[Proposal] MMM Workstream Season 18 & 19 Budget Request

MMM S18-S19 Workstream Budget Proposal

This is the integrated funding proposal for the MMM workstream requesting funding for Season 18 and S19 (1 May 2023 through 31 October 2023).

This budget request has been deeply reviewed and approved by CSDO, as well as reviewed by some of our top Stewards, namely @ale.k @kevin.olsen @kyle @ebransom and @dianarichter

For those who want a quick video (Loom) summary of the MMM budget, you can watch it here (5 mins).

TL;DR

In S18 & 19 the MMM Workstream is going to focus on one overarching north-star goal: Reposition Gitcoin as a tech-first organization (read more below)

To accomplish this goal, MMM will focus on the following strategic marketing areas in S18/19:

  • Bolster the narrative of our tech’s impact with meaningful research and impact reporting
  • Drive awareness, engagement, adoption and fandom of our products (product marketing)
  • Continue to establish and build hype for our products and Gitcoin’s overarching brand (brand marketing)
  • Shift existing audience perceptions through PR and community engagement initiatives

Outline

With Allo Protocol, Grants Stack and Passport out in the wild and Gitcon Grants uniquely positioned to act as a use case for our products, the DAO is heading into new territories, enabling Gitcoin to finally become a product-first organization. To support these advancements, over the next 6 months, MMM will be working to evolve Gitcoin’s public perceptions to be known as a visionary, tech-first organization.

In order to fulfill this strategy marketing is, of course, necessary. However, as the next 6 months progress, we intend to continue to partner with DAO leadership and stewards to surface important conversations that span beyond the scope of marketing to achieve this goal. The scope of this proposal will solely focus on MMM’s evolving role and preparedness to pivot to support emerging product initiatives.

In S18 & S19 we will be resourcing 4 focus areas that will support each of the DAO’s most important things: Allo success (which includes Grants Stack), Gitcoin Grants and Passport. We believe in order to effectively redeploy our epic and trusted brand, we need to leverage a long term communications strategy that invests in:

  • Multifaceted PR initiatives (integrated marketing)
  • Intentional market research & reporting (integrated marketing)
  • Robust product marketing
  • World-class brand marketing that targets web2.5 and web3 audiences

Amount

MMM is requesting [XXX] GTC* = $1,121,200 for S18-19, excluding reserves and rolled over amounts.

Budget evolution:

Gitcoin Season Season 15 Season 16 Season 17 Season 18 Season 19
Season Budget $417,543 $471,979 $414,041 $560,500 $560,500
Under/overspend** $51,000 (under) $128,000 (under) TBC 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

We plan to take a multi-pronged approach to orient to our north star. Below are the following focus areas for MMM in the coming months:

Public Relations & Supporting Community Engagement Efforts

Outcome: evolve existing audience perceptions and introduce Gitcoin to new audiences to build awareness and adoption of our products

Since Owocki’s disaffiliation from Gitcoin, a gap in thought leadership has been felt. We are no longer known for sharing compelling visions for our coordinated future. We don’t widely publicize how our efforts align with said future. These efforts are not only important for our brand equity but we think impactful thought leadership is critical to maintaining our market position and driving awareness of our products, services and renewed organizational mission. We will invest in bolstering our thought leadership efforts by building up recognizable, beloved leaders within the DAO. Moreover, MMM believes that to align with our marketing north star, these thought leaders should primarily be product-focused contributors.

In this area we intend to…

  1. Build out our brand’s thought leadership and elevate internal spokespeople (w/ focus on product teams).
  2. Leverage media relations campaigns through hiring internal PR support to help with media outreach, new market positioning, op-ed pitching and media relationship management.
  3. Having a strong presence at IRL events through meaningful brand activations, sponsorships, lead generation activities and support the creation of memorable, action-provoking experiences for the developer community.
  4. Ensure our marketing channels are product-first by integrating product messaging into most of our communications.

Research & Impact Reporting

Outcome: bolster the narrative of our tech’s impact & position Gitcoin as a market leader in the domain of funding governance & sybil defense

Due to the B2B nature of our tech-focused future, we need to invest in B2B sales and marketing strategies that position us as a recognizable industry leader. Tactics such as publishing (and marketing) research reports, impact reporting that focuses equally, if not more, on the impact of our tech as it does on the success of our grants program and other B2B sales enablement initiatives will be a point of focus in S18 & 19…

A note here on resourcing: MMM (or the DAO) is currently not fully resourced to meaningfully tackle this work. MMM plans to hire a contributor to help us plan and coordinate, meanwhile setting up several RFPs to do the heavy lifting of actual research throughout the seasons.

In this area we intend to…

  1. Evolve our impact measurement strategy by working with the data guild to plan and execute a new impact reporting plan (w/ a tech focus). V2 of a yearly impact report will highlight Allo use cases, Passport case studies, protocol GMV, etc. (rather than just impact of grants program).
  2. Drive the creation and execution of a “market research” plan by RFPing research papers that position our products as solutions to problem spaces surfaced in said papers.
  3. Continue to create on-going hype around Gitcoin’s impact with creative brand partnerships and integrated marketing initiatives.

Product Marketing

Outcome: drive awareness, engagement, adoption and fandom of Allo Protocol, Grants Stack and Passport - to further product maturity

As a team, we are very excited to bolster our product marketing initiatives that amplify the fact that Allo and Grants Stack are coming to life in the market. We intend to focus on a GTM launch followed by always-on marketing of Grants Stack Self Serve, an Allo Protocol showcase at EthCC, and an evolving Passport roadmap. In order for those and other product marketing initiatives to be a success, FT hires are being assessed and negotiated to further support this area.

In this area we intend to…

  1. Launch and market Grants Stack Self Serve including a GTM plan and always-on marketing roadmap
  2. Design funnels and execute segmented content marketing plans for Allo and Passport in support of DevRel efforts
  3. Design funnel and execute segmented content marketing plans for Grants Stack in support of partnerships/BD efforts.
  4. Subtly rebrand and/or reposition Gitcoin Grants as both our impact arm but also as a case study for Grants Stack
  5. Benchmark marketing metrics and report on campaign success with our new marketing metrics dashboard
  6. Continue doing the behind the scenes work to ensure our product messaging relates well to our market, including user/competitive research, user testing, product positioning, copy development, illustrations and designs, launch planning and execution, and development of sales enablement materials.

Brand Marketing

Outcome: Continue to establish and build hype for our products within their respective markets and continue to foster love for Gitcoin as a leader in web3

Last season we worked to maintain brand relevance through the unveiling of a new visual identity at EthDenver, the launch of a fresh microsite, the unveiling of phase 1 of our full website, and an NFT drop that brought in $1M to our matching pool. We have also been working with the product and partnerships teams to pivot Gitcoin’s brand to more closely align with our products’ visions.

This season, we will continue that work by partnering with our product teams to align our marketing brand visuals and product designs to create a more seamless experience between our marketing UX (ex: a user’s journey on our website) and product UX (a user’s journey on our dApps). We also plan to drive strategic realignment of Gitcoin Grants and Schelling Point brands to more closely tie together our product positioning and all external messaging.

In this area we intend to…

  1. Work with partnerships team to create a strong brand partnership strategy and implement alongside them
  2. Continue to flex our brand & design prowess as one of the most thoughtful and memorable brands in the Web3
  3. Plan and execute a “micro Schelling Point” activation at EthCC to showcase Allo use cases, drive protocol adoption, nurture partnership opportunities and continue to build brand love

MMM is uniquely positioned to drive success of all 3 of Gitcoin’s “3 most important things” over the next 6 months (Allo success, Gitcoin Grants success, Passport success). Our intention is to be in lockstep with each product team (including the Grants Ops team, with Gitcoin Grants being their product) to support them with OKR achievement. We will do this by having a dedicated team member embedded within each team to maximize cross-stream collaboration and information sharing.

List of S18 & S19 Goals

High-level metrics to measure how we are performing overall as a company.

Channel Measurement S15 S16 S17
Gitcoin Twitter Impressions 5.3MM 4.3MM 5.8MM (as of 2023-04-13)
Engagement rate 2.5% 4% 4.3% (as of 2023-04-13)
Gitcoin Passport Impressions - 261,000 599,000 (as of 2023-04-13)
Engagement rate - 4% 3.9% (as of 2023-04-13)
Follower count - 3,700 6,536 (as of 2023-04-13)
Email Open rate - 16.43% TBC
Click-thru rate - 0.52% TBC
Unsubscribe rate - 0.29% TBC
Blog Total blog post views 64,014 76,326 TBC
Avg time spent on page 39 seconds 50 seconds TBC

Detail:

Focus Area Initiative Metrics Likely Deliverables / Projects
Product Marketing - Allo Launch and continue to drive awareness and adoption of Allo Protocol EthCC success:
  • 20+ leads for the DevRel team
  • 20+ leads for the partnerships team

    Minimum 7 Allo case studies published

    +5000 followers on Allo Protocol Twitter

    TBC on metric measurements for other campaigns - more details are required

  • Main launch at EthCC (Schelling Point Salon)
  • Brand visual identity & open-source guide for Allo brand (similar to Gitcoin visual identity guide)
  • Soft launch on May 11
  • Project reputation campaign
  • Direct Gitcoin Grants launch campaign
  • Ongoing always-on content marketing
  • Spin up and build out the Allo Protocol Twitter account
  • Co-design and execute content marketing plan for Allo in support of DevRel
  • RFP whitepaper on community funding landscape (topic TBD)
  • Refresh the WTFisQF.com website

    Optional work:

    • QV alpha launch campaign (might happen in S20)
Product Marketing - Grants Stack Launch and Market Grants Stack Self Serve, followed by always-on SaaS marketing. Self-Serve QF campaign metrics as per the plan

Program Operator Toolkit metrics within the first 2 weeks of launch:

  • 3000 visits to webpage
  • Avg. time on page > 50 seconds
  • > 4 pages per visit on average

    TBC on metric measurements for other campaigns - more details are required

  • Execute Self Serve Launch Plan
  • Build and launch the Grants Manager Toolkit - a top of funnel evergreen content / education microsite
  • Co-market & publicize high-profile serviced rounds (UNICEF, American Cancer Society, Nouns)
  • Ongoing always-on content marketing to drive adoption
  • Identify scaled service offering to market emerging serviced rounds identified by PGF

    Optional work:

    • Create Grants Stack promotional marketing videos
Product Marketing - Passport Boost awareness of Passport as a product and drive Holder and Community Adoption
  • Over 10k followers on Passport Twitter
  • Avg engagement rate > 4%
  • Passport builder email list of >2k
  • >20 Weekly Release Notes posted TBC on metric measurements for other campaigns - more details are required
  • Continue ongoing always-on marketing and announcement campaign support
  • Continue to build out our Passport Twitter following
  • Design funnel and execute a segmented content marketing plan for Passport (Web3 project leaders vs web3 citizens)
  • Whitepaper and/or blog posts on future of reputation management (topic TBC)
Product Marketing - Gitcoin Grants Roll out multiple Gitcoin Grants marketing campaigns
  • 3 million total impressions on Twitter for our main account during each round
  • Drive 50,000 unique visitors to the round landing page each round
  • Promote the July (TBC) Gitcoin Grants round
  • Promote the October (TBC) Gitcoin Grants round
  • Development of brand strategy, webpage and SSOT doc for Gitcoin Grants
  • Reposition Gitcoin Grants marketing communications to reflect our tech-first narrative
  • Develop and publish round performance case studies
  • Co-design and execute segmented lead gen pipelines and marketing automation processes for the BD team

    Optional given time/resource constraints:

    • Relaunch Grantee community portal into fully functional & easy to edit website (TBD based on level of traffic vs. investment)
    • Relaunch GR-OG community portal into fully functional & easy to edit website
Product Marketing Brand, launch and drive awareness of the Public Goods Network L2 TBC - details of project still incoming
Brand Marketing Maintain high levels of brand affinity for Gitcoin and its sub-brands WTFisQF website within the first 2 weeks of relaunch:
  • 5000 site visits
  • > 30 seconds avg time on site
  • Finish publishing remainder of Gitcoin.co website pages
  • Visual Design Documentation Phase II: Publish brand x product design guide
  • Support Product teams with app redesigns
  • Updated Press/Media kit on the website (external) and within Notion (internal)
  • Optional given time/resource constraints:

    • Refresh and relaunch the Gitcoin Primer
    • Refresh the quadraticvote.co microsites
    • Development of brand visual refresh (based on aforementioned strategy) of Gitcoin Grants
    • Create a decentralized contribution network for artists/designers/creatives (retool bounties)
Brand marketing Drive internal comms & external community engagement initiatives
  • Publish 26 Weekly DAO Digests Metalabel Record drop:
    • $100K raised with record drop
  • Publish weekly DAO Digest newsletter (previously funded in S16)
  • Update and maintain Notion Contributor Hub & DAO Integrated Calendar
  • Continue to produce the Gitcoin Community Call (formerly an activity of PGF)
  • Organize and launch a Metalabel Record drop

    Optional projects given time/resource constraints:

    • Organize and launch a 2nd (or larger series of) Metalabel drop(s)
    • Redesign and launch the Steward section of the Community Hub in Notion
    • Redesign the entire Community Hub in Notion into either a) a Notion template or b) a microsite
Brand Marketing (always on) Continue to service the DAO from a content and creative perspective
  • + 90% completion rate of all design requests on time, without needing to reschedule
  • Fulfill on adhoc design and content requests made by DAO contributors
  • Update partnership decks as needed
  • Promote most new partnerships and all new community initiatives (ex: gtcETH, Rocketpool ODAO, etc.)
Supporting Community Engagement (GCP Funded) Support the planning and execution of Schelling Point Conference at DevConnect 2023 Metrics will be listed for S20 when the event actually takes place
  • Develop brand strategy (purpose, mission, values, vision, etc. of SP) and refreshed visual identity(actual designs) for future Schelling Point events
  • Plan execution of Schelling Point conference in November at DevConnect (actual launch in S20)
  • Explore alternative funding mechanisms (outside of seeking sponsorships) (ex: GTC native ticket sales, GTC staking, etc.)

    Optional work (depending on the GCP):

    • Experiment with a variety of IRL and virtual formats for Schelling Point with the long-term goal of decentralizing future SP events
Public Relations Build and execute thought leadership strategy to reposition Gitcoin as a technology leader
  • Host 10 product-focused Twitter Spaces on Gitcoin’s Twitter channel
  • Create a Gitcoin / Public Goods / impact brand Theory of Change (ToC) to align individual thought leadership brand building
  • Brand building & content plan execution for internal spokespeople (with a focus on product teams)
  • Create and execute a product-focused Twitter Spaces calendar
Public Relations Media relations campaigns through building internal PR capacity to support with media outreach and media relationship management
  • 3 media opportunities/month
  • 1 long-form piece of content/month
  • 2 podcast appearances/month
  • 100% of community initiatives have press releases created & pitched to a minimum of 20 media outlets
  • Support with launch campaigns and high-profile serviced rounds (shared resource with PGF)
  • Build out internal PR capacity to support Grants Stack Services objectives and brand objectives with a new hire in S19
Research & Impact Reporting (mostly GCP Funded) Evolve our research and impact measurement strategy to bolster b2b marketing and reposition us as an industry leader in our field(s) Publish and market 2 whitepapers
  • Execute a new impact reporting plan w/ a tech focus.
  • Create V2 of a bi-annual-to-yearly impact report that will highlight Allo use cases, Passport case studies, protocol GMV, etc
  • Create and execute a “market research” plan – RFP research papers that position our products as potential solutions to problem spaces surfaced
  • Build out a new “Gitcoin Research” content channel or web area to highlight research & impact work
  • Continue to create hype around Gitcoin’s impact with creative brand partnerships and marketing initiatives

RFPs and GCPs

In addition to the work above, we will be outsourcing some of our work to the broader community. This includes:

  • Schelling Point Conference at DevConnect 2023
  • Additional impact reporting & research initiative support

All parties/entities awarded funding the GCPs related to these projects will coordinate alongside MMM to ensure KPIs are met, with MMM having decision making authority on what goes/doesn’t go. This is to ensure that all work produced on behalf of the DAO aligns with the rest of our brand work.

Budget Breakdown

View 1.1: Breakdown per category

The chart below is a hypothetical breakdown of the approximate amount MMM will spend on each category of work.

chart

View 1.2: Breakdown per initiative and milestones

Please see this comment in the comments section for full details.

View 2: Breakdown staffing, contracting, operational expenses

What’s changed:

  • Removing/consolidating several roles, including:
    • Design Ops (being taken over by Mathilda)
    • Impact Reporting special project (being transformed into a single coordinator role + GCPs)
    • UI/UX designer (will be resourced on an as-needed basis)
    • Analytics & growth marketing (operating at a reduced scope)
  • Added several new roles, including:
    • Impact reporting & research coordinator
    • Publicist
    • 2x Designers (exact specialties TBD)
    • Staff writer (instead of sourcing many low-context writers)
    • Product Marketing Manager (to bolster our roster of dedicated marketers working on our product portfolio)
Function Description Amount USD %
Full-time Contributors Marketing Strategy Lead & Grants Stack POC – Laura

Marketing Operations Lead & Program POC – Jonathan

Passport marketing/POC, Content & Email Strategy - Gary

Senior Brand & Product Marketing Strategist, Allo POC – Alexa

Social Media & Community manager – Vermeer

Creative Director, product design support - LH

Art Director, designer & videographer – Cici

Product Marketing Manager & Strategist - TBC

Publicist - TBD*

Designer – TBD**

Designer – TBD**

Campaign Coordinator & Content Manager - Mathilda

$709,500 63%
Part-time Contributors Designer – Gina

Designer – Harry

Technical lead – Gerrit

Impact reporting & research coordinator - Sov

Accounting & Treasury Diversification, marketing analytics – Jonas

Staff writer – Rohit

Editor – Liam

DAO Digest writer – TBC

$210,900 20%
Various other freelancers for 1-off projects*** Includes freelancers specializing in:
  • Video development
  • Animations
  • Additional writing support
  • UX copywriting
  • UX design
$60,000 5%
Opex EthCC Allo Protocol Activation

EthBarcelona Allo x Endaoment activation

Creative technology licenses

IRL Sales Enablement Efforts (stickers, prints, merch, designs)

Travel expenses (3 team members x1 trip)

$83,000 7.5%
Optional Projects
Twitter Blue Subscription (allows for new subscribers to see us in their feed)**** $6,000 0.5%
Social listening software (Notus) $1,800 0.0%
Marketing & Brand Sponsorships***** $50,000 4%
Total $1,119,400 100%

* A note on the publicist role: we are going to attempt to resource this as a PT role. That said, if we find it difficult to find someone willing to take on a part-time role, we will look into hiring someone FT that can take on work beyond a basic PR role. For this reason, we are budgeting for a FT role in case we require the extra budget to hire accordingly.

** A note on the designer roles: both of these roles are being budgeted as FT roles, but will not necessarily be FT. The designers we choose to work with (be it an illustrator, UX designer, graphic designer, or other) will likely be offered a small, freelancer contract at first and will bill us at an agreed-upon hourly rate. Budgeting this way gives us full flexibility to ramp up someone’s hours quickly should the need arise.

*** A note on our freelancer budget: marketing requires a wide range of skills and specialties. This bucket allows us to outsource these skill sets vs. keeping them staffed in house. We have historically always had this built into our budget and have leaned on it heavily in order to meet the requests of the DAO. Like previous seasons, it is highly unlikely that we will come close to using this entire budget. That said, we want to make sure we can be agile with the demands of the DAO. All extra funds will be returned to the DAO’s treasury at the end of S19.

**** A note on Twitter: we haven’t fully explored whether we will pull the trigger on this. It appears that new followers will no longer be able to see our content unless we subscribe. Twitter is easily our most impactful channel and we want to make sure to preserve what we’ve built over the years.

***** A note on sponsorships: there have been a lot of talks internally about whether to sponsor events or not. Based on some preliminary conversations, we’d like to position MMM as the defacto owners of this budget. These funds will be used for strategically aligned opportunities that move forward on our business objectives. Our goal is not to spend the full amount of this budget, but rather have the flexibility to decide whether we should pursue an opportunity or not. Any funds remaining at the end of the season will be returned to the treasury. Any funds beyond this amount will be requested from the treasury through a GCP.

**View 3: Total request including reserves & budget rollover **

Total [Workstream] Budgeted Spend S18-S19 $1,121,200
33% Budget Reserves $369,996
S17 Treasury Balance, incl unspent reserves and any source of revenue* $300,000 est.
Total S18-19 Request $1,191,196

* 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!

6 Likes

View 1.2: Breakdown per initiative and milestones

Below is the chart used to produce the category breakdown above. This is only a partial list of projects based on what MMM will be working on in the coming months. The intention of this exercise is to signal to the DAO where we intend to focus our attention and efforts. All numbers are hypothetical/approximates.

Category Initiative/Project

5/23

6/23

7/23

8/23

9/23

10/23

TOTALS %
Allo Main launch at EthCC (Schelling Point Salon)

$35,450

$39,510

$74,960

10.03%

Allo Allo launch

$16,993

$16,993

2.27%

Allo Allo v2 campaign

$15,660

$15,660

2.09%

Allo Refresh the WTFisQF.com website

$9,705

$9,705

$19,410

2.60%

Grants Stack Execute Self Serve Launch Plan

$19,410

$19,410

2.60%

Grants Stack Grants Manager Toolkit

$5,400

$5,400

0.72%

Grants Stack Co-market & publicize high-profile serviced rounds (UNICEF, American Cancer Society, Nouns)

$9,750

$9,750

$9,750

$29,250

3.91%

Grants Stack Co-design and execute segmented lead gen pipelines and marketing automation processes for the BD team

$10,950

$10,950

$10,950

$32,850

4.39%

Grants Stack Identify scaled service offering to market emerging serviced rounds identified by PGF

$6,750

$6,750

$6,750

$20,250

2.71%

Passport Launch and maintain Weekly Release Notes hub

$2,400

$2,400

$2,400

$2,400

$2,400

$2,400

$14,400

1.93%

Passport Continue to build out our Passport Twitter following

$3,400

$3,400

$3,400

$3,400

$3,400

$3,400

$20,400

2.73%

Passport Design funnel and execute a segmented content marketing plan for Passport (Web3 project leaders vs web3 citizens)

$2,500

$2,500

$2,500

$2,500

$2,500

$2,500

$15,000

2.01%

Passport Launch campaigns every 6 weeks (exact details TBC)

$5,400

$5,400

$5,400

$5,400

$5,400

$5,400

$32,400

4.33%

Gitcoin Grants Promote the July (TBC) Gitcoin Grants round

$15,527

$15,527

$31,054

4.15%

Gitcoin Grants Promote the October (TBC) Gitcoin Grants round

$15,527

$15,527

$31,054

4.15%

Gitcoin Grants Development of brand strategy, webpage and SSOT doc for Gitcoin Grants

$12,105

$12,105

$24,210

3.24%

Gitcoin Grants Develop and publish round performance case studies

$3,800

$3,800

$7,600

1.02%

Brand Finish publishing remainder of Gitcoin.co website pages

$9,105

$9,105

$18,210

2.44%

Brand Visual Design Documentation Phase II: Publish brand x product design guide

$4,800

$4,800

0.64%

Brand Support Product teams with app redesigns

$4,800

$4,800

$9,600

1.28%

Brand Updated Press/Media kit on the website (external) and within Notion (internal)

$2,727

$2,727

0.36%

Brand Organize and launch a Metalabel Record drop

$15,477

$15,477

2.07%

Internal comms Publish weekly DAO Digest newsletter (previously funded in S16)

$1,350

$1,350

$1,350

$1,350

$1,350

$1,350

$8,100

1.08%

Internal comms Update and maintain Notion Contributor Hub & DAO Integrated Calendar

$4,200

$4,200

$4,200

$4,200

$4,200

$4,200

$25,200

3.37%

Internal comms Continue to produce the Gitcoin Community Call (formerly an activity of PGF)

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$7,998

1.07%

General Fulfill on adhoc design and content requests made by DAO contributors

$0

0.00%

General Create and execute a product-focused Twitter Spaces calendar

$4,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$1,333

$10,998

1.47%

General Ongoing always-on content marketing for all products

$11,260

$11,260

$11,260

$11,260

$11,260

$11,260

$67,560

9.04%

Community engagement Update partnership decks as needed

$2,727

$2,727

$2,727

$8,181

1.09%

Community engagement Promote most new partnerships and all new community initiatives (ex: gtcETH, Rocketpool ODAO, etc.)

$6,000

$6,000

$6,000

$6,000

$6,000

$6,000

$36,000

4.81%

Community engagement Develop brand strategy and refreshed visual identity for future Schelling Point events

$3,750

$6,477

$10,227

1.37%

Community engagement Create a Gitcoin / Public Goods / impact brand Theory of Change (ToC) to align individual thought leadership brand building

$9,750

$9,750

1.30%

Community engagement Brand building & content plan execution for internal spokespeople (with a focus on product teams)

$6,000

$6,000

$12,000

1.60%

PR Build thought leadership of key spokespeople at the DAO

$6,500

$6,500

$6,500

$6,500

$6,500

$6,500

$39,000

5.22%

Impact reporting Execute a new impact reporting plan w/ a tech focus.

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$12,000

1.60%

Impact reporting Create V2 of a bi-annual-to-yearly impact report that will highlight Allo use cases, Passport case studies, protocol GMV, etc

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$2,000

$13,277

$13,277

$34,554

4.62%

Impact reporting Create and execute a “market research” plan – RFP research papers that position our products as potential solutions to problem spaces surfaced

$5,000

$5,000

0.67%

Additional Considerations

1. Workstream Structure

The MMM team is composed of 2 major parts + a community projects arm.

At the core of MMM is our support squad that does much of the tactical heavy lifting for the DAO. This group includes the content team, the brand & design team, analytics & technical team, and an operations team that runs MMM.

Alongside this is the Marketing Guild - a team of marketers that are deeply embedded within each of the product teams. As of the writing of this budget, the breakdown of this team is:

  • Passport → Gary Sheng
  • Program/Donor Marketing → CoachJ
  • Grants Stack & Allo → Alexa
  • Brand & Overall strategic marketing → Laura

Like in many traditional marketing orgs, each product-specific marketer acts as a “marketing manager” of the product, while our “marketing director” plays a role across all products, ensuring strategic alignment and cohesion across the org.

Community projects are projects that have been designated as strategically important for the DAO, but lack funding/internal capacity. These are projects that will be RFP’d in the hopes of attracting sharp, driven talent to take on scoped work in collaboration with and oversight from the MMM team.

2. Resourcing Challenges

Over the last several seasons, we have continued to accommodate Steward requests to lower the marketing budget. We have consistently shown that we can perform with a lean team and under tight deadlines. This, however, has not come without a cost.

This past season in particular, we experienced a team running at full-to-over capacity. We felt under-resourced for what was expected of us from the DAO, and it showed. Whether a designer got sick, a team member was moving countries (of which almost half(!) of our team did last season) or a coordinator took some vacation time - any gap in our team due to personal circumstances served as a huge handicap for us. During those times deadlines were missed and expectations were not met.

In March of 2023 (after returning back to work from Denver on March 6th) we received 12 design requests - that’s 1 request every 2-3 days outside of what we had already planned to work on. As of April 25th, we have received 12 requests (some small, some very large with multiple pieces) from folks across the DAO (including some from MMM contributors). Again, these are all projects outside of what we had initially scoped when planning our budget.

As much as we’ve looked at optimizing our processes, there is a clear mismatch between what the Stewards see as a “big enough” marketing budget vs. what the DAO expects of us. This tension is worth raising since our inability to perform due to resource constraints looks bad on us and erodes trust within the organization and to Stewards. Internally this looks like conversations about “I’ll just do it myself” or “I can’t count on you to support me with XYZ.” As often as we want to say “no” in order to prioritize, we’re concerned with the consequences of consistently taking this path.

For this reason we have made a large increase in our budget request. For the organization to accomplish what it has set out to do and in the time frame it wants to do it, we simply need more firepower on the marketing team. We’ve been explicitly told that we are going to experience 6 months of “very high growth”. To do that, we are going to need to grow our marketing bench.

Bounties for ad-hoc projects

One narrative I’d like to address up front is the idea of relying on bounties to address our design capacity gaps, specifically around “ad-hoc” requests.

Ad-hoc requests are typically unplanned, and generally are requested from outside of MMM with an average deadline of 4 days out. This means that if someone makes a request on Monday, they hope to see something completed by Thursday or Friday of the same week.

Here are some examples of ad-hoc requests that have come in over the last several weeks:

  • A graphic that will live on the thank you page after users finish up the donation flow on Explorer
  • banner that will live on the round discovery page for Explorer
  • Passport scorer landing page illustration before entering the in-app experience
  • Emoji status for TG
  • Update to Discord images
  • Fundraising 101 blog post image
  • Partnership deck refreshes
  • DAO Digest banner refresh

Planned projects, on the other hand, are large-scale projects and campaigns that require several weeks of runway to design. Some examples of this include:

  • The Impact Report
  • Our new gitcoin.co website (have you seen it yet??)
  • Grants Stack Self-Serve Launch campaign
  • EthCC Schelling Point activation (and accompanying designs)
  • Gitcoin Grants round promotion

When I first joined Gitcoin in November of 2021, we were using bounties to complete graphics requests. The results were often low quality, overpriced (based on the output + coordination and briefing efforts) and took longer (from posting, to submissions, to judging, to making final edits).

Over the past 1-½ years (and especially in my time as a WS lead) I have favored working with high-context individuals who can produce higher quality designs in less time. What’s missing now is ensuring that we have enough of these designers on retainer to meet the ever-growing demands for illustrations and designs of all kinds.

That said, we are exploring the possibility of reviving a very intentional, well-thought, highly curated design bounties program and experimenting with it.

Saying no to projects

A quick word on this as well: if we’re overloaded with work, shouldn’t we just prioritize the most important work and say ‘no’ to the rest? This was a strategy that we attempted several times and has not been received well internally.

When we’re positioning ourselves as the creative arm of the DAO, there is–rightfully so–an expectation that we can deliver creative as needed. When that’s not the case, we see individuals looking outside of MMM to meet their creative needs which puts all of our brand efforts at risk.

We also (unfortunately) have experienced saying ‘no’ as something equating to low performance or an unwillingness to work with others. After evaluating our alternatives, it makes most sense to us to ensure we are properly resourced to say ‘yes’ to most projects even though this might come at a greater cost to the DAO.

8 Likes

Appreciate the extra context about the need for designers, and the trade-offs made in deciding the hourly commitments of these team members. I also really was glad to see careful consideration of the way forward with a publicist position that can scale with our organic growth.

I’m in support of this budget. Thanks to all involved for all the careful thought and work!

6 Likes

Caveat: I was not one of the stewards who reviewed the budget closely. Nor do I have deep context into how this workstream has evolved over the past several seasons. So my comments are only focused on the outputs, not the inputs, of MMM.

Caveats aside, MMM appears to be firing on all cylinders right now. The new website and brand identity are stunning. The collab with Metalabel – raising $1M – was amazing. Gitcoin’s ETH Denver presence was unmatched. The product marketing for the new protocol stack appears to have been incredibly effective. Oh, and Gitcoin has the best Twitter game in web3.

MMM is a rising tide that lifts all boats in the regen crypto seas. I encourage other stewards to view this budget request not just as an investment in the DAO’s marketing but as an investment in giving the entire space the legitimacy and recognition it deserves. I will be voting YES to this proposal.

8 Likes

thank you for the very clear and insanely thorough write upS!

one thing I liked is the detail on the metrics - and the willingness to get specific even understanding that there are so many items beyond our control to some extent…

5 Likes

Been working together more closely with MMM over these past few months, and see that being something we continue to do from the PGF side. Looking forward to doing that and am fully supportive of this proposal.

4 Likes

Great work on this budget. I love where this has gotten to, and I see the conversations we’ve all been having reflected here. I’m supportive and will echo @azeem 's enthusiasm for the PGF MMM collaboration.

4 Likes

Really appreciate the above comments and, of course, the details of this budget. I am looking forward to seeing this initiative play out.

  1. Build out our brand’s thought leadership and elevate internal spokespeople (w/ focus on product teams).

I don’t have any context yet for MMM but as an entrepreneur I do acknowledge that marketing often gets downplayed when, in fact, it’s essential to building a brand and sustaining a business. ‘Money follows attention.’ And attention follows (good) marketing.

P.S. Love the new website, too.

4 Likes

Very much in support of this budget!

Really appreciate the deep thought that went into this and how well it’s all communicated here. $560k per season for 18 and 19 feels like a great place to be for this budget given the number of things this team is supporting and running at.

4 Likes

As I’m stepping down from my full time role within MMM in Season 18, I’m so excited to see what the team will continue to deliver as time to production continue to decrease for MMM.

The processes and foundations that MMM has built over the last 6 months makes me very optimistic for what this team can deliver in the future.

3 Likes

This budget is now live, please go vote on this proposal here:
https://snapshot.org/#/gitcoindao.eth/proposal/0xc8cea5df7b14e71ec91aa307837e1e86f7cd285a5037a517daac29e45e34bb2d

End date May 10, 2023, 8:00 AM EST

Appreciate the thoroughness of this proposal and recognize what a huge lift it is going to be shifting Gitcoin into something that is known as a tech first project.

Excited to see what this team achieves bringing that to life.

1 Like

fyi - this snapshot vote has passed with ~89% approval rate.
Metrics:
1882 unique votes
~10.3M GTC tokens cast.

Thank you to all the voters for participating in our governance and the proposal reviewers for going deep on these budgets!

1 Like