Gitcoin '25 Governance Revamp

🤖 DAO Governance and Vision
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Gitcoin '25 Governance Revamp

Thank you to @sov for being an integral part of outlining this proposal and continuing to be a huge thought partner on the evolution across all areas of making Gitcoin succeed.

Historical Context & Current State

Gitcoin’s governance journey mirrors that of many pioneering DAOs. It began with community members and evolved through various experiments in decentralized decision-making. The current “steward” model emerged organically from the early days of Gitcoin Grants, reflecting the community’s initial needs but showing signs of strain as the ecosystem has grown and matured.

New stewards were often selected through informal forum posts, with selection criteria based more on community recognition than defined qualifications. While this organic approach helped build our early community, it has led to scaling and maintaining consistent governance participation challenges.

The current model faces several key limitations:

  • Informal Selection Process: Community members typically self-nominate through forum posts, and there are no standardized evaluation criteria or regular renewal process. This informality has resulted in an inconsistent governance body, with some members being highly active while others have drifted away.
  • Unclear Responsibilities: Stewards need help understanding their role in the ecosystem, clear expectations or formal onboarding. The lack of accountability mechanisms means that participation varies widely, with some stewards actively driving decisions while others remain passive observers.
  • Missing Incentives: Stewards volunteer their time without compensation. Justifying deep involvement can be challenging, especially for those with professional governance expertise who could add significant value to Gitcoin’s ecosystem.
  • Structural Complexity: The overlap between governance bodies – stewards, community council, and other groups – has created confusion about decision-making authority and responsibilities.

Proposal Overview

This proposal represents a shift in how Gitcoin approaches governance. Rather than attempting to patch the current system, we propose rebuilding our governance structure from first principles - emphasizing professional capability, clear accountability, and strategic ecosystem building.

Key Changes from the Current Model

The transition from our current steward model to a professional delegate system represents three fundamental shifts in our approach to governance.

  1. Moving from informal to professional governance. Instead of relying on volunteer stewards with unclear responsibilities, we’ll establish a compensated group of professional delegates with explicit duties and qualifications. This shift acknowledges that effective governance requires dedicated time and expertise.
  2. Implementing term limits and regular reviews. Delegates will serve defined terms with quarterly self- reported performance evaluations. This change ensures the regular renewal of governance perspectives while maintaining accountability for active participation.

Expanding the scope of governance responsibilities. Rather than limiting governance to proposal review and voting, delegates will actively drive ecosystem growth through partnership development and strategic initiatives. 2025 Governance Goals & Overview

In 2025, Gitcoin DAO’s governance mission is to build a governance framework that fosters progressive decentralization, incentivizes participation, and aligns decisions with the DAO’s long-term vision.

Key Goals for 2025:

  • Update and ratify the DAO Constitution to solidify core principles and provide clear decision-making guidance.
  • Decentralize governance with 50% of proposals initiated by the community.
  • Launch and onboard an additional 10+ high-caliber stewards through a structured training program with clear compensation and parameters.
  • Publish governance updates and metrics
  • Collaborate with 3+ DAOs on governance experiments.

Read the full strategy.

Governance Structure

The heart of our governance system will be a five-member Delegate Council, selected from three key constituencies, each serving one-year terms with semi-annual reviews conducted by the DAO Lead:

  • Professional DAO Delegates: Experienced governors from major DAOs who bring deep expertise in decentralized governance and can help forge strategic partnerships. These delegates should have a proven track record of active participation in at least one major DAO’s governance over the past year.
  • Community Leaders: Representatives from values-aligned communities who understand public goods and can help bridge different ecosystem participants. These leaders should demonstrate successful community-building experience and alignment with Gitcoin’s mission.
  • Ecosystem Contributors: Established participants with proven track records in both governance and public goods who understand Gitcoin’s mission and potential. These contributors should show evidence of meaningful contributions to the public goods ecosystem.

Semi-annual reviews evaluate delegate performance against key metrics, including proposal participation, partnership development, and community engagement and deliverable execution. The community or any member of Gitcoin may recommend removing and replacing underperforming delegates, subject to vote.

Selection Process

The delegate selection process prioritizes transparency and community input while maintaining high professional standards:

  • Nomination Phase (2 weeks)
    • Self-nominations via standardized form template
    • Detailed applications covering governance experience, vision, and partnership plans
    • Clear articulation of intended contributions and time commitment
  • Election Phase (1 week)
    • Community vote using GTC tokens
    • Top 5 candidates selected
    • Minimum voting threshold to ensure broad participation

Delegate Responsibilities

Our delegates will carry three primary mandates:

1. Core Governance

  • Active Participation: Maintain 90% vote participation, providing clear written rationales for major decisions.
  • Governance Innovation: Propose 1-2 system improvements per quarter, contribute to creating and updating the governance manual, and maintain a public tracker of implemented changes.
  • Budget Oversight: Review and approve community round budgets, providing detailed allocation rationales to ensure transparent fund management.
  • Strategic Planning: Facilitate quarterly governance reviews and help shape Gitcoin’s long-term vision through regular strategic input and ecosystem analysis.
  • Updates to the items outlined in Gitcoin’s 2025 Gov strategy

2. Lead the GG Community Rounds Decision-making

We have moved to a more decentralized future for Gitcoin Grants where we have begun to involve the community directly in vital decision-making when it comes to the community rounds that Gitcoin funds each quarter during GG rounds. The council’s responsibilities include:

  • Review and vote on GG community round proposals
  • Collaborate on GG community round retrospectives (optional)

3. Ecosystem Growth

  • Identify DAO partnerships
  • Help attract projects to Grants Lab

The council will elect a ‘lead’ that will act as representative and report directly to the DAO with updates on a monthly basis.

Compensation and Incentives

To attract and retain high-quality delegates, we’re implementing a professional compensation structure:

  • Direct Compensation: $2,500 per quarter per delegate, paid in GTC
  • Voting Power: ~1M GTC delegated from the treasury to ensure meaningful influence across the 5 delegates
  • Performance Reviews: Quarterly evaluations based on participation and impact - as self-reflected in the community (i.e., they need to post their quarterly engagement report)
  • Total Budget: $50,000 annually (within the DAO budget)

Implementation Timeline

Q1 2025

  • Launch framework and documentation
  • Run initial delegate election
  • Distribute GTC delegations
  • Begin council operations

Q2 2025

  • Establish first partnerships
  • Conduct the first quarterly review

Q3-Q4 2025

  • Evaluate and refine the program
  • Expand partnership initiatives
  • Adjust based on learnings

Expected Outcomes

Through this governance evolution, we expect to achieve several key outcomes:

  • Professional Governance: A more accountable structure with consistent, high-quality participation from dedicated delegates with the time and resources to contribute meaningfully.
  • Stronger Ecosystem Position: Enhanced relationships with other DAOs and communities through strategic partnerships and active collaboration, driving the adoption of Allo Protocol and Grants Lab.
  • Scalable System: A governance framework that can grow with Gitcoin while maintaining our commitment to decentralization and community ownership.
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This seems like a logical iteration forward from the current state.

I have a YES AND on top of it; Gitcoin DAO was launched in 2021, and lots of it’s orchestration reflects that tether to the immutable structure setup in 2021…

how might we explore 2025-native governance structures and consider embracing those?

  1. one structure i’m excited for is EigenGov by @tracheopteryx
  2. another structure i’m excited for is revnets by @jango
  3. another is grant ships; which it sounds like were going to embrace for GG !
  4. another is impact-based retro funding, which it sounds like were going to embrace for GG too!
  5. i’m also interested in swarms by @daniel ospina
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I support this governance revamp and particularly appreciate the shift toward professional delegation with clear accountability.

The proposed framework aligns with what we need to scale our impact - combining structured delegate development with robust ecosystem collaboration while maintaining our commitment to progressive decentralization.

From my experience managing partnerships across the ecosystem, I’m confident this model will strengthen our governance and ability to coordinate effectively.

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I want to thank you @Sov for being such an integral part of pushing this revamp forward and being a huge thought partner here. I am confident in where we’re going with our governance this year! And really excited to see the GG Community Council also bucketed into this strategy.

Thanks for outlining this @owocki and would love to work on ideating how we may embrace some of these structures within the gov roadmap of 2025.

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As a former contributor to the first ever Community Council that handled proposals coming to Community Rounds for matching, i fully support this approach.

It will address many shortcomings outlined in the previous Retrospectives and empower Contributors to take action to help fix them on the fly using their allocated $GTC to voice concern where it matters the most “gov forum and proposals voting”

i gotta say the entire 2025 strategy being rolled across the ecosystem is very aligned with the needs of the community and the builder-first approach is a key component for unified growth.

Delegates will have the agency, urgency, and resources to take action where’s most required at any given time.

LFG.

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Thanks for pulling these resources together, @owocki. Love that we’re kicking off from first principles, and I’m eager to see this council tackle the challenges we’ve faced in governance, build on lessons learned, and bring fresh energy to ideation.

The opportunity for this council to drive both operational and strategic improvements in Gitcoin’s governance in 2025 is exciting, and I’m excited work alongside @MathildaDV and @DaeYunique to progressively decentralize the organization and strengthen the Grants program.

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@wasabi - anyone you’d nominate?

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from top of my mind and to meet the criteria on all 3 brackets of constituents; @omniharmonic @Clinamenic @peth @thedevanshmehta & @paul2 would be my top 5

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I really like the idea of paid, professional delegation arrangements, with clear expectations and scope, and I’d be honored to be considered. Happy to share more info as needed, and I already have a dedicated delegation EOA at delegate.clinamenic.eth.

I’ve also tossed some ideas around with @Trigs about best practices for professional delegates, e.g. what principles or goals generally undergird one’s participation in various governance scenarios. Anyway, as an aside, thats something I’m interested in exploring as well.

Reading Don Quixote now, and perhaps we could use a code for delegates-errant!

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Agree with @Clinamenic here. I think this is a great approach and I’d be honored to be considered as well. We’ve been going down the path of progressive decentralization/protocolization ourselves with @OpenCivics, so I understand the challenges of designing and deploying a process that is both transparent and inclusive while also ensuring timely and strategic decisions.

I would take the role of delegate seriously and bring deep listening to the needs and perspectives of DAO members while being highly transparent and strategic in my thinking. Excited to see where this goes! Either way, I’m a fan of this strategy.

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Love the engagement and interest that we’re already seeing on this strategy! For those who are interested in nominating themselves, once this post has been live for 5 days, I’ll kick nominations off through a separate gov post

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Very supportive of this direction and strategy. I believe this structure will strengthen governance, engagement, and community ownership.

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Excited to see many key points of improvement suggested in this post. I’d like to flag that the amount of work that is expected from these high caliber stewards is significant. While I completely agree with the KPIs which are outlined here, I fear that the incentive offered may not be sufficient. Several other DAOs offer significantly higher incentives and demand lower output from their top delegates. Given the fact that experienced governance talent is limited in the space, higher or equivalent incentives are necessary to keep this talent motivated to achieve the goals stated in this proposal.

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Thanks for this @jengajojo.

I do agree that incentives need to be aligned and proportional to the ask and the caliber of those participating.

Based on my experience with Gitcoin as an active participant the volume of information is quite low compared to other DAOs so I do think we should consider that in proportion to the incentives.

With that being said, do you have suggestions on what might need to change or evolve to better align?

Thanks as always for your thoughtful perspectives!

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My major concern is with this KPI:

Here is an overview of incentive programs in the ecosystem. As you can see, none of them demand this level of performance, while incentivising on average 6x more than what is being offered in this proposal. So from a professional delegate perspective, its difficult to justify spending business resources on these goals when there is better ROI elsewhere.

I’d recommend providing a bonus for “proposing 1-2 system improvements” instead of includeding it in the mandatory KPIs and bumping up the quarterly comp to atleast match what the rest of the ecosystem offers.

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This is great info and I agree that we could adjust to have additional compensation based on performance. I would prefer that if we do that performance would equal new partnerships/driving up distributions towards our north star goal of $30M versus good ideas.

On the report you shared (or others you know of) has there been analysis in the volume of discussions/proposals that delegates must review? In looking at those named in the analysis many of these seem to be much more active than the Gitcoin forum so I am curious how volume could play into the level of effort.

Thanks as always!

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Thanks for this @wasabi - I think we’re down to figure out ways to incentivize this better. We had initially budgeted the council out of the DAO and can turn this into a proper proposal from the treasury with community alignment, so this is healthy discourse.

In regards to a few points:

As you can see, none of them demand this level of performance, while incentivising on average 6x more than what is being offered in this proposal.

Quite a few demand much more than this proposal in much more active forums. Historically we’ve jumped into governance improvements as an ‘all or nothing’ approach and it hasn’t moved the needle much. As you can see in our Gov 2025 Strategy we’re starting from first principles and improvements AND a holistic approach to make governance approachable and useful for the community.

I’d recommend providing a bonus for “proposing 1-2 system improvements” instead of includeding it in the mandatory KPIs and bumping up the quarterly comp to atleast match what the rest of the ecosystem offers.

Can you elaborate here? I hardly think making a useful suggestion is worth a bonus, and in fact should be a key trait of council member we’re looking for (something like @owocki 's comment above).

Compensation realistically can’t match what the ecosystem offers, nor should it as this a) isn’t an apples to apples comparison and b) doesn’t have consideration for treasury size. I think the community would be open to something more realistic.

Last point(s) I’ll make are that while the Stablelabs deck is informative it isn’t a useful artifact in this conversation because what it doesn’t outline is the pros/cons of each program or the activity. Most of the programs I looked at had 40-50+ active topics a month. We simply don’t have that volume.

I also want to say that this isn’t a critique, I think your notes are highly valuable. It’s prudent for us to develop this program and our governance in a mindful and intentional way in order for it to be successful, enjoyable and useful for both Gitcoin and its community members.

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There are two main perspectives to consider in this scenario:

  1. The DAO’s Perspective: The DAO wants to maximize value for its budget.
  2. The Business’s Perspective: The business wants to optimize its return on investment (ROI).

There is a “sweet spot” where both parties can agree on what constitutes fair compensation, with the key variable being the hourly rate. This rate will also influence the caliber of talent available for the project, as more experienced individuals typically demand higher pay.

If the volume of work is expected to be low, it may be helpful to establish clear expectations around the hourly rate, possibly by referencing past examples. Additionally, gathering feedback from the kind of stewards the DAO is targeting can help determine whether the proposed rate is justified based on the expected performance.

This metric is susceptible to gamification, regardless of how it’s incentivized. A bonus structure, with oversight from the core team, offers a balanced approach. It creates an incentive for quality proposals while allowing the core team to evaluate and decide which ones meet the necessary standards.

On the flip side, asking contributors to submit ‘x’ proposals per quarter could lead to unnecessary or low-quality submissions. Quality proposals require context and expertise, often taking several days to develop, whereas simpler proposals may only take a moment to draft. If the goal is to prioritize quality over quantity, it may be worthwhile to offer higher pay for higher-quality contributions, even if they are fewer in number.

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As one of the top external delegates for the past year or so, I am inclined to vote NO on this proposal.

tl;dr -

Stewards should be missionaries; I worry this proposal may attract the mercenaries.

Here’s my thinking…

Do I want to see delegates take their job seriously? Yes.
Do I think delegates should have more skin in the game? Yes.
Do I want delegates to be accountable to making smart, principled, independent decisions? Yes.
Do I think delegates should put in the necessary time to actually add value? Yes.
Do I think there’s an opportunity cost to that time, especially for serious people? Yes.

All “yes”…

However, I am worried that paying delegates will attract first and foremost people who want compensation, as opposed to what’s best for Gitcoin / GTC. The important question to me is how to attract the right people to get involved in stewarding. If compensation is a big blocker to this, we should resolve it and offer compensation. But I’m not convinced it is…

When I first joined as a steward, there was a larger group of external stewards who received some monthly compensation. Most if not all were airdrop recipients with significant GTC holdings. There was also some automated reporting using DAOStewards … it felt much more professional. @MathildaDV describes this above.

But over time, those stewards moved on and the pool became shallower. Why will this be different?

Coincidentally, I came across this excellent post which @deltajuliet shared in a different group chat:

I think we need something similar for rebooting governance, eventually getting to a pool of super-contributors as stewards, and motivating them accordingly.

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