[DAO:c7f8a3b] Renewal Grant Support Squad H1 2024

[Shiny]

Although I think grant support squad is needed, I will be voting no on this proposal, because there are many redundant expenses in your budget.

Travel expenses, advisors, operational expenses (which includes shippings), way too high salaries. This squad is becoming a joke, you need revocation comittee to decide if grant needs to be revoked, now you also neeed advisors to help understand health of projects, so what are you doing that you think you deserve such a high salary when you are delegating the most important and valuable tasks to other people?

Also I am not a fan that you spent money and your time on sending out onboarding kits during previous grant.

About problems and requests,

@dao

we have solved more than 128 problems/requests

please add here a full list of them, I would like to see if they are something that can’t be solved by simply asking a question in DAO/DCL Discord.

[InJesterr]

I think its important to give yourself not too much unnecessary work all the gss needs to do in my opinion are a handful of tasks.

• give a welcome and handful tips to new grantees
• monthly meet-up verify roadmaps.
• review formal requests for the RC.
• doing testings max once a week.
• be able to answer grant related questions.

this can be done 6 hours per day, weekends off. by max 2 squad members. for 2000$ a month with a contract vesting for 48,000$ a year for the 2 squad members.

you will reach 30 hours per week, per member & with a pretty decent salary of 2,000 dollars per month.

If you don’t think you are able to do reach this, I think its wise to assemble a new GSS that is able to do this.

[ArtReYou]

So in fact, that there is no answer on your basic question, this is a big RED FLAG for me. Im voting NO

[Tudamoon]

Pros

1. They give weekly updates on what they are doing for the week.
2. They shipped out onboarding kits to grantees which is a nice gesture.
3. Produced 20 Articles regarding grantees.
4. Answering the Formal Requests and “solving” more than 128 of them.

Cons

1. This is a poorly constructed proposal. I think this is clear, that they cannot formulate a good proposal, therefore are lacking the knowledge base to be able to make decisions regarding whether to move a grant to Revocations Committee.
2. They have become the middle man / proxy choosing whether or NOT to send grants to the revocations committee or not. They took on that responsibility outside of what the DAO voted. This has been extremely inefficient and damaging to the DAO. Multiple Complaints were submitted to them and the delayed the process to sending it over to the Revocations Committee.
3. The comments made on Notion look very poor and lacks in-depth analysis. In my opinion, it looks careless.

4. We provide them circumstantial evidence in our formal requests and it appears they do NOT look into gathering real evidence on the notion. This misleads the grantee to believe they are doing well. Then when they get multiple complaints, they dont have any evidence supporting or negating the complaints because they have not gathered enough evidence prior to. They should be there gathering evidence and seeing where they are on all parts of the grant. Instead they follow up with the grantee after the formal complaint is made. They essentially aren’t being pro-active, they are being reactive.
   

   

5. They gave the grantees welcome kits, but how does that support them? Shouldn’t they be giving guidance on how to fulfill their grant better and making sure they are meeting their own grant requirements? Why arent they asking for more in detail information from the grantees so they have a better understanding of what the grantees are doing.

6. They don’t look to hard into the updates. There has been a few updates which I had to question the status of because what was promised on the grants did not equal what the first update mentioned.

7. The fact they had 128 formal problems/requests shows they are NOT effectively fulfilling their duties in supporting the grantees. These formal requests should not have gotten this far. Advice offering and keeping a good line of communication between the grantees and GSS is what this should be. But the communication is poor. We have a Support Squad that is just an alphabet agency in name. Not enough support is being given to ensure that these grantees are fulfilling their promises to the DAO.

8. They made a process for Revocations that they are not following due to it being poorly written.

Conclusion
They have more cons than pros. They have been ineffective in their ability to support grantees in being successful due to the lack of communication or information requested. They have constructed this poorly written proposal and they also constructed poorly written Revocation Process (which they don’t follow because it was written horribly). They mislead grantees into believing they are doing a good job. Instead they should be asking for information relating to the grant to better support them. This is why I am inclined to vote against this proposal.

[Unknower]

As a grantee I will say that working with the Grant Support Squad was pleasant. For me sometimes it helps to feel a sense of urgency around a deadline and my monthly meetings with the GSS gave me a little extra motivation to put in the work to complete deliverables in time to present my updates to the GSS.

That said, my intent was to go above and beyond the scope of my grant proposal even if I ended up missing deadlines along the way, so I’m not sure if my own experience is a good measure of how much value the GSS as a whole is providing.

It does seem like the existence of the GSS has helped recover some funds from projects where the intent to deliver was questionable. From a budgeting perspective, if the DAO recovers more funds by having the GSS than it costs to have the GSS, that seems like an obvious win. I’m not sure what the actual numbers are in that regard, and haven’t read through all of the above discussion yet, but I’m sure someone else has already done a cost/benefit analysis.

Even if the GSS is operating at a slight cost to the DAO, I think it’s worth considering the possibility that the existence of the GSS serves as a deterrent to people using the grant program to line their pockets without being held accountable. There is no way to measure how many funds were never drained from the DAO because they were discouraged from being submitted in the first place. This unknown variable is impossible to quantify.

Overall I think the GSS does provide value to the DAO and we should lean towards renewing it for now as we continue to collect data on its efficacy. I’m personally opposed to creating oversight committees for every problem that pops up, but I think in this case the GSS is part of an important system of checks and balances against frivolous or retaliatory revocation requests from the community, as well as the possibility of corruption or hostile takeovers of the GRC.

[InJesterr]

@Unknower

if the DAO recovers more funds by having the GSS than it costs to have the GSS, that seems like an obvious win.

which is why they send 4 grants to the rc just before they were going to reapply, they did this to show a higher number as an achievement on revoked funds so we will think thats its worth in having them. Keep in mind that most of these cases could have been easily solved by them selves by a simple fact check.

keep in mind that they deliberaty handpicked cases that had public beef in the dao chat, other then these they have sent none to the rc and kept them protected.

[Unknower]

which is why they send 4 grants to the rc just before they were going to reapply, they did this to show a higher number as an achievement on revoked funds so we will think thats its worth in having them. Keep in mind that most of these cases could have been easily solved by them selves by a simple fact check.

Sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory. If they had legitimate concerns about those grants, they’re obviously not going to wait for this proposal to pass. If it fails to pass, the GSS goes away, and their concerns go unaddressed.

keep in mind that they deliberaty handpicked cases that had public beef in the dao chat, other then these they have sent none to the rc and kept them protected.

If the GSS ignored the cases that the community showed concern over, wouldn’t that be a problem too? Can’t really have it both ways. Some people seem happy to donate their time to the volunteer accountability squad, but that’s not a fault of the GSS.

If you really think about it, what would motivate people to donate their time like that? Maybe someone’s grant doesn’t pass, so they feel the need to prove the community wrong for voting against them. Maybe by combing through grants looking for something problematic, they get to imply two things at once - that the community should have passed their grant instead, and that the DAO should be paying them instead of the GSS.

[Zino]

We would like to address some points related to our proposal that may have caused confusion or misunderstanding.

The DAO Grants Program has existed for nearly two years. During this time, we recognize that the community had concerns about fund allocation, expenditure transparency, and the return on investment (ROI) of funded projects. Thanks to our task force’s dedicated efforts, we have provided the community with valuable insights and objective information.

Here are some key highlights of our work:

Allocated Funds: Since creating the Grants Program, the DAO has allocated $12,639,888 to grants.
Recovered Funds: We successfully recovered $448,949 from projects that did not fulfill their promises, either through recommendations to the Revocations Committee, refunds initiated by the grantee, or direct revocations through the old process that the DAO has. This ensures responsible fund management and accountability.
Grants Finished: We walked through with more than 145 grantees, representing $8,977,404 of the allocated funds, allowing the DAO to gather valuable insights from each project’s journey. Also, under the New Grants Framework (2023), we implemented the question requiring impact metrics that were delivered on their proposals, and now the DAO can measure the projects’ ROI for the first time.
Active Grants: Currently, there are 33 active grants totaling $2,474,104. These grants will conclude between November 2023 and August 2024. The Grant Support Squad will closely monitor these projects, identifying any concerns or assisting in addressing blockers. This oversight is a responsible use of DAO resources, accounting for just 3.8% ($94,250 funds we request) of the allocated funds of the active grants or 0.75% of the total funds allocated.

It’s important to note that the task force’s efforts not only cost the DAO $301,800 but also led to the recovery of $448,949, effectively costing the DAO nothing. Additionally, the investment in the Grant Support Squad, at 3.8% of the allocated funds of the active grants, is a prudent measure to safeguard the DAO Treasury and ensure project success.

Regarding the comments of @InJesterr @MetaTrekkers @serena . Thank you for your input. There is a conflict of interest in your votes as your grants were revoked or paused, based on solid objective arguments and determined by the Revocations Committee. We understand your frustration, and we hope you can be constructive in your comments and questions. For the ones posted, you have been read by our team, and we’ll respond accordingly.

Kind regards.

[InJesterr]

@Zino

Regarding the comments of @InJesterr @MetaTrekkers @serena . Thank you for your input. There is a conflict of interest in your votes as your grants were revoked or paused, based on solid objective arguments and determined by the Revocations Committee.

Oke you can label us all you want what about these people that vote no?

So what I get from this is all our questions are invalid and deserve no answers just because you see us as the problem and not the fact the gss is trying to drain 100k once again

Just like you said to me i’m here to take care of the treasury, guess what me too!

I will have to quote this once again.

@InJesterr

I think its important to give yourself not too much unnecessary work all the gss needs to do in my opinion are a handful of tasks.

• give a welcome and handful tips to new grantees
• monthly meet-up verify roadmaps.
• review formal requests for the RC.
• doing testings max once a week.
• be able to answer grant related questions.

this can be done 6 hours per day, weekends off. by max 2 squad members. for 2000$ a month with a contract vesting for 48,000$ a year for the 2 squad members.

you will reach 30 hours per week, per member & with a pretty decent salary of 2,000 dollars per month.

If you don’t think you are able to do reach this, I think its wise to assemble a new GSS that is able to do this.

[TheGoldGuy]

The current trend in voting seems to be leading towards unemployment for many; perhaps @eordano might consider personally financing them. It appears that the grant support squad may be causing more issues for the community than they’re resolving.

[serena]

Hi Zino,

I would like to clarify there is no conflict of interest. I dont want to be put in a group, i have my own thoughts about this.
First, not sure what gives you the right to pause grants, but besides that. The right thing to do would have been to communicate beforehand. We have a whole community here that attends events, logs in, and spends a good amount of time in Decentraland on a regular basis. The right thing to do should have been to comminucate that so i can at least let the community know, been hosting weekly events for years now. Most of the questions you had asked have already been answered as well, so it just cam across like you didnt already have the information you needed. Im not sure if it was a lack of reserch on your part. I dont want to make this about my project.

There 100% needs to be a better line of communication with the grantees, at least pretend that you care about the projects and show interest. There are alot of concerns I have, Grant support squad should be analyzing, sure with monthly meetings but also logging in and attending events, and have a good amount of knowledge on the depths of the projects in whatever category there in so you can provide the accurate information and be able to asist with the success of grants. Getting involved. In my personal opinion, GSS should be handed to active community members.

I have nothing against you or GSS, im just going based off the value of this proposal. Its not matching up to what i have witnessed and experienced. Without my vote you still have around 7.8 million NO.

Concerns

• Lack of Communication
• Lack of involvement in World / Game
• Budget of the proposal

[mazafaka]

GM GSS, GN GSS. Its about a time to find a real job.

[yararasita]

Hi everyone,

Here I’d like to bring to this discussion the 6-month Grants Program Analysis, which we do at the end of every grant, that was published in our last Townhall this Thursday. This presentation includes:

• Impact metrics from the grants program to Decentraland: For the first time since the framework changed and we started asking for KPIs per category, we are presenting the overall of those impacts. Even though only 9 projects have ended since then, we are excited to be able to have a common baseline to analyze investment over impact.
• impact metrics from the GSS: Which are included in this renewal.
• Feedback from the grantees: When a grant finished, the grantees are asked what they have learnt, what changed from their initial proposal, what helped them thrive, and how can we make a better grants program. We present here the most common ones. We bring up the most common.
• 5 learnings from this grant: Every 6 months analysis provide learnings, and help build our next roadmap based on implementations needed.

Here you can find the link on the slides, and here is the video of the presentation done in the TownHall. Please bare in mind that these numbers will be updated including November on our last update of our grant in the current Grants Support Squad Grant Proposal.

Hope this contribution on our work helps illustrate more on our commitment on making a better grants program, and nurtures this conversation,

[MetaTrekkers]

Hi @yararasita and @Zino The community has spoken, the grant renewal is too “ expensive “ please lower the cost by half or resign. We are in a bear market, barely any grants are even getting passed, we don’t need all those hours as before. We need to start being more cautious of grant funds, lead by example, just how you guys have asked of others.Thanks

[HPrivakos]

Sorry, that’s just so funny

[mazafaka]

Excuse me for the off topic. I would like to join the CartL, so @MetaTrekkers @LandlordDao @RobL, any requirements?

[HowieDoin]

Abstaining, as I would like to see this initiative annualized I think 5 months is too short to be coming back and deciding over and over again causing voter fatiugue. A few thoughts from my end…

• Salary should be decided independent of the location of the squad member, the jurisdiction is “Decentraland”, not Argentina or the US. The payment should be for a scope of work that’s well defined.
• Value should be assessed by each voter here based on cost benefit analysis. The GSS recovers funds from fraudulent grants, as well as non performant ones, which returns value back to the DAO. They also accelerate through project management. Source: I have had my own grants accelerated through the help of the GSS.
• I do not believe it is prudent to move forward without any checks and balances to the grant program, as we’ll find ourselves in a tradgedy-of-the-commons situation with the remainder of the DAO being drained by those with the most VP and the least integrity.

I would also entertain the discussion of any DAO role in native currency (mana) than the currency of a
“foreign nation” to better align incentives. If mana goes to 0, there won’t be a lot of need for grant support. If mana moons, the folks directly contributing to the success of the ecosystem are rewarded in kind.

[Canessa]

Since the position of a DAO Grant Support Squad is relatively new, there isn’t much historical data to reference what an average wage should be across the industry. Here are average wages in the United States for other careers according to Glassdoor. These are starting wages.

($90,247/4= $22,561.75/5 (5 months) =$4,512.35/month * 12 months/year = annual salary of $54,148)

Doctor: $173,877
Dental Hygienist: $90,171
Police Officer: $57,122
DAO Support Squad: $54,148
High School Teacher: $51,403
Wal-Mart Store Manager: $50,864
Emergency Medical Technician: $50,435
Firefighter: $48,592
Starbucks Barista: $32,791

Since there are people behind these positions, I want to take the emotions out of this and just look at the facts in front of us. Most of these careers in the same salary range would require a 4 year degree and require extensive certification to retain employment. Based on this perspective, I believe it is fair for the community to challenge this salary above.

[Zino]

Hi all!

We thank each of you for participating in the discussion and for providing valuable feedback on our proposal.

After carefully analyzing your comments, valuable concerns and suggestions have been raised. We understand that budget and cost considerations are at the forefront regarding the bear market DAO Treasury management, and we take these concerns seriously. Additionally, there is a need for improved communications and transparency.

For that, we want to mention our commitment in that sense, and we started opening processes publicly during this current grant:

1. Public roadmap: now, the community can track the goals/milestones of each project funded through the Grants Program. Also, we tested the comment section in the cards created, where we take notes regarding the Monthly check-ins collaboratively with the grantees, and we want to move forward integrating the communications in the GovApp
2. Concerns raised by the community: now the community can track the stage of the process and the communication between the Grant Support Squad, the compliance, and the grantee.
   Also, on this page, the community can see projects that have decided to step down voluntarily, Revocations Committee decisions, and Revocations Committee payments.
3. Grant analysis Process: Now, the community can read the process that the Grant Support squad follows after a concern is raised. We are still iterating on this process, so there have been some that were flagged here during August, for example, that was very brief, and along with time, we have iterated into more extensive and comprehensive (this was published one month ago in our update#5)
4. Documentation: we documented our operational processes, and all this systematized work is public (this was published one month ago in our update#5)

We are committed to addressing these concerns and incorporating your suggestions into a new proposal. We believe that your feedback is invaluable in this process.

Thank you once again for your active participation and for holding us accountable. We look forward to presenting a new proposal that reflects the key highlights and suggestions analyzed in your comments.

King regards

Zino - Grant Support Squad

[nearnshaw]

Hey everyone, I’d just like to say that the work done by this squad is invaluable, and I can’t imagine grants working at all without a dedicated team like this!

There have been other discussions about if we’re giving grants to the right projects or assigning the right amount of budget to them, but I think that’s a different discussion. We need some kind of checking mechanism, at the very least for the grants that are already committed and ongoing.

This team doesn’t only check that things get delivered, it also helps orient projects in the right direction.
A lot of times from inside the foundation we’ve had discussions with Pablo about how to best advise a project so that it can deliver the best value. Pablo has been an invaluable bridge to help the people working on the external project be in sync with what the foundation is doing, ensuring that we don’t fall into chaos and in incompatible or redundant solutions to problems.