Moonshot Collective has made significant changes to its organizational operating system which we are ready to share for feedback.
This operating system was co-created by the core members of the collective @emudoteth @GTChase @willsputra @jaxcoder @farque65 @hansmrtn, @michaelgreen06, @brent, @gtcsameerth, and Bliss 
Brief History
Moonshot Collective started as an experiment in May 2021 in which Kevin Owocki and Austin Griffith wanted to build prototypes for public goods funding. They were lean and fast in those early days - meeting once a month, picking up projects, hacking, and discovering what shipped! It’s been validated that there’s a community of eager builders and plenty of opportunities to research and prototype. However, things haven’t scaled. So we’re ready to refine and move into our next season.
Purpose & Strategy
Moonshot Collective is a community of multidisciplinary builders who do research and prototyping around solving coordination problems and funding public goods. They assemble small, agile teams around these initiatives so they are able to continuously innovate and build autonomously. Initiatives that find long running, scaling opportunities will be launched out into their own workstreams or given back to the open source community for on-going development.
As the Gitcoin DAO community of multidisciplinary builders, Moonshot Collective also strives to be the trusted source of software development for all Gitcoin DAO workstreams who are not development workstreams themselves.
To fulfill our purpose, we will have a transparent R&D process that optimizes for learning and maximum impact. We will build collaborative, cross-functional teams with clear roles and responsibilities. Our communication will be structured and transparent, both internally and externally, so that Moonshot Collective contributors, DAO members, Stewards, and the like can provide feedback and have confidence that the work of the Collective serves the Gitcoin mission.
Human Coordination
As a collective we are organizing ourselves into concentric circles in which there are two tiers of contributors and a meaningfully engaged community.
Core contributors are dedicated to GitcoinDAO and the Moonshot Collective workstream. They are typically, though not required to be, dedicated to the workstream on a full-time basis. Core contributors carry the highest degree of accountability for the workstreams’ success in that they are expected to foster the culture of the collective, do the strategic planning (with input from the Collective, more on that later), and drive the execution of work towards our goals.
Today, there are 8 core contributor roles:
Workstream Lead - Accountable for outcomes of the workstream. They represent the workstream in cross-DAO settings, facilitate strategic goal setting, and ensure overall workstream health from contributors to fiscal to execution.
Operations Lead - Accountable for overall organizational process excellence and administration of the workstream. They continuously consider how we can become 10x more effective in our execution and delivery and champion process improvements accordingly.
Operations Coordinator - Accountable for organizing information so it is easily accessible to those who need it. They work closely with the Operations Lead to be a driver in completing any open tasks that are critical to the efficient and effective operation of Moonshot Collective.
Community Manager - Key focus will be to grow and maintain the Collective’s community on Discord, social media, and beyond. Specifically they will work closely with the rest of the DAO and Marketing team to coordinate programming, events, and conversations that attract multidisciplinary builders.
Researcher - Accountable for researching, analyzing, reporting on and exploring emerging web3 innovations, identifying risks, and conceptualizing themes and problem spaces that are ripe for opportunity. Plays a critical role in vetting and scoping new initiatives and idea proposals.
Core Multidisciplinary Builders - Within the core team we will have multidisciplinary builder roles. These folks are responsible for participating on initiative teams as individual contributors and taking rotations as initiative leads. Outside of initiative work, they are accountable for fostering the health of the overall collective through practice leadership of their discipline, participating in vetting of ideas, and assisting in the hiring and onboarding of core and trusted contributors.
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Core Product Manager - Accountable for collaborating with cross functional teams to best guide the initiative teams and the collective on product strategy, experimentation, and implementation. While creating frameworks on the way that are repeatable for the rest of the collective.
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Core Product Designer - Partner with Product Managers and Engineers to build beautiful and usable products by understanding users through research, creating user flows and prototypes, and establishing consistent design systems/practices.
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Core Developer(s) - Accountable for collaborating with and driving initiative teams to proper technical solution design and implementation, while also demonstrating best practices through their own work. Also focused on mentoring and helping trusted contributors be successful in MC.
Starting in Season 14 (May 2022), we will have a maximum of 3 people in each of the core multidisciplinary builder roles and will evaluate each season if we should scale that up based on demand for Moonshot Collective work.
Compensation for Core contributors will be compensated using a monthly, flat base amount paid in GTC based on an agreed USD target. The base salary of a core contributor is set by role, experience level, current market salary data, & other qualifications. They are not eligible for additional initiative based hourly compensation as their compensation is covered through the core team budget.
Trusted Contributors are generally not exclusive to GitcoinDAO or to the Moonshot Collective workstream. These are contributors who have made meaningful contributions to the community, initiatives and/or whom the Core team has gotten to know their skills such that they fill a unique gap in our contributor team. To be and remain a Trusted contributor, there is a minimum contribution expectation to participate in context calls, assist the community manager in putting on community events and curating content, and contribute to at least one initiative in a rolling six months. Trusted contributors are considered first for initiative teams, but are not necessarily continuously staffed to one. They have the greatest amount of flexibility in defining how many hours and when they work on Moonshot Collective Initiatives and are matched according to their availability and skills.
We expect to have 15-20 trusted contributors based on our current project pipeline. Each season we will evaluate whether we should increase or decrease the number of these contributors based on the past season and what is forecasted for the upcoming season. We will err on the side of being conservative to ensure these roles can be sustainably funded.
Trusted contributors will be compensated a base amount via tokenstream that they can draw from on a monthly basis when they meet the minimal monthly contribution expectations outside of any initiative work they may be participating in. Trusted contributors are eligible to receive additional initiative based hourly compensation.
Community Contributors are the most common designation for Moonshot Collective contributors. There is no expectation of any particular time or effort contributions. Community Contributors will receive onboarding to the collective so they can understand how we work, our mission, and how opportunities to contribute outside of community engagement arise. We have key partnerships with the BuidlGuidl and Gitcoin Hackathons where hacks winners are keen to join the Community.
Contributor roles on Initiatives will be made available to community contributors when we do not have bandwidth or the needed skill set within trusted contributors.
Community Contributors generally do not have any compensation plan. They are eligible to receive initiative based hourly compensation.
Workflow
Prioritizing & Committing
Each season the Collective will set themes to guide the focus of our R&D efforts. These themes will be based on generative research, Gitcoin DAO priorities, or a combination of the two. These themes will be treated as Initiatives with at least one Core Contributor driving the execution of R&D efforts, including setting goals and objectives that can be tracked and regularly reported on.
It has been our experience that great ideas come from anywhere. As such, the Core Contributor team will continuously vet new ideas and opportunities for work that should not wait due to its impact on the Gitcoin DAO mission and Moonshot Collective’s unique ability to execute. We will also use a raid process for other Gitcoin DAO workstreams to request custom software development.
In the near future, we desire to have an established way of collaborating with the Public Goods Library and Partnerships teams. We believe their work overlaps the research we would do to generate themes as well as help in identifying high impact initiatives we should take on.
Executing through Initiatives
In order to effectively execute on our commitments, we will have defined Initiatives with small cross-functional teams who work on them. Initiative teams will generally be comprised of the following roles:
Initiative Lead - A core team member of any discipline who takes accountability for defining success metrics, staffing the team with the necessary skill sets, administration of team operations, and overall ensures initiative health and success.
Multidisciplinary Builders - Product managers, product designers, and developers as needed based on the scope of the Initiative.
Each Initiative will be given a budget and autonomy to organize in the way that makes most sense for them. They will be held accountable by the core team through regular check-in and weekly progress reporting.
Roles on Initiative Teams will be filled by core and trusted team members with opportunities given to community members when additional bandwidth or skills are needed.
Conclusion
We believe these are the foundational elements of a transparent and scalable operating system for the Moonshot Collective. It is without question that there are many tactical details to be worked out, which we anticipate working through during Season 14. Your feedback is invited and welcome - join the conversation here or in our community channel in Discord.
