0003 - DAO Committees
1. Meta Data
Original Author(s): Oliver Zerhusen (ozerhusen@gmail.com)
Creation Date: 05/08/2022
Stage: Live
Live Date: 06/27/2022
Last Version: 1.01
Last Version Date: 06/27/2022
Last Version Author(s): Oliver Zerhusen (ozerhusen@gmail.com)
Organization: DAO
Tag(s): Coordinape, DAOHaus, Discord, Discourse, Financials, Governance, Procedure
Version History:
2. Summary
This GOC describes the detailed scope of engagement for all compensation-eligible committees within the DAO, along with general procedural guidelines.
3. Motivation
DAO Committees are a central part of the DAO helping to execute its mission. This GOC provides necessary clarity on what defines a DAO Committee and how DAO members can engage in them. It also describes the framework for how DAO Committees are funded.
4. Specification
4.1. DAO Committee Definition
A DAO Committee is a body within the DAO that is committed to contributing to the DAO’s mission and which is eligible to be allocated compensation budgets to reward its members for their contributions. A new DAO Committee is required to be approved by the DAO via a Signal Proposal in DAOHaus and should consist of at least five active members at initialization.
DAO members are free to form new teams or working groups to accomplish various assignments outside of DAO Committees that are not compensation-eligible. That approach may be a reasonable path to demonstrate to the DAO the need for a new future DAO Committee, in case the output of such efforts substantiates it.
4.2. Joining a DAO Committee
The acceptance of a new DAO Committee member is formally recognized in Coordinape. In order to join a DAO Committee, a DAO member should approach any existing DAO Committee member with a request to be nominated in Coordinape. If the existing DAO Committee member agrees, then that committee member’s act of nominating the non-committee DAO member demonstrates support. Following the nomination, a different DAO Committee member is then required to sponsor that vouch request in order for the DAO member to be accepted as a new DAO Committee member. Summed up, it requires two existing DAO Committee members to show support. The new DAO Committee member shall subsequently be set up with all required permissions and access required for that specific DAO Committee.
4.3. Engaging in DAO Committees
DAO Committees have no assigned leadership. Committee members are encouraged to step up on assignments they feel strongly about engaging in. This form of situational leadership aims to provide opportunities for all Committee members to contribute in ways that excite them the most.
DAO Committees should aim for regular meeting cadences, once a week is recommended. Committees should strive to hold their regular meetings in public to showcase transparently how the DAO operates and to stimulate interest in the broader community to join the DAO.
DAO Committees may have a broad scope of engagement as well as deep workloads to handle. Committees should therefore take into consideration creating teams or working groups that handle specific assignments or recurring activities within the DAO Committee. Therefore, DAO Committees don’t need to handle all tasks as one group, but may benefit from delegating tasks to one or more individuals within a Committee. Subsequently, Committee members are not required to engage in all tasks that are handled by a DAO Committee.
The DAO should always observe how efficiently DAO Committees operate. If a Committee’s scope grows too large (along with its membership count), then considerations for breaking up the Committee into separate ones may help to improve effectiveness of the DAO operations overall. Smaller Committees generally operate more efficiently than larger ones.
4.4. Off-chain voting
DAO Committees come across numerous situations where decisions need to be made. A future GOC shall describe approval parameters for each DAO Committee specifying thresholds below which DAO Committees are authorized to make decisions directly (vs. DAOHaus proposal). DAO Committees shall determine how to arrive at decisions. Off-chain voting shall be generally considered for significant matters concerning all DAO Committee members. The Discourse Forum may serve as the primary platform for conducting off-chain committee voting.
DAO Committees shall also consider efficiency when making minor decisions. Not all decisions require formal off-chain voting and rough consensus models can help moving things along more quickly. Nonetheless, DAO Committees should strive for transparency of how decisions have been made.
4.5. Leaving a DAO Committee
Being part of a DAO Committee means that participating DAO members are committed to actively contribute. Every DAO Committee member is free to leave at any time, at which point that member shall be removed from Coordinape immediately, along with removals for access and permissions in other systems and platforms.
Everyone is invited to engage at their own terms, there is no hourly requirement per se. However, it is not acceptable for DAO Committee members to not show up or not actually contribute to the Committee tasks at all. Passively attending meetings does not qualify as contribution. A DAO Committee member who is absent for the vast majority of an epoch will not have gained a comprehensive understanding of other Committee members’ contribution values, which should be a key input in distributing GIVE tokens in Coordinape and which determines compensation levels of other DAO Committee members. Active DAO Committee members may therefore be at risk of inequitable compensation payouts due to incremental efforts being unrecognized (especially if an absent Committee member fails to distribute any/most GIVE in an epoch, which reduces overall compensation levels for everyone).
Therefore, any DAO Committee member may request removal of another DAO Committee member before or after the end of an epoch via off-chain voting. Such a proposal shall be approved when a two-third majority of the DAO Committee votes are in favor of it (based on Coordinape circle membership). In case of approval, the DAO Committee member shall then be removed from Coordinape prior to the end of that epoch.
4.6. DAO Committee Budgets
Each DAO Committee produces quarterly budgets which shall include line item level details for the following:
Committee Compensation
Grants
Expenses (reimbursements, software costs, etc)
All DAO Committees should prepare their budget by mid-quarter (for the upcoming quarter) and the Ops Committee shall aggregate them into an overall DAO budget. Reviews and discussions should aim to gain rough consensus. The upcoming aggregated quarterly DAO budget should then be approved via Signal Proposal in DAOHaus, targeted to be submitted no later than the 1st of the last month of the current quarter.
The quarterly DAO budget shall subsequently be submitted to The Graph Council as a request for funding of the upcoming quarter. The DAO shall produce underpinning justification for the budget to The Graph Council. That may come in the form of presenting DAO performance statistics, grant successes, goals, etc. Each DAO Committee shall contribute to help create that documentation for their own part of the budget, and be prepared to present it to The Graph Council.
At the end of a calendar year, the DAO shall also produce an annual budget for the upcoming year. The annual budget shall serve as strong guidance for the DAO Committees when submitting their quarterly budgets in the upcoming year. The approval of the annual budget shall follow the same steps as it is described for quarterly budgets.
5. References
5.1. Links
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