Marketing DAO Charter

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
1

Hello friends,

I am stoked to finally present to you the latest Draft for the Marketing DAO Charter that is now open for Community Feedback.

What to Expect

A Governance Charter is the document that details all the processes by which an organisation operates. But decentralised governance is different, and so is this Charter.

Written from scratch, this documents draws upon the many lessons we’ve learned from disbursing funds over the last two years, acknowledges the many challenges we see in the ecosystem today and builds upon the feedback given by many community members, including some that lost faith along the way.

Most importantly, this document embodies a very ambitious vision for the future of NEAR and enshrines a series of Objectives, Guiding Principles, and Governance Processes to make the Marketing DAO future-proof: able to respond rapidly to the evolving needs of the ecosystem and to continue operating effectively regardless of the leadership team at the time.

These are not a How-To-Guide on ways to extract value from Community Treasury. This is an OGs Manifesto that seeks to empower and protect builders and top community contributors.

We are thrilled to be transitioning to Community Treasury and to position Marketing DAO as a community-led engine for growth.

Overview

Cheeky guide to skimming through this 34 page document to find the interesting bits to you:

  • Objectives - what is the reason why the Marketing DAO exists? Clear goals to measure MDAO performance and align all stakeholders.
  • Scope - introduces a more holistic approach to Growth, including a duty to leverage our positions (and grantees) at the forefront of the community to constantly gather User Feedback, create direct communication pathways and foster open dialog (let’s not pour money promoting something that doesn’t work - let’s improve onboarding flow, etc.)
  • Scope II - introduces the notion of Change Agents, a high bar for accessing funding, a clear call for top performers. Usher a culture of excellence.
  • Types of proposal. Inbound proposals remain open to any community member at anytime. DAO-led proposals to enable things such as Bounties, and other strategic partnerships.
  • Guiding Principles - a set of values and constraints imposed on the Marketing DAO that should inform all decision making, particularly when there are no predetermined guidelines. This are the mental models that leaders can rely on to ensure we can navigate any situation while still advancing Marketing Dao objectives and NEAR Ecosystem strategic goals.
  • Overview of MDAO Roles (Enforcer, Trustee, Council, MDAO Community)
  • Eligibility for Each MDAO Role (also the criteria by which performance will be measured, triggers removal mechanisms).
  • Process for Appointing each Role (Enforcer, Trustee, Council)
  • Process for Removing each Role (Enforcer, Trustee, Council)
  • Dispute Resolution
  • Conflict of Interest
  • Schedule I - Guidelines for Incoming Proposals

Next Steps

The Charter is a living document. We are expecting to have some minor additions and edits to reflect the current round of feedback, but are confident that the core substance is there.

  • Community Consultation Period: initially 7 days, can be extended if there are major objections and changes required. Acknowledging compressed timelines, we’ll be proactively reaching out to key stakeholders to ensure they can provide feedback prior to consultation closing.
  • You can leave specific feedback by adding a comment to the Google Doc or you can ask general questions or show support as a reply to this thread.
  • I am currently in Korea where a sizeable contingent of the NEAR community will be descending shortly. Happy to meet in person if you are around or to arrange calls to discuss any major pressing issues.
  • Shortly after the Charter has been approved, if there aren’t any major changes that create misalignment with the latest version of the Trust, both Charter and Trust instrument should go live.
  • This means Marketing DAO will start receiving funding from Community Treasury
  • We are working hard to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible for applicants and to create all the necessary documentation to reflect any new processes.

A word of appreciation

I’d like to thank everyone for your patience. Special thanks to the small cohort that has provided extensive feedback and words of encouragement along the way. And to all community members - thanks for sticking around during a bear market. This is our chance time to take ownership of community governance and unleash an unlimited growth machine. All the pieces are falling into place - LFG

27 Likes
2

Hey @satojandro AVB
Yep…reads well.
Can see that a lot of thought and effort has gone into creating a robust framework for future growth :zap:

6 Likes
3

This is awesome. There’s a lot to unpack so I’ll focus on 2 parts that jumped out, the DAO’s approach to Growth and Change Agents.

By viewing Growth as a System as a “holistic” system, the DAO is acknowledging that every stage of the customer journey matters. This is big because it’s not just on awareness. (So any chart/graphic should eventually drive traffic to a CTA or conversion of some sort!) From getting new folks on board (acquisition), to getting them active and involved (activation), and then keeping them around for the long haul (retention). A super important 1, 2, 3.

New users are very important for the NEAR ecosystem but you’ve got to make sure they’re engaged and sticking around too. This is SO IMPORTANT. And this only takes a couple successful examples for more projects to use as a blueprint.

Alright, let’s talk Change Agents​:raised_hands: Big fan of this concept. They’re not just members or contributors, they’re the ones who are really driving things forward.

First off, these people should really get NEAR. I mean, they’ve got a deep understanding of the whole ecosystem. They know the ins and outs, defi, nfts, projects building, community members that add value and others that extract.

But it’s not just about knowing stuff. These Change Agents are also doers. They’re the ones spotting problems and opportunities, coming up with hypotheses, and running experiments to see what works. I do think finding these people will take time. But a few top level change agents could do a lot.

8 Likes
4

All I can say is LFG :fire:

3 Likes
5

I don’t think this charter is even close to being ready and MDAO needs to clearly showcase how they measure value.

There is no sign of

  • how value is measured
  • how proposals get scored
  • what are the metrics used to asses the proposals

And the whole process is completely non transparent.

All the pointers mentioned show intent of MDAO, but with zero plan of how it will be achieved.

Additionally,

  • No methodology and process displayed to show how trends and comprehensive market analysis will be conducted but mentioned it will be.
  • No talent acquisition strategy in place but mentioned it will be
  • Most of the write up seems just like fancy words without any strategy to plan to show how these will be achieved.

If you guys need any help in creation of a community based metric system, we’d be happy to assist you. It took us months to get the first community based metric system established and I think it will take lesser time for MDAO as we already have the blueprint and learnings.

Also - Closing a 30 pager charter in 7 days doesn’t give time to the community to completely understand and add inputs.

As per GWG 2 weeks atleast are recommended. Please stick to the same days for the whole community to be able to asses the charter and give feedback.

5 Likes
6

Hi @satojandro

Good getting to see the @marketingdao-council charter

I have taking the time to read through it and here are some thoughts and feedback

I love the Charter and purpose outline

However, I have some major concerns on what is considered Check and Balance on the charter and how very little community input in decision making is included.

My Concerns

  1. Council seems to the body appointing everyone that meant to keep Councils accountable.
  2. The removal process of anyone from the Dao( Trustees and Enforcer) also go through either the recommendation of the council or directly from the council
  3. With the council having this much power to Appoint and Remove any working member of the Dao without the ultimate input of the community at anytime shows much concern. How can there be true Accountabililty on the council when the council according to this charter is heavily involved in the appointments and removal of those to keep them accountable.

My recommendation

  1. Working Dao members ( Trustees and Enforcer) should have term limits that comes with their appointments as this would gurantee them to make independent decisions without the fear of being removed by the council at any time if said decisions are not favorable or being a hand push od the council
  2. Removal process other than resignation and term expiry should involve a Proposal to the community as already stated in your charter
  3. There is sure separation of duties but very little in powers, there is need for more seperation of powers.
3 Likes
7

@Ola,I believe that a member of the marketing dao community can create a proposal to remove a council member. I am not sure if the community has the power to remove an enforcer or trustee, but It does seem that the community has some form of check on the council, and could potentially remove the entire council via vote if operations are not going smoothly.

1 Like
9

Hi @Cryptonaut thanks for reviewing the Charter and your comments. This is still a ‘work in progress’ and we will certainly take your comments, and comments from the rest of the community, on board in the final draft.

We discussed the timeframe for the community to review and leave comments in our weekly call and will be extending the period to two weeks.

2 Likes
10

Hi @cryptocredit

There are a lot of questions unanswered on the main doc.
Before the draft is finalised it will be good to have changes shared for everyone to review.

All the best and thank you for taking the effort to refine the charter. I know it’s no easy task!

2 Likes
11

Hello, 9 days passed. There are 42 comments on your documents haven’t been addressed since you opened this topic.

Are you busy attending various IRL events in Asia AVB?

I advise you to take your role more seriously, you requested monthly remuneration from the ecosystem.

2 Likes
12

Hello @Joey ! Almost all questions were answered. Really glad to see such Community engagement, comments and suggestions.

1 Like
13

I’ll just start by saying that on some things, we are going to have to agree to disagree.

There also seems to be some misconceptions as to what a Governance Charter is meant to be.

If you were to look at the Governance Charter of any Corporation or Charity, you won’t find the strategy plans on how to achieve their business goals (that is the job of many, very smart people, to figure out on a daily basis by taking into account a myriad of constantly evolving variables). Rather, the Charter sets out the processes for the organisation to operate: what it can and can not do, the objectives why which it will be measured, clear outline of roles and responsibilities, etc.

Likewise, the American Constitution doesn’t have the strategic outline on how to grow GDP and reduce crime. It simply has the cornerstone guidelines on how power operated to enable people to go out there and do the work.

There is a reason why real human think cognitive function are needed on an ongoing basis to perform a certain task. A static document can not contain all truths or cater to all situations. But that document can provide guidelines to the humans on what they are meant to be doing, how to measure success, etc.

The MDAO Charter is deliberately principles based - it demands critical thinking of leadership. This is a sharp contrast from stagnant point based systems that fail to capture many nuances from the real world and remove any critical thinking and agency from the people conducting assessment.

I was very critical about the extremely simplistic nature of the Creatives DAO assessment matrix and most of my suggestions were ignored. Not interested in relitigating the issue and most certainly not interested in the slightest is implementing such a system for Marketing DAO.

An important point: the Charter is both ambitious and future proof. On this point I do have to agree with you that there are elements in there where the DAO has not delivered or does not currenty have the capacity to deliver. The focus right now needs to be on whether the objectives and guidelines are right - the leadership of the DAO needs to adapt to its objectives, not the other way around. When an objective is not being met, the appropriate response should be to ask why and to put the necessary changes in place to ensure we do hit the objective. If an objective is not being met, the inappropriate response would be to remove or alter the objective altogether to the Council members can continue to chill in the role while getting paid (without appearing to be failing to deliver).

14

Thanks for raising these concerns,

Usually when people think about a balance of power, they think about one group of people having power over another. This is technically not accurate as in this model, there is always the problem of the unpredictability of how each group may act.

This is why a governance Charter is so important. The roles and responsibilities for each group (Enforcer, Trustees, Council Members) are clearly defined in a way that at any point in time based on the criteria set out in the document, the relevant group can take action to bring the organisation back to baseline (what the document requires it to be).

In this sense, the Governance Charter is an overarching tool that limits and controls what each group can do to the extent that no group can abuse their power (even if they have to engage with each other in the appointment, removal process).

This is what I refer to as having a future-proof document: everything contained in the document needs to work flawlessly regardless of who is in power at any point in time.

Taking the above into account:

This would require the entire Council to be corrupt AND for them to somehow stack all Trustees and Enforcer positions with equally corrupt people. Trustees and Enforcers are legally liable and can be sued by anyone if they do not perform their duties. Their duties include removing Council members under certain circumstances (even if Council replace A role, the next one would still have to take action).

The Charter clearly articulates the eligibility criteria for each role. Council who appoints roles without taking into account this eligibility criteria can be removed by proposal from community.

These are contractual relationships, no different to you engaging an accountant or a personal lawyer. What they do or can not do is governed by the Trust instrument, including the Purpose. There are also dispute resolution mechinisms - Trustess have power to not enact any recommendations from Council that fall outside of the Purpose or scope of Trust.

This is big. Thanks for backing this motion. Indeed every Council member can be removed by proposal from Community.

15

Thanks for your kind message Joey,

You must have seen some of my posts on Twitter, at which point you may have also noticed I am among the top, if not THE top net promoter for NEAR in ETH Seoul and Asia Buidl (both events officially sponsorship, I do not know the amount but is likely not insignificant).

Thins you may not know that may be relevant in assessing whether I take my role seriously or not:

  • I am covering all my expenses for this trip (as I did for ETH Denver).
  • Marketing DAO Council members have not been remunerated in over three months and NF is withholding payment as they have reservations as to value created and work done.
  • I have spent countless hours meeting with many groups to organise hackathons in their cities, and in general, exploring ways in which the Marketing DAO can support them.
  • I have spent a fair bit of time, in person, presenting the nature of the Marketing DAO - how it is different, why it is important, and why this matters - to top people across NF, Pagoda, Proximity, ecosystem VCs, and others. These are meaningful conversations where we truly reflect about where the ecosystem is now, where we want to be, and what role does the Marketing DAO have.

Even then, I just caught up with all comments, providing, as always, detailed answers and reasoning.

I would also like to remind you that the Marketing DAO currently has FOUR other council members (who are demanding to get the same pay)…

16

Long story short, MDAO doesn’t have any way to measure success. It will be as per councils accord to decide which proposal is worthy of being funded

  1. What gives you the authority to personally pass judgements on community proposals if the way to measure it is not made public?

  2. How many years of professional experience do you or @Dacha have as a marketer to be able to pass judgements on other proposals?

NDC is a community led initiative and your charter and DAO will be as centralised as a private bank if you don’t declare your decision making process, completely losing the ethos of transparency.
I don’t see how you aren’t even thinking about your decisions.

@satojandro - is this only your stance or all MDAO councils agree that there should be no public way of understanding how MDAO reviews proposals?

1 Like
17

Hello @Cryptonaut almost 3 years in Near Community.

18

The process is declared. Each DAO has
its decision-making system with cons and
pros. There is no perfect system.

19

There is a 42 page document going into excruciating detail on how proposals are assessed. If you do not understand it, you are the problem.

20

Hey AVB,

No need to get aggressive. Please answer simple questions asked.

Dumping 42 pages about what you’d like to achieve vs how you actually would measure success are very different things.

1 Like
21

Please don’t deflect a direct question.

Do you have any experience as a marketer?

You are not a marketer here. You are assessing community proposals.

1 Like