[S16 Proposal] DRAFT Public Goods Funding Budget Request

[ceresstation]

Considering many of these 13 contributors are part-time, the average would actually be closer to $200k or more for a full-time role - this doesn’t seem on-par with the rest of the DAO or the space in general.

All contributors noted there are full time with the exception of Madison, so you could maybe use 12.5 instead of 13 I suppose which would be closer to ~170k on average. On GTC, while DAO Ops is compensated entirely in GTC IIRC, GPC and others are distributed stables.

On (3), the discussion at CSDO assumed that most (if not all) of the cost of this event would be covered by sponsors. I think the decision might have been different if we were asking for $100k+ from the treasury for this.

Happy to revisit this in a future CSDO call but I do think in general the DAO was aware that costs would be in this range, IIRC a ballpark was noted and @J9leger asked if folks were comfortable with the risk of funding not being fully covered by the sponsorships in the failure case (with the goal being to fully cover). The notes from that call can provide more context.

From what I understand, the salaries noted (including in the posting you’ve shared) include token rewards - there’s no reason a company would advertise a significantly lower salary in a job posting than the total compensation they are actually offering.

UMA notes that “packages include competitive salaries & substantial token options” and that “salaries range from $100-200K… while token allocations can grow with your voting rewards.” I think their goal is to set expectations going in on base comp while additional comp is potentially more flexible. Of course, we don’t currently offer any similar kinds of options.

In any case, I do know devrel leads that have total comp up to $400k. If you’d like I’m happy to connect you although I do want to avoid doxxing them publicly. For completeness I definitely hope comp ends closer to ~$200k total (in which case the remainder will be held over for future devrel budgets) and I’m certainly not negotiating against us, but I also believe we should be prepared to hire the best person for the job when it comes to such a critical role.

[safder]

@ceresstation

All contributors noted there are full time with the exception of Madison, so you could maybe use 12.5 instead of 13 I suppose which would be closer to ~170k on average.

I think the concern then becomes (1) This is still a significantly higher average than the rest of the DAO (work stream leads in other parts of the DAO are making less than this, and this is also higher than a team of highly experienced engineers), and (2) It doesn’t feel like the value created is enough to justify this spending.

I don’t think continuing to dig into the other pieces here will be very fruitful but however you slice it, this budget does feel a bit frivolous and like it’s not demonstrating the same level of accountability/intentionality in spending as we need in this moment (and as other budgets better reflect).

Again, I fully support this team and all your work + direction - it’s the cost + justification for needing the amount requested that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

[ceresstation]

For sure, those are all reasonable concerns. That said, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on the value created vs. the cost of delivery at the end of the day. I’m always down to keep the conversation going and really appreciate the candid feedback though.

Ultimately, the success of PGF will be measured on its ability to raise funds for public goods and its ability to help other ecosystems fund their shared needs at scale, and I hope that the team can prove itself over time by delivering on this mission.

[J9leger]

Thank you @safder for the question and @ceresstation for your thoughtful responses here. I second everything said.
The two main areas I’ll add some extra info around are:
3) retreat: @ceresstation covered all the necessary points here but to reiterate that the vote by CSDO explicitly called out that we will move forward with this and try bring in sponsors and set ticket prices but don’t want covering these costs for a 100+ person event to shift focus and detract from launching the protocol vs be additive. I believe this will be a major value add to deepening connections with our community and not only building stronger support for our protocol launch but also be a real schelling point for collaboration between others in our ecosystem.
4) Services will be a large part of our protocol future and one clear avenue to an essential intent of ours around financial sustainability. We have many partners and we’re going to be shifting our grants program model to allow anyone at any time to run a round. This is vastly different to our current quarterly only cadence. Supporting anyone who wants to run a round so we build to our goal of 1000s of communities using our protocol and deliver on our essential intent of grants protocol adoption and growth, should be a priority.
5) Heard on the DevRel perspective @safder and will consider these thoughts.

Thanks again for the time put into this discussion everyone. Really looking forward to S16.

[Lunacat]

Tech companies across the globe are instituting massive layoffs, crypto specifically is experiencing a black swan event that is leading to contagion that we can barely even begin to comprehend, and this workstream is requesting ~$550k to pay 12.5 developers for a quarter (not to mention the $125k earmarked for to pay for fun trips) to deliver results of fuzzy value? Okay

[safder]

Appreciate the response here Janine!

@J9leger

3. retreat: @ceresstation covered all the necessary points here but to reiterate that the vote by CSDO explicitly called out that we will move forward with this and try bring in sponsors and set ticket prices but don’t want covering these costs for a 100+ person event to shift focus and detract from launching the protocol vs be additive. I believe this will be a major value add to deepening connections with our community and not only building stronger support for our protocol launch but also be a real schelling point for collaboration between others in our ecosystem.

I don’t doubt that this is a valuable initiative, and I supported this in the CSDO vote mentioned. The proposal didn’t mention a cost of ~$120k, or any cost at all for that matter - it was posed as mostly free/minimal commitment from the DAO and that PGF wouldn’t even have to spend any time organizing this (it’s mostly organized by external supporters) - which is why I’m taken aback seeing this huge number. If we don’t end up raising any sponsorship money, $100k+ is too big of an amount I’d be comfortable supporting. One approach here could be that if we don’t raise enough money from sponsors, we downsize this from a multi-day retreat to a single-day event that costs no more than $25k - this is more than enough to host a well-organized 1-day event, and is also a more realistic amount to raise from sponsors. It’s not like expected returns/support gained for the protocol launch increases proportionally to the lavishness of the event. Again, it feels like there’s a serious disconnect between this budget and prevailing sentiment of doing more with less/higher accountability across the rest of the DAO.

On (4) - I received some additional context on this from other contributors, and I do now support the hiring for this role (granted I’m not sure if it the salary of $180-200k is justified). I think more reasonable numbers across the budget would also make this feel more digestible.

I feel like a broken record on this point haha, but this team and the general direction of this budget are excellent and have my full support. There’s a strong dissonance between how much I trust this team and my disagreement with the numbers proposed. I don’t think I’m the only steward who feels this, and I hope we can work together on resolving this dissonance in subsequent seasons.

[DisruptionJoe]

I’ve been following the conversation and the points made back and forth here. While I share some skepticism around salary amounts and a couple other points @safder brings up, I don’t have the conviction to bring them here. (yet???)

I would like to address this part.

@safder

I don’t doubt that this is a valuable initiative, and I supported this in the CSDO vote mentioned. The proposal didn’t mention a cost of ~$120k, or any cost at all for that matter - it was posed as mostly free/minimal commitment from the DAO and that PGF wouldn’t even have to spend any time organizing this (it’s mostly organized by external supporters) - which is why I’m taken aback seeing this huge number. If we don’t end up raising any sponsorship money, $100k+ is too big of an amount I’d be comfortable supporting. One approach here could be that if we don’t raise enough money from sponsors, we downsize this from a multi-day retreat to a single-day event that costs no more than $25k

I was not in sticker shock here. Perhaps I heard through different conversations, but I did expect the $120k price tag with the hope that we would recoup most.

The important thing for me is that this protocol launch is a big deal. Spending $25k in an effort to execute the retreat plan as cheap as possible isn’t it for me. Getting our partners, funders, and community supporters to truly understand what the protocol/program can do to benefit them is a top priority worth a significant amount of funding. We are lucky to be in a position where it may be possible to recoup the expense, but this is not the event we should take shortcuts in execution.

In the case it was not fully recouped, I still think this initiative is worth it’s weight as a strong signal to the community that we are interested in the Principle of Subtraction and THEY are the critical variable in creating a flourishing Gitcoin ecosystem.

[safder]

Grateful to @J9leger for reaching out to help clear up some of my concerns on a call yesterday. It helped bring clarity to some of my main concerns:

1. There is agreement that we probably shouldn’t use this full Devrel budget to hire someone at $400+k/year, and a commitment to ensuring that these funds roll over and can be used to continue to support these efforts in future seasons. I’ve shared my opinion that hiring someone at that cost would be a failure in recruitment, and I’m confident that we can find a very strong candidate with a much lower amount.
2. On the retreat, our conversation helped me better understand the purposes and costs associated with the event and why a multi-day retreat makes more sense than a 1-day event. Some insight into the structure also gave me some confidence that this will in fact help develop Gitcoin’s brand/protocol adoption among key partners rather than just being a fun/vibey weekend. I still hope that the majority of these funds end up being covered by sponsors, and that a big chunk of this ~120k can be used to support future seasons.
3. PGF has recently gone through the exercise of increasing accountability and decreasing costs across its staffing, and is committed to continuing to maintain strong standards in this realm. This work is ongoing, and I have confidence in this team’s ability to deliver on high expectations here.

Overall while I still believe the ask of ~$870k is excessive, the understanding that a significant portion of this amount will be used to cover upfront overheads/costs that will be recuperated and further tightened throughout the season gives me some confidence that we won’t be draining our treasury as quickly in future seasons.

This definitely help resolve some of the dissonance I felt upon initial impressions here, and I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to see increased transparency and commitment to responsible stewardship of treasury funds from this team. Very much appreciate the thoughtful engagement and learning that has come out of this conversation, and looking forward to a great Season 16!

[krrisis]

Supportive of the PGF budget although I agree with some of the hesitations expressed by @safder.
I’ve read up on the above comments and replies and hope as well that some of the planned costs will be lower or recovered through sponsoring. In the context of the ‘light’ budget approach as decided in CSDO and combined with the earlier live session we had to review the draft commitments and budget I’ve gathered enough feedback to vote yes here.

[SLBK123]

I am supportive of the PFG Budget and very excited to see the progress as the protocol transitions. I remain positive that all of the partners and grantees will be well supported during this time of change. Hats off to everyone in advance for the hard work and challenges ahead this S16.

[griff]

I think the PGF team is the team that is most responsible for the success of Gitcoin. Fundraising is hard and getting groups to commit millions to be matched is amazing.

That said, I might need one of those phone calls from @J9leger to feel good about this proposal.

The salaries here are just too high. We are a Public Goods project and can find intrinsically motivated aligned individuals from lower income countries that will be stoked to work for 1/3rd of this rate, then we can give them raises as they succeed, and still be solid.

I appreciate that the payments are in GTC… which makes me feel somewhat better about the amounts… but are there lock ups for the GTC? The amounts are just sooooo high!

This post sums up some of my concerns pretty well:

Is Gitcoin over its skis? should we hold spending flat while addressing unavoidable risks?

In today’s Steward’s call, I raised the question of whether Gitcoin might be “over our skis”. In this post, I’d like to explain my question and offer some evidence in support of the hypothesis that we are actually “over our skis.” Skiing? The metaphor to be over one’s skis refers to emphasizing a course of action to such an extent that it constrains freedom of maneuver - implicitly in conditions in which one might want to be able to change direction. When you lean far forward when sk…

This proposal is asking for $868,750 which = 579,167 GTC (if GTC is $1.50)… That is about 4% of the circulating supply, being spent on just this working group for the next 3 months. If that hits the open market, that is a huge amount of inflation, and this is just one working group!

This is really scary to me…

I have 2 small concerns that are probably easily addressed:

#1 I don’t understand the need to hire externally for these roles:
Grant Services Lead (TBD)
Grants Round Account Manager (TBD)

Why can’t these roles can be sourced from inside the team, and we can cut scope on their other priorities? Surely the best people for these roles are probably already on the team.

#2 I am a bit confused on the 125k for the event… What happens if the sponsors don’t show up? What happens to the money if they do? Will the sponsorship money come back to the DAO, or does it roll over some how? The money for the event will need to be liquidated, so it should be paid out to this WG in stables I assume?

I have one serious concern that will be difficult to address

#3 How is PGF going to cut costs in the future.

I want to second @safder

@safder

this team and the general direction of this budget are excellent and have my full support. There’s a strong dissonance between how much I trust this team and my disagreement with the numbers proposed.

I think this team is doing incredible work, but honestly there seems to be some head in the sand issues with the DAO overall. Cutting costs is critical right now. Many stewards have said this, but nothing is happening.

I can’t vote for nearly 1 Mil of spending for this group for just 3 months, without at least some sort of plan in place to reduce spending in the future by at least 30% next season and ideally more the season after.

I know it sounds harsh, but Giveth has a fantastic donation platform and has a burn rate of around 120k a month… nearly a million for 3 months for just one work stream is hard to swallow.

Can you commit to cutting costs for S17?

[ceresstation]

All great questions @griff and FWIW I agree with you that we should definitely look at cutting the budget in the future, and part of this will come from essentially time delaying comp via lock ups.

Right now this is just a critical time and one of the things we’re trying to do is make sure we are as prepared as possible for the launch coming up in Q1. In that context, I wanted to push back on some of the comments above to make sure the team can focus on really delivering on what we promise.

Now, onto the specific questions!

#1 I don’t understand the need to hire externally for these roles:
Grant Services Lead (TBD)
Grants Round Account Manager (TBD)
Why can’t these roles can be sourced from inside the team, and we can cut scope on their other priorities? Surely the best people for these roles are probably already on the team.

I think we actually do ultimately want these to be sourced from somewhere in the DAO, but we still have to budget for them even if costs will be cut elsewhere. In both cases we have leads for the roles that are within and outside the DAO.

#2 I am a bit confused on the 125k for the event… What happens if the sponsors don’t show up? What happens to the money if they do? Will the sponsorship money come back to the DAO, or does it roll over some how? The money for the event will need to be liquidated, so it should be paid out to this WG in stables I assume?

@J9leger kind of mentioned this and it was discussed again with agreement in CSDO, but essentially in an ideal world (and I don’t think it’s unrealistic as a target) every cost will be accounted for and recovered.

#3 How is PGF going to cut costs in the future.

Absolutely, the total costs in this budget are an outlier and we don’t expect the next budget to hit this level. I think 30% is even pretty feasible. One thing that I’ll note is that it is harder for us to cut budgets in part because we are still really getting a handle on what we can / cannot distribute in terms of operational work to other teams. Now that cross-DAO functions are improving it’s a lot easier to start having those conversations, and moving grassroots over to MMM was a key part of that. In S17, devrel for example will be another area that we no longer own. We ultimately always want to maintain a subtraction mindset.

[shawn16400]

To note - This proposal is now live on Snapshot and will be open for your vote through Nov 20, 2022, 6:00 PM EST.

https://snapshot.org/#/gitcoindao.eth/proposal/0x63e139b75e52843ce6af2e684101025ba2f88edf80775397927a875d9617b789

[GClayMiller]

Brand new Steward, lacking context. Apologies if questions and comments are naive while I get my footing

1. I see that you are accounting for a DevRel expense in your budget increase by $176,000 as requested by GPC—however the GPC S16 budget also requested 36k for an outsourced DevRel contractor. Is this work being shared across work streams, and how do the two budget requests differ/reconcile? @ceresstation’s breakdown of the $176,000 is a helpful start!

2. I am interested @safder’s concern about hiring a ‘Services Lead’. It would seem like a necessary hire if you plan to entirely remove c-grants from S16 as one would expect the need for a lot of ‘hand-holding’ while we transition to a new model. I do agree that anyone who fills this role should be a previous contributor to c-grants that already deeply understands the process. Would be very interested in learning more about this role & the services you plan to provide to future grantees & protocol users.

3. The debate around compensation and equal Contributor salaries across work streams is an important one. Is there any evidence that unequal contributor salaries disincentivized work across other workstreams, or that without these compensation levels PGF is unable to find quality talent? Are these salaries being matched to industry standards or similar roles held elsewhere?

Appreciate all the information and context everyone has provided—looking forward to see PGF execute on this roadmap

[lefterisjp]

First of all I would like to recognize that PGF, next to GPC is an important workstream for the future of gitcoin. So I would really like to see it execute on its goals.

But I have to echo what virtually everyone else has noted which is a great concern to me. This year we have had two really serious events, last one of which was just last week, which have impacted the crypto ecosystem severely and thrown us even deeper into a bear market with no end in sight.

All major tech companies are having layoffs in the 20-50% of their entire workforce.

And the PGF workstream is requesting a huge amount of money for this season. An increase in funding from the previous ones! This is absolutely crazy.

I would really like to see a very aggressive attempt in cutting costs as I said last season. And seeing the opposite is dissapointing. More than half a million in $USD for salaries? $126k for a retreat? Does the retreat really need to happen under these marketr conditions? Is there really no way to cut this budget?

I am going to vote abstain until I get a more clear view of a future where I can see that the PGF workstream can rein in on its spending. I really wanted to vote yes, but I can’t do so yet. Please @ceresstation help me here.

[griff]

I think I put too many questions all in one around the 125k a month.

@ceresstation

every cost will be accounted for and recovered.

#2a Will the sponsorship money go back to the DAO, or does it go to the work stream?

#2b The money for the event will be paid out to this WG in stables so we don’t need to liquidate right?

[griff]

@ceresstation

#3 How is PGF going to cut costs in the future?

Absolutely, the total costs in this budget are an outlier and we don’t expect the next budget to hit this level. I think 30% is even pretty feasible. One thing that I’ll note is that it is harder for us to cut budgets in part because we are still really getting a handle on what we can / cannot distribute in terms of operational work to other teams. Now that cross-DAO functions are improving it’s a lot easier to start having those conversations, and moving grassroots over to MMM was a key part of that. In S17, devrel for example will be another area that we no longer own. We ultimately always want to maintain a subtraction mindset .

I am not convinced with this response sadly. I think this is the most important work stream for Gitcoin’s success. Funding the matching pool is what has given us so much success IMO.

But we need to make cuts and I don’t think any work stream is taking this seriously, so the only way the stewards can signal it is by voting no.

I am voting no on all work streams until we get our spending under control. It is the only thing I can do at this point, and I hope other Stewards will follow suit. We have given strong warnings over the last few seasons and they don’t seem to be enough.

We cannot spend this much money in this market, it is a bad strategy.

I am happy to work with the Gitcoin Hiring team to explain how Giveth finds intrinsically motivated high caliber contributors in lower income countries to keep our budget at 1/10th of the cost.

[J9leger]

Hi Griff, quick answers here for the retreat. To note it’s 125K total (not per month).
2a: Sponsorships will go back to the DAO to cover the payment to our workstream.
2b: Each workstream has been working on keeping a percentage of their workstream tokens in stables and are working with the DAO to make sure event funds are paid out in stables. We will also be ticketing for the event and a portion of the ticket price will be in fiat. Ideally we’ll be able to use these fiat funds to go directly to covering expenses. however, we can’t rely on people buying tickets at the perfect time for payments, hence the portion in stables.

[J9leger]

Thanks for sharing your honest perspective @griff.
@lefterisjp I appreciate your disappointment.

To address the overall sentiment I’m hearing above, which I will summarize as: PGF is not being thoughtful or strategic enough given the market and seemingly requesting way too much for what we’re delivering.

Your concerns are appreciated and are not landing on deaf ears. While our budget has passed, I realize we had the least support of all workstreams and this is good room for reflection.

I am hopeful that our approach as a team in S16 both in what we deliver and in how we spend our budget will help address many of the above concerns and reflect some of the requests expressed.

[shawn16400]

This snapshot passed with ~57% approval rate. To note, 39% of voters abstained from voting. Some percentage of these “abstain” votes are caused by larger holders who are directly compensated by the PGF workstream and thus abstain from voting to avoid a conflict of interest.
Metrics:
785 unique votes
~9.1M GTC tokens cast.
And thank you to all the commenters & voters who took the time to participate in Gitcoin Governance.
https://snapshot.org/#/gitcoindao.eth/proposal/0x63e139b75e52843ce6af2e684101025ba2f88edf80775397927a875d9617b789