TL;DR
Gitcoin has always placed community and impact at the forefront of its endeavors. Gitcoin Grants, often hailed as “the soul of Gitcoin,” have pioneered Quadratic Funding and served as a profound catalyst for recognition and impact in the decentralized world.
Starting in Season 20, we propose that PGF, the group primarily responsible for the Gitcoin Grants Program and Gitcoin Partnerships, bifurcate into two distinct workstreams: the Grant Programs Team (GPT) and GSD.
This proposal will articulate the vision, structure, and budget for the GPT Workstream. We will post a similar proposal for GSD here on the forum for the community to review very soon.
GPT will be responsible for the success of both Program and Community Rounds during the Gitcoin Grants cycles. GPT’s Top Goals include Growing/Operating our Program Rounds, Supporting Community Rounds, Dogfooding/Protocol Adoption, and Educating the Community.
Essential Intents
GPT operates on grants.gitcoin.co and is primarily responsible for ensuring the success and integrity of both Program and Community Rounds during quarterly Gitcoin Grants cycles.
As we navigate through the evolution of the Gitcoin Grants Program, our essential intents will guide our strategic and operational decisions, ensuring alignment with our core values and objectives. These include the following:
- Enhance the Program Quality and User Experience: Continuously improve and innovate the programmatic offerings and user interactions, ensuring they are intuitive, accessible, and valuable to our community.
- Bring Clarity and Transparency to Grantees: Ensure transparent communication, clear guidelines, and supportive interactions that empower and inform our grantees throughout their journey.
- Further our Journey Toward Progressive Decentralization: Continue to decentralize decision-making and operational processes, empowering the community and aligning with the decentralized ethos of the broader ecosystem.
Core Functions
GPT will ensure the strategic and impactful execution of Gitcoin Grants. Core functions include:
- Program Rounds Ownership: These rounds include Core Ethereum Infrastructure, Open Source Software, and Web3 Community.
- Community Rounds Support: Steward the execution of Community Rounds.
- Dogfooding and Protocol Adoption: Leading the way in using Gitcoin’s Product Suite and defining the standard for how others can adopt for their ecosystem.
- Community Education and Brand Distinction: Championing awareness on the GPT Workstream, Gitcoin Grants, and Program Rounds while differentiating our unbiased protocols from the specialized products they support. Further, establishing distinct brand identities and consistent program funding mechanisms.
Definitions
To understand the various rounds that GPT will oversee, influence, and support, it’s essential to differentiate between the Gitcoin Grants Program and the Grants Stack. For those keen on diving deeper into the terminology, such as the distinctions between Gitcoin Grants, Gitcoin Grants Stack, Program Rounds, and more, a comprehensive vocabulary guide has been curated here on the forum. This guide is a valuable resource to ensure everyone is on the same page regarding Gitcoin’s ecosystem and its various components.
Workstream Composition
The GM (Sov) will be responsible for top-level oversight and management of the group. The group will have two Co-Leads as Round Operators. Grant Ops team members will support these Round Operators and provide community support. In addition to these team members, we will have Data + Dev optimizing our operations and ensuring data availability and accuracy. A breakdown of the roles and who from the team will fill them is shown below:
| Role | Contributor(s) | Role Description |
|---|---|---|
| GM | Sov | Overarching leadership, strategic direction, and Program team management. |
| Co-Leads | Ben, Connor | Leadership, Mentorship, and Cross Workstream Collaboration. DRIs for Program Rounds. |
| Grant Operations | All GPT Team Members | Managing and optimizing grant operations, ensuring alignment with program objectives. |
| Community | Jon | Responsible for community calls and gatherings (internal and external) along with Community Support and general vibes. |
| D&D (Data + Dev) | Umar, Gerritt | Optimizing operations, ensuring the availability and accuracy of data. |
In addition to the roles within GPT, a broader group across Gitcoin consisting of GSD/MMM for Marketing and Demand Generation, Product Workstreams for in-depth subject matter expertise, and DAO Leadership providing support where needed.
Top Goals
These top goals serve as our compass, ensuring that every step we take aligns with Gitcoin’s overarching vision and amplifies the collective strength of the decentralized community.
| Top Goal | Sub Goal |
|---|---|
| Grow and Operate Program Rounds | Achieve, at minimum, a medium maturity level as defined in the Program Maturity Matrix below. |
| Grow and Operate Program Rounds | Program Rounds achieve goals outlined in Round Strategy. Preliminary goals are outlined in the GG19 strategy and will be evaluated and adjusted post-round for GG20/21. |
| Grow and Operate Program Rounds | Build trust in Quadratic Funding outcomes through improved fraud/Sybil detection, QF mechanism experimentation & refinement, transparent processes, and detailed reporting. |
| Community Round Support | Provide support, as needed, aligned with Community Rounds Service |
| Dogfooding and Protocol Adoption | Be the primary use case example for Grants Stack and assist in developing (and documenting) best practices. |
| Dogfooding and Protocol Adoption | Provide constructive feedback to Gitcoin Product Teams that help to improve and evolve products. |
| Dogfooding and Protocol Adoption | Leverage subject matter expertise to onboard and support external parties as needed. |
Program Round Maturity Matrix
| Maturity Level | $$$ bellwether | Round traction bellwether | Brand bellwether |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | Drawing money from matching pool | Less $$$ total user contributions than the matching pool amount | It is an unknown brand; no one knows it exists. |
| Medium | Breakeven with matching pool | Equal(+/- 10%) $$$ total user contributions to the matching pool amount | Established program brand. |
| High | No longer drawing $$$ from the matching pool round over round. Funded for >1 round out. | Recurring/Trustless Funding | More $$$ total user contributions than the matching pool amountCompetitive Offering in the market. Creating inbound leads to fund programs. |
Budget
The costs for these resources, along with travel and expenses, necessary tooling, and necessary operating costs, are as follows:
| Budget Estimates | S20 | S21 |
|---|---|---|
| Contributors | $212,754 | $212,754 |
| Travel & Discretionary | $6,750 | $6,750 |
| OpEx | $6,750 | $6,750 |
| Software & Tooling | $1,250 | $1,250 |
| Total | $227,504 | $227,504 |
The workstream will recognize all revenue generated and flow back to the DAO treasury or be rolled over to the next season.
Economics
The GPT Workstream requests $455,008 for S20/21, excluding reserves and rolled-over amounts.
The target address for transfer is The GPT Multisig (previously known as the PGF Multisig).
Note: GSD will take 50% of the current reserves from the PGF Multisig to fund initial reserves after the formal creation of that workstream.
Note: The GTC amount requested and reserves will be added when this proposal moves to Tally, using the lower of the current price or the 20-day moving average.
Conclusion:
As Gitcoin continues its growth and diversification trajectory, we believe the evolution of PGF into GSD/GPT is essential. This renewed focus for this team on Gitcoin Grants will ensure that Gitcoin thrives in the current ecosystem and pave the way for future innovations and collaborations.
We welcome your thoughts and questions on what is proposed.
I could not find the definition of GSD anywhere, what does it stand for?
