforward roadmap for you, and Zino was the one who designed an Excel template to help you present your metrics and goals to the community more effectively.

I truly empathize with your feelings about the pause in your project. We’ve had many conversations since the formal request against your grant began in August, and we’ve dedicated two months of back and forth communications helping you prepare all the necessary evidence and metrics.
However, to ensure fairness to all grantees, it’s not within our authority to decide the outcome. That decision rests with the Revocation Committee. I’m still hopeful that they will recognize the value of your outstanding work.
I will return soon with answers to your questions. Thanks.

20

Hey! I saw your first, but missed your second question, and the straight answer is no. We work as a team at least 18 hs a day, and I can tell you we have worked way beyond what our proposals states, mostly because besides what it is in our roadmap, a lot of time extra is spent in gathering with community members, stakeholders and discord conversations to try to understand where and when to propose changes.

Regarding revocations, I am sorry to tell you that we do way more than read reports and retype them. We first review the proposal in detail, reading it word by word to understand the grantee’s intentions and objectives. We apply the same meticulous approach to the concerns submitted by the community, differentiating between subjective and objective arguments.

Our analysis begins with thoroughly examining the provided information, assessing if it aligns with the framework and requirements of the Grants program. This includes the evidence provided, searching the correct metrics, going through the different pages provided by the grantee, such as social media accounts, spreadsheets, Google Docs, and checking if it is correct or is a manipulation of the information. Also, comparing their goals, their current metrics, their last updates and a back and forth with the grantee to reply to the concerns with updated information.

Last but not least, we contact experts in determined fields for crosschecking information. For example, in Decentraland X case, we received two reports from different experts with an extended analysis. Subsequently, we draw our conclusions regarding the reviewed topic, including whether it is feasible to forward the case to the Revocations Committee or not.
This process was established was put in place in response to the community’s desire for an impartial third party to review our assessments. It ensures that decisions regarding grant revocations are not made unilaterally, reducing the concentration of centralized power and promoting open discussion and transparency, such as is happening.

It is a fact that we don’t “recover” funds directly, and that’s why we state it as we help recover it. This grant only, we have spent more than 85 hours analyzing cases and providing support on revocations. However, according to the procedure that we have today, we make the first analysis to dismiss or not a case, which mitigates a lot of toxicity and pressure to the grantees because they receive attacks all the time. But, those cases that we sent to the Revocations Committee have enough information and reason to, at least, be reviewed for a third party not involved in the process who will have a better, well-informed decision with arguments of the community represented in us and the Grantee and in some occasions a report of another professional like a tester.

21

can you explain to me in simple terms how the GSS is “reducing the concentration of centralized power and promoting open discussion and transparency, such as is happening.” when it is the only entity that has the power to push things to the revocation committee? That seems like an extremely centralized process. Speaking from personal experience the evidence posted on the forum is directly copied and pasted from the revocation forms. (can name several examples of this but the first that comes to mind is the biennale where in the revocation referral the forum post used the exact same screenshots and wording submitted by me as evidence.) Personally I do not feel this merits ~500k over 2 years for the team. Your example of Decentraland X is interesting. If you have reports from 2 different experts what is stopping the revocation committee from reviewing those directly? If these are the best examples of the more than $400k already received by this team, I have a hard time understanding why the dao should pay another 100k out

4 Likes