Foundation Org - Q2 2024 Update

đź“Ł Updates & Reporting đź’Ş Org Updates
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General Announcements & Updates

  • Strategy Committee Sunset: In light of recent narrative and structural changes, the Strategy Committee’s original objectives no longer align with the current status of the project. Therefore, as a result of these shifts, the Strategy Committee has been sunset. You can read more about this here, including how the objectives will be changing and how they will be managed.
  • Marketing Update: 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. Updates on their progress so far are below.
  • Combining Operations and Governance: As we evaluated the core functions/responsibilities of the Governance Team and recognize the skill-sets offered by the Operations Team, 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. We are taking a closer look at these operations - as well as moderation needs and community expectations, especially when it comes to governance participation - in light of people changes and the new Marketing approach and team.
  • Grants Program Launch: As part of the sunset of the Grants Org, the Foundation will be trialing a new Grants Program, leveraging the existing infrastructure and resources of the Foundation. The program that will work closely with Orgs (Drips to start) to retroactively reward community contributors for their input towards the development and adoption of Radworks-funded technology. @wendy will be coordinating the first grants cycle in July.
  • Revised Foundation 2024 Budget: Because the Foundation is seeing a shift in its committee structure and objectives, we have shared a revised budget for 2024 with the Radworks community.

Quarterly Objectives Updates

Ops

  • Foundation Health:
    • The annual report was submitted to ESA (the Foundation’s supervisory authority in Switzerland).
  • Radworks Ecosystem Support:
    • The majority of softwares belonging to Radicle and Drips have now been fully transferred to the relevant organisations, including a G Suite Migration for both ( :dizzy: thanks, @sllyllyd!).
    • Alongside Governance (thanks, @shelb_ee !), launched the (internal) Radworks Contributor Handbook.
    • The Ops Committee met up and attended events in Berlin Blockchain week (May 2024), and hosted drinks to meet more contributors from throughout the ecosystem.
    • Led by @wendy, supported @bordumb and the Grants Org’s scope refinement and transition to a program within the Foundation, including drafting of internal guidelines and processes; new systems are setup and ready for trialing in Q3.
    • Following a discussion in the forum, we will be moving forward with Financial Reporting for Orgs beginning in Q3. As part of the Foundation’s objectives, reporting responsibility is moving to individual orgs from July 2024 reporting onwards. A big shout and thank you to @yuvalis for her continued work on this effort to maintain financial transparency.

Marketing

  • As mentioned above, marketing as a team and priority for Radworks was revisited and rescoped in April, with @lftherios as interim lead and with contributions from Becca and @sllyllyd. Here are the updates in light of the new intentions as laid out in that Discourse post:
    • Due to the team and associated partners being very part-time on this work, the ambitious plans of Q2 proceeded at a slower pace than planned. This is also reflected in the (lower) budget spend.
    • The majority of work taking place in Q2 within the marketing team was restricted to hiring the Marketing Lead and the Video Producer. A thorough recruitment process was carried out including creating sample work (which were paid interview assignments) and a 3 stage interview process.
    • The team built the partnership with Binance and created the content for its Learn to Earn program, with an anticipated launch in Q3.
  • We are delighted to introduce Ed Williams and Simon James as our Marketing Lead and Video Producer respectively. Ed and Simon will spend the first month onboarding to the Foundation. Ed will be developing an updated marketing plan in due course.

Governance Support

  • Increase governance engagement & participation
  • Refine Radworks’ governance processes for 2025 proposal cycle
  • Formalize governance risk management processes
    • Prepared to submit the OZ Governor upgrade proposal (RGP-17) by coordinating next steps with Scopelift and answering questions/addressing concerns from major stakeholders and the community.
    • Drafted and proposed multiple versions of governance mechanisms that can protect against emergency cases / malicious attacks.
    • Began to formalize the RAD Risk Management process, cleaned up tracking sheet and documented processes.
  • Started documenting all Governance Committee responsibilities and processes in preparation for moving responsibilities to Ops Committee [including governance facilitation processes, tooling and service provider management, and maintenance of documentation of resources].
  • Helped bordumb explore potential entities for the Grants Org and supported the evolution of the Grants program.
  • Attended Berlin Blockchain Week events and held meetings with numerous ecosystem partners and service providers.

Q2 Proposal Summary

Facilitated the successful passing of RGP-25. There were no active proposals in May or June.

Upcoming Proposals

Timeline & Budget Update

With the aforementioned changes to the Foundation structure, the committee budget structure is no longer in place. The Foundation described its mid-year rebudget, which is on par with the budget requested as part of the 2024 Proposal cycle. Please note the following:

  • The Foundation Org spending remains under budget for the year. As mentioned, but to be clear, the Q2 Marketing budget (published here) is significantly under the agreed budget in line with reduced activities.
  • We are [obviously] expecting to make savings due to reduced spending within strategy and governance topics, but these will be counteracted with planned increased spending in the Marketing Team and the creation of the Grants Program.
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Thanks for the update. I am excited to learn more about the trialing of the new grants program and see if there might be synergies for partnership on this with Gitcoin @wendy