by 0x8cff6832174091dae86f0244e3fd92d4ced2fe07 (frami)
A proposed framework for grants that may be requested through the DAO. The goal is to ensure that grants have the scope, goals, planning, and appropriate funding needed to be successful.
Abstract
One of the features to be added to the Decentraland DAO is community grants. These grants will use MANA owned by the DAO to help fund teams and/or individuals who want to create features or content for Decentraland. However, it is important to allocate the DAO’s MANA judiciously for several reasons:
The DAO’s MANA fund is limited
There are limits to what can realistically be built within the Decentraland platform
It is common ground that it is in the community’s best interest to maintain the ability to fund a range of projects over a long period of time
To maximize the impact of the DAO’s funds and to ensure the DAO gives funds to projects most likely to succeed (thus adding value to Decentraland for the entire community), grants should be constrained in size and category to make it easier for the community to review and vet proposals.
The proposed grant categories are:
Community
Platform contributor
Gaming
The proposed initial grant tiers are:
$500 - $1500 USD in MANA, one-time payment
$1500 - $3000 USD in MANA, one-time payment
$3000 - $5000 USD in MANA, up to a 3 month vesting contract with a one month cliff
Specification
For a full description of this proposed Grants Framework, please see this doc.
For
The Decentraland Foundation will implement these grant categories and tiers into the DAO proposal submission process by means of pre-designed forms. Only grant applications within the above described framework will be funded through the DAO.
Against
Do not use the grants framework described in this proposal to limit funding provided to projects through the DAO. (Note: if this proposed framework is rejected by the DAO, an alternative framework may be proposed pending feedback and discussion within the community.)
This is a needed proposal however requires us to get into more detail on fund allocation (what is permitted) and on funding caps (current caps too low and will vastly limit the scope what can be created, and the talent/ideas we can bring to the table)
It is good to have a cap to better manage the cashflow from the DAO, however the suggested amount would significantly hinder any project from being created and managed in a way where it can actually provide significant impact and return for DCL and the DAO.
Rather than limit funding, I believe it would be better to report Funding use to ensure it is utilized appropriately. We will see our community grow significantly if we allow for bigger visions like interactive recording studios in the metaverse that allows collaborated NFTs to be created. Something like this wouldn’t get accomplished with $5k over 3 months, unless the creators were taking on additional costs themselves which I believe defeats the purpose of the DAO funding projects.
I suggest this include either higher caps, or a method tracking funding use and possibly divided milestone funding. Projects looking for more funding to execute larger visions can place milestones to be achieved where additional funding can be allocated.
It is important to start small, and taking the above into account I’d suggest we move to the following
$0- $5,000 (allows one person to dedicated a month full time, or multiple part times, to a project)
$5,000 - $15,000 (allows one team dedicate a month full time, or a large team of multiple part times, to a project)
$15,000 - $30,000 (allows for a company to dedicate a month full time, or multiple part times, to a project)
We can also consider to specify that there is a cap of $100k requested per year per project
Thanks for submitting this proposal! Given that this does proceed, it won’t be a bad thing, I just see it limiting what can be created and scope.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply! You raise some really good (and important) points. Yes - the initial grant tiers/caps that we proposed are far too low to incentivize any serious or longterm contributions. Then plan is to increase these as soon as we can.
I think that the numbers you suggested are more on-point. However, the hope is that the initial caps would be easily and quickly raised after the demonstrated success of the lower tiers. Since this is a new system for approving, paying, and managing community grants we think it’s important to start with as little risk to the DAO as possible.
We think that by testing the grants framework with individuals and small-teams first, we’ll be able to gather more feedback, faster, thus improving the entire process before on-boarding bigger teams with bigger funding requests.
What prevents malicious users from getting grants. I can think of a few and it is not limited to these
For example a person or group submit proposals (maybe a ton to bury a few), then vote it up and have it pass in a short time window or no one went to page 50 of the proposal screen
Is there a minimum time it must be open for?
Does this outline a min vote to pass? ?
Does it only pay out after the outlined requirements are met?
If you miss the requirements can you get some of the funding or is there a resubmit for re-vote after you iterate again?
Totally happy to read this!! I agree then on this process, 100%. Great way to take the least risk and iron out our best process moving ahead. So excited to see this community grow and all the creators here to be empowered to create the world they wish to be in!
With that said, thank you for your reply. Can’t wait to see this garden of creativity blossom, truly!
“The proposed grant categories are:” on the proposal page is missing the category “Content Creator” that the google doc calls out unless this rolls under Platform.
Super good questions - I’ll try to work through my thoughts each point as best I can:
Proposals are open for one week. This could be changed as needed to give people more time to review grant requests. This would probably help with your first point: by giving people more time to review proposals, the bad ones can be weeded out. There is also the potential to introduce some form of moderation to reduce “spammy” or duplicate proposals that might clutter up the UI, preventing people from noticing fraudulent grants.
Right now, there’s no needed minimum vote to pass, but one can be introduced! This has been discussed before, and would be an easy way to ensure that grants are only approved with a sufficient majority vote. You make a very good point here.
The first two tiers, since small, are paid out on approval of the grant. The third tier with vesting contracts has a one-month cliff: if nothing is reported at the end of the cliff, then the contract can be revoked by the DAO Committee.
Again, the smaller, first two tiers are paid on approval of the grant. Since these grants are short-term and lower in size, the risk is lower and the need for reporting less. The vesting contract is different, in that once the 1-month cliff is reached, the MANA vests each second and the beneficiary can begin withdrawing the funds as they vest. Let’s say that somebody misses the requirements and their vesting contract is revoked - if they were to go on to complete the project I don’t see any obvious reasons why they couldn’t resubmit their work to receive funding retroactively.
