GG20 Community Council

🌱 Gitcoin Grants
1

As we begin to move towards a more decentralized future for Gitcoin Grants, we have an exciting opportunity to involve the community directly in vital decision-making when it comes to the community rounds that Gitcoin funds each quarter during GG rounds.

We are accepting self-nominations for the GG20 Community Council

  • Responsible for reviewing and voting on Community Rounds in GG20
  • Self-nomination period is 1 week
  • Election is a Gitcoin DAO vote lasting 3 days
  • Council members selected February 23rd

For GG20, we are opening up a 1.5 week long nomination & voting period to become a council member for GG20. The GG20 Community Council will:

  • Vote on which Community Rounds will run and funded through matching on matching in GG20 after said communities have posted their proposal to the gov forum by the deadline. Deadline for proposals is on March 17th.
  • Have decision rights to set the matching ratios, offering flexibility ranging from 1:1 to 2:1 or beyond, based on what they deem most beneficial for their community. With the max matching that Gitcoin will provide at $25k p/round.
  • Be reimbursed for their time: $1k paid out in GTC. This is worked out to $100 p/hour with roughly 10 hours of work. If the work increases over those 10 hours significantly, we will reimburse for the extra hours

There are some time constraints on this process due to the Gitcoin Grants Operations team’s desire to give communities as much time as possible to apply for the actual round. After a community posts their proposal, we also need to give adequate time for reviewing and voting, as well as selected Community Rounds preparing for GG20.

Because of this, we are not having elected council members advise on the Community Round eligibility criteria for the upcoming round. This will not be the norm In the future. We intend to have this role also advise on eligibility criteria in future GGs.

GG20 Community Council Roles & Responsibilities

There will be a total of 7 council members that are elected to vote in the upcoming round. These members should be unbiased and knowledgeable web3 builders or delegates with experience in incentive programs or grants councils, and be familiar with the Gitcoin Grants program.

The GG20 Community Council will be responsible for voting on which Community Rounds will receive matching from Gitcoin and run in GG20 after said communities have posted their proposal to the gov forum.

Community Council Election

The GG20 Community Council will be selected by a Gitcoin DAO vote. The 7 applicants with the most votes will be elected to serve on the council for the duration of GG20.

Those who serve as council members for the upcoming GG20 round are not guaranteed to have the role in Gitcoin Grants rounds after GG20. There will be new elections to select a Community Council for a longer period of time (up to 1 year) when it comes time for GG21 and beyond.

Council Members Workload

The exact amount of hours the council position will require is difficult to estimate given this is the first time the DAO will be filling this role and it is unclear how many Community Round applications there will be to review. However, it is anticipated that the role should require a minimal amount of time to properly evaluate Community Round applications.

Council Responsibilities

  • Vote on which Community Rounds should be funded by the Gitcoin matching pool in GG20 using the provided eligibility criteria and any evaluation rubrics
  • Set the matching ratios, offering flexibility ranging from 1:1 to 2:1 or beyond, based on what they deem most beneficial for their community. With the max matching that Gitcoin will provide at $25k p/round.
  • Each elected council member will go through a short security training with Gitcoin’s security consultant
  • MathildaDV will host an onboarding session with elected council members the week of February 26th.
    • To maximize time, the security training will be baked into this onboarding session.

Nomination Eligibility Criteria

  • May not be a current full-time contributor at Gitcoin
  • May not be a round operator in the upcoming Community Rounds that will apply for matching
  • Be able to review and vote March 11th - 15th.
    If any conflicts of interests arise, the person must abstain from voting for said round.

Process overview:

  1. Those interested can nominate themselves by 11pm UTC February 20th.
  2. The GG20 Community Council Gitcoin DAO voting kicks off on February 21st and will be open for 3 days.
  3. For further questions about the process, you can leave a comment here or direct message mathildaDV on Twitter.

To nominate yourself, please head to Nominations for GG20 Community Council.

Community Round Governance - GG20

Here’s a breakdown of GG20’s governance process and a rundown of how the Council will be involved on the process we will follow to select community rounds:

Week 1: Gitcoin team posts eligibility criteria & agreements to gov forum [week of Feb 12th]

  • Outline eligibility criteria and agreements for the upcoming round.
  • Allow space of 3 weeks until the deadline for proposals
    • We understand that this is a short timeframe and we will do our best to support those communities who are planning on presenting a proposal.

Week 1-3: Community Round partners complete and post their proposal to the gov forum.

  • Community Round partners to create a proposal that they post on the gov forum.
  • The cut off for the proposal is 5 weeks before the round’s donation period begins.
    • This allows enough time for voting on the proposal, as well as the communities setting up their round and marketing their round before applications begin.

Week 3: Deadline for proposals [March 17th]

  • A full list of Community Rounds are available for the GG20 Community Council to review.

Week 3 - 4: Review & voting period [March 18 - 22nd]

  • The proposals are reviewed by the GG20 Community Council and go to a vote on a public platform the week after the deadline to submit.
    • It will be recommended that council members start reviewing applications as they are posted in order to save time and avoid reviewing all proposals at the same time.
  • Voting for Community Rounds will take place on March 15th. If you are unable to vote on this day please do not self-nominate.
  • If you are unavailable during the week of March 11 - 15 please do not nominate yourself. This is when reviews and voting will take place.
  • The decision of the vote is published on the gov forum.

Week 4 - 6: Results and onboarding period [March 25 - 29]

  • The Community Rounds are onboarded into the upcoming round.

TL;DR on the new proposed GG structure:

ICYMI, read the Gitcoin Grants Proposed Updates.

We understand that there might be some changes to these proposed updates, but we are still planning on electing council members to facilitate in governing the Community Rounds for GG20 and would like to get this process started to allow for ample time before the round begins.

To nominate yourself, please head to Nominations for GG20 Community Council.

Eligibility criteria for GG20 Community Rounds will be on the gov forum later this week in order to give time for proposals and fundraising.

17 Likes
2

Involving a Community Council in decision-making is a commendable step towards fostering meaningful engagement and ownership. As someone deeply invested in enhancing grantee and partner participation in the forum during my tenure at Gitcoin, I appreciate this effort.

Certain aspects of the proposed structure underscore a persistent gap between Gitcoin as a team and the practical realities faced by community members/ outsiders.

A relevant example of this disconnect is turning the discord into peer support, hoping community members volunteer their time as mods, and then compete for funding in the Citizens rounds. This has resulted in Gitcoin benefiting from hundreds of hours of unpaid work and volunteers being undercompensated by QF or not compensated at all. This Community Council echoes that lack of appreciation for outside contributors/ contributing community members.

The critical responsibilities outlined for council members are accompanied by insufficient compensation and a compressed timeline. At current market rates, the compensation offered amounts to less than $2,500 USD for seven individuals tasked with undertaking a considerable workload. Such remuneration may deter qualified candidates from dedicating the necessary time and effort to fulfill their roles effectively. To put it bluntly, you’re expecting to pay seven people a fraction of a Gitcoiner’s monthly salary. If Gitcoin values this role, it should be compensated fairly or scrap it altogether (I think the same about Discord btw).

Furthermore, the eligibility criteria for council members, while aiming to ensure impartiality, could inadvertently incentivize individuals to capture the position for reasons other than genuine commitment to community governance. The potential for conflicts of interest remains a concern, see DEI round and cases of self voting by OP badgeholders.

In terms of workload estimation, my own experience suggests that the anticipated time commitment of a minimum of 30 hours per council member is a conservative estimate, excluding onboarding and training. This aligns poorly with the compensation offered, and offers no benefits beyond the friends you made along the way and a tag on twitter.

Recommendations to address these challenges and enhance the efficacy of Community Council:

Consider an increase in compensation to reflect a fair market rate. This will help attract people who really care for this work and creates a healthy talent competition for the role.

It would be much more interesting and effective to format this the way Optimism and Arbitrum allow for teams to accomplish missions/ work. That’s more decentralized than offering a few minimum wage roles to handle important (imo) work.

Study other DAOs approach for outsourcing / decentralizing work.

Gitcoin should select one team to handle the upcoming round to prevent another touch the stove hiccup during a pivotal moment in the markets. @lanzdingz and Green Pill contributors or @CryptoReuMD and BanklessDAO would be great candidates for this.

Approach top delegates for this role, it could be a start to incentivizing delegate participation beyond the friends you made along the way and lolz.

13 Likes
3

Thank you for your feedback @carlosjmelgar! I will respond to one piece and then I will take some time later in my day to fully respond to the rest.

Thank you. I actually agree with this sentiment. I have gone ahead and amended my original post to reflect a new payment structure. Fwiw it will be a simple lift for GG20. As we elect a longterm council for future rounds, the scope of work will shift.

As mentioned, I will respond in full later! Thank you again for your valuable feedback :slight_smile:

5 Likes
4

You make a valid point here. fwiw this will of course be taken into account when it goes to a vote. Conflicts of interests are important to avoid here imo, as well as anyone who isn’t aligned to what the community needs.

These are good recommendations, thank you! As mentioned in the post, this is an immediate, simple approach to GG20 (as we are pretty limited on time) alone. After GG20 we will be re-evaluating this process in full and adjusting where needed! I will take these into account for when we set up a long term council. This is a brand new process that we are implementing and of course we will make adjustments where needed.

Your point on delegates is a good one. I did think about this and might revisit and re-evaluate in the future after GG20.

That’s the whole point of setting up this process :slight_smile: I believe that we should see a council full of high-context people that are active in the Gitcoin and Ethereum ecosystem that have the community’s needs at the forefront of their decisions. (but not full-time contributors)

As said, really appreciate this feedback and will definitely take this into account as we iterate on the process moving forward. This is merely a simple process that is being structured for GG20. I see the setup of the council as a vital step in the right direction for Gitcoin Grants and the scope of their work will broaden in the future. For now, I believe it’s equally important to set up eligibility criteria for Community Rounds for GG20 so that interested communities can prepare for the upcoming round.

5 Likes
5

[POST UPDATE]: I have removed the below from the criteria:

  • May not be affiliated directly or with the org/community that plans to run a community round in the upcoming round
    • For example, You work at X org, and X org runs a round

And I have added the following:

If any conflicts of interests arise, the person must abstain from voting for said round.

This update will not effect anyone who has already nominated themselves, but it moves to opening up the pool more broadly for potential nominees/council members that we believe hold high context within the ecosystem to make informed decisions on Community Rounds funding.

7 Likes
6

Thanks for the clarification. I misread your other post.

4 Likes
7

[VOTING]: I wanted to drop some information on how the voting will take place once we’ve received all nominations EOD today.

We will set up a Jokerace that will run for 5 days (February 21st - 25th). We will allowlist addresses that hold a minimum of 50 GTC to be eligible to cast votes, with each token holder receiving the same amount of votes to cast. This ensures that we are still leveraging our governance token and each voter has the same amount of voting power. The minimum GTC is implemented to minimize any potential bots and attacks.

I will manually upload all nominations to the Jokerace platform.

More details will be shared once the nomination period has closed.

5 Likes
8

Good look for all the nominees :four_leaf_clover:, hopefully I can participate in the next Council election. I arrived late to this one :rofl:

3 Likes
9

Voting for GG20 Community Council is now LIVE! If you hold a minimum of 50 GTC you are eligible to vote on the Jokerace contest: Gitcoin GG20 Community Council

Voting closes on February 25 @ 11:59pm UTC

2 Likes
10

So, I just want to share my thoughts.

At the moment, not many people voted. Like very little.

image
image1987Ă—1188 277 KB

50 GTC is about 75$, I think this is a very high cost for people outside of Europe and US. Plus, there is little utility to token outside of staking on gitcoin passport.

Next, I have some vile thoughts on buying a lot of GTC and distributing among my friends to vote me into the council next time.

If I am going to get paid 1000 thats actually sounds very profitable. Thats about 13 accounts with 50GTC not accounting for gas but one account could buy all the GTC and batch transact. Gas is negligible.

4 Likes
11

I :heart: red-team thinking. Thank you for surfacing

3 Likes
12

Thanks for writing this @Pfed-prog Being from outside of those two continents, I share the concern here. @MathildaDV offered more context in this tweet on the rationale for the current setup (tl;dr moving away from weighted delegation to equity in voting power), and we are all ears to make it iteratively effective and organically inclusive for upcoming rounds. Please share other forms of voting that can make the process of future elections more resilient.

Speaking for myself, I am a fan of everything Vitalik noted on the limitations of coin-voting governance. The current setup for electing the community council is reflective of a hybrid solution from this essay,

  • Loosely-coupled (advisory) coin votes: a coin vote does not directly implement a proposed change, instead it simply exists to make its outcome public, to build legitimacy for off-chain governance to implement that change. This can provide the benefits of coin votes, with fewer risks, as the legitimacy of a coin vote drops off automatically if evidence emerges that the coin vote was bribed or otherwise manipulated.
3 Likes
13

Sure, I have actually sold off all my gitcoin after Shell Oil partnership. I think some criteria like a gitcoin grants voter or grantee should also count.

4 Likes
14

Thanks for your feedback! We are taking all feedback into account as we evaluate how this vote went and what we can do to improve it in the future.

I tend to agree here. Next time I would like to see us experiment with lowering this threshold. The reason we did this was to mitigate attacks because we wanted those who voted to be active community members so holding our governance token is a no brainer. This after all, still remains a governance decision we’re dealing with.

We announced the details of the vote on the last day of nominations. This perhaps excluded some people, because you need to have held GTC prior to the contest going live due to the contract snapshot, but the way we did it would also mitigate what you’re suggesting here. As of right now, how the votes are looking, imo they are pretty fair.

Our purpose for doing it this way was not to get incredibly high numbers of voters, but rather to have high-context individuals that are active in our community to make informed decisions. So far, I believe we are seeing this play out.

All that to say, of course we can improve processes. We will take all feedback into consideration and adjust in the future where needed.

4 Likes