I’m late to weigh in on the forum, though have chatted with @owocki about this over the past few months. I will vote in favor of earmarking the funds though will be much more circumspect about voting for any release of these funds.
For starters: I very strongly support funding projects that increase the value of Gitcoin’s ecosystem. As the leader of Grants Lab, I want that organization to be one of many future contributors to Gitcoin.
That said, I also want to raise our standards across Gitcoin (including Grants Labs) for the type of work that gets funded and the accountability and quality of work delivered. In earmarking these funds, I want to make sure that we are also pledging to:
- Create and evaluate high value ways for citizen involvement. A classic example is the funding we’ve given in the past to activities like bug reporting, twitter spaces hosting, etc. These are all great and appreciated, but the bulk of our funding and efforts should go directly to projects building on Allo or creating complimentary tools that increase GMV. I would encourage citizens who are interested in getting funding for their project to use a framework like this (Allo Mechanism Evaluation Framework) and include a business plan!
- Make sure that the builds referenced above are set up for success. We have activites at Grants Labs (including Allo 2.1, a new data layer, and AlloKit) that will make it much easier for new developers to build on the protocol. I expect to see more funding unlocked as the developer experience is better tested and validated.
- As mentioned in the post above, I’d also love to experiment with distribution mechanisms that allow for more delegated GTC for governance from grant funding or other means of longer-term alignment! I recognize that early stage projects need funds to get off the ground and grants should be partially used as cash – but I think there is also a limit to the extent that they should be used purely for runway and we should ensure long-term alignment as well.