[Approved] She is Near: NDC V1 JAN Budget Application

NDC Community and nodes She is Near
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[Proposal] She is Near January Funding request for NDC

Introduction

Our group was founded at the time of the first NDC election. We noticed the disproportionate amount of women running for office relative to the ecosystem women participation. By voicing our options in public channels we found ourselves united in similar thinking, and started a women in NDC telegram group; we invited a few women, and those women invited more and more women until we could see both the need and the impact we could make.

Since then we aim to:

  1. Encourage professional growth and networking among women on NEAR and partnerships with Women in Web3 organizations at large,

  2. Ensure a supportive and secure environment for women to express themselves and build freely,

  3. Function as a dynamic Grassroot DAO to bolster women-led web3-initiatives and give them professional educational training,

  4. Help to attract and grow women devs and builders to the Blockchain.

Our mission is to become a Grassroot DAO to gather, support, fund, and amplify women led projects on NEAR.

What has been done already:

  • We prepared our charter and budget, then had our first meeting with HoM on the 20th of October 2023.

  • We voted for an interim council for 3 months to help support the infrastructure of the initiative as well as the needed brand and marketing

  • We chose to put in “sweat equity” our time and resources: we created a brand in a “Co-branding” innovative fashion, which was showcased at NEARCON.

  • We had a booth at NEARCON where we distributed 80 t-shirts and over a 100 stickers to eager men and women coming forward to know more about us. Link to activation here

  • Attended NDC Spaces- Women in Near - 142 people tuned and 808 views

  • Set up social media presence

  • Got in touch with several Women in Web3 communities

  • Don’t say Sorry contest with getting MarketingDAO support [link on the report to MDAO]

Moving forward we are looking to impact NEAR in the following concrete ways that align with both the NEAR goals and the NDC:

  • Identify the best and the brightest
  • Empower and train
  • Create NEAR and women-centric education programs
  • Support the best projects that leverage BOS

Education:

At the core of our mission lies a deep commitment to onboarding and empowering women within the NEAR ecosystem. We recognize the transformative potential that education holds and aspire to create a structured platform that not only educates but also nurtures the growth of women in the blockchain/Web3 space. Our conviction is rooted in the belief that a well-educated community is pivotal to the sustained growth of the entire ecosystem.

Programs considered

  • NEAR Education Programs
  • Moderation/Community Management Trainings
  • Sponsorship of Internship Programs in key communities
  • Collaboration with NEAR Researchers Collective
  • BOS Products Building Training (collaboration with Build DAO and Discover BOS)
  • Development of Bounty Programs
  • Near 101 classes.

Marketing:

Marketing will keep focusing on the following areas:

  • Highlighting women who are actively contributing and making strides in the ecosystem.
  • Raising awareness about gender-related issues and providing career advice and tips for women to navigate these challenges.
  • Amplifying the efforts of other teams, including partnerships, education, and technical development.
  • Continuously updating and maintaining a consistent brand identity.
  • Expanding our social media presence.
  • Engaging the community through contests and bounties to foster active participation.

Partnerships:

We will be concentrating on two significant areas:

  • Grassroots Projects: Exploring collaboration opportunities with other projects in the ecosystem to reinforce our missions in marketing, media, education, and onboarding.
  • Connecting Larger Initiatives: Establishing partnerships with major initiatives outside the ecosystem to support our members and make a substantial impact on NEAR.

Why Partner With Us

  • We are dedicated and serious about training and retaining women all over the world with support from our Near Digital Collective governance
  • Within one week of being funded our community grew to 100 members and it’s only growing!
  • We live on one of the most competitive Layer 1 chains that is on par with Ethereum Polygon, and Solana
  • We interface directly with the Near Foundation, Near Horizon, DevHub and global partners who are impacting the future of Blockchain – we bring their impact to the table.

Previous Funding

We got seed funding from MDAO in November: 4,500USD. Proposal here.

Thanks to this grant we were able to establish a strong presence in our social media channels. Creating a stunning number of 29,861 impressions with our marketing efforts and campaigns. Here is a full report.

DAO URLs

Is Your DAO/Project Targeting a Specific Country?

No, we are an international group.

Which region will your DAO/ Project support?

We support all the regions since women live all over the world and are half of the world population. Currently we have core members representing LATAM, Africa, US (west coast and east coast), Turkey, Eastern Europe and UK.

Applicant Information

Team Members

Project Overview: Presentation with a short High-Level 6 bullet points summary:

  • See our full Charter here
  • Lite White Paper here

What Problem Are You Aiming to Solve?

The lack of gender diversity In the NEAR ecosystem, toxicity and unwelcoming culture that women on NEAR encounter… Though, big picture, attracting the best and brightest women devs, founders, marketers and investors to NEAR, and to amplify our work.

She is NEAR Mission
Our aim is to develop a comprehensive network with multi-platform partners, investors and projects that leverage the best of NEAR technology.

How can your DAO / Project achieve NDC priorities, goals, and KPIs?

She is NEAR Vision

She is NEAR DAO’s vision is aligned with NDC Core Values, as outlined by the CoA for NDC V1.

I. Empowering the Ecosystem (for the people, by the people)

  1. Attraction of Women in Web3 influencers from outside the ecosystem.
  2. Collaboration with famous women and media outlets.
  3. Support for existing ecosystem women.
  4. Implementation of NDC marketing strategy and content plan to She is NEAR marketing activities.

II. Respected by the Ecosystem (fair, accountable, transparent, and reliable)

  1. Comprehensive support for ecosystem women-lead projects in marketing and development, including consultations (mentorship).
  2. Weekly/monthly workshops with women-experts.

III. Dedicated to the Ideas of Decentralization (antifragile, scalable, with collective decision making).
Unification of She is NEAR activities for women in different routes, including consultations and strategy development/mentorship.

IV. Efficient Operation (don’t be a burden, instead help the community to be more efficient).
Goal: Fast and efficient payments and resolutions.

V. Continuous Improvement via Weekly Iterations (plan ahead, measure results, and adjust continuously)

Metrics

  1. Accounts retention after 1/2/4/8 weeks — the percentage of accounts that continue interacting on-chain over a given time period (higher is better).
  2. Account acquisition cost — budget divided by the number of accounts interacting through the funded initiative (lower is better).
  3. Median number of dApps used by P95 accounts retained for 1+ week (higher is better).
  4. Number of accounts retained for 1+ week using at least 3 dApps (higher is better).
  5. Social engagement score — a compound metric of the number of posts, likes, and followers/views in social media produced by users.

CoA Priorities that She is NEAR is going to realize in our work:
P-1: Widening Adoption of NEAR

P-1.1: Outreach to New Audiences

Continuous engagement with diverse audiences serves as a cornerstone for attracting new community members and fostering innovative ideas.

By forming working groups creating their programs for education, partnership and onboarding we will achieve our goals. Each working group sets up their KPI’s and creates detailed budgets to achieve those.

Roadmap of your DAO/project, Milestones, and achievements

  • Promote awareness of the NEAR ecosystem and community, as well as the NDC, by collaborating with different Women in Web3 groups.
  • Establish a strong presence within NEAR, providing a supportive, educational, and incubative environment for women in the ecosystem.
  • Demonstrate measurable and objective KPIs to showcase the impact of women’s participation and contributions.

Budget

For a full breakdown of the budget, see the link here.

January budget overview

She is Near DAO January 2023
Description Amount USD
Social Media, Marketing & Communications [link] 4000
Partnerships [link on One-pager and Media [link] 3000
Technical 2000
Educational Programs [link] 3500
Retroactive payment 2500
Council 5000
TOTAL 20,000

Marketing & Communications (See full marketing plan here)

To continue in our initiatives aimed at highlighting women in the ecosystem, fostering community engagement, and providing support for gender-related issues, we will:

  • Create a campaign to showcase some of the exceptional women in the DAO and in the grassroots community.
  • Career advice campaign with articles and visual support.
  • Create raffle, puzzle, animated stickers, and community contest.

Partnerships & Media (link to one-pager)

  • Public Affairs: She is Near will address three key issues affecting women developers, builders, and leaders through articles, Ask Me Anything (AMAs), and panel discussions.
  • We will partner for event support, non-education focus, networking and executive events Web3 women orgs (see draft list) Shefi and DevHub.
  • Government partners: 2024, Asia, Africa, Switzerland, Central Europe, US and India.

Technical

We plan to create a landing page on BOS that will provide essential information about the DAO. This initiative will involve both design and development, outlined as follows:

  • UI design on figma
  • Development of landing page on BOS.

Education (See full educational plan here)

We will be leveraging the NEAR 101 classes by discovering BOS to teach women (on near and those outside of near whom we will be onboarding ). Our focus in the first quarter of 2024 will be on the core basics of blockchain with a focus on near protocol, its features, products and how to utilize the offers. Our end goal is to identify talented new devs to support and bring into SHE IS NEAR as active members, coaches and onboarders.

The BOS and Open web seminar by Build DAO is focused on producing builders and Devs. It will be an intro to BOS and Open web and usher into our BOS year round training which will follow by February-March in 3 cohorts (beginner, intermediary, pro). This education will support women who are more advanced (either with existing coding skills or with strong math and engineering backgrounds). Our goal here is to identify more devs to introduce to the protocol, support their continued education and bring their technical insights into SHE IS NEAR to help drive excellence.

Our Retroactive payment budget is designed to give members some room to reward those hard working/active members working on initiatives that arise, that may be outside the proposed initiatives breakdowns here but align with our KPIs and success.

What is the length of Commitment to Delivering Your Project? Will your team be working on this project full time?

Our core team will work part-time. We have committed to 2 more months in our positions, and in January we will do an election for the next council members for the next 6 months.

Will your team be fully remunerated from this budget? - The council, consisting of 5 members, will receive monthly 5000 USD to divide among themselves, which is a symbolic amount because their efforts and value are higher than that.

Project/DAO longevity

Does your project/DAO require one-time or continuous funding? - Continuous funding

Will your DAO/Project device way of sustaining itself after this round of funding? - We need NDC’s support for starting up and working towards sustainability. We foresee the partnerships and media sponsors to add revenue to our DAO.

What are the possible roadblocks to the success of your project/DAO?

More hate attacks, intimidation of members, lack of security and protection, bullying that will discourage women from being part of DAO. That is why is important to:

  • Increase representation of women in the next NDC election by 5%
  • Create a solid position inside NEAR of a supportive, educational, incubative space for building women-led programs
  • Increase industry and media awareness of NEAR as women-friendly
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Dear She is near team!

Poll created: https://near.org/astraplusplus.ndctools.near/widget/home?page=dao&tab=proposals&daoId=congress-hom-v1.ndc-gwg.near&proposalId=58

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