As promised in the Foundation Org’s 2024 and 2025 annual proposals, this is the Foundation’s annual report to Radworks, outlining its activities funded by its grant from Radworks and a financial summary of how the grant was spent. This content will also be used to prepare the Foundation’s annual report to its Swiss supervisory authority, ESA.
Summary
The Better Internet Foundation (previously “Radicle Foundation”) used CHF 888,305.17 (USDC 978,633) of its budgeted (and granted) CHF 1,564,136.84 (USDC 1,723,187) from the Radworks Treasury for its work from January through December 2024.
The remaining CHF 675,831.67 (USDC 744,554) will be applied towards 2025 spend, as previously estimated in its approved 2025 proposal and budget. Any remaining budget unused in 2025 will be applied towards 2026’s budget and so on. These conversions assume the closing price of USDC (Fr 0.9077) on 31 December 2024, according to coinmarketcap.com.
| 2024 Budget | Projected | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accounting & Auditing Costs | $40,414 | $39,322 | -$1,092 |
| Bank/Gas Fees | $25,832 | $17,644 | -$8,188 |
| Contributors - All | $1,072,747 | $616,570 | -$456,177 |
| Legal Expenses - All | $218,456 | $175,532 | -$42,924 |
| Marketing, Sponsorships, and Events - External | $288,547 | $88,153 | -$200,394 |
| Offsites/Events - Internal | $48,989 | $20,722 | -$28,267 |
| Rent & Subscriptions | $28,203 | $20,691 | -$7,512 |
The Foundation started 2024 with three committees overseen by the Foundation Council: Operations Committee, Governance Committee, and Strategy Committee (which included marketing activities). These committees were created to give Committee Leads better control over day-to-day spending. The committees also enabled the Foundation to organize its work to engage as protector, nurturer, and advocate of the Radworks Ecosystem, as laid out in its 2024 Annual Proposal.
Between Q2 and Q3, the Foundation made three key organizational changes:
- Marketing [April]: The approach to Radworks marketing was updated in April, with the goals of: increasing awareness around the RAD token among potential token holders; increasing awareness about Radworks ecosystem projects; and improving the quality of interactions / engagement between participants within Radworks. As a result, the marketing objectives within the Strategy Committee were dissolved, in favor of a Marketing Team (and budget) that would be directly overseen by the Foundation Council.
- Strategy [May]: The Strategy Committee was sunset because its original objectives no longer aligned with the status of the Radworks Ecosystem. As a result, the reprioritization and tweaking of its objectives meant that they were merged with other initiatives inside and outside the Foundation.
- Governance [June]: As we evaluated the core functions/responsibilities of the Governance Committee and recognize the skill-sets offered by the Operations Committee, it became clear that it would be beneficial to combine the work of these teams, ensuring the Radworks ecosystem-wide operations (i.e. proposal cycle facilitation, voting tool management, and ecosystem documentation) are efficient, simple, and clear for the current Radworks participants.
Highlights from the work of the Foundation in 2024 include:
- We welcomed two new Foundation Council members, Gabriela Mäder and Eleftherios Diakomichalis, and thanked Abbey Titcomb and Alexis Sellier for their service on the Council.
- The Grants Org was also sunset and the Foundation trialled a new Grants Program, leveraging the existing infrastructure and resources of the Foundation.
- The Marketing Team launched a Learn & Earn campaign with Binance, With the aim of increasing awareness of Radworks and its mission as well as the RAD token.
- In September, the Foundation facilitated work related to development of Radworks Product, collaborating with ecosystem leaders in a series of workshops and discussions and coordinating a multi-jurisdiction analysis effort to determine the best entity for driving the development of the Radworks Product. In the end, it was recommended that Monadic GmbH would be used to drive this new product development for the time being.
- In September, the Foundation worked with Scopelift to successfully upgrade the Radworks governance to Open Zeppelin governor.
- In November and December, the Foundation facilitated the drafting of and discussions informing the Multi-Org Proposal for 2025 - and then stewarding this Proposal through the governance cycle.
- In December, the Foundation relaunched its website to better reflect its current role in the Radworks Ecosystem and give its appearance a professional facelift.
Conclusion
As mentioned in the Foundation Org’s 2025 annual proposal, the role of the Foundation in its support of Radworks, Radicle, and Drips, has transformed since it was founded in 2020. The Foundation has a proven track record as Radworks’ trusted real-world partner, and it has, and will continue to, adapt its relationship with Radworks as the ecosystem matures. As a result, over the course of 2024, the Foundation narrowed its scope of work to that which was 1. most impactful for the Radworks Ecosystem and 2. aligned with the skillsets of contributors situated within the Foundation Org.
Some of the takeaways from 2024 (which are expanded on in the Conclusion and Financial Summary section below) include:
- Orgs have strengthened the identity and operations of their own projects and want a clearer oversight of important legal work and costs;
- the Radworks Ecosystem still benefits from centralized legal and policy coordination; and
- the Radworks Ecosystem only requires a minimal governance layer for now, while its community is still nascent.
These takeaways informed the Foundation’s 2025 proposal, with a focus on bringing value to the Radworks Ecosystem in the areas the Foundation is best suited for. In 2025, this means fulfilling minimal facilitation (as needed) between Orgs and with the community as well as defining with Org Leads before leading legal work that drives consistency and risk-mitigation through the Ecosystem.
Since its initial grant from Radworks in September 2022, the Better Internet Foundation (previously “Radicle Foundation”) has been a key partner to the Radworks ecosystem, with its purpose: to support projects and people developing resilient, non-extractive peer-to-peer technologies that promote Internet freedom. As a recipient of Radworks grants, the Foundation is publishing a report on the activities that were enabled by this grant. This Activity Report includes financial and activity reporting for 2024, based on the Foundation’s 2024 Annual Proposal to Radworks.
The Foundation is governed by its Council, which meets quarterly and is responsible for having the organization audited and then reported to the foundation supervisory authority in Switzerland. The Foundation Council welcomed two new members, Gabriela Mäder and Eleftherios Diakomichalis, and thanked Abbey Titcomb and Alexis Sellier for their previous years of service on the Council.
Organizationally speaking, the Foundation started 2024 with three committees overseen by the Foundation Council: Operations Committee, Governance Committee, and Strategy Committee. These committees were created to give Committee Leads better control over day-to-day spending.3. The committees also enabled the Foundation to organize its work to engage as protector, nurturer, and advocate of the Radworks Ecosystem, as laid out in its 2024 Annual Proposal.
The following sections outline the focuses and shifts of the Foundation’s committees and teams in 2024.
Operations Committee
In its 2024 proposal, the Operations Committee proposed objectives to maintain the Foundation’s health as well as drive transparency standards with best practices and financial reporting, and contribute legal strategy and defense across the Radworks ecosystem. Its work was largely categorized under two headings: “Foundation Health” and “Radworks Ecosystem Support.”
Each quarter, the Operations Committee prepared and facilitated the Foundation Council (FC) meetings in Switzerland, making use of the trips to also meet with key partners in Zurich and Zug. It consistently pushed forward, as needed, trademark applications (for Drips, Radworks and Radicle) in Europe and beyond. It also created monthly - and later, quarterly - financial reports for the Radworks Ecosystem, documenting Org spend to maintain financial transparency.
During Q1, the Ops Committee focused on wrapping up 2023’s financials: it completed the Foundation’s 2023 accounts; supported the FC in completing the 2023 audit; and prepared the 2023 Annual Report to the Radworks Community. It also provided potential Orgs with operational information and support - including, review and editing of Org proposals as well as legal entity evaluation. It also carried out a first edition of a Radworks Risk Framework, a framework that supports regular analysis of ecosystem-wide risk to better inform [strategic, legal, governance, and product-related] priorities.
In Q2, the Committee supported the Foundation Council in submitting the annual report to ESA (the Foundation’s supervisory authority in Switzerland). Since the Foundation is no longer providing ongoing support to the Orgs, the Committee cleaned up software subscriptions, transferring them to their relevant Orgs; any Foundation support to Orgs going forward would be contracted and paid for by the Org itself. The Ops Committee spearheaded organizational work related to the hiring of new team members for the revamped Marketing initiatives and the sunsetting of other committees. As a result of the Grant Org’s sunset, the Ops Committee worked with Grants Org stakeholders and product Orgs to refine the Grant Program’s scope within the Foundation. Internal guidelines and processes were drafted, so that the new system could be trialled for providing grants to Drips community contributors in Q3.
The Foundation completed its first Grants Program cycle in August. For the quarter ending 30 June 2024, the Drips Org nominated three community contributors for grants. The work recognized includes product feedback, evangelizing Drips on Twitter, and code contributions. The total grant budget for the quarter was 1,000 USDC. After outreach to the grant nominees, two nominees confirmed their agreement to participate in the round of grants. The grantees were subsequently voted on via a Collaborative Drip List by the Drips team and then awarded their grant via Drips.
In September, with the help of Ele and the Scopelift team, the Committee facilitated the successful passing of the Open Zeppelin Governor upgrade. This proposal upgraded the Radworks governance contract from Compound Alpha to Open Zeppelin Governor.
In November and December, Ops contributors coordinated:
- a multi-jurisdiction analysis effort to identify the best entity for driving and organizing development of the Radworks Product. In the end, it was decided that Monadic GmbH would be used to build the team and product development for the Radworks Product.
- the drafting of the Foundation Orgs 2025 proposal, seeking feedback and iterating on the proposal to gain buy-in from key stakeholders.
- the facilitation of the 2025 Multi-Org proposal, including a negotiation between Org leads, a legal review of individual Org proposals, and drafting the Multi-Org proposal documentation and stewarding governance and voting processes. The 2025 Multi-Org Proposal was passed in December (and, again, in January due to a proposal code snafu).
Strategy Committee
In its 2024 proposal, the Strategy Committee proposed objectives to support the development of Radworks’ strategy by incubating community proposals that enable Radworks to fund new, resilient, permissionless technologies, achieve self-sustainability, and steward mission-aligned governance.
In Q1, the Committee focused on internal conversations regarding the Radworks strategy. However, in February, a community recommendation for a “new narrative” for Radworks triggered the Committee to change course; they then contributed to some of the communications related to this “new narrative” and coordinated the re-design of the Radworks website and Radworks documentation based on the new narrative. Additionally, the creation of the RSN Org (now Radworks Product Org) in Q1, and its intentions to work on certain Radworks sustainability efforts via its product (and tokenomics work) further narrowed the scope of the Strategy Committee.
The Strategy Committee was sunset because its original objectives no longer aligned with the status of the Radworks Ecosystem. It became clear that the original Strategy objectives would be more effective if 1. placed within the Orgs or community initiatives where they could be integrated into product design, 2. driven by individuals or Orgs holding the data or information required for such objectives or 3. discussed in a public format so that they would be prioritized with the community. Therefore, the objectives were tweaked and merged with other initiatives inside and outside the Foundation.
Governance Support Committee
In its 2024 proposal, the Governance Support Committee proposed objectives to incubate proposals and research to mature Radworks’ decentralized governance system, while also maintaining documentation, improving governance processes, and establishing best practices for the ecosystem.
In Q1, the Committee focused on clean-up and refinement: it conducted a Governance Feedback Survey and shipped a round of Governance improvements and Discord adjustments, before publishing an Annual Org Proposal Timeline that clarified governance and operational milestones. It facilitated a discussion on “What’s an Org,” which evolved into a larger discussion about funding vehicles within the Radworks ecosystem, the role the “Org” plays in this structure and, separately, the role the Grants Org (and their grant process) plays in this structure; in Q2, this discussion led to the ultimate sunset of the Grants Org and the start of the Grants Program within the Foundation Org. The Committee hosted the third edition of Global Governance Gathering at ETH Denver, bringing together a curated group of DAO governance leads and experts. The Committee also shipped multiple rounds of documentation improvements on both docs.radworks.org and the Radworks’ Governance Manual to make it easier to find information.
In Q2, the Governance Committee continued its work to clarify and secure the Radworks governance process by:
- submitting a proposal to create a formal process for a “voting extension” to allow for more flexibility in the proposal cycles and facilitating discussion regarding;
- adjusting certain governance parameters in the OZ governance contract upgrade;
- shipping the (internal) Radwork Contributor Handbook including important info, links and lore relevant for Radworks contributors; and
- drafting and proposing mechanisms that can protect against emergency cases and malicious attacks of the Radworks governance
The Committee also supported the Grants Org’s exploration with Hats to update the distribution of influence model within the Grants Org to an even broader set of stakeholders; however, this effort was wound down due to the sunset of the Grants Org.
In June, the Foundation Council evaluated the core functions and responsibilities of the Governance Committee and recognized the skill-sets offered by the Operations Committee; it became clear that it would be beneficial to combine the work of these teams, ensuring the Radworks ecosystem-wide operations (i.e. proposal cycle facilitation, voting tool management, and ecosystem documentation) are efficient, simple, and clear for the current Radworks participants.
Marketing Team
In the Strategy Committee’s 2024 proposal, their objectives included marketing-related goals, including: develop and publish content expanding on the Radworks purpose and vision as well as collaborate with Org Leads to strategize around their go-to-market strategies.
However, by the end of Q1, the Foundation started revising its approach to marketing based on a shift in Radworks’ narrative, which would better reflect the Radworks community’s heart grounded in building technologies, rather than funding technologies. The new narrative emphasized a desire to:
- Return Radworks’s messaging to the project’s roots
- Update Radworks tokenomics
- Put more emphasis on community engagement
As a result, in Q2, a new Marketing Team was established within the Foundation with the goals of: increasing awareness around the RAD token among potential token holders; increasing awareness about Radworks ecosystem projects; and improving the quality of interactions and engagement between participants within Radworks. This marked the start of a strategic shift.
A budget was created for this Team and was managed by the Foundation Council directly. In Q2, most of the Team’s work was focused on a thorough recruitment process to hire a Marketing Lead and a Video Producer (Ed Williams and Simon James). The Team also built a partnership with Binance and created the content for its Learn to Earn program, which launched in September with the aim of increasing awareness of Radworks and its mission as well as the RAD token. Participants of the campaign were able to watch a video about Radworks and complete a short multiple choice quiz at the end to receive 1RAD of available 100,000 RAD. The campaign ran for 14 days; some the engagement statistics include:
- All 100,00 RAD tokens were redeemed in under 18 hours of the campaign launch
- 1,262,800 total page views over the life of the campaign
- Of the tokens redeemed 46,147 were new RAD holders
- The top 5 countries where people participated were located: Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Ukraine, and Algeria
In July and August, a branding review revealed that Radworks has evolved, but the brand hadn’t kept up; the review indicated that Radworks lacks a unified, enduring vision to guide the community forward. This triggered the prioritization of reworking the Radworks brand strategy and visual identity, starting with the discussion of foundational questions about Radworks’ identity, value proposition, and its relationship to the organizations it supports. In September, the Team started collaborating with ecosystem leaders in a series of workshops and discussions, exploring Radworks’ history, its evolution, and its future potential. The Team lead exploratory research with mission-aligned organizations, which would inform Radworks’ next evolution. These discussions and research ultimately led to the creation of the Radworks Product Org - the next evolution of the RSN Org, which will be formally dissolved in 2025.
Financial Overview
The Foundation came in under budget, using CHF 888,305.17 (USDC 978,633) of its budgeted (and granted) CHF 1,564,136.84 (USDC 1,723,187) from the Radworks Treasury.
Most months, the Foundation came in under budget:
The spikes in costs in June and December can be explained as follows:
- In June, the Foundation’s expenses were 13% over budget due to the revamp of the approach to Marketing, including the creation of the Binance Learn to Earn campaign and hiring new skillsets.
- In December, the Foundation’s expenses came closer to budget due to legal costs (to support the entity and jurisdiction evaluation for the Radworks Product) and year-end accounting related costs. In both cases, several invoices applied to December covered work conducted in November and December.
When looking at the 2024 budget cost areas outlined in the Foundation Org 2024 annual proposal, the Foundation came in under budget across all cost areas.
| 2024 Budget | Projected | Actual | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accounting & Auditing Costs | $40,414 | $39,322 | -$1,092 |
| Bank/Gas Fees | $25,832 | $17,644 | -$8,188 |
| Contributors - All | $1,072,747 | $616,570 | -$456,177 |
| Legal Expenses - All | $218,456 | $175,532 | -$42,924 |
| Marketing, Sponsorships, and Events - External | $288,547 | $88,153 | -$200,394 |
| Offsites/Events - Internal | $48,989 | $20,722 | -$28,267 |
| Rent & Subscriptions | $28,203 | $20,691 | -$7,512 |
The highest cost was, as expected, contributor expenses. The Operations contributor costs remained highest as they were consistently providing services throughout the year. Strategy contributor costs were paid through May 2024, when the Strategy Committee was sunset. While there were some limited Marketing team costs in Q1, most of the costs for Marketing came in Q3 with renewed focus (and new team members) on the Radworks narrative and the Binance Learn to Earn campaign. Governance contributor costs were paid through Q3, when it was decided to merge “governance support” work with Operations, and minimize “governance support” work to what was critical to enable Radworks to financially support the Orgs.
Conclusion
As mentioned in the Foundation Org’s 2025 annual proposal, the role of the Foundation in its support of Radworks, Radicle, and Drips, has transformed since it was founded in 2020. The Foundation has a proven track record as Radworks’ trusted real-world partner, and it has continuously adapted its relationship with Radworks as the ecosystem matures.
As a result, over the course of 2024, the Foundation narrowed its scope of work to that which was 1. most impactful for the Radworks Ecosystem and 2. aligned with the skillsets of contributors situated within the Foundation Org.
Some of the takeaways from 2024 include:
- The Radworks Ecosystem still benefits from centralized legal and policy coordination. Several of the products have overlapping and interconnected risks that should be monitored and discussed regularly. By centralizing legal work, the Foundation can leverage knowledge of legal analysis in all areas of the overall project, to create a cohesive and strong legal narrative for the Ecosystem.
- Orgs have strengthened the identity and operations of their own projects and want a clearer oversight of important legal work and costs. By budgeting and paying for legal work themselves, Orgs can hold legal work more accountable; the Foundation will drive cost and scope clarity earlier, so that Org Leads can sign off on the work being done and clarify their expectations of cost, deliverable, and timeline.
- The Radworks Ecosystem only requires a minimal governance layer for now, while its community is still nascent. While the Foundation previously had a Governance Support Committee, limited contributors to Radworks had time, intention, or ability to participate in the Radworks governance process - and the same goes for general RAD token holders who aren’t working on the project. Therefore, feedback from Org Leads generally supported minimizing governance processes and mechanisms to what is critical to ecosystem-development at the moment: enabling successful (annual) budget proposals from (pre-existing or morphing) Orgs. Limited governance overhead better reflects the limited awareness of the RAD token and limited engagement of RAD token holders.
- At this stage of ecosystem development, any community grant-giving strategy should be driven by Org needs and strategy; therefore, a successful Grants Program requires buy-in and participation from the Org team members. While the Foundation’s Grants Program intended to have a quarterly cycle focused on rewarding Drips community contributors, the Drips Team didn’t have 1. additional, new community contributions they wanted to reward or 2. bandwidth for defining and galvanizing the new contributions they want. Because grant-giving should be clear on the value that rewarded work should bring to the Drips product or community, the Foundation should be in the position to respond with its in-house skillsets to operationalize a grant cycle, as requested and funded by Orgs.
These takeaways and the narrowed scope of the Foundation’s work by the end of 2024 informed the Foundation’s 2025 proposal, with a renewed focus on bringing value to the Radworks Ecosystem in the areas the Foundation is best suited for and a smaller budget. In 2025, the Foundation will look forward to defining legal work with Org Leads that drives consistency and risk-mitigation through the Ecosystem - while also providing minimal facilitation (as needed) between Orgs and with the community to carry-out product updates and budget proposal processes.