This should be bookmarked. So many layers of knowledge in it. Nice one Chief 
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Hi @Paul ,
Great discussion and topic. I am really looking up for some interesting topic within this post.
But under my point of view, the problems with all the Creative Proposal and DAOs are the following:
- Most proposal has absolutely no plan of being self-sustainable
- Funding don’t tie up with achievement or objective of the DAOs/Proposal
1. Sustainability
With all my respect, 80% percent of the proposals I had read for the past 2 years on the forums can summary in “How can I get funding” or “Please fund me to do this”. Only 10% of the proposals/DAOs thinking about the sustainability nor how we stop receiving fund and move on our own feet.
Now, this has lead to a serious spoiling culture within our Community and as the result, you can see now so many proposal has been created under the name of NEAR.
Same as IRL organisations, every DAOs or Proposal has to provide at least some value/service to the users of this Ecosystem.
No matter you are a Dancing DAOs, Music DAOs or Art DAOs - the ultimate goal here is to bringing your service to the NEAR Community both on-chain and off-chain.
So no matter how different the culture of web3 or decentralisation is, the business model is still the same. You have to create your own business model or in simple term “How would your DAOs/Proposal able to generate revenue?” to be self-sustainable within the future. Same like every project that happening IRL.
With the current process of funding from both MarketingDAO and CreativeDAO, I can totally say this is spoiling the Community in its core rather than truly foster it to becoming totally self-sustain.
2. Objective/Achievement come with Funding.
Now, most of the proposal I see for the Creative DAOs are not able to track afterwards the funding rather than a really poorly reported nor no objective to tie with the funding.
If you have business experience or work in the business world, you can see this absolutely make so sense to bring any value to the organisation.
With all the problems I believe it is the root of the current situation for Creative DAOs, here are my suggested solution:
1. Always put Ecosystem and Self-Sustainability first:
Council should categorise the Proposal into 2 group: Short-term Proposal and Long-Term Proposal. Short-term is a 1 time marketing event with easy objectives/KPIs and less funding (rank from $100 to $1000 as maximum).
Long-term is a heavily funding tie with objective both on-chain and off-chain to serve the final goal of being self-sustainable after 3 months / 6 months. (rank from $100 to $5000)
2. Tie the funding with specific timeline and objectives.
As I mentioned above, using Bimonthly fund providing method is creating extremely bad habits for anyone and actually creating a spoil behaviour within the Community so I am very strongly to against this kind of Funding method.
Instead, we should tie the funding with objective: For example, you got 10k funding but will only release after you able to achieve specific self-sustain objective like you got 5k when your project sold 50 NFTs on your store to generate small amount of revenue, 2k when you able to build XYZ … etc, build a specific timeline and objective-driven towards the proposal is a way to encourage the project to keep live on.
3. Creating a specific group with bounty to check on every on-going proposal
This is more likely a group of individuals that participate in the activity on-chain to check on current proposal like Does the Proposal still active in-term of community it built, the activity around the Ecosystem and the effectiveness of it on the Ecosystem. This is more likely a 3rd party assessment to ensure the quality of the proposal/DAOs.
Hope this would bringing more idea to the discussion and I think it could be best to host like a Twitter Space to talk about this matter maybe?
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You sabi book aje… sabi boy
great initiative my fam.
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Thank you @Paul, clearly we are moving a step closer to having a perfect decentralized system.
Question.
Will the creative council help communities in Tier 1 to rise to a higher level? considering that they might need help to understand the whole process and what is required and will this not create competitiveness?
In all, it’s a beautiful step moving forward and I’m always happy to support.
Great job guys @creativesdao-council
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(disclaimer: in some of my arguments I will be pretty generic about a few things; sorry if I miss specifics that matter to some people)
Hello!
This argument has come up several times over the past few months and I think the community should at least think about it. I will try to give my opinion based on my professional experience, along with my experience in this ecosystem. It is, no doubt, destined to be just a fragment of reality, so I thank you for your perspective, which is what helps the community answer difficult questions. In parts:
- Is it possible for a lot of projects to build a revenue model based on the arts? I am sure it’s not, based on the traditional markets. What the general public consider ‘artistic’ is in reallity the creative industries, meaning design, product design, sound engineering, comercial photography, etc, etc . Musicians, even with streaming platforms, are loosing their revenue, etc. I think you get the point.
You have big differences in the way States look at the arts: in the USA, for example, market reigns supreme. There are specifics, for example a poetry book might exist in the catalogue of a publishing house not in order to sell, but to increase the catalogue’s status, when in reallity what sells is the self-help guide or a culinary guide; in Europe, while this financial model is also true, the State acts as a patron, basically saying something like ‘even if art doesn’t sell it’s still important culturally and should be supported’.
Does NEAR have to solve this? I don’t think so. NEAR is ‘just a blockchain’, ultimately the burden of responsibility of creating sustainable models belongs to the builders, to the enterpreneurs, etc.
So, one way you could argue is that only creative industries have a strong possibility of becoming sustainable quickly on web3, since only they are relatively sustainable on web2 (basically because they are not artistic, they are technical).
That might lead you to reject ‘art’ altogether and focus on those industries. That might make sense in a world where revenue is the most important thing.
So, you would have:
A) Artistic/creative models with revenue > good
B) Artistic/creative models without revenue > bad
- In your understanding, the ecosystem needs to focus on B). Furthermore, you are reading the situation like it’s the DAOs fault that they don’t have sustainable models. I understand and can agree, but only in principle, i.e. I think this assumption is based on 2 reasons I think you might not be realising.
Reason 1: If an organization is primarily focused on its revenue model, i.e. has focus on customers, then no one would be using NEAR Protocol. If an arts collective wants to sell NFTs it should do so on chains where that is actually possible, for example Polygon or Solana. NEAR has no large user base and that is why the NFT ecosystem on NEAR is moving something like 4000$ per day, compared with numbers with much more zeros on other chains. So, the ‘responsibility’ you are talking about would also drive people away from NEAR, at least for the time being.
Reason 2: This second reason is connected to the first; the Verticals, as long as I have watched them play out, have talked about sustainability but only in the sense of demanding responsibility from DAOs and project builders. In reality, the reason this Verticals exist is to give out token and thus create users. At the end of the day, that was the end-goal and why they exist; ideally, these users would be responsible, proactive people with a strong will to build projects that stand on their own. However, I ask you a question: do you think the pool of people being targeted by this NF Model is the pool that would generate the highest output of sustainable projects? That seems unrealistic, since we are using Telegram and social media to find users, we are asking them to engage in a forum with people from around the world, we are asking of them a # of processes that a lot of people would not have the time or patience to do, and on top of that the rewards are on a form of money most people would think it’s illegal or a scam. Maybe you find this incredible to believe, but I have professional artists who collaborate with me that rather work for free than get paid in crypto. 
Final question, do you think there are much apps, running on N, that are turning out relevant profits? if yes, how? In the NFT space? In DeFi?
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Then, the question is: is NF paying for getting users? I would answer: absolutely. NF is spending a lot of money in order to get end-users, to get testers for the apps running on NEAR (for example if you remove the Creatives DAO how many DAOs would exist on sputnik/astro?), to get momentum. Maybe if NF got into the previous bull run a little earlier it would not need to do so, but that is just not the case.
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So, in defense of all the DAOs that have come into this ecosystem as end-users, as small project builders, as on-boarders, as educators, as artists using the NFT platforms, etc, they were invited in; they want money for themselves, ofc, same as the Vertical councils, same as NF employees, same as moderators on the forum, on reddit, on TG, etc. People see an opportunity to do something cool and get paid, they are gonna jump on it. They have to be respected as people who took a risk, who were willing to learn and try new things, as those who made the numbers grow for NF to find more VCs willing to spend money.
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My final point, where I try to align myself with you. The community, the mods, the councils, etc, they have a responsibility of changing this context if they want their own projects to grow and the NEAR Protocol to deliver on its promisses, of moving on from this stage and evolving into the next stages. I don’t think we should accuse people, we should work on better guidelines to increase the odds of success, and I think it’s what the current moderators are doing with the blessing of NF.
My 2cents, sorry if it was too long. Take care
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You made strong points…
Took out time to read and digest your write up. An absolute wisdom!
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and dance? social practices? …
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I understand the concern of @Hawwal with this point, but I agree that we already have a multicultural community from different backgrounds. It is not an issue imo. What I think is truly lacking is a clearer vision of the future. And for that I think this moment of transition is key to build that.
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I totally agree with the clearer vision. We need that the most.
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I personally think you killed this.
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I really love what you wrote and the depth with which you explained a VERY real fact @frnvpr about how the arts/creatives navigate a lot of bias in the world (and your tiers seems much closer to the need – short and long-term, spot on). Here’s where I am starting to land on this, with some ideas for solutions:
- We are holding a 2-hour ZOOM call this week to explore the creative AND technology innovation being done because I still don’t believe we have an accurate picture of ALL the work that’s been done.
Please join that call! In that call we will be:
- Exploring best practices from around the world
- Exploring Tech innovation - use of NFTs, IP ideas, etc
- New models for sustainability
- Legal insights and best practices
@Hawwal suggested quite wisely that we need more regular, engaged public conversations about learnings so we can share, and that is where ideas, growth, creative refinements, and professional behavior will be supported.
- Why don’t we have an accurate picture of best practices and projects now? Because people are creating reports without a clear understanding of what “value” means (to the ecosystem) and they are reporting metrics that sound like a number (# of social, # number of site hits, etc) and not on HOW the project is leading to another idea, and NEW innovation (creative and technology). That’s a big problem, it’s reactive right now and not proactive about how its vision and the blockchain technology itself are coming together and creating something new or refined.
Perhaps Hawwal’s suggestion about a database (or some framework) holds and tracks that innovation, the projects, the marketplaces the pieces and products are, and some kind of tracking for HOW growth really looks within creative communities)?
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People also seem to have internalized the idea that they are “spoiled” so they are not presenting confidence. That happens in IRL as well. And, the way that changes is by creating clear frameworks for what the funding body hopes you can achieve with the money – so, it’s a two-way street, the Creatives DAO (or any funding DAO) needs its own vision as well and communicates this very very clearly.
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PLEASE everyone, check out CREATIVE CAPITAL – this is a hybrid IRL fund that both acts like a granting org (NGO/Non-Profit) AND an investment (VC) fund
https://creative-capital.org/. — Right now, we are totally focused on how the creatives/artists are “not doing this, or doing that” – but at the end of the day, the vision of the fund must be clear from within (and that seems to be what’s happening in this amazing thread.) Check out how Creative Capital does it, it’s pretty amazing.
Very grateful to be part of this conversation, it’s really exciting.
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Hi @frnvpr , thank you for your input but I think you missed whole point from my previous comment.
Disclaimer: I always recognised myself as a Community Member not as Moderators nor a member of NF. So any points I made on the forum are my own personal thoughts. It does not represent any organisation rather than just my own.
Now let’s go back to the point I made.
Put all thing in an example like this:
If NEAR Blockchain is nature resource for everyone to use right? The NEAR Foundation is the Government System like IRL and we are as citizen. So in reality, you can see that every startup, every business and even the Government itself need to have a revenue based model to be self sustain right? The government lives off by the tax of the people and so on. Can you tell me what happen to the country that giving out free money to people for them to do what ever they want.
In reality, everything is the trade-off, you can not say like the NF incentivise others people to use NEAR. Nope, in my point, they never done that. They only creating opportunity for people to use it. Same like with government, they built multilayer system so people can grab their opportunity and bring benefit back to Community.
Now, coming up to the above points. Creatives Industry like Art, Music, etc… can be argue that it can not be build on the Revenue model because it is just different field. I say this is wrong. Let’s trace back to the root.
Take Museum, Art Exhibit for examples. They can be seen as a non-revenue model right? Nope. All of them are paid off by government in the beginning to start off the momentum and even so, most likely non of these organisation can’t be self-sustain without a revenue model.
And I would very much like to know what is an examples of “Artistic” projects IRL that can keep doing what they love a.k.a “Art” without a self-sustaining model.
This is totally my point of view, art is something that always need to be supported more in this world. I never had any intention to underestimate the value of art since it is there in the beginning. But do you know: how many Artists, Musicians, Performer, etc… are struggling everyday to support their art, their passion because lack of self sustainability or revenue model. Even it is Art, you can not escape the narrow of naturing the people that creating art. Really suggest you to read about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to understand the basic creation of human’s need.
Nope, this is not my point to treat Artistic/creatives models without revenue is bad. Very wrong concept and idea.
Wrong again. Spamming user with NEAR tokens just for the purpose of acknowledge NEAR is already at the Early stage. I do believe we are way passed that point and should be focus on Quality rather than Quantity. This has been said within the NEARCON by the CEO of NEAR Foundation. Please check mark it again. And one more point, if putting “responsibility” on the projects are driving them away, then those projects are doomed to be fail.
Nope, not accusing anyone. Just suggest to build a better model to be self-sustain and continue to contribute to the Community
Alright, with everything being said, you got my point very twisted in a mis-understanding way.
Bottom up: I do support the Creatives DAO and everyone who is contributing to this Initiative. But right now, it is running into a problem and I am just suggesting to round it up with more solution so it can be effective operating in the future.
Love and kind,
Bailey12
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Hello fam, we need a better way to translate things here, many Brazilians will find it difficult to follow this topic and there is one of the things we have to solve as a community: not everyone speaks or wants to speak English. Please consider this in renovations. Thanks.
L.
luluca_l.near
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hey!
Sorry if I misrepresented your points. It’s probably my fault that I used your comment to reply to a generic view that has been put forward many times. In that sense I ‘used’ your post and I apologize for that.
Some of my comments were not directed at you directly, I just took the cue and tried to reply, in generic terms, to a lot of criticism that has come the Creatives DAO way in the past.
One of my points is that in Europe the governments DO give away money. Into the arts, for example. The trade off is that expect the cultural texture of the country to be richer. However, NF has no such responsibility, and what they are looking for is much more straightforward: they want users and projects building on top of their chain.
I think we agree on most things.
Museums continually get money from states (I won’t comment on the north-american reality, I will just focus on the european one, ok?). And most artists can’t get revenue purely out of their art and have to dip into other activities, sometimes related (like teaching), sometimes not.
I am so agreeing with you that I don’t believe there are many exemples of artists being able to live of their art in real life, so web3 is no exception (ofc NFTs being a cool ‘new thing’ helps generate some revenue, but will eventually mirror sales in real life). So artists in this ecosystem have to work really hard to try to change that, and be willing to experiment with new technologies and tools. The model they used irl can’t be used here, nor can NF be the ‘state’ providing continuous support.
And to prove we are agreeing even more, eheh, I totally support your claim that now is the time to evolve, I have said just that. I was trying to present reasons for why most DAOs that have been on-boarded don’t have that strong ‘self-sustainability’ drive; not that they should not have. Hope the difference is now clear.
I should have been more careful in stating that my comments had more of a generic target than yourself 
thank you for your understanding
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Please all check out Creative Capital – there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
https://creative-capital.org/ ](https://creative-capital.org/
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This is really beautiful, I wish we had organizations like this in West Africa. Not many have opened up to the beauty of art and the fact that it is a necessity of life in West Africa. Interestingly, we have so much art all around us here. it’s so much that there is literally an artist whether it be in music or art of all kinds in every home. But with the help of web3-based companies like Near protocol and the Creatives DAO, we will change a lot, one step at a time.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
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Thanks for speaking out expressing yourself in such an eloquent and patient manner.
From the MANY conversations that I’ve had, Bailey represents the points of view of the vast majority of active and engage community members.
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Hello comunidadgy, All is well? I was thinking here…
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I can see that project proposals are still happening for October, so do we have to propose even though we know that we don’t have new guidelines and money to finance? Or are we having a little communication problem where only a few are aware that we won’t have $ so no need to propose?
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Can individual projects, which are not from any DAO, still be submitted, for whom? I mean, the discussion revolves around one way of doing things: DAOs. I would like to see space for individual projects, which could be funded directly by the NF but not necessarily big enough to apply for a grant, nor need DAO to support, do you think this would be viable? How about a dapp, with form where the steps to get approval would be filled, as well as the reports. Perhaps this could be a quick fix as the deeper issues of Creatives/marketing/education struggle to keep in line with the desires of NF and the market.
I am a person who has worked with so many DAOs since February when I joined NEAR and I always missed that space, where the connection is direct with whoever has the money, without having to go through a DAOs that had to go through Creatives… Am I being clear? Or am I misinformed and we already have this option?
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And about good practices, maybe DAOs should think about saving funds for times like this when it’s necessary to invest back in the community so it doesn’t stop. What brings me my next question: how many DAOs currently have cash on hand to fund projects without NF money, at least this month?
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And finally, please don’t forget that we are the biggest asset, we create art, we have value, we are not a cost. We have to think that an artist who sells work does not need NF funding, so something in this sense must be done. Near has to encourage the coming of collectors from other protocols, at the core of the thing. How many nfts and cryptoarts are produced daily in Nearverse and by the projects we are championing here? How many of them were successful in sales? How NF and many here fail to see this? Does anyone have this calculation? Sorry, I’m from the humanities, I don’t know how to do math.
Well, I guess that’s it. I have a lot of ideas in my head that are more chaotic than the chaos we’ve been living through here for the last few months. But let’s go! Courage…
L.
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