Gitcoin 2.1 - Org Updates June 2024

🧙 🧙‍♀️ Ideas and Open Discussion
1

Hey everyone,

I hope this message finds you well. We have some exciting updates to share regarding the evolution of our organization as we transition into Gitcoin 2.1 and what that means right now, and for the future we’re creating.The following message has been shared with our core DAO contributors and I wanted to extend context to the broader community on some of the recent developments we’re making to our org. I welcome any comments, notes and feedback and always happy to talk through these things live - my calendar is here.

Our mission to foster a community-driven platform that advances public goods remains at the heart of our efforts. This mission requires improved execution and sharper focus to navigate the fluctuations of the market—through bull runs, bear markets, and beyond.

To align our strategic goals with the evolving demands of our industry, we are making some significant changes:

  • Dissolving the Ecosystem Collective: We will concentrate our efforts where they count the most.
  • Focusing solely on our Grants Program and Product: Levelling up our leadership in grant-making technology.

The primary goals of these decisions are to:

  • Focus our energy on the initiatives that will keep us at the forefront of the Grants and Grant tech ecosystem, increase GMV, and position ourselves as thought leaders.
  • Work towards financial sustainability and extend our operational runway beyond current projections.

The competitive landscape has evolved, with multiple new players entering the market. To remain at the forefront, we must adapt and innovate rapidly. This means developing highly configurable, custom solutions that cater to the specific needs of our community and partners. We are dedicating more energy to these key areas and focusing our resources on onboarding every web3 grants program into Gitcoin.

In line with our proactive approach, we are hyperfocused on making adjustments that concentrate us on the greatest impact and alignment for our mission. As Passport spins out and we streamline the Grants Lab and Ecosystem Collective teams, we aim continue to strengthen and position ourselves for future success. We intend to move more work into the community, leveraging their expertise and enthusiasm to deliver updates across Gitcoin more efficiently.

We understand that these changes come with their challenges and will impact some of our valued contributors. We are committed to providing financial support and assistance to those affected during this transition, helping them find new roles within the industry or beyond.

We want to assure all community members, stewards, and token holders that these changes have been taken very seriously and carefully considered. Our intention is to make Gitcoin as operationally efficient as possible while continuously bolstering our efforts to grow adoption for our suite of products, and knowledge base, further ensuring their longevity.

I want to thank and show my genuine gratitude for the work that the Ecosystem Collective team has poured into the heart and soul of Gitcoin, and I’m optimistic that we’ll have further opportunities to work together again in the future. I’m excited for our next chapter - focusing on our hyper-focused Grants Lab strategy, and I look forward to sharing some of the amazing partnerships we have in the pipeline with you all.

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I support these changes.

I worked with other top Stewards to conceive, plan, and action this. This was a hard decision, but I have conviction it was the right move. The wrong move would have been to yield to the status quo & do nothing.

The market is demanding new & different things from Gitcoin in 2024 than it was in 2021 when the DAO was conceived (and when Gitcoin Grants was last at a local maxima of it’s traction). The market is more crowded now.

We must make Gitcoin lead again. We must leverage what makes us unique and play to our shared strengths. We must learn from the competitors that ate our lunch. We must use our own products! We must again become a hotbed of innovation & inspiration. It follows that we must evolve, turn the team, and evolve our offerings forward towards the markets demands circa 2024.

To all those affected in the Ecosystem collective: I thank you for your time, and hard work. Most of all, Id like to thank CoachJ and Laura Banks for their steadfast dedication to Gitcoin’s mission. We wouldn’t have “Fund What Matters”, the gitcoin.co website, the Schelling Point Sessoins, and so much more, without CoachJ and Laura and the people around them. To those affected in the EC, I hope that the Gitcoin ecosystem can rally around you to provide intros to your next roles, and that are your successful in your future endeavours.

To Grants Lab, Gitcoin Citizens, and Gitcoin partners, customers, and community: We are venturing into new frontiers in 2024. As Gitcoin goes multi-mechanism, from QF to MACI QF, RetroPGF, and beyond - I am excited for this new chapter of Gitcoin 2.1. I hope to see new innovative products demo’d more often, and I would be elated to see frontier mechanisms demo’d in our quarterly Citizens & Gitcoin Grants rounds. At EthCC, I plan to release more of my thinking about my ongoing cartography of the design space in this new era.

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