[Discussion][RGP-21] - Foundation Org Proposal 2024

👩‍⚖️ Governance ⚡ Proposal Drafts
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Author(s): @ange @abbey
Type: Org
Created: 2023-11-06
Status: active

:memo: This is the official discussion post for the 2024 Foundation Org budget proposal. With this post, the proposal has entered the first phase of the governance process. Please review the drafted proposal and contribute feedback by Sunday, November 19th. This proposal will be discussed in the Proposal Review call on Wednesday, November 15th. Add to calendar here.

Purpose

:point_right: What is this Org aiming to achieve? What problem(s) is it trying to solve?

The Foundation’s purpose is to support the development of resilient and humane software infrastructures.

Since the evolution of the “Radicle Project” into what we now know as Radworks, the term Radicle has become specifically related to the code collaboration protocol & product. In this new reality, the name “Radicle Foundation” no longer reflects the Foundation’s wider purpose, supporting “resilient and humane software infrastructure” beyond Radicle. Therefore, as previously suggested, the Foundation has since renamed itself the Better Internet Foundation (referred to as “Foundation” below). This name is not only more compatible with the Foundation’s purpose, but more accurately reflects its larger vision for promoting and protecting Internet technologies.

The Foundation can, in part, fulfill its purpose by working in partnership with Radworks, which has an aligned purpose: to fund new, resilient, permissionless technologies to cultivate Internet freedom. More on this relationship can be found in the “Reasoning & Analysis” section below.

In 2024, the Foundation requests funding from Radworks with the intention of driving activities that will serve three roles:

  1. A Protector: The Foundation supports legal strategy, ensures operational and financial health, and promotes transparency within the Radworks ecosystem.
  2. A Nurturer: The Foundation incubates proposals and research to mature Radworks’ decentralized governance system, while also maintaining documentation, improving governance processes, and establishing best practices for the ecosystem.
  3. An Advocate: The Foundation advocates for resilient and humane software infrastructures, building networks of individuals, initiatives, and organizations that can educate and push (technical and cultural) adoption of these technologies.

Organizational Structure

:point_right: Include a description of how the Org will be structured (e.g. entities, governance models).

The Foundation is governed and managed by the Foundation’s Council, which - at its core - is responsible for ensuring that the Foundation is governed in accordance with its deed (and ESA’s supervision) and spends funds in line with and in pursuit of its purpose. The Council holds several meetings per year, during which it discusses all management subjects and resolves all issues according to the deed.

The Council intends to approve the organization of three committees for 2024: Operations Committee (known as “Operations” or “Ops”), Radworks Strategy Committee (known as “Strategy”), and Radworks Governance Support Committee (known as “Governance”). These committees are created to give greater autonomy to “bodies" of suppliers, which (as a committee) have control over their own budget. These committees are governed by their annual proposals and budgets, which are approved by the Council. Each committee has a committee lead, who is responsible for reviewing invoices falling into the budget of their committee and overseeing the use of the committee budget more generally - including the quality of work being paid for. The committee leads meet quarterly with the Council to report on and discuss the committees’ spend and work.

Annual Strategy & Quarterly Objectives

:point_right: Include any relevant KPIs, objectives, and/or roadmaps for the following year. Please include a more detailed outline of current quarterly objectives.

Foundation Council

The Council retains overall responsibility for the Foundation’s operations, activities, and strategy.

Objectives

  • Draft 2023 annual activity and financial report on the Foundation’s work for the Radworks ecosystem. [Q1 2024]

  • Revamp the Foundation’s website to better reflect its most current focus and relationship with Radworks - as well as its name change. [Q1 2024]

  • Identify opportunities for the Foundation to have impact as an “Advocate,” by:

    • Building a network of individuals, organizations, and institutions that are purpose-aligned and that pave the way for future advocacy and research partnerships.
    • Testing a Foundation “pitch” with this network, in order to refine the Foundation’s priorities and intentions for its advocacy work.
    • Leveraging this network to identify users to test and provide feedback for Radworks-supported technologies.
    • Identifying sponsorship opportunities (e.g. workshops, initiatives) within this purpose-aligned network and the work they are driving.

  • Hire a Strategic Financial Partner Manager. [Q1 + Q2 2024]

  • Hire the Radicle Org to support the migration and maintenance of Foundation and Radworks documentation to the Radicle Network. [Q2 + Q3 2024]

  • Publish annual grant proposal and budget for the following year (2025) relating to the Foundation’s work for the Radworks ecosystem. [Q4 2024]

Responsibilities

  • Quarterly

    • Attend and participate in quarterly Council meetings.
    • Review new contributors seeking supplier contracts with the Foundation.
    • Meet with Operations, Strategy, and Governance Committees to review work and funds spent.

  • Annual

    • Ensure Operations, Strategy, and Governance Committees spending is aligned with Foundation’s purpose; approve budgets for Operations, Strategy, and Governance Committees.
    • Complete the Annual Audit and Activity Report for ESA, the Foundation’s Swiss supervisory authority.

  • Ad-Hoc

    • Review and approve Foundation reports, circular resolutions, contracts, etc.
    • Create and maintain the Foundation’s strategy to manage its assets in line with the Foundation purpose.
    • Manage relationships with token holders.

Operations Committee

Maintain Foundation health as well as drive transparency standards with best practices and financial reporting, and contribute legal strategy and defense across the Radworks ecosystem.

Objectives

  • Foundation Health

    • Support the drafting and publication of the Foundation’s 2023 financial report on 2023 spend and activity report on the work that was and status of capital allocated from Radworks, with a clearer estimate of unspent funds from 2023 [Q1 2024]

    • Support the drafting of an annual activity report focusing on the Foundation’s work for Radworks [Q1/Q2 2024]

    • Support the onboarding to Radicle technologies [Q2 2024] and migration of Foundation documentation [Q3 2024] with Governance Committee and Foundation Council

    • Produce 2025 Ops Committee proposal and budget to the Foundation Council [Q4 2024]

  • Radworks Ecosystem Support

    • Develop processes and resources for Orgs’ expense payment and reporting to successfully transition financial reporting and subscription payment responsibilities to Orgs [Q2 2024]

    • Research, design, and propose a small legal defense fund to protect Radworks, Orgs funded by Radworks, and participants in Radworks [Q2 + Q3 2024]

    • Work with partners to clarify and inform regulatory definitions and guidelines for “decentralization” [Q1 + Q2 2024]

    • Develop Radworks Community Handbook with Governance Committee, which stores and manages the following resources (and others as the need arises) [Q3 2024]: Budget templates [Team/Function/Org, Events]; Radworks service provider and contributor agreement templates; Radworks community call information; Operational best practices and guidelines [for Orgs]; Licensing and IP policies

    • Work with the Governance Committee to design a new Radworks proposal payout model for 2025, optimizing payouts as well as reporting timelines and processes [Q4 2024]

    • Work with the Strategy Committee to facilitate the legal support and consultancy they need to accomplish objectives related to a Radworks sustainability model, treasury management, and power distribution

Maintenance

  • Monthly

    • Create reports for Radworks Orgs that clarify how they are spending funds they receive from the Radworks [through Q2 - see Objective above]
    • Complete monthly payroll and invoice payments, including managing Foundation wallets, bank accounts, and financial service partners
    • Complete regular accounting, including: consolidation of books; monthly, quarterly, and yearly tax filings; payments and updates to insurance and social security obligations

  • Quarterly

    • Ongoing coordination and prioritization of legal risk assessments for Radworks and its Orgs
    • Prepare and support the quarterly Foundation Council meetings (including the maintenance and updating of the Internal Control System, annual budget, and internal processes)

  • Annual

    • Support Foundation Council in completing the Annual Audit and Activity Report for ESA
    • Draft annual Foundation Org budget and provide budgeting support to Committees

  • Ad-Hoc

    • Facilitate (if needed) contractual relationships between Radworks Orgs and Service Providers
    • Maintain relationships with legal, accounting, and banking partners
    • Maintain the Radworks ecosystem’s trademarks and enforce its IP strategy
    • Maintain subscriptions to infrastructure that support and enable the Foundation
    • Provide general support to the Foundation Council, as needed
    • Manage contracts and relationships with [including on/offboarding of] Foundation contributors

Radworks Strategy Committee

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.

Objectives

  1. Define Radworks’ vision. Using its purpose as a North Star, where is Radworks going next?

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1] Complete a draft of a Radworks vision document.
    • [Q2] Internal “onboarding” to vision via community workshops.
    • [Q2] Develop communications approach & strategy.
    • [Q3] Publish and communicate vision externally.

  2. Identify and validate a sustainability model for Radworks. How should Radworks be setting itself up for the long-term?

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1] Workshop potential sustainability models & facilitate discussions with relevant stakeholders.
    • [Q2] Conduct research to validate chosen model with externals.
    • [Q2] Coordinate legal work related to potential sustainability models with Ops Committee.
    • [Q3] Present proposal to Radworks community for discussion.
    • [Q4] Finalize & codify sustainability model for 2025.

  3. Substantially increase token-holder diversity, influence & power distribution, and voter participation within the Radworks community by 2024. We need to take a massive step forward in decentralization to evolve our governance and mature our community.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1] Analyze current token distribution and stakeholder map to identify critical pools of centralization.
    • [Q1/Q2] Explore new potential stakeholder relationships with purpose-aligned organizations, individuals, and initiatives.
    • [Q2] Identify and source ideal governance participants based on decision-making map and system level goals.
    • [Q1] Research and workshop potential “leadership models” for Radworks.
    • [:infinity:] Collaborate with Governance Committee to develop rules, process, and best practices to continue establishing legitimacy.

  4. Orient and activate Radworks’ treasury management goals & strategies.

    • [Q1] Conduct additional treasury runway analysis, taking into account 2024 Org Proposals.
    • [Q1] Coordinate legal work related to treasury management strategies with Ops Committee.
    • [Q2] Define treasury objectives and communicate to Governance Committee.
    • [:infinity:] Identify missing expertise to develop treasury strategy, assemble group of experts to develop strategy & identify solutions alongside of Governance Committee.

Responsibilities

  • Ensure $RAD token holders and the “community” understand, feel connected to, and are able to contribute to Radworks’ success.

    • Maintain and improve current stakeholder relationships.
    • Grow the Radworks audience.
    • Create memorable, impactful content that supports the Radworks mission.
    • Facilitate meaningful conversations among top thought leaders & mission-aligned organizations.

  • Support Radworks’ relationships with funded Orgs.

    • Run quarterly check-ins with Orgs to review progress on partnership agreements.
    • Facilitate discussions with Orgs around strategy and sustainability to drive clarity in their relationship with Radworks.
    • Ensure continued alignment and communication between Orgs and Radworks community.

  • Direct community-led treasury management efforts and set Governance Committee up for success.

    • Manage relationships with community service providers alongside of Governance Committee.
    • Coordinate relevant legal work alongside the Ops Committee.

Radworks Governance Support Committee

Incubate proposals and research to mature Radworks’ decentralized governance system, while also maintaining documentation, improving governance processes, and establishing best practices for the ecosystem.

Objectives

  1. Increase diversity of token holders & votable supply.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q2/Q3] Scope and design a governance mechanism for distributing influence.
    • [Q3] Onboard a new set of governance participants with the support of the Strategy Committee.
    • [Q4] Activate governance participants by allocating them influence by Q4 2024.

  2. Increase governance engagement & participation.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1] Re-evaluate and update participation parameters (e.g. quorum, participation thresholds, Snapshot access control).
    • [:infinity:] Design and introduce new governance structures/mechanisms for stewarding effective participation (e.g. reputation building, governance participation incentives, checks & balances).

  3. Refine Radworks’ governance processes (e.g. budget disbursements, requirements & expectations, proposal templates etc…) for 2025 proposal cycle.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q3] Implement new Radworks Treasury payout model (for its grants to Orgs) for 2025 with Ops Committee.
    • [:infinity:] Refine governance processes as needed, based on feedback and experience of stakeholders throughout the year.
    • [:infinity:] Research new tooling for facilitation, communication, and collaboration.

  4. Formalize governance risk management processes.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1] Improve on-chain governance stack.
    • [Q1] Optimize current risk management tooling (e.g. dashboards) and establish emergency protocols for governance attacks alongside of Ops Committee.
    • [Q2/Q3] Complete migration of Radworks documentation to Radicle alongside of Ops Committee and Foundation Council.

  5. Incubate an initial treasury management strategy to implement in 2024.

    Deliverables:

    • [Q1/Q2 2024] Support the development of a governance proposal(s) related to treasury diversification and management, alongside of Strategy Committee and external service providers.
    • [:infinity:] Manage relationships with service providers and communicate relevant updates to the community.

Responsibilities

  • Facilitate monthly proposal cycles and enforce governance processes (e.g. proposal templates, voting deadlines).

    • Moderate proposal discussions on community forum.
    • Communicate updates and announcements on forum, Discord and X.
    • Develop resources for Orgs (e.g. proposal templates) to facilitate relationship with Radworks as needed.
    • Continuously improve and refine processes to support governance participants.

  • Develop and maintain Radworks documentation.

  • Maintain Radworks-wide communication channels.

  • Host and sponsor events in the Ethereum community alongside other governance operators, researchers, and builders.

Contributors

:point_right: List contributors in the Org. Outline any role structure and identify the individuals responsible for managing DAO-wide communications.

Foundation Council

  • Abbey (@abbey) was a founding team member of Monadic and has been working on Radworks projects since 2019, leading all things related to community and governance. She has been a member of the Foundation Council since March 2022.

  • Alexis (@cloudhead) is a co-founder of Monadic and the Radicle project and works on code-collaboration elements within the Radicle technical stack. He’s been a member of the Foundation Council since the start of the Foundation in September 2020.

  • Ange (@ange) was a founding team member of Monadic and has been working on Radworks projects since 2018, leading initiatives related to operations and legal. She’s been a member of the Foundation Council since July 2023 and is currently serving the role of President.

Operations Committee

  • Sally (@sllyllyd) has been working on Radworks projects since 2022, supporting the operations of the Foundation and its contributors. She will be serving the role of Operations Committee Lead.

  • Yuval (@Yuvalis) joined the Foundation in March 2023 to work on financial processes and reporting related to Radworks Support.

  • Wendy (@wendy) joined the Foundation in March 2023 to support accounting and operations for Foundation Health.

  • Ange (@ange) has been working on Radworks projects since 2018, leading initiatives related to operations and legal. She’s been the President of the Foundation Council since July 2023 and carried out the Operations Committee Lead in 2023.

Radworks Governance Support Committee

  • Abbey Titcomb (@abbey) has been working on the Radworks project since 2019, leading all things related to community and governance. She has been a member of the Foundation Council since March 2022, and Governance Committee Lead since 2023.

  • Shelby (@shelb_ee) has been working as the governance facilitator of Radworks since 2021.

  • Apiary is an applied research company developing governance solutions for decentralized organizations. Apiary was previously a Radworks grantee.

Radworks Strategy Committee

  • Abbey Titcomb (@abbey) has been working on the Radworks project since 2019, leading all things related to community and governance. She has been a member of the Foundation Council since March 2022, and Governance Committee Lead since 2023.

  • Julien Donck (@Julien) was a founding team member of Monadic and working on Radworks projects since 2018, leading product & design initiatives.

  • Camille Canon (@cc-apiary) has been contributing to Radworks since 2023 with her team Apiary, an applied research company developing governance solutions for decentralized organizations.

Communication

:point_right: Where does your Org operate (e.g. discord channel, mailing list, repositories, etc.)? How can DAO members stay up to date on the Org’s work and progress?

The Foundation provides updates about its work (with regard to this proposal) on the Radworks Community Forum. The Governance Committee, specifically, uses the Discord to flag new proposals and discuss governance-related topics. The Governance Committee also plans and facilitates Radworks’ Quarterly Community Calls (where all Orgs are responsible for participating).

Reasoning & Analysis

:point_right: How will this Org achieve what it aims to do? How will it solve the problem(s) being called out? How would this Org contribute to the long-term resilience, sustainability and/or growth? Why does the solution and execution of this proposal make sense?

The Foundation was created in 2020 and, in 2021, became a critical vehicle for deploying capital to support the maintenance and core development of the Radicle and Drips stacks. At the same time, a key directive of the Foundation has also been to support the development and growth of collective community infrastructure that can be employed to further decentralize the project. In 2022, the Foundation became a more formal partner of Radworks when it received its first grant to coordinate project-wide strategy and objectives to ensure the effective and impactful allocation of capital to the Radicle and Drips projects. In 2023, the Foundation supported the continued decentralization of Radworks, by spinning out the work of Radicle and Drips into independent Orgs funded directly by the Treasury.

The Foundation has a proven track record as Radworks’ trusted real-world partner, which not only protects, nurtures, and advocates for its ecosystem, but also adapts its relationship with Radworks as the network matures.

In 2024, the Foundation will no longer be exclusively focused on the development of Radicle and Drips, but will instead be directed toward paving the path for the long-term success of technologies aligned with the Foundation’s purpose. Since Radworks’ purpose is to fund such technologies, the Foundation will continue to support the maturation, professionalization, and resiliency of the Radworks ecosystem. Furthermore, the Foundation will advocate for the cultural, educational, and political shift necessary for the mass adoption and impact of these technologies.

Drips and Radicle are critical pieces of infrastructure that enable the long-term proliferation of and access to resilient and humane technologies. While Radworks provides them with important financial support, they will also need a clearer, more receptive global environment to succeed. This is where the Foundation intends to use its grant from Radworks: to set-up governance, educational, and advocacy initiatives that will drive the long-term success of resilient and humane technologies.

Reporting & Success Criteria

:point_right: What metrics for success and accountability mechanisms are being put in place with this Org? How can the DAO evaluate its progress?

Accountability is a key motivation of the Foundation’s work as a partner of Radworks. In that sense, the Foundation will set a standard for regular transparent financial reporting, maintain documentation that clarifies Radworks’ processes, and develop (operational) best practices for the rest of the Radworks ecosystem.

The Foundation will publicly share the following on community.radworks.org:

  • An annual report similar to the one sent to the Foundation’s supervisory authority, focusing on the Foundation’s work for the Radworks ecosystem [Q1 2025]
  • A financial report on spending and status of capital allocated from Radworks [Q1 2025]
  • A proposed annual budget for the following year (2025) relating to the Foundation’s work for the Radworks ecosystem [Q4 2024]
  • Monthly financial reports on Radworks-granted funds spent by the Foundation
  • Monthly reports on voting cycles and proposal discussions shared on community.radworks.org.

Furthermore, the Foundation will be participating in the reporting to Radworks during the quarterly community calls.

Retrospective

Timeline & Budget

:point_right: State a clear annual budget needed to support this Org, as well as a timeline for use of funds.

The Foundation intends to apply any unspent proposal award granted to the Foundation by Radworks in April 2023 (for the Foundation’s work as outlined in its 2023 Proposal for a budget 3,660,992.78 USDC) towards its 2024 budget. Therefore, based on the Foundation’s year-to-date spend and the forecasted costs for the remainder of 2023, we can assume that we will have spent 2,338,683 USDC of the proposal award granted in April 2023 in the year 2023. Therefore, approximately 1,322,310 USDC will be applied towards the 2024 budget requested here. Once the accounting has been completed for 2023 (around February 2024), the Foundation will:

  1. Calculate a more precise amount of the Foundation’s 2023 Radworks proposal grant used by the Foundation in 2023 and include this as part of a 2023 financial report.

  2. Publish a financial and activity report to the Radworks Discourse with regard to how funds were used in 2023 (see Foundation Council “Objectives” above).

:bulb: NOTE: The 2023 financial report (on spending and status of capital allocated from Radworks in 2023) will be published in Q1 2024 instead of December 2023, as previously indicated in the Foundation Org’s 2023 Proposal. This is because the accounting for 2023 will not be completed until February 2024, and therefore any report created before then would be incomplete.

The Foundation has budgeted 2,114,877 USDC for its work in 2024, as outlined in this proposal; therefore, applying the unspent funds from 2023, the Foundation is requesting a grant of 792,567 USDC. This will enable the work of the Foundation Council as well as the Operations, Strategy, and Governance Committees (which have their own proposals and budgets, approved by the Foundation Council), as well as general Foundation administration costs, through December 2024.

Component Requested Budget
Accounting & Auditing Costs $40,414
Bank/Gas Fees $25,832
Contributors - All $1,261,651
Legal Expenses - All $327,683
Marketing & Sponsorships $380,139
Offsites/Events - Internal $48,989
Rent & Subscriptions $30,169
Total Annual 2024 Budget $2,114,877
Unspent Grant from 2023 (-) $1,322,310
Requested Grant from Radworks for 2024 $792,567

Fund Management

:point_right: Outline fund management structure and protocol. How will DAO funds be secured? How will contributors be paid out? At what cadence? How will DAO funds be recovered in case of emergency?

The requested grant for 2024 would be paid out in one transfer of 792,567 USDC once this Proposal has been approved via Radworks governance. The majority of the funds received by the Foundation will be stored in a multi-sig wallet controlled by the Foundation Council, which requires 3 of 5 signatures. Every month, approved funds will be sent to a separate multi-sig wallet managed by the Foundation Ops Committee (set at 2 of 5 signatures), which is used to pay contributors and all invoices. The Foundation Council remains responsible to assure that all funds are used within the Foundation’s purpose. The amount stored in this second multi-sig wallet is only enough to cover the anticipated cost of invoices for one to two months.

The Foundation Org - also the “Grant Recipient” of Radworks, if this proposal is passed - hereby agrees to use the amount granted by Radworks in support of fulfilling the purpose outlined in the “Purpose” section above. The Grant Recipient understands and acknowledges that the awarded amount may be used only for this Purpose. Furthermore, any part of the grant that goes unused in the calendar year outlined in this proposal (for 2024) will either be returned to the Radworks Treasury (by March 2025) or rolled over into and applied towards the Org’s 2025 proposal and future grant from Radworks.

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Wow what a beast of a proposal! :muscle: Thanks to everyone who contributed so much time and effort to getting this ready for the community! :pray: A few comments and questions for you all below:

I really like this description of the role of the Foundation Org. I think it summarizes the vast responsibilities and goals of its Council and Committees really well!

I support this initiative. Will this be similar to the legal defense fund proposed to MakerDAO last year?

Will this work be published or shared anywhere? I know this would be a great resource for our community but would also serve as a useful reference for others. I support sharing this type of research publicly to allow max benefit to the ecosystem.

The description of this sounds more specifically like a “contributor handbook” (i.e. if you are a contracted contributor to on of Radworks’ Orgs rather than a general “community handbook”. Just wanted to call that out as the labeling might be confusing for some.

Does this mean how to approach the community to get feedback/approval of the vision the Strategy Committee comes up with? If not, how do you plan to get community feedback/buy in for the resulting vision?

As it was a question for myself as well, I just wanted to highlight this piece from the 2023 Foundation Org Retrospective about where marketing work - formerly done within the Marketing Committee under the Foundation - now sits.

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Really great to be seeing so much activity planned on the Governance / Strategy / Operations side of things! The progress in all these fronts presents a very healthy sign about this community and its long-term health / sustainability. :+1:

Few individual points for clarification / comment:

This doesn’t look like a publicly accessible spreadsheet.

Loving the focus on transparency - not just here, but throughout this whole proposal! :ok_hand:

:heart_eyes:.
Just :heart_eyes:.

In a society of centralization and concentration of power… what an amazing goal to set!! :bowing_man:

I would be very interested in finding out more about how I can keep track of progress in this particular area. What would be the best resource to follow for that?

Is this referring to just more participants in the voting process? Or is it about moving to different governance mechanism altogether from the current one ?

Great to see planned work in this area! :clap:

Yes, please!! :clap:

and also in

i think both of these should be community.radworks.org, right?

Any plans for Mastodon ? :pray:

Is everyone mentioned here a part-time contributor, or are there some full-time ones as well ?

If I Understand Correctly (IIUC), other Orgs are funded directly from Radworks and not from the Foundation. Is there something in the Radworks ↔ Orgs agreements that sets the expectation that the Foundation is the body responsible for this financial reporting / auditing (and that these orgs have to provide access to this data, etc. ) ?

Or is this simply a service that the Foundation is offering to provide to the Orgs, but they can choose not to use it ?

Thanks so much for all the information already provided and all the work you’ve done to get us here ! :pray:

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Hi Shelby,

Thanks for taking the time to review this proposal and leave your feedback!

This legal defense fund will certainly draw on inspiration and lessons learned from what MakerDAO has done. However, we’ll aim to put forward a (simple) mechanism that attempts to be more reflective of the size and risk profile of the Radworks ecosystem.

Any deliverable that comes out of this work will be made publicly available.

There will be components of this handbook that are relevant for Radworks, Org, and individual contributor levels. So I believe the label “Community Handbook” is accurate but open to changing the name. Maybe Radworks Ecosystem Handbook works better?

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Hi Yorgos,

Thank you for your review and feedback!

This link and others you’ve pointed out will be adjusted (or removed, if broken) in the final proposal. Thank you for flagging!

All Orgs are supported with grants directly from Radworks. That being said, the Foundation has been supporting (Drips and Radicle) Orgs and Radworks by enabling financial reporting and transparency in 2023. The Foundation will continue this work through Q2 2024, as the Orgs continue to streamline their operations - and this commitment (between the Orgs and Foundation) is explicitly outlined in the Drips and Radicle Org proposals.

:pray:

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Thank you @abbey & @ange for this proposal.

My questions & comments below:

I really like this articulation and I think it helps contextualize the initiatives below. Having said that I would like to propose that you use the same classification to discuss “what success looks like at the end of 2024”.

On the 2023 retrospective that was shared on the forum there was a similar item that was marked as completed:

:white_check_mark: Facilitate the formalization of DAO purpose, vision, and mission

How does this new stream of work relate to the previous one?

I have several concerns regarding the strategy, timing, and budget allocation for this objective. Specifically, I believe that the success of this initiative is heavily contingent on the progress made by Drips and Radicle throughout the year in terms of their potential paths. Additionally, the feasibility of implementing any sustainability model is highly dependent on regulatory clarity, and our options will be limited by the available regulatory guidance.

In my opinion, the current timing for the size of the investment and budget required is not ideal. There is considerable uncertainty surrounding Drips and Radicle’s Product-Market Fit (PMF), and there are no clear regulatory guidelines that could constrain innovation and, consequently, the implementation of various models.

Considering these factors, I suggest that we allocate a smaller budget for this initiative in the upcoming year, focusing primarily on research and small-scale experimentation. Furthermore, I propose a budget that gradually scales towards the second half of the year, aligning with the release of Radicle 1.0 and Drips having tested its offering with more than 10 organizations. Lastly, I recommend removing the Q4 objective to finalize and codify any sustainability model, as I believe it is not a realistic goal at this point.

Given that this is not the first time that this initiative is proposed, can you share any prior work done already. Also what does success look like for this objective?

I believe that the above initiatives relate to the marketing budget that is requested.

In terms of marketing, I suggest that Radworks primarily concentrates on amplifying initiatives from Drips and Radicle, maintaining a lean approach otherwise. My reasoning is that, in my opinion, Radworks won’t have a comprehensive model ready for testing throughout most of the year, limiting its potential impact. Therefore, I propose a significantly reduced marketing budget for the current year.

Regarding governance objectives 1 & 2, I propose that we establish clear, measurable goals for success this year, potentially in numerical form.

My comments align closely with those on sustainability models mentioned earlier. I see Objectives 1 and 2 as tightly linked to Drips and/or Radicle achieving Product-Market-Fit, along with the need for regulatory clarity. Consequently, I suggest maintaining a lean approach, particularly in the first half of the year, and proposing a significantly reduced budget that scales up in the second half.

To illustrate my perspective, the strategies for increasing token holder diversity will vary significantly depending on whether Drips has achieved Product-Market-Fit or not. Therefore, I recommend waiting a few months before initiating any work on Objectives 1 and 2, allowing Radicle 1.0 to be released and Drips to be tested with numerous organizations.

We’ve made the mistake of investing in research too early in the past, only to realize that our landscape was vastly different when implementing our findings (as seen in our experiences from 2018-2020).

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Thanks for your proposal @abbey @ange

As some of you know, I am in favor of a much leaner Radworks until our product work proves itself. Therefore I agree with @lftherios with regards to focusing on less things for 2024. We should keep the ship running, but I don’t think the proposed $2M budget makes sense for an organization that isn’t building a product and/or new technology, at this stage of the project.

In terms of the specifics, I think @lftherios proposed some areas that can be reduced, which I also stand behind.

As for foundation expenses specifically, we can definitely use the foundation’s own funds now that ETH is seeing a rally, I think that’s a great idea.

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Hi @lftherios, thanks for your questions. Answers in line below:

Yes, the formulation of the objective doesn’t fully reflect the way the work panned out in 2023. At the time of posting, we were a couple months post- the brand & org evolution. The “facilitate the formalization of DAO purpose, vision, and mission” objective was set to resolve the resulting conflicts that surfaced from those evolutions (e.g. the DAO was now funding two separate technologies, it didn’t make sense for the DAO to be called RadicleDAO if Radicle was just the code collab product etc…). The starting point was formalizing a purpose. We facilitated that process alongside the community.

With the a purpose in place, we began to define the Radworks’ “vision” (where we want to be) and “mission” (how we’re going to get there). In the process of doing so, it became clear we needed to first clarify the relationship between Radworks and its Orgs to better understand their funding needs, high-level goals, and long-term plans for sustainability. How can we craft a “vision and mission” for Radworks without defining the “vision & mission” for both Radicle and Drips? This realization drove all of the “strategy” work we detailed in the Foundation Org retrospective (see Governance/Challenges).

So, TL:DR; we didn’t define the vision & mission of Radworks because to do so, we needed to first support Radicle & Drips define their own visions to product-market fit. To do this, we helped develop the MoUs (Radicle & Drips) and facilitated multiple strategic discussions around sustainability & runway throughout the course of the year.

Now, this new stream of work picks back up where we left off. With a purpose, and a clearer picture of Radworks’ relationship to its Orgs, we are now in a better place to envision where we we see Radworks going next. To attempt to clarify what we mean by this, I’ll provide some more specific questions that we see this “vision document” answering:

  • Do we envision Radworks funding censorship-resistant permissionless technologies outside of Radicle and Drips? If so, when? Under what conditions?
  • For how long do we envision Drips & Radicle existing? What is required to be able to operate along that timeline? How is Radworks involved?
  • For how long do we envision Radworks existing? What is required to be able to operate along that timeline?
  • What impact do we want Radworks to have in the world?

Perhaps we can shift the language if the word “vision” is confusing. I’ll make a note to iterate on this objective specifically for the next version of this proposal.

A couple comments here:

  • We are in agreement that focusing on Radicle & Drips PMF should be an ecosystem-wide priority for 2024. Perhaps it isn’t super clear due to being placed in the “Responsibilities” vs. “Objectives” section, but one of the Strategy Committee’s main priorities is to:

    The Strategy Committee is taking on this work so we can 1) help the Orgs strategize on their individual paths to PMF and 2) hold the Orgs accountable to their GTM / adoption strategies. The reason we developed the MoUs alongside of the Orgs is to provide more definition and clarity to “what” PMF even is for Radicle and Drips respectively.

    Instead of viewing this work as separate or sequential to the “sustainability modeling” referenced in this proposal, I actually consider it closely intertwined. Holding the Orgs accountable to their MoUs and validating their individual PMF is also validating a potential sustainability model for Radworks. The efforts go hand in hand.

    What we want to avoid is coming down to the wire on runway with Orgs that haven’t found PMF and not having a plan of what to do next. I consider the sustainability modeling outlined in this proposal as proactive gameplanning for the future, so that once we have the right information from the Orgs at year’s end we immediately execute on the next stage of the “plan”.

  • On the specific comments about “this work highly dependent on regulatory clarity, as the implementation feasibility of any sustainability model will be constrained by the regulatory guidance available.”, I definitely agree that there are potential sustainability models for Radworks that would require regulatory clarity to implement, however, much of this “sustainability modeling” will be actually focused on answering higher-level questions such as:

    • What other organizations and funders are operating in the FOSS space? How are they funded and sustained?
    • What is Radworks’ model for funding technologies? What does success look like?
    • How can funding for Radicle & Drips be sustained in the long-term?
    • How does funding for other purpose-aligned technologies look in the long-term?

    The answers to these questions are not dependent on regulatory clarity but are relevant to any potential sustainability model that Radworks’ implements in the future.

  • The budget for the strategy work is relatively in line to what you proposed. The Strategy Committee, who’s responsible for this work, consists of three individuals contributing an average of 1-2 days each a week. In cost and in time, this is as if we have one full-time senior executive tackling this work, which is reasonable considering the importance of the work.

  • We can remove the objective for Q4 and keep the work focused on research & experimentation, I agree with the approach.

When you say “Given that this is not the first time that this initiative is proposed” are you referring to the Distribution of Influence workstream? If so, I will provide some context there:

Looking back to March 2022, when we defined our success metrics & goals for the The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO, we outlined the following:

If you refer to the Wrapping up the Org Design WG 🌅 post, you’ll see that we successfully completed #2 and #3 in 2023 with our “transition to the DAO” (see Transition to the DAO — list of all forum posts). The 2023 Org proposals marked the “final milestone” of this transition.

#1 and #4 were explored with the Distribution of Influence and Treasury Management workstreams (and the Distribution of Ownership workstream which successfully allocated 1M RAD to active contributors), but were deprioritized to ensure all energy was spent supporting the operational transition of all contributors to the DAO and navigating the resulting brand & org evolution. You can read more about how we’ve had to navigate #4 in the Foundation Org 2023 Retrospective.

Returning to the The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO post, we contextualized the governance resiliency problem as such:

We began tackling this problem with our DAO Tooling Workstream — researching potential tools for increasing governance participation, improving governance accessibility, and distributing influence/governing power — but obviously had to prioritize the operational transition and resulting rebrand as it directly impacted all other governance work. Regardless, this workstream still resulted in the:

From there, we partnered with Apiary to generate a Insights Report on the Radworks community to understand what issues negatively impact comtributor’s ability to effectively participate in governance (full report here).

We learned that the community was:

  1. Overwhelmed by the sheer capacity of information
  2. Looking for consolidated documentation to facilitate onboarding
  3. Experiencing confusion and frustration due to the lack of explicit individual and group role descriptions
  4. Lacking understanding for how decisions were actually made
  5. Desiring for detailed rationalization and strategic communication of decisions.
  6. Concerned about legal risk and doubtful about the role of the RAD token in general

Most importantly, the general Radworks community expressed a desire to reduce our dependency on token voting and explore non-financialized forms of governance.

This report resulted in a couple of initiatives:

Now, with a fresh foundation in place, we think it is time to revisit this objective and make substantial progress before year’s end to ensure the system is maturing & continuously decentralizing in parallel to the growth of Radicle & Drips.

We’ll have found success 1) if the deliverables outlined are completed and 2) we can provably say that decision-making power and influence has substantially decentralized away from original stakeholders to a larger set of active governance participants. What this means in practice:

  • Org leads & contributors can abstain from voting on their own proposals (to reduce conflicts of interest) without potentially inducing governance gridlock
  • Large whales can vote against each other without potentially inducing governance gridlock
  • Delegated votable supply has increased
  • Number of active governance participants has increased
  • Rate of participation has increased

We are in the process of conducting a power/voting analysis of our current token distribution that will present us with quantitative metrics to use to evaluate our progress towards this objective in 2024.

I agree that the ecosystem’s marketing resources should be directed towards Drips and Radicle to support their GTM strategies. I see, however, much benefit in maintaining Radworks specific marketing initiatives vs. scoping down to “only amplification”. A strong brand presence for Radworks in relevant communities (e.g. Ethereum) strengthens the value proposition of both Radicle and Drips respectively. For example:

For Drips: Radworks hosts, sponsors, participates in Ethereum-based events to maintain its brand as a “legit DAO” in the Ethereum space. Participation in these events not only expands the pipeline of potential funders/users, but supports the legitimacy of Drips as a tool that’s built and used by a well-respected project in the space.

For Radicle: Radicle’s “crypto-adjacent beginnings” have diluted the perception of the brand in trad FOSS communities. Strategic content development that challenges anti-crypto narratives, presents alternative narratives, and uplifts Radworks as true advocate for FOSS can support better reception of Radicle in non-crypto circles.

For both, the Foundation’s plan to build a network of purpose-aligned individuals, organizations, and institutions and identify sponsorship opportunities strengthens the ecosystem as a whole by supporting those that can educate and push (technical and cultural) adoption of Radicle, Drips, and other FOSS technologies.

With your feedback in mind, I will restructure the marketing budget based on this feedback and take a more conservative approach focusing on “maintaining” marketing vs. “growing”.

I agree that Objective #1 & #2 are closely intertwined with the Strategy Committee’s sustainability modeling, and therefore is coupled with Drips & Radicle’s GTM strategies. I personally believe this work can (and should) happen in parallel. In an effort to dedicate more time & energy towards each Org’s success, we can push this objective back to Q3 but I maintain the stance that this work needs to start this year.

With this feedback in mind, I will be submitting a revised draft of the Foundation Org proposal before it moves into Formal Review. It will include the following:

  • An updated roadmap for Strategy/Governance work that reflects a phased approach, with the more in-depth sustainability modeling and governance design work starting in the second-half of the year.
  • A new budget that takes into account the feedback shared here.

Thanks for your comments — happy to discuss any of this on the proposal review call today.

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Thanks for sharing — we were not aware of your concerns, so I’m glad we can address them now. Lacking specific context on your personal concerns, I assume my reply to @lftherios is sufficient. Let me know if there’s anything I missed.

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Thank you @abbey for taking the time to post this very detailed response! :pray: I fully second the reasonings and arguments you present in your response to @lftherios comments.