What is wrong with NEAR’s community building strategies?

[David_NEAR]

Hey!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

@Crypto_Garbaggio

It is quite evident that the individuals and initiatives that are really helping the NEAR community grow are not part of the NEAR Foundation

This is intended. The role of the Community Team in the NEAR Foundation is, IMO, to empower those within the Community to build out and achieve their goals. It wouldn’t be possible without you all!

@Crypto_Garbaggio

It’s quite obvious that you can only build a community from within and the NEAR Foundation is clearly very disconnected from its community

Can you expand on this, please? How do you see the disconnect between NF and the Community?

@Crypto_Garbaggio

Talent and people are not valued as much as they should

In what way?

@Crypto_Garbaggio

Despite the availability of funds for the community, community members outside the NEAR Foundation are being defunded instead of being supported in achieving their goals

We’re distributing a tonne of funds to different DAOs and initiatives on the regular. Can you share a specific example, please? More than happy to address anything

@Crypto_Garbaggio

They are being asked to prove their work with metrics and to justify every NEAR spend, while the NEAR Foundation is happy to spend plenty of money for doing a series of events (So-called Gen C) that half of NEAR’s Twitter community was not even aware of.

Providing reports and implementing metrics is essential for Community Driven Accountability. If we fail to keep those who’ve been granted NEAR accountable, we run the risk of both:

• Opening up the funding system for abuse

AND

• Failing to distribute NEAR in a responsible manner

On the Gen C front; AFAIK the funding for that did not stem from the Community Fund. In fact, the vast majority of prizes ( ~$750k) were funded by projects building on NEAR, not the NEAR Foundation. For instance, Paras put up 2x $45k Marketing bounties.

The Gen C event (and all the others we’ll host) can live in harmony with the Community Fund, and it should.

@Crypto_Garbaggio

what are the metrics that show that NEAR’s Foundation community builders are being helpful to the community

It would really depend on each proposal/initative.

@Crypto_Garbaggio

What I personally see is a bunch of people policing Guilds and demanding metrics instead of getting involved in their efforts

Generally, the NF Core team get involved as much as we can! However, I don’t think it’s feasible to expect NF members get hands on with every Guild/initaitive. Not only is it not feasible, it doesn’t align with the long-term goals of NF - that being to make itself redundant and pass the torch over to the Community entirely.

@Crypto_Garbaggio

Either way, this situation is aggravating a disconnection between the NEAR Foundation and its community, and that is surely going to bring no good

Can you share some specifics on this, please. The team are accessible almost 24/7 and we’d love to be alerted to any concerns like this prior to them spilling over into a post.

@Crypto_Garbaggio

it is only fair that they are listened to and helped when things do not go as planned.

Hear you, and we’re always working to strengthen the connection between Guilds and NF:

Attention all Guild Leaders- Office Hours are Here

First things first, for those of you who don’t already know who I am/ those that are yet to bombarded with my request for a one-on-one meeting… I’m Jess, (Guilds Programme Manager)- my priorities are in helping guilds to improve their processes, optimize their workflows, remove bottle-necks and generally scale and thrive within our ecosystem. I am here to listen to the needs of Guilds and guild leaders. – if you haven’t yet had the chance to get on a call with me to discuss your guild,…

@Crypto_Garbaggio

In short, the NEAR Foundations should focus on creating a more humanly sustainable relationship with its community.

How would you envision this? Where do you believe the gaps are?