Thanks for the feedback regarding the visual. Every S15 budget proposal follow a structure that takes care of the broader strokes, but there are still a couple of differences when you really dig into the details. FDD for example does not present a list of full time and part time contributors so that information can’t be added to this visual at this time. Also a bit tricky as WS use the term “core contributors” differently. I hope we can get some unifying rules in place for the non-draft budget proposals.
The recent changes in workstream composition resulted in quite a bit of changes, somehow Zen didn’t make it in my edit earlier, he/she has now been added.
For the record, we have been pushing to get a definition of the term core contributors at CSDO. How do you see the other streams defining it differently?
Currently, the 8 core contributors listed can be compared to a full time salary.
The trusted contributors are hourly ranging from $20/hr to $75 hr.
Thanks! I can confirm this is an accurate update of the 8 core contributors for FDD.
At the risk of being repetitive this season - what a great write-up! Thank you for this clear write-up and for all the work you do to secure the credibility of Gitcoin et al
Just a couple of quick ones:
where does cloud or data center spending show up?
do we anticipate it growing as we gather more data?
would FDD potentially generate revenues in the future as other platforms embrace Grants 2.0 and need “our” / your protective services?
What have been the most difficult areas of responsibility to clarify between FDD and other workstreams?
Spendings for software as a service does show up in the budget breakdown. However, the visibility of SaaS expenses could have been outlined more clearly.
SaaS expenses for cloud / data center are considered to be part of the initiative Data Empowerment in our percentage split estimates. The current cost is < $250/month for Google Cloud Platform & Github.
At some point we might look into and explore decentralized cloud solutions.
Question
Yes, but not a significantly (< $1,000 monthly) anytime in the next 3-6 months. Much of what we are doing is making
great documentation for which subgraphs and open web3 APIs are best
keeping current data sets clean for crowdsourced analysis.
Neither FDD nor our initiative Data Empowerment is intended to be a data services organization.
Question
This is a spicy question.
Our current answer is: We highlight that FDD is aiming to protocolize solutions, not to be a services company of any sort. That said, there are definitely avenues for monetization including spinning out a service DAO or even building and owning digital public infrastructure for sharing data, feature and model engineering for ML, and crowdsourcing data science insights.
However, one could argue and ask: why does protocolizing seem to be at odds with generating revenue? Which one applies:
Revenue XOR Protocolizing
Revenue OR Protocolizing
The need is for buy in from the rest of the DAO and stewards to give us the freedom to discover where the value is.
To make that happen, the stewards community would have to reconsider their decision, because they voted DOWN a discovery for a revenue-generating sybil detection DAO. We understood that the driver behind this decision was continually viewing attempts of revenue generation as “defecting”.
Question
@DisruptionJoe has been leading most of alignment conversions and he outlines:
One area is our work toward solutions which decentralize the moderation inputs to a grant round. User and grant moderation is one of our core competencies. Our bottoms up suggestions all recommend that we build digital public infrastructure to sustainably serve these needs in a credibly neutral way that is equally accessible to all the communities that will run their own rounds in the future.
The stewards, guided by a few strong opinions, however, have pushed us to centralize our efforts for efficiency and simply execute until a time when the other workstreams can design protocol-based solutions. One of our strengths is Protocol Research. We believe our research could be much better utilized to align roadmaps and context awareness across the DAO.
Here are some hands-on examples:
Example 1 - Using Ethelo for scaling grant reviews
Example 2 - Discovery for Sybil Detection DAO
Example 3 - Shutting down the community model only to be wowed by a presentation of on-chain features.
And …
The best example - We couldn’t get our contributors’ Data Access to cGrants database until last season for all but Blockscience. We couldn’t tinker with data to improve rounds over rounds.
So then we literally moved the whole SAD model to be run by the DAO with no way to get or check data other than requesting it from Blockscience and scraping it. (We didn’t have any access to data prior to season 14.)
We like to highlight that alignment efforts made by other workstreams, especially GPC, since last budget season have made drastic improvements for us in all the mentioned areas. We do feel the results of better communication about these issues.
I seem to have stepped in it a bit w/ my question.
I’m a big believer in a sure sign of a good org being some people are “disagreeing and committing.” That’s the sense I got from your post which speaks highly IMO both of FDD’s quality and that the overall DAO is making tough decisions (setting aside whether or not they are correct :)).
That said, as someone w/ too much experience in the old open source world & starting stuff & now DAO metagovernance largely via Wildfire - I’m super curious about the 4 listed areas and overall the notion of relevant digital public infrastructure. If I could be useful as a volunteer in listening, helping to further crystalize, and so on please count me in. I’ll ping you on the channels as well.
This is exactly what has happened. We had disagreements, but have committed to alignment with CSDO, the other workstream leads, rather than go our own way. This doesn’t mean the conversation is over though! You can see more of this thinking in public and pushing to sway the overton window here Knowledge Transfer: Characterizing the Sybil Resistance Problem - #6 by DisruptionJoe
There is something particularly magical about rewarding passionate and dedicated contrarians of simple majorities.
I think these are the genuine areas of difference of opinion. A couple may be “too early” and others may be misunderstood or poorly explained. Overall, I hope people will understand that we wanted to answer your question honestly, but they shouldn’t over-index on that answer.
I think this part says more about the bigger context story than anything else:
Hello, @tigress I’m glad to see the FDD budget posted here
First I just wanna say I love to be a grant reviewer and part of the FDD and Gitcoin. The vibes are awesome, I love to catch bad projects, bad actors/ sybils
One aspect I really don’t understand is why we got so much push back on grant reviews when we were very effective as a group and managed to protect Gitcoin for 4 seasons.
I agree that maybe we should have been more proactive or maybe more involved in the DAO as a whole, but we are still here
A big thank you to all who have invested their energy in supporting us to make our proposal better.
Since we were able to receive feedback early in the process, we came in already with great alignment. Based on the most recent conversations and your comments we decided that there weren’t any (major) changes to be integrated.
We are moving straight forward to the integrated state of the budget request.
Fully echoing this by @tjayrush and I am delighted to see FDD not only embracing the new budget template but really working to expand on the clarity and transparency aspects of budget proposals. Having discussed this with the reviewing stewards, I am supportive of this ask and feel it in line with delivering on the EIs listed for S15.
Thank you Simona, as a initiative lead in the FDD it is very comforting to know that the FDD is seen as properly aligned with the rest of the DAO and it’s EI.
I will echo the appreciation and sentiment on the clarity of the budget and clear division of work across the four key areas.
I know there are already conversations happening around how might we further embed some of the work FDD is doing with other teams (PGF, Passport dev, etc.) and I love the idea of exploring this as part of S15. Specifically to make sure collaboration is strong and we are focused on the protocol future.
I am supportive of the budget as proposed. I think throughout S15 I would want to confirm ownership of specific areas are well defined (ie, where Grants review lives, where protocol research lives). This could leave more room in the FDD mandate to support data research, data access and developing integration with other tools (perhaps aura).
Thanks again for the work to get us to this point!
Amazing to see that the FDD budget request is getting good feedback. As a random web3 dude, grant reviewing was an amazing experience and I was just happy to use the skills I developed when investing in crypto to help allocate matching. It felt that we had an impact overall, I was a little confused when I heard that we could no longer continue reviewing. I was one of the newest reviewers, but people like @AnnAnna96@ijeblowrider emmanuel were really working hard and when comparing the result with their review it seemed that their reviews were accurate
I’ve followed FDD’s budget ever since FDD was first formed and I found that reading this current iteration was a breeze. So kudos to the team!
Good
great job for S14, executing on everything and even going the extra mile with lowering the cost of reviews
liked how y’all engaged @epowell101 and gave them a warm welcome to Gitcoin’s governance forum and process
liked how you involved some of your reviewers! Thank you for your service @AnnAnna96 ( I see a fellow person born in '96) and @romeonebun
Could improve
would really like to see FDD take on some thought leadership about its data operations. What is being done here is truly unique and could definitely benefit the ecosystem at large
I think during one of our calls we reframed FDD’s role as ensuring efficient capital allocation. I hope to see more of this in your thinking about FDD’s value not just within Gitcoin but to the ecosystem at large especially when looking at the future of Gitcoin as a protocol
Looking forward
we’re working on grantee engagement next season over at PGF and grantees always tend to have issues about reviews, appeals etc. Looking forward to improving this user experience!
Overall, thank you for your hard work and forward to S15
The infographic and the original post are quite comprehensive, as is echoed in other comments! The budget allocation for different objectives also seems aligned with the goals of the DAO while keeping a long-term view of the treasury.
I want to echo the other comments here: this is a well-written proposal that makes it really easy to see how FDD’s work aligns with the rest of the DAO — thank you! I appreciate all the effort that went into driving that alignment and am supportive of the budget as proposed.
I have not reviewed this budget in-depth on the forum, but I’ve read the positive reviews by the other Stewards under this proposal, and I’ve also read the initial proposal during the CSDO planning meetings. Based on this I will vote yes on this proposal.
I’m supportive of this budget after reviewing it at a high level and seeing the positive comments from stewards especially those who worked closely with the workstream on feedback. I also appreciate the clear breakdown and info in the budget request.
I echo others’ feedback on this proposal and will be voting yes.
FDD has come leaps & bounds since even last season on its communication of the budget. The simplicity and clarity of this request is a breath of fresh air and one that other workstreams (mine included!) can learn from.
I hope for two things for FDD for S15:
To continue this simplification/communication effort, in all its other facets beyond just the budget (IMO the FDD Discord norms, team structures, and often the slides/visuals shared are still often hard-to-understand and slightly overwhelming)
To continue to increase collaboration with PGF as we look to jointly define how we manage policy & eligibility in a protocol world
question.
We like to highlight that alignment efforts made by other workstreams, especially GPC, since last budget season have made drastic improvements for us in all the mentioned areas. We do feel the results of better communication about these issues. 
question.
