Gitcoin Allo S18-S19 Workstream Budget Proposal
This is the integrated funding proposal for the Gitcoin Allo Workstream requesting funding for Season 18 and S19 (1 May 2023 through 31 October 2023), authored by @kevin.olsen, @nategosselin, and @Sor03. This budget request has been deeply reviewed by CSDO, as well as some of our top Stewards, including @griff, @lthrift, @annika, @epowell101. We invite you to offer feedback, ask questions and help us identify any blindspots we may have. Coordination starts at the governance layer, and we need you to make us better.
TL;DR
This season the Gitcoin Allo workstream’s core focus is on establishing product-market fit for web3 grants programs. To get there, we will be executing against two key outcomes:
- Enabling web3 grants programs to run the majority of their funding through Grants Stack
- Empowering builders to create new software applications on top of Allo protocol
Outline
Allo is a protocol for democratic resource allocation, which enables communities to easily pool and distribute capital to their needs — Fund What Matters. In order to meet this value proposition, Allo needs to support a wide range of community-oriented resource allocation mechanisms. Up until now, the team has been focused on laying Allo’s foundation and creating a flagship Quadratic Funding experience on the protocol. However, over the course of our Design Partner Program (55+ interviews with ~30 web3 grants programs) we’ve learned that web3 communities tend to employ a wide variety of grant types that are geared to specific use cases. Those partners told us that Quadratic Funding, while popular as a tactic for engaging their broader communities, is generally considered a fit for a minority of those use cases (typically <20% of overall funding). In most cases, the programs want to use higher-touch mechanisms (e.g. committee/expert approvals, milestone-based payments, RFP-style grants, etc) for the bulk of their fund distribution. If we want to truly achieve product-market fit for Allo among web3 communities we’ll need to build additional mechanisms so that we are a viable option for those higher-touch scenarios. Strategically, we feel that building a strong foothold within web3 will give us a foundation for bringing our public good to additional communities.
In Season 18 and 19 we are going to pursue a two-pronged approach to building this strategic base. The first is Grants Stack — our primary interface for using Allo today. We want to ensure that it’s offering web3 communities a delightful entry-point to running grant programs. Our work here will be focused on expanding the types of grant programs that can be run through our three dApps (i.e. hitting our 13-5-5 goal of 13 QF rounds, 5 QV rounds, and 5 Direct Grants programs by September 1), continuing to improve the user experience, and establishing the next wave of our strategy once 13-5-5 has been achieved. The second prong is core Allo protocol. We want Allo to be a truly decentralized public good, and the work in this swimlane will be focused on enabling other builders to create apps on top of Allo. Tactically, that will likely be things like advancing the core protocol’s capabilities and assisting other teams with their builds.
Amount
Allo is requesting 2,031,127 GTC* = $3,229,491 for S18-19, assuming 1.59 USD/GTC, excluding reserves and rolled over amounts.
Budget evolution:
| Gitcoin Season | Season 15 | Season 16 | Season 17 | Season 18 | Season 19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season Budget | N/A | N/A | $804k | $1,622k | $1,199k |
| Under/overspend** | N/A | N/A | $16,6k | N/A | N/A |
A full breakdown of the budget can be found at the end of this post.
*The amount of GTC requested and the value of the reserves will be adjusted based on the current market value at the time this proposal is moved to Tally using the lower of the current price or the 20 day moving average, whichever is lower.
We will be requesting our funds through one Snapshot vote, but the release of the actual funds will be split over two Tally votes (one at the start of each season) for reasons of accountability and to mitigate potential price fluctuations.
**How much more/less did we spend than the requested budget (excluding reserves)
Outcomes, Projects and Milestones
As outlined above, our core focus will be establishing product-market fit for web3 grants programs. To achieve this goal, we will be pursuing two key outcomes:
- Enabling web3 grants programs to run the majority of their funding through Grants Stack
- Empowering builders to create new software applications on top of Allo Protocol
As these swimlanes illustrate, we want to draw more explicit lines between Grants Stack and Allo in S18/19 so that we can focus our development on their respective user bases. The workstream has been developing these two stacks together in this initial phase of development, but our next stage will require Grants Stack to build specifically for non-technical web3 grants programs, while Allo will need to entice builders to create new apps on the protocol. Both teams will be aiming at a shared protocol metric ($10mm in GMV) while also pursuing more product-specific goals (13-5-5 for Grants Stack and 10+ apps for Allo).
Grants Stack
The Grants Stack target user is a grant program manager. Currently they operate their program with makeshift processes built on general tools like Airtable and Notion, but the intended value proposition of Grants Stack is that it’s a purpose-built tool that enables these (non-engineer) users to easily spin up and execute a grant distribution. The time that they aren’t spending managing tools is time that they can then spend working with their grantees.
While we know that good UX will be an important part of paying off that value proposition, a key learning from our customer research is that web3 grant programs tend to have multiple flavors of grants that are targeted to specific outcomes. For example, many programs offer a light-touch pathway for small grants and a separate process for larger grants that tend to look more like investments. In light of this, most program managers describe QF as a good fit for part of their portfolio and see the need for Grants Stack to offer a variety of grant types to truly become a one-stop shop. The 13-5-5 target is designed to push us to create three base grant “flavors” to cover the majority of these use cases, while also setting us up to create more variations within those categories.
Given the need for continuous validation, we are outlining a basket of milestones that we are considering this season. We are committing to at least experimenting with these milestones — we may decide not to pursue some of them, but will provide reasoning if/when that happens.
- Direct Grants — enabling a direct grants process to support higher-touch grant programs
- Quadratic Voting — enabling a quadratic voting process to support more targeted community voting
- Future QF — developing novel forms of QF, such as pluralistic, to allow for greater customization of the mechanism
- Gnosis Safe App — integrating with Gnosis Safe to allow for easier team management in Grants Stack
- Messaging — allowing program managers and project owners to message their constituents / build their audience
Allo Protocol
With v1 of Allo now live, we need to turn our attention to seeding and growing the ecosystem on top of the protocol. Our long-term goal is to make Allo a decentralized, community-owned hyperstructure, and to get there we need to strike a balance between advancing the protocol (to attract more builders) and crystallizing its structure (to provide stability to the community). In S18/19, the Allo team will likely lean more towards the former so that we can expand the ecosystem beyond Grants Stack. We know of three builder archetypes at this stage:
- Independent grants management apps that want to leverage the Allo backend (e.g. Questbook, Charmesverse)
- Large web3 communities that want to build their own front-end grant experience (e.g. Optimism)
- Direct protocol integrations that want lay Allo on top of their existing protocol (e.g. SuperRare, Endaoment, Decent, Giveth)
This season we want to continue to explore this space, identify our top priority opportunities, and flesh out a compelling roadmap for Allo. Our north star metric will be independent software applications (i.e. not owned / operated by Gitcoin) built on Allo — if we aren’t enticing builders to work with our protocol, then we’re not building something valuable. The goal is to have 10+ independent apps built on the protocol, and we will be exploring a mix of milestones aimed both at advancing the underlying technology and aiding teams who are building on Allo. As with Grants Stack above, we are committing to at least exploring the milestones below, although we may not build all of it:
- Project Reputation — We’ve learned that a core requirement for this ecosystem is a trusted, universal registry of projects. Today we have a base database of projects, but we want to enrich that with web3-native attestations so that we can build a lattice of project reputation.
- Decentralized QF Compute — The calculations for our QF implementation are currently public, but run on centralized services. We believe in QF as a method and want to ensure that it is available as a truly decentralized mechanism in Allo. A key step towards that future is exploring a decentralized compute design that can make the mechanism truly open.
- MACI — MACI is a privacy-oriented style of QF with a growing, dedicated following. The current protocol design is not easily compatible with this mechanism and we want to explore evolving Allo to support this as an additional type.
- Reference UI — Currently Grants Stack straddles the line between stand-alone app and an entry-point reference UI (think Matcha vis-a-vis Uniswap). As Grants Stack becomes more sophisticated, we may want to explore creating a simple reference UI to allow users to engage with Allo on neutral ground.
- Value Capture Strategy — We hope that Allo (and its ecosystem) becomes a key source of funds for public goods, and we need to determine a strategy for turning the value of the protocol into usable resources.
- Voting Strategy Library — We have a hypothesis that having a pre-vetted library of voting strategies packaged with the protocol will enable more builders to create new applications, without having to build up expertise in allocation techniques.
Measurement
Grants Stack
- 13-5-5
- 13 Quadratic Funding rounds
- 5 Quadratic Voting rounds
- 5 Direct Grants programs
- 80% of programs would run again
- $10mm in GMV on Allo
Allo Protocol
- $10mm in GMV on Allo
- 10+ independent apps built on top of Allo
Note: these goals were established with a 6-month time horizon, which expires at the end of August. That is two months before S19 ends, so the team will also be responsible for developing and publishing the next set of targets, strategy, and roadmap during the lifespan of this budget.
Budget Breakdown
The Allo budget has increased from past seasons, primarily due to team growth (~9 new heads) and planned outsourced work. We feel that the grants opportunity space is massive and these increases are aimed at helping us move more quickly to maximize that opportunity. In addition to the tables below, we wanted to add some color on the changes we’ve made:
- Key Hires — we’ve hired or are planning to hire additional Product and DevRel heads so that we can expand our capabilities in these disciplines. Those new team members include a Product lead for Grants Stack, a DevRel engineer, and a planned senior Product Designer to lead our UX efforts.
- DAO Reorganization — as FDD and DAO Ops have dissolved, the Allo team has absorbed existing team members that are crucial to building a successful product team. That includes an Analyst, a Data Engineer, a dedicated Ops person, and four support team members (mostly part-time).
- Outsourcing — we want to build a muscle for engaging our community in building the Allo ecosystem, as we feel that this is our strongest path to success. This season we plan to hire external teams to work on a few Gitcoin-defined projects as a way to tackle key market needs more quickly while also providing a forcing function for building open-source, developer-friendly tools.
View 1: Breakdown per initiative and milestones
Milestones by overall resources
| Project | Resources ($) | Resources (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Grants (Outsourced) | $358,721.78 | 19.51% |
| Project Reputation | $358,721.78 | 19.51% |
| QF Compute | $134,520.67 | 7.32% |
| MACI (Outsourced) | $179,360.89 | 9.76% |
| Reference UI | $134,520.67 | 7.32% |
| Value Capture | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| QV | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| Future QF | $179,360.89 | 9.76% |
| Gnosis Safe App (Outsourced) | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| Messaging | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| TBD - partial arc | $67,260.33 | 3.66% |
| TBD - partial arc | $67,260.33 | 3.66% |
Hypothetical milestones by capacity
This is a hypothetical view of how we could theoretically flight our milestones given our team capacity. The actual timeline for our projects will likely look different.
| Initiative/
| Projects | Cost 05.23 | Cost 06.23 | Cost 07.23 | Cost 08.23 | Cost 09.23 | Cost 10.23 | Totals | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct Grants (Outsourced) | 149,467 | 119,574 | 89,680 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $358,721.78 | 19.51% |
| Project Reputation | 149,467 | 119,574 | 89,680 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $358,721.78 | 19.51% |
| QF Compute | 112,101 | 0 | 0 | 89,680 | 0 | 0 | $134,520.67 | 7.32% |
| MACI (Outsourced) | 0 | 89,680.44 | 89,680 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $179,360.89 | 9.76% |
| Reference UI | 0 | 0 | 44,840.22 | 89,680 | 0 | 0 | $134,520.67 | 7.32% |
| Value Capture | 0 | 44,840.22 | 44,840 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| QV | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 59,787 | 29,893 | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| Future QF | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 119,574 | 59,787 | $179,360.89 | 9.76% |
| Gnosis Safe App (Outsourced) | 0 | 0 | 29,893.48 | 59,787 | 0 | 0 | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| Messaging | 74,734 | 14,947 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $89,680.44 | 4.88% |
| TBD - partial arc | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 67,260.33 | $67,260.33 | 3.66% |
| TBD - partial arc | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 67,260.33 | $67,260.33 | 3.66% |
View 2: Breakdown staffing, contracting, operational expenses
| Function | Description | Amount USD | % |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Core Contributors Nate Gosselin - Workstream Co-lead Aditya Anand - Eng Lead Andrea Franz - Eng Lead Bhargav - Engineer Daniele Salatti -Engineer Hans - Engineer Jason Romero - Engineer Josef - Engineer Kurt M - Engineer Mo - Engineer Melissa Neira - Designer Will Goi - Designer Michelle Ma - Product Meg Lister - Product Baoki - Analyst Zen - Data Engineer Yuki - Support Lolu - Support Engineer TBD - Senior Hire |
$1,566,525 | 55.5% | |
|
Trusted Contributors Emmanuel - Support Julliet - Support Sorana - Operations & Data analyst |
$74,500 | 2.6% | |
|
Shared Kevin - Workstream Co-lead Zakk - Devrel Lead TBD - Devrel Engineer |
$133,746 | 4.8% | |
|
Outsourcing DevOps Direct Grants MACI Gnosis Safe |
$699,762 | 24.8% | |
|
DevRel Hackathons & Bounties |
$70,000 | 2.5% | |
|
Opex Infrastructure Audits Events/Travel Professional Development |
$277,000 | 9.8% | |
| Total | $2,821,533 | 100% |
View 3: Total request including reserves & budget rollover
| Total [Workstream] Budgeted Spend S18-S19 | $2,821,533 |
|---|---|
| 60 Day Reserves | $940,511 |
| S17 Treasury Balance, incl unspent reserves and any source of revenue* | $538,874 |
| Total S18-19 Request | $3,223,170 |
*Any and all revenue generated during the past season will flow back to the DAO treasury or will be rolled over to the next season.
During the season we will transparently report to CSDO and Stewards on revenue plus efforts to remediate currency fluctuations and report on these in the next budget request.
We look forward to your comments, thanks for your consideration!