This post was co-authored by Ange.
In March, there was a call to discuss access to funding in the Radworks ecosystem - which was nicely summarized by Shelby here. There was a specific focus on the value the Grants Org brings to community members - and what the Grants Org offers community contributors (as a funding option) versus being funded directly from the Radworks Treasury (as an Org).
There was agreement that the grants offered by Grants Org have three features distinct from Treasury-funded grants, they cover 3 positive F’s:
- Fast: turnaround from time of request
- Flexible: a grant-requester can submit at any time
- Facile: easy with low overhead for applicants (application requirements are lighter)
However, grant recipients and Grant Org contributors increasingly felt two places of friction:
- receiving funds from a source lacking a legal entity made it hard for grant recipients to receive and report these funds in many jurisdictions.
- implementing an initial KYC/AML process for grant recipients was difficult.
Bordumb, Shelby, and Abbey sat together to discuss how this friction might be eliminated by forming a new entity (Swiss association/non-profit) or creating a new body or program within the existing Foundation Org entity. They discussed the pros and cons of these options before deciding that moving grant-giving into the Foundation would make the most sense:
- A program built within the Foundation would leverage the existing infrastructure and resources of the Foundation, ensuring the setup and ongoing processes engage the necessary skill sets and experience.
- The focus of the existing grants program is to fund development that enhances, expands, and enriches the Radworks ecosystem - and this is aligned with the Foundation’s purpose and current role of “nurturer” of the Radworks ecosystem.
The next question: how do we identify what work from community contributors would bring the most value to Radicle and Drips, and, therefore, should be work that the Foundation funds with a grant?
Therefore, the Foundation has implemented a Grants Program that will work closely with Orgs to retroactively reward community contributors for their input towards the development and adoption of Radworks-funded technology. We believe this setup will maintain the features we want (fast, flexible, and facile) while also ensuring that work being rewarded is aligned with the Foundation’s and Radworks’ purposes.
To start, we are trialing this Program with the Drips Org. On a quarterly basis, Drips Org team members will nominate community contributions that have added value to the Drips ecosystem. The Grants Coordinator will perform a KYC (know your customer) check on these individuals. Then, using Collaborative Lists, Drips Org team members will vote on how the grants total budget (set by the Org Lead) will be divided between the nominated community contributors. Drips will then be used to payout the grant recipients - and the Foundation will be able to provide award documentation to the grant recipient.
Because the Foundation’s budget can cover the 2024 costs of this narrowly scoped Grants Program and the Program is aligned with the work and role the Radworks community “approved” via the Foundation’s Annual Proposal in November, the Program will be implemented as soon as possible, with the first grants cycle aimed for July. The Program will be managed by Wendy, who has been appointed the Grants Coordinator by the Foundation Council.
We need to keep supporting open source culture. We believe in the importance of recognizing our ecosystem’s greater community and their contributions to Radworks and the Foundation fulfilling their purposes. We look forward to having another way to engage and put in place deeper relationships with active community members. After two grant cycles, the Foundation will review the outcomes for effectiveness and value, revisiting if and how we should continue to grow (or retarget) the Grants Program.
This means that in the next weeks, the Grants Org will be sunset and its funds (273,890 USDC and 52,440 RAD) will be returned to the Radworks Treasury. Thanks to this Grants Org, the ecosystem attracted passionate teams and individuals to do work that made Radworks technologies more accessible and reach more users. One such team even became the Radicle Integrations and Tooling Org.
Until now, the Grants Org has provided important learnings. And we have learned that funding work works! However, two other key learnings are:
- Tighter coupling with Org contributors is key to funding the most useful work
- Grantees require a legal counterparty to clarify their award payments
Because of this, we believe that the new Grants Program within the Foundation will be the best direction forward to address these key learnings. This should put us in a position to continue funding great work for the ecosystem, while building new processes and knowledge that tightly integrates Org work, while being compliant.
The Foundation Org will also plan to publish a revised budget in July - which will also reflect a reorganization of priorities, including the establishment of the Grants Program.
Update: The return of the Grants Org funds to the Radicle Treasury is complete. You can see the transactions here:
- 10 RAD test transaction here
- 273,890 USDC transaction here
- 52,040 RAD transaction here
