Request for Funding: The Future is Now Gathering

ESD Funding Request: The Future is Now Gathering

TLDR

We request 5500 USDC (5000 EUR) funding support for the interdisciplinary “The Future is Now” (FIN) gathering (website). The funding will support the attendance of individuals from minorities and disadvantaged groups with few financial means who could otherwise not attend.

** Background **

“The Future is Now” is an interdisciplinary, intimate gathering on August 25-28th in Chorin, just north of Berlin.

It’s a co-created four-day immersion & inquiry into “How do we dream of AND manifest the vision of a world that’s worth living for?! How do we do this best across disciplines and with different backgrounds?”

It is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural group of people working toward this shared vision of a “better future”. Folks who are initiators, leaders, and manifestors in their own fields - social justice, art, web3, entrepreneurs, spiritual guides, community builders, climate, permaculture, land-based communities, and more.

It’s all about building bridges between the different bubbles and communities - knowing that each of them holds a piece of the collective puzzle.

I will call this shared vision we share a “game-b” environment for the sake of this proposal.

1. Rationale

We believe it is crucial for web3 communities, such as the Aragon Network and DAO to also interact with “living communities” and people who bring impact and change in the world in projects outside of the current web3 world. It is so important to continue building bridges across disciplines.

With (or without) this funding we also invite representatives of the Aragon Network and DAO to join us as we believe the shared experience at FIN will feed back into how the DAO thinks and acts about building “real-world applications” that can be used by land-based community projects, artistic endeavors, social justice projects, permaculture communities, and other projects.

Being part of The Future is Now (as sponsor or participant) benefits Aragon

  • Get exposure to real-world to a wide range of projects working toward a future worth living for - where decentralization is a key part of this future

  • Get connected with leaders and initiators in the fields of social justice, permaculture, land-based communities, spiritual communities, and more → strengthening the web outside of pure web3

  • Ultimately support the existing communities in their web3 adoption and strategies leading to new and different DAOs than what exists today on Aragon

FIN already received a 5000 EUR matching grant from an individual supporter - any EUR donated will be matched by that grant 1 to 1 up to 5000 EUR matched. The funding proposal will allow us to make attendance for FIN more affordable for those with fewer financial means.

2. Objectives

The aim of this funding is to support The Future is Now gathering - bringing forth a strong network of projects and people building a “better world” and making web3 & DAOs a crucial part of that.

3. Deliverables / Milestones

The Future is Now gathering will happen August 25-28th regardless of this funding request.

However, this funding will allow us to

  • Invite and financially support 7-10 participants from minorities and disadvantaged groups with few financial means

  • Include their important voices in the creation and manifestation of future projects working toward this “game-b”/“better future”

  • We will have a slot for Aragon to present or hold a workshop/session at FIN

  • Additionally, invite one or two representatives of Aragon as part of the gathering to have the voice of Aragon and DAO wisdom in the room

  • Post-event, we will offer to all participants to join a call with the Aragon product/research/UX team to have a conversation/interview about how the participants envision DAOs/web3 to be part of what they are building today.

Routine

  • We would love to have one pre-call with representatives from Aragon ahead of FIN to make sure the participants and the DAO will get the most out of this gathering.

  • Participants, who now get their costs funded, join for the event on August 25-28

  • Participants from Aragon join the event on August 25-28

  • Post-event (within one month) we will offer the participants of FIN to join a call with the Aragon team (hosted and run by Aragon) - if desired by Aragon

4. Team

The core orga team of FIN is

  • Philip Stehlik (@pstehlik) - Founder of multiple software companies (US, EU), co-founder of Centrifuge, ETHBerlin 1+2 core-team, community builder, co-living researcher, facilitator

  • Lena Bumke - Artist, psychologist, community builder, facilitator

  • Dana Mara - social justice activist, artist, facilitator

  • Matthias Holzman - Serial entrepreneur (APAC, US), community builder

We organized events, gatherings, communal inquiries, and workshops before.

We don’t hold official roles within Aragon at this point but used Aragon for some projects and interactions with DAOs.

5. Strategic Alignment

If Aragon is truly building tools, community, and a network that is to last long into the future and have an impact on how people live, interact, behave, and organize then a connection with communities outside web3 is crucial.

With this gathering, we bring a group of changemakers, makers, and doers from varying backgrounds together who built things and continue building wonderful impactful projects - what better place for Aragon to connect to?

4. Limitations & Risks

  • There are no existential risks

  • We do want to connect Aragon - if desired - with our participants and their projects. If that post-event connection point is not managed well, the generated energy might not be used optimally.

5. Funding Information

Ideally, funding is sent pre-event so we can extend the invitations to the respective participants while having financial security.

If funding is confirmed but not sent pre-event, we could also self-fund the expenses and receive the funds after the event but that would put financial insecurity on the event orga.

cc @daniel-ospina @fartunov

Thank you for taking the time to create this proposal it may be decided at the next ESD General meeting on Monday 11 July UTC 1900 (7 days’ notice required) but we can ensure you have a final decision within seven days of that meeting.

How many people do you have registered for this event?
What is the event capacity or expected attendees?

Hey @lee0007 - thanks for the information about the process and timing of an answer.

The sleeping capacity of the venue is 40 people. We might go to 45 if some people from nearby join and will travel home in the evening or, as some already said, they might be able to sleep in their own caravan.
Currently, we have 50% of the beds confirmed.
We have 5 people who asked for financial support so far who are currently “on hold” until we have clarity about our budget.
We talked to a few additional participants who would likely need some sort of financial support but we didn’t continue the conversations for now.
We receive participant applications daily and are going through the process of evaluating them to have the best fit for the event’s vision as well as diversity in the group.

Thanks for the consideration! It would be great to have Aragon as part of the gathering in one way or another to enrich the experience and our group.

After discussing it at the ESD meeting today we’re declining to fund this proposal. With @lee0007 and myself against and @fartunov choosing to abstain as he personally knows the proposer.

We’re focusing on more strategically aligned initiatives that more directly impact the Aragon Network. However, we believe this is a cool initiative and invite you to apply for funding to the Main DAO that might be better suited for the community to decide.

Thank you for the consideration and the swift responses.
Who in the Aragon community do you think would resonates with the interdisciplinary approach of the gathering and bridging different types of project/communities? Maybe someone comes to mind. We would love to have them at the gathering.

I feel like this might be an event for @MaxCaspar as AN DAO culture catalyst and feel like he is in your region? and I know @fartunov signalled interest in having Aragon representatives attend too.

If the Main DAO ends up sponsoring we should advertise to the community and let either the community or the organizers do the curation. I don’t think it’s my place to make the selection

Thanks for the feedback.
I re-posted the proposal in the main DAO. It got “hidden” by the spam protection bot. So will have to wait until that is cleared.
Let’s see what the community responds with.

Thanks a lot!

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Yes! I read and followed this proposal when it first showed up and find it very interesting. I had checked the dates and I’m unfortunately not available then.

It’s a shame, as it’s a great interdisciplinary approach and very close to where I am based (which is Berlin :grinning:). I’d love to see what comes out of this gathering however!

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