Authors: 0xBaer,
link to original doc
Simple Summary
A permissionless and transparent grants program to provide grants to Internal and external projects thus fostering the growth of the 1Inch network.
Abstract
This proposal aims to kickstart the 1Inch community grants program with a yearly budget of 2 million through a committee of 7 elected by the 1InchDAO. The members will be elected for two seasons (6 months ) through the already established governance process of the DAO. The committee will have a Lead who will be compensated 75$/hr for their work.
Motivation
The 1inch Community treasury holds more than 11.3 Million in assets which the DAO collectively owns. As the ecosystem develops the community has to give grants to different projects to foster healthy growth and increase participation. The existing Proposal lifecycle which the grants have to follow through has a minimum of an 18-day cooling-off period once it enters Phase 3. This approach is of course functional when dealing with a significant change to the DAO as a whole but a relatively smaller grant which has minimal impact on the treasury or the DAO shall take a different path, but shall be vetted by the quality and deliverables by an educated group. From a voter’s perspective, we tend to develop ‘Voter Fatigue’ really quickly as we have to vote too often.
Specification
The proposal tries to establish a Community/ DAO owned Grants Program with an Initial $2 Million yearly budget that will have the ability to distribute grants in the following Categories:
- Public Good projects
- Education and community development
- Research and Analysis
- Ecosystem Development.
The 1inch Grants Program shall be administered by a committee of 7 elected from the 1InchDAO through Snapshot voting. For ease of planning and budgeting, the grants program will align its operations into Seasons, Which are three month periods that run alongside fiscal quarters. All the projects funded through the Grants program should be made as a forum post on gov.1inch.io and shall be vetted by the Grants Committee.
Quarterly Budget:
Maximum quarterly budget of $500,000
Budgets and caps will be evaluated & adjusted every 6 months.
Grants Committee
The Grants Committee of the 1Inch grants program shall consist of 7 members with a multi-sig where the Grants Committee members as signatories. The main motto behind establishing a Grants Committee is to have a qualitative screening of funded projects thus ensuring the sustainable growth of the 1Inch ecosystem.
At the beginning of the season, the Grants Committee will receive a maximum allocation of $500,000 through the 1InchDAO governance process. The Funds allocated from the 1Inch treasury shall be distributed to the Multising owned by the Grants Committee.
The Grants Committee shall allocate funds to external projects and Internal projects which are collectively owned by the DAO according to the Funding requirements established internally. Any funds which are not allocated at the end of each season shall be retained with the Grants committee and could be put into the pool for the upcoming season.
Operational Specifications of GC
The GC shall have a Lead and Reviewers, The Committee Lead is the person responsible for organising the schedule and ensuring the smooth functioning of the Committee.
The grants Committee meeting should have a quorum of 5 members and decisions should be passed with a ¾ majority of all voting members.
Committee Lead Key individual responsible for organising the program and ensuring that things move smoothly and efficiently. Serve a 6-month term and can resign at any time. The committee will elect the Lead from within the group of 7 reviewers
Reviewers: Process applications, weigh in on discussions surrounding budget planning, ensure that the lead is acting in good faith and is effective in their role, and will operate a 4 of 7 multi-sig which disburses funds to grantees. The reviewers will also hold the program accountable for its goals and objectives and return. Serve a 6-month term and can resign at any time.
Elections to the Grants Committee.
Members of the Grants Committee are elected by the 1InchDAO through Snapshot Votes. The Grants Committee members will have a tenure of 2 seasons (6 months). Anyone can self nominate themselves once GC nominations are open on the forum or the method through which nominations are collected. The nomination should include Name/Discord handle, reasons for applying and the qualifications. Any candidate who has received more than 20 votes and with a 60% in support shall move on to a snapshot vote for a final decision from the DAO.
The grants committee is expected to set internal governance guidelines and KPIs and adopt measures to have a transparent environment. The Grants committee can not unilaterally change the specifications of [1IP-8] without following the established proposal lifecycle guidelines.
Recalling a Grants Committee: If the DAO realises that the Grants Committee as a whole or any individual member isn’t fulfilling their duties a motion to recall the grants committee shall be put and follow the guidelines established in the proposal lifecycle.
Genesis Grants Committee
The Nomination period for 1 week will be open upon the approval of this proposal. The Election period for the GC commences once this proposal moves to snapshot for the final decision. (Link for self-nomination).
The Genesis committee will have 7 members out of which 3 are reserved for the 1inch foundation or members sponsored by the foundation.
These three seats will only have a reduced tenure of one season. (3 months). This reservation of seats and reduced tenure is only applicable for the genesis election.
Grants Committee Compensation
The Grants Committee lead will have to allocate a minimum of 30 hours per week to make an educated decision on projects and run the committee as a whole. This proposal aims to implement the DAOverse standard of 75$/hr. The compensation formula ($75/hr)(30hr/week)(52week/yr)
The compensation can be paid in lump sums every season or monthly bases from the DAO treasury.
The Reviewers would probably commit around 5 -10 hours a week but will be less time than that of the lead.
This proposal isn’t suggesting any compensation during the initial stage but the DAO could review this once the committee has commenced.
Project funding lifecycle
The Grants Committee can request proposals from the community during the Season. The projects that are interested in getting funded shall make a forum post on gov.1inch.io and run an initial temp check. This process will follow the Phase 3 of the proposal lifecycle described in the governance documents of the DAO. If the proposal is passed the Grants Committee shall add it to their Agenda for the review meeting.
The criteria and method for funding are up to the discretion of the Grants Committee
Rational and Governance Implications of this proposal.
This proposal won’t have any significant impact on any of the protocols managed by the DAO.
This proposal rather establishes a social committee to make quality decisions on the funding of projects simultaneously reducing the problem of voter fatigue. The 1Inch Community Grants program could be considered as a decentralised version of the 1inch Foundation grants but utilises the DAO treasury and is of course accountable directly to the DAO.
The governance risk associated with establishing the committee is having malicious members on the committee. This risk is mitigated by having a multi-sig of 4/7 threshold and funding the Multisig in chunks of 500,000$ per season.
Conclusion
If this proposal passes the DAO will establish a brand new committee to make decisions on the funding of projects. This will have a financial implication of 500,000$ for funding projects plus compensation for the committee.