Financial Proposal: Executive SubDAO Budget Request

1. Summary

The Executive Sub DAO (ESD) requests funding of 8 ETH / 7200 ANT / 248k USD as per budget to bootstrap AN DAO operations and strategic growth opportunities from December 1 2021 until 30 March 2022. This request includes both continuous and discretionary funding so that the ESD can execute the powers as granted by the Aragon Network Charter:

  1. Pay members of other Sub-DAOs

  2. Make grants to other community members at their discretion, providing;
    – such transactions are disclosed transparently on the Aragon Forum website.
    – an Escrow is used to hold funds until the completion of the agreed-upon deliverable.
    – the deliverable has been fully assessed by the members of the ESD
    – the funds are used to grow and maintain the Aragon Network

  3. Pay suppliers of the Aragon network, providing such transactions are disclosed transparently on the Aragon Forum.

2. Situation/Rationale

We propose the AN DAO provide continuous and discretionary funding to the ESD for the following purposes:

  1. Paying members of each Sub DAO 200 ANT per month and reimbursing any reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their duties, as per the Aragon Network Charter Sub DAO Agreements S. 1 (d) i, ii
  2. Providing an as yet unallocated tranche of funding for both continuous and discretionary purposes. We are aware of the following priorities:-
    – Launch funding to establish the technical support guild as the highest priority operational guild of the AN DAO for the first four months
    – Interim funding to DevOps to provide ongoing updates to the terms and conditions of Aragon Court through the supply of ETH
    –Discretionary funding to provide a mechanism by which early-stage community initiatives and AA initiatives can be launched and maintained in the short term (3-6 months) while developing a clear proposal for ongoing funding directly from the AN DAO.

Executive SubDAO Team Members(s) on Discord

  • danielo#2815
  • lee0007#8152
  • Fortunov | Aragon#6678

How will you interface with the community?

  • Discord #executive-subDAO
  • ESD Notion
  • Monthly forum posts for transparency, visibility and reporting on Exec SubDAO activity
  • Forum proposal for community deliberation requiring a minimum of 7 days
  • Monthly reporting for projects with discretionary funding tied to deliverables
  • Monthly Community Call

Proposal Budget

The ESD has been given substantial power by the Charter which creates the need for strong alignment with and high transparency of spending. At the same time, we want to balance the speed and impact of capital deployment being robust enough to minimize funding overlaps but nimble enough to scale funding. In terms of spending there are fundamentally 2 main types of expenses:

  1. Discretionary - Initial funding of bounties and initiatives proposed by the community and AA without the need for individual proposals for each bounty enabling faster network growth through the speed of execution.
  2. Continuous - Funding the operations of other sub-DAOs and the initially established guilds - as these guilds grow and form they should be able and encouraged to make their own proposals of funding directly to the AN DAO

Budget Rationale

At this stage, the only approved funding obligations are the continuous monthly payments owed to the members of the three SubDAO. Therefore the following assumptions are applied to the proposed budget.

  • Priority: Launch funding for the technical support guild (accounted continuous)
  • Priority: Interim funding of the DevOps Wallet for updating terms on Aragon Court (accounted continuous)
  • Needed: Launch funding for network growth guilds currently in incubation (accounted discretionary)
  • Unknown: Discretionary unallocated amount equal to 66% of the continuous funding month 1
  • Growth: 20% increase cost MoM, surplus expected
  • Denomination: ANT equivalent: valued at $4.95 as at 23/11/21
  • Allocation: 50:50 ANT: Stable - The rationale is that ANT should be used in part for payment along with a mix of stable coins for stability in the bounty
  • Escrow not required as funds will be held in the Operational Vault for scheduling by Executive Sub DAO members
  • Efficiency: financial tools (smart contracts) may be applied (on advice from tech committee) to minimise financial costs (i.e gas fees)
Proposed Budget Dec Jan Feb Mar TOTALS
Discretionary Funding
Unallocated ANT $ (in ANT equiv) 10000 12000 14000 16000 52000
Unallocated STABLE $ (in stable coins) 10000 12000 14000 16000 52000
Continuous Funding
Unallocated ANT $ (in ANT equiv) 15000 17000 19000 21000 72000
Unallocated STABLE $ (in stable coins) 15000 17000 19000 21000 72000
Aragon Court DevOps ETH 2 2 2 2 8
SubDAO Member ANT 1800 1800 1800 1800 7200
Subtotals
Fixed ETH 2 2 2 2 8
Fixed ANT 1800 1800 1800 1800 7200
USD Equivalient 50000 58000 66000 74000 248000

3. What impact will this project have?

We believe that initially funding the Executive SubDAO is mission-critical to the ongoing operations and strategic growth efforts of the AN DAO community. Approval of this budget request is the first step towards growing a community that will set a global leadership example of the effectiveness of the Aragon DAO tech stack. We can achieve global leadership through our community by securing and retaining key talent and aligning each and every one of us to the core objective which is to increase the number of Active Aragon DAOs. To be clear the Executive DAO and authors of this proposal want to see proposals being made from all parts of the community and is making this proposal to kick start the DAO and allow initiatives to get off the ground

4. Payment of Fund to: 0xe0caf0349cff049f610c3f04f5d7889f58d98d8c

We the members of the executive SubDAO are committed to upholding

The Aragon Network Agreement

The Aragon Manifesto

The Community Guidelines

Aragon Governance Proposal Process

5. Addendum

Status: Proposal posted to the governance forum for community feedback

Former Iterations:
https://forum.aragon.org/t/financial-proposal-recurring-funding-for-the-executive-sub-dao/3063
https://forum.aragon.org/t/financial-proposal-community-rewards-for-a-technical-support-guild/3091

Decision Process:

  1. Public Deliberation: A post with the draft of the proposal is posted in the Aragon forum for a minimum of 7 days and a maximum of 14 days
  2. Voting: the proposal (or a revised version of the proposal incorporating the community’s feedback) is posted for a vote on Aragon Voice. A link to the IPFS version of the full proposal will be posted where character count limits the full text of any proposal.
  3. Collateral: the proposer must put 50 ANT as collateral during the voting period. This collateral might be slashed if the proposal is challenged in Aragon Court and ruled to violate any provision of this Charter.
  4. Approval: a proposal is deemed approved and scheduled for execution if the following conditions are reached: a. Quorum: a minimum of five thousand (5,000) ANT has been used to vote. b. Support: The vote shall be deemed as “passed” with a simple majority (>50%) of the participating ANT having voted in favour.
  5. Scheduling: once approved, proposals are automatically scheduled for execution 5 days after the end of the vote.

Authors: @lee0007 @AClay @fartunov
Edits:
12/01/21 funding start date 2021/spelling/formatting
12/03/21 Wallet address added / reference reimbursements

8 Likes

Many thanks for posting this @lee0007. Happy to answer any questions that members may have.

2 Likes

Thanks for this really clear proposal. I think this proposed budgeting method from the ESD can greatly support our agility in scaling DAO operations to support the community’s goals

1 Like

There is one point that I would like to add which is as per the charter the Executive Sub DAO should be able to reimburse gas cost for other Sub-DAOs and themselves. Are we happy to add this in as an addition to the proposal?

It is clearly written in the charter in the sub-dao agreements: ii. Committee members shall be reimbursed by the Executive DAO of any reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their duties.

Would be good to get this approved at the early stages to make sure the SUB-DAOs do not incur cost related to gas.

1 Like

Agree @AClay and have updated the following section of the proposal to reference reimbursements

2 Likes

Great thanks @lee0007! That works for me.

Hey, this has been around for long enough. Should we move it to vote?

2 Likes

Yes, is ready for vote from my side!

1 Like

7 day voting via Aragon Voice Aragon Voice - the ultimate solution for creating and managing proposals and voting in a decentralized, cost-effective, and secure manner

1 Like

Hi @lee0007 ,

At Pay3(pay3.money), we provide automation solutions for payment cycles from forecasting, payments to reconciliation. If this is of a recurring nature (which it appears to be) it will be beneficial and provide better controls and reporting. Let us know if this is of interest.

Regards

Due to complications with contributor rewards payments via Govern the Executive Sub DAO team, in discussion with DAO Ops and Compliance Committee members have agreed to the use of a multi-sig for ESD approved funding, primarily contributor rewards.

The Charter 5 Aragon Governance Proposal Process S 4 (c) i

i. Sub-DAOs are not allowed to create additional treasuries under the exclusive control of the Sub-DAO (and outside of the control of the Main DAO) unless approved by a majority vote of ANT Holders.
ii. The Main DAO may create additional treasuries through a majority vote of ANT Holders.

Until the use of a multi-sig is formally voted on by ANT holders, we will be using 3/4 signees to confirm payments. with the inclusion of a party external to the ESD @AClay to execute confirmed payments to ensure the multi-sig is not operating under the exclusive control of the Exec Sub-DAO members

Executive Sub DAO members @daniel-ospina @fartunov @lee0007
Compliance Committee Member @eaglelex @Tayy @ronald_k

2 Likes

I’d recommend reaching out to @AClay on the DAO Ops team via Discord

Will reach out to @AClay definitely. Thanks @lee0007 !!