Why Read This?
My goal here is to describe categorical structures, features, and processes of Altruism DAOs. This means exploring complex ideas of “the” Altruism DAO, which coordinates financial support of various Altruism DAOs.
Sustainably Rewarding Altruism
$GOOD Token Design Patterns
Usually, Sputnik DAOs reward contributors based on the value of their work in terms of alignment with a purpose. “Altruism DAO” intends to give funds where they are needed most, i.e. Altruism DAOs typically optimize for impact (more or less qualitative).
DAOs often have charitable purposes ~ like nonprofits / charities, they supply valuable work in exchange for necessary funds. Responding to the needs of such charitable DAOs, the Altruism DAO reviews inbound proposals from community leaders (volunteers and contributors). $GOOD token holders vote on whether to support other DAOs, which are doing charity work.
Hypothesis
GOOD tokens may incentivize follow through by rewarding those who actually do good work using funds received from a specific Altruism DAO via payout proposals (NEAR or stablecoin).
As Vitalik described, “It’s easier to agree on what was useful than what will be useful.”
Contributors often prefer liquid currency as compensation. However, what if another type of token was given to reward successful proposals? Let’s imagine Altruism DAO holds both nUSD and the initial supply of GOOD in its treasury.
The pool of “dollar-equivalent” nUSD might be used to fund projects at some point during an expected timeline, or at least, Altruism DAO has their own ideas of successful, meaningful, and impactful charity work, with or without metrics.
Unfortunately, it’s challenging to decide when is the best time to give support. This context of Altruism leads me to believe sooner would be ideal, yet we understand the complexity of this decision. Altruism DAO would rather distribute nUSD to charities who have already done significant work and just need more funding to achieve goals.
Practically, that implies Altruism DAO would give nUSD to established charity DAOs and other non-profit institutions. How can the whole category of “Altruism DAOs” keep itself accountable? That’s where GOOD tokens come into play. Each proposal could have two parts:
- nUSD: payout(s) needed to complete project
- GOOD: distributed to successful payout recipient(s)
This effectively and efficiently addresses problems with accountability systems for DAOs. Namely, the amount of GOOD tokens held by a potential funding recipient provides a signal of their ability to distribute resources fairly, responsibly, and wisely.
Furthermore, primarily receiving support in nUSD means they don’t have to sell any GOOD tokens in order to complete their project. When charity DAOs earn reputation by successfully interacting with Altruism DAO, they use the meaning of that value to prove likelihood of positive impact and gain support from other Altruism DAOs, for example: creators of NICE tokens
$GOOD, Not #GREAT?
I’m fascinated by how every action has unique, imbued value with an origin story. Eventually, all of the GOOD tokens created for the Altruism DAO might be fully distributed in the market. Why should anyone provide liquidity ~ betting on faith? For the sake of everyone, buying GOOD tokens will not mean the same thing as earning them via proposals.
Still, buyers can rest assured that holding GOOD reflects alignment with objectives and key results of a “good” Altruism DAO. They might even be more inclined to donate nUSD to the Altruism DAO treasury! Especially if they believe in those who received GOOD tokens
Open Discussion
This forum post reflects on accounting systems for the goodness of Altruism DAOs because measuring the impact of humanitarian efforts is a difficult challenge! Why do $GOOD token holders coordinate around shared objectives and key results? Furthermore, how can we scale this category of Altruism DAOs? Vertically, horizontally, and every other positive direction.
Please reply with any ideas, comments, or questions!
Real-World Altruism DAO
Special thanks to Chloe Lewis for inspiring these ramblings, providing thoughful feedback, and doing all kinds of great work starting the innovative Marma J Foundation!