| Author(s): | @ange |
|---|---|
| Type: | executeable org |
| Created: | 2024-12-02 |
| Status: | active |
Purpose
Since its founding in 2020, the Foundation’s purpose has been to support projects and people developing resilient, non-extractive peer-to-peer technologies that promote Internet freedom. The Foundation reports to ESA, the foundation supervisory authority in Switzerland, and its purpose cannot be changed. As such, the Foundation has always operated as Radworks’ trusted real-world steward.
The Foundation has carried out this purpose in multiple phases since its inception:
- First, by enabling the development of Radicle and Drips.
- Later, by supporting the further decentralization of the ecosystem, so that Radicle and Drips could be funded directly by the Radworks Treasury.
- In 2024, the Foundation positioned its work to play the roles of protector, nurturer, and advocate of the Radworks Ecosystem, a community-governed network building Radicle and Drips.
Now, in 2025, the Foundation will further adapt its responsibilities to the current needs of Radworks. In its role as protector of the Ecosystem, the Foundation will steward identification and responses to Ecosystem-wide needs and risks in an increasingly evolving regulatory environment. The Foundation will take on legal work in agreement with Org leads to mitigate risks, which will be funded by the Orgs themselves. Furthermore, the Foundation will also offer its skills and entity status to carry out general evangelism of Radworks technologies by operationalizing grant-giving to community contributors, when requested and funded by Orgs. The Foundation empowers Radworks products and contributors by identifying and clearing potential, future operational challenges.
Strategy and Quarterly Objectives
- Achieve operational efficiency and compliance at the Foundation. The Foundation is consistently working towards a leaner and more efficient setup, while continuing to meet its requirements as a regulated Swiss entity.
- [Q1-Q4] Maintain regular internal reporting, accounting, and controlling to ensure compliance with Swiss Foundation Supervisory Authority (ESA).
- [Q1] Publish 2024 Financial Accountability Report to Radworks.
- [Q1-Q2] Complete 2024 Annual Audit and 2024 Annual Report for ESA.
- Facilitate minimum Radworks Ecosystem-wide operations. Radworks ecosystem-wide operations should be efficient, minimal, and clear for current (and future) Radworks participants, including RAD token holders.
- [Q1-Q4]Coordinate and facilitate the quarterly Radworks Community Call.
- [Q1-Q4] Administer RAD allocations for Radworks Orgs (and their Contributors), if desired by Org.
- Monitor and mitigate risk in the Radworks Ecosystem. Risk cannot be completely be mitigated, but we make efforts to analyze and prioritize risks so that they can be addressed by Orgs. By doing this, the Foundation can help protect the people, entities, and assets of the Radworks Ecosystem.
- [Q1-Q4] Register and maintain trademarks for Radicle, Drips, and Radworks.
- [Q1] Create a template market integrity policy in light of novel regulatory crypto trading regulation such as the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) to support Ecosystem contributors’ compliance efforts.
- [Q1 + Q3] Facilitate bi-annual ecosystem risk review sessions with Org leads.
- [Q1-Q4] Monitor policy and regulatory developments and identify whether changes affect the Radworks Ecosystem. As a result, work with Org Leads to determine what (legal) work should be prioritized and completed by Orgs to respond to such changes that impact their products. Orgs will fund this legal work.
- [Q1-Q4] If needed, pursue policy work that is intended to protect, to the extent legally possible, Radworks contributors and entities, in a constantly evolving legal and regulatory environment.
- [Q1-Q4] Register (as needed) and maintain domains for Radicle, Drips, and Radworks.
- [Q1-Q4] Hold entities receiving Radworks funding responsible for open sourcing their technical developments.
- Support the advocacy of peer-to-peer technologies. The Foundation believes in the importance of recognizing the Radworks ecosystem’s greater community support - but also the necessary role that other organizations play in promoting the cultural, educational, and political shifts required for the adoption and mass impact of these technologies.
- [Q1] Carry-out one cycle of grant-giving via the Foundation’s Grants Program to retroactively award individuals who contribute meaningful content that supports [Radworks’] peer-to-peer technologies.
- [Q2-Q4] Operationalize grant cycle, to retroactively award individuals who contribute meaningful content that supports [Radworks’] peer-to-peer technologies, as requested and funded by Orgs.
Organizational Structure
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.
While the Foundation has previously structured its work in the form of committees, in an effort to be a leaner, more narrowly focused organization, it will be made up of fewer, tightly coordinated contributors, which in total provide the time of around 1.5 full-time persons. These contributors will be reviewed and instructed by the Foundation Council.
Contributors
- @ange (org lead + Foundation Council President + operations and legal project management)
- @sllyllyd (operations)
- natascha (payments and accounting)
- @Yuvalis (financial reporting)
- daniel (legal)
- nadja (legal)
- @lftherios (Foundation Council member)
- gabriela (Foundation Council member)
Communication
The Foundation provides updates about its work (with regard to this proposal) on the Radworks Community Forum.
Reasoning & Analysis
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, adapting its relationship with Radworks as the ecosystem matures. There are three key assumptions that are scoping its focus for 2025:
-
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.
Therefore, the Foundation will sharpen its focus, to bring value to the Radworks Ecosystem in the areas it 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.
Reporting & Success Criteria
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 in 2025 for the Radworks ecosystem, including its spend and status of capital allocated from Radworks for 2025 [Q1 2026]
- A proposed annual budget for the following year (2026) relating to the Foundation’s work for the Radworks ecosystem [Q4 2025]
- Quarterly financial reports on Radworks-granted funds spent by the Foundation
- Quarterly forum updates on the Foundation’s progress on its objectives (in addition to providing these updates live on the quarterly community calls)
Timeline & Budget
The Foundation intends to apply any unspent proposal award granted to the Foundation by Radworks in November 2023 (for the Foundation’s work as outlined in its 2024 Proposal for a budget 1,723,187 USDC) towards its 2025 budget. Based on the Foundation’s year-to-date spend and the forecasted costs for the remainder of 2024, we can assume that we will approximately 686,105 USDC remaining of the previously awarded grant from November 2023. Therefore, these remaining funds will be applied towards the 2025 budget requested here.
Once the accounting has been completed for 2024 (around February 2025), the Foundation will calculate a more precise amount of the Foundation’s 2024 Radworks proposal grant used by the Foundation and include this as part of a financial and activity report to the Radworks Discourse with regard to how funds were used in 2024 (see Foundation Council “Objectives” above).
The Foundation has budgeted $327,972 USDC for its work in 2025, as outlined in this proposal; therefore, because it is applying the unspent funds from 2024, the Foundation is not requesting any additional USDC. It will only request an additional 10,000 RAD from the Treasury. This will enable the work outlined above through December 2025.
| USDC | |
|---|---|
| Contributors (inc Foundation Council) | $159,891.67 |
| Marketing | $1,869.49 |
| Offsites + Events | $41,986.91 |
| Accounting and Audit | $33,544.80 |
| Legal | $34,211.95 |
| Operational Expenses | $56,467.08 |
| Total Budget | $327,971.90 |
| RAD | |
| Grants (for February 2025 grant cycle only) | 30,000 |
Management of Funds
Given the funds the Foundation anticipates having leftover from its 2024 grant from Radworks (approximately 686,105 USDC, though this will be more accurately calculated and published in a report to the community in Q1 2025), the Foundation will not be requesting an additional USDC grant for 2025. The Foundation only requests 10,000 RAD for grants.
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 2025) will either be rolled over into and applied towards the Org’s 2026 proposal and future grant from Radworks.
The majority of the funds received by the Foundation from Radworks are stored in a multi-sig wallet controlled by the Foundation Council, which requires 3 of 5 signatures. Every month, approved funds are sent to a separate multi-sig wallet managed by the Foundation operations contributors (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.