Chloe’s General Thoughts
Imo, I agree with @frnvpr & @ALuhning above in many respects. Would love to start from there and continue. If we are to have an efficient Guilds Program, there needs to be a distinction between funding for communities and for guilds.
Starting with funding communities
Imo this should be distributed to any community that decides to form “on-chain” around any theme/purpose that supports the NEAR ecosystem as a whole. I believe that the current Marketing DAO and Creatives DAO are great examples of community DAOs that are funding communities to get started “on-chain” using Astro.
Since this funding would be distributed relatively quickly to communities, it would be reasonable that the funding amount available to be distributed by the Marketing and Creatives DAO should be lowered as well. This funding should not be used to support peoples living wages, but instead to spur community involvement and development around an assortment of themes.
For example:
If there was 1m stNEAR available for the community funding program, that would be over $1,000,000 USD available a year to distribute in funding (only taking into consideration staking rewards and current NEAR value in USD). If the max funding amount per community/month was ~$1,000 USD (paid out in NEAR and dependant on current NEAR/USD price) then this stream of funding could support ~100 communities comfortably without having to dip into the NEAR reserve.
This endowment of 1m stNEAR could comfortably fund 500 communities that were requesting $1,000 USD from either the Creatives or Marketing DAOs for at least a few years. (500 communities receiving 1k USD/mo would burn $6m/yr)
As communities are forming, there is already the DAOcubator program to support their DAO growth and offer up to $10k in funding. I believe that this would be an efficient pathway to train communities to use their NEAR Astro DAOs more efficiently and also understand the tools available to them before requesting larger funding amounts within the NEAR ecosystem. Running a community treasury is a large responsibility, and there should be a clear pathway toward community participants being able to do so safely and effectively.
Funding Guilds
Imo the Guilds Program should be separate from the general community funding flow and should be available to communities that fit certain criteria. @ALuhning has already laid out a lot of details here and I do not feel the need to delve in much deeper.
Similar funding as above could be set aside for the Guilds Program, but I feel as though it should be run more like an accelerator. Instead of “perpetual funding as a social good”, it should be almost like start-up funding to get a guild to the stage of self-sufficiency.
Since guilds generally track membership and provide tangible service to the community, the funding that Guilds receive should be geared to that. A tiered approach where guilds receive a larger amount of funding each month, or as they hit milestones seems appropriate. How Guilds decide to use those funds would be up to them, and after they have “graduated” from the program, they would leave the Guilds Program in terms of a funding avenue and would instead be another guild in the ecosystem providing services.
I think the biggest question I have is what entity will take on the task/responsibility of running this program, regardless of the specifics. If this program was run as an accelerator with a cohort (rolling or otherwise) there would be a smoother process for guilds “forming” and “opening up for providing services”. While community funding makes sense to be held as an endowment by the grants team for example (where funds are directed by Marketing and Creatives DAOs), the Guilds Program seems more efficient as a program that one entity takes on the task of building out; creating self-sufficient guilds that can provide services within the NEAR ecosystem.
@ALuhning, I feel as though your proposal for Guilds makes a lot of sense and as an accelerator would be even more efficient. Instead of a few hundred dollars a month, the guilds going through the program would get funding to build out their service pipeline how they saw fit. Many guilds may not last forever, and IMO that is fine, the guilds that are efficiently providing services for the community should hopefully flourish.