[NDC Funding Request] October Budget - Creatives DAO

Ecosystem NDC
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Dear HoM, CoA & NDC Trustee,

Please find attached October budget request from Creatives DAO. To keep it short and easy to track, other background information will be provided upon request.

Creatives DAO Charter
Creatives DAO Trust Announcement
Creatives DAO Book Keeping

1. Community Funding

No. Proposal Amount
1 (PROPOSAL) VN Artists DAO funding proposal Q4/2023 $5.000
2 [PROPOSAL] Near x Art October & November $5.000
3 [PROPOSAL] fraDAO - FUNDING PROPOSAL FOR October - 2023 - Creatives DAO - NEAR Forum $5.000
Total $15.000

2. Partnership

No. Proposal Amount
1 Engage-a-thon at NEARCON $4.250
2 DanceFight $8.500
3 Proof of Vibes x Pizza DAO X CDAO Official Nearcon Side Event $8.900
4 Road 2 LouiEvolve $10.000
Total $31.650

3. Operation

Item Amount Note
SMM (Social media agency) $1.000 Social Media Manager
Team grants (Trustees & Enforcer) $17.000 4K per council and 1k for Trust enforcer
Buffer $1.000 NEAR to USD conversion on ref.finance, 1% of whole requested amount

=> Full version of NDC Request Template for Grassroots Constellation & Agreement to T&C:

Total Requested Amount: $65,650
Target: creativesdao.sputnik-dao.near

AA1: This proposal was polled by HOM for $11,450.

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Why is CINEMATOGRAPHERSDAO not in the list? We should be having a complete list so that we will know our scores. Thank you

@williamx @Paul @creativesdao-council

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Personally, it would be great to see a report about the potentially stolen funds from ~15 CDAO members based on flights not taken/purchased for ETH Milan before I would vote on this proposal.

Abusing community trust is a serious offence and it is not get clear which CDAO members may have breached this trust within the community and therefore makes it hard for me to make a voting decision on a larger budget allocation like this.

Other than that, I will recluse myself from providing too many comments considering that an organization I am a director for (Marma J Foundation) generally gets funding from CDAO on a relatively regular basis. I would just generally hope that each of the proposals being potentially funded by CDAO in this budget are also adhering to the new CoA vision and after a quick look it seems like they may not be, even if CDAO is as a whole.

Overall, I clearly see value in the work CDAO has been doing over the last couple years, but some of the communities that have recieved funding from CDAO might not be living up to that same standard (hence the potentially stolen funds…) So imo the potential issue lies there.

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Hey @chloe
Please find the attached report below as requested.

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As 1 of the 15 voters in the House of Merit, I suggest the approval for $13,150 / $65,650 request for funding Creatives DAO for their October proposal to support Engage-a-thon ($4,250), and Nearcon Side Event ($8,900). To be clear, is not an official statement from the HoM as we need the majority of people to formally vote.

Here is my reasoning for each line item:

  • VN Artists DAO - I don’t not support this $5,000 request because it seems like something that the Vietnam Hub should fund if they see value in it. It also seems like they have been active contributors in NEAR since Oct 2021 and yet I don’t see the value they have brought to the community. I’m happy to learn more about them being proven wrong but I don’t think now is the time to support creator communities on NEAR while others (currently higher priority communities like developers are not getting the support they need).

  • NearxArt DAO - I do not support funding this $5,000 request because the team doesn’t seem to be active and their social channels don’t seem to be active.

  • FraDAO - I don’t not support this $5,000 request because the team has a track record of not delivering their expected results, the “art” they create is terrible, and I don’t see any of their previously on-boarded community members actually active in the ecosystem. Minting NFTs is easy, selling them is hard. I like the focus on educating and supporting female artists but I run events in LATAM and don’t normally pay more than $300 - $500 for an event (not $1k - $2k).

  • Engage-a-thon: I think NDC should fund this $4,250 request because the team organizing it has delivered great technical and nontechnical contributions to the ecosystem without much pay, the idea is great, and will incentivize more on-chain NEARCON experience.

  • Dance Fight: I don’t not support this $8,900 request because this doesn’t seem to drive the core metrics that NDC looking for and it seems like something NDC would fund in the bull market (not right now where NEAR is tracing around $1). Cool proposal but now just isn’t the right time.

  • Proof of Vibes x PizzaDAO NEARCON Side Event: I support funding this $8,900 proposal but I think MDAO should pay for it as the NDC-supported initiative for NEARCON. This will help publicly show that NDC can make decisions that support the community. I also know Snacks from PizzaDAO throws a good event that attracts all types of people (including founders and developers).

  • Road 2 LouiEvolve: I do not support funding this $10,000 request because I don’t see the return on investment. First, I don’t think a lot of people will participate in the metaverse and even if they do, they don’t actually make on-chain transactions. They are also funding unneeded things like brunch for not very popular or successful producers during a time where existing NEAR startups that are driving on-chain value are closing their doors because the lack of funding.

  • Social Media Agency: I don’t not support this $1,000 request until I better understand how they have managed social media in the past and how funding this will change its direction. I’ve been following NEAR’s social media quite closely over the last three years and I haven’t seen much of a C DAO presence on Twitter or NearSocial. It would be great for this to change but I’m not confident they will make the changes without structural shifts.

  • Team Grants: I don’t not support this $17,000 request because I don’t think Creatives DAO leadership has driven enough traction to warrant any more funding for the same function.

  • Buffer: I think this goes without saying but I don’t think NDC should fund this $1,000 buffer.

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Hey Cameron,

Thanks for the comment, just to clarify about Road 2 LouiEvolve, this is for 6 month of activities and initiatives, in which basically half goes to improving tech and the other going towards content creation in various contexts for the use-cases and implementations of the tech being used.

I also think there was a misinterpretation on the term brunch used. That was only speaking to the time of day for the producers corner, which is essentially a workshop for creatives. There is also no mention of funds used for that side event. It is just a part of the community. I can delete that word if it causes confusion.

Several events/workshops/focuses are built around the proposal to facilitate growth, understanding, education of actual users.

I’m not sure where you came to the conclusion of not successful producers but the last producers corner featured Wendy Day as a guest speaker, former manager of Eminem. One of the other artists that attended and performed is featured in Nike commercials. I could go on for a while about the accolades of the artists involved.

Without, excessive name dropping, which makes me uncomfortable and community members have been proven to overstep their boundaries. There is also significant label ties to many of the artists within the community.

As the funding is for two things, content creation, which has established precedent as a valuable commodity based on recently approved proposals, with our viewing numbers having much further reach than others with community support, while also extending outside the ecosystem echo chamber.

Then, the development to support further on-chain transactions (tickets, merch, fiat onboarding) that improve the ability to serve a real community.

The metaverse was a secondary offering that is being offered to people with VIP access that have their NFTs from last years festival or have acquired NFTs in other ways (tivkets, merch).

Since working with integrating web3 activity we have facilitated the collection of almost 300 NFTs which are being implemented in different ways to continue building community on and off chain.

I understand being jaded by creatives dao and music offerings in the past but with all due respect, it feels like based on the content of the comment, this proposal was not given a complete review before coming to the above conclusions.

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Hello Cameron,

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to take a moment to address your concerns regarding the $5,000 request for FraDAO. I appreciate your candid feedback and would like to provide some context and information about our work.

First and foremost, we are deeply committed to the NEAR community and have been actively engaged in various initiatives. To give you a better insight into our efforts, I’ve included links below that highlight our work:

HACK-BOS Third place:

fraDAO Presentation:

fraDAO NFT exposition:

fraDAO Metaverses:

We are currently in the process of establishing a vibrant creative community and incubating a farm (accommodations, Restaurant, Bar, Festival, Experiences and co-working), and will be incubating a global community in an upcoming Proposal.

It’s important to emphasize that we take our responsibilities seriously and have actively participated in NEAR-related activities, such as Hack-BOS and the NEARCON Hackathon, where we secured a commendable third place by developing a point of sale system for our farm’s token. This point of sale component will benefit the entire community, and we are also working on resolving soul bound token issues for various community builder project.

Our commitment to educating and supporting artists, especially female artists, is unwavering. We firmly believe in the value of this project for the NEAR brand.

Our team has a strong reputation, and our community is well-educated and actively involved. We have already assisted artists in creating over 1500 NFTs in just four months, a figure that surpasses many others in the field.

To highlight our dedication to quality, our initial workshop focused on experience design for NFTs, showcasing our commitment to delivering a superior brand experience.

Concerning the events you mentioned, our pricing covers various elements, including the rental of space, the creation of portfolios, payment for software licenses for those who may not have the means, logistical support during the educational events, Mentoring of the workshops, and the development of digital materials that can be used by our entire community.

It’s worth noting that I have personally been involved in various events in LATAM, such as ambassador of:
NFT SĂŁo Paulo(30k audience),
NFT Rio(25k audience),
Blockchain Rio as speaker (About NEAR Metaverse with 15k audience)
Rio Innovation Week as Speaker (NEAR DAO, with 155k audience)
Presentation in ETH Milan 2023

Despite the significant audiences at these events, I never received direct funding from NEAR to as a Speaker in blockchain Event, but always there. Instead, I often had to rely on the goodwill of local technical teams to promote NEAR’s name without incurring sponsorship fees. This reflects the commitment of individuals that were working in blockchain vents in audiovisual technics who have attended our workshops and believe in our mission and values.

I hope this additional information sheds light on our dedication to the NEAR community and our commitment to fostering a creative and inclusive environment. We are always open to constructive feedback and look forward to further discussions to address any concerns you may have.

All projects were designed with quality and the delivery and report were always of quality.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

Frado

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CDAO representatives, the members of the House of Merit have polled internally and reached a quorum in favor of the following. We will agree to fund $13,150 / $65,650 requested by Creatives DAO for the October proposal to support Engage-a-thon ($4,250), and Nearcon Side Event ($8,900) only. Please amend your funding request so HoM can conduct an official on chain vote to release the agreed upon $13,150. Thank you.

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@Cameron @odin, thank you for opinions from HOM side,

Before we come to onchain voting, I’d like to call for your support in 3 items:

  • Dance Fight ($8,900) & VN Artists DAO ($5000): Those proposals hold the most valid KPIs that align with NDC V1 priorities. I’m not fighting for them because I onboarded them, but because I can see a clear alignment that worth receiving support.
    • For Dance Flight: They have famous artists with strong porfolio, their app was released on Appstore & CH Play & the proposal is in good value interms of branding & promoting the use of Minsta. (Break dancing will debut as an official sport in Paris 2024 Olympic)
    • For VN Artists DAO: They are the only declared as semi-sustainable and held side workshops without NEAR funding since Feb 2023. 3 more funding rounds will lead them to to sustainability as the final stage will focus on local partnership only, but only this one still help not to terminate it. I founded the DAO with An (Mer) and Edwin, it may sound bias to fight for them but I believe the KPIs set out with a university society and an art center are align with V1 priorities, and this mean future activities could be carried on in the future without external funding.
  • Team ($17,000): We’ve been working with both internal & external communities to operate the DAO and prepare for NEARCON in October. It would be fair for the team to receive renumeration for the work has been carried on.

If you think current practice won’t be effective in the long run with NDC, I suggest we put Nov activities on hold to prepare for a revamp. I’m not against criticizing opinions about how fund was distributed, in fact, I feel I bear responsibility for it as 1/4 voters and ready to step down for a revamp in CDAO.

Be with us to conclude Oct acitivities. I propose for the funding of $44,050/$65,650 including what HoM has internally agreed & aboved 3 line items.

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Adjustment => NEARCON Side event: $7.200

Revised proposed number: $42.350

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CDAO Representatives,

Thank you for reducing the cost to the Community Treasury for the NEARCON Side Event from $8,900 to $7,200.

The House of Merit has polled internally and reached the following consensus.

As previously mentioned, we will agree to fund two NEARCON related initiatives (totaling $11,450), including $4,250 for the Engage-a-thon and $7,200 (down from $8,900) for the Proof of Vibes x Pizza DAO x CDAO Official Side Event.

Regarding the request for renumeration, HoM has polled internally and reached a quorum agreeing that CDAO shall recover the funds stolen from it’s members (as noted here: [REPORT] ETH Milan <> CDAO ), and use the recovered funds to cover the renumeration request. No additional funding will be provided.

Please adjust the CDAO transitional October funding request to the agreed upon $11,450 to allow HoM to conduct an on chain vote. Failure to comply with this directive from HoM will further delay necessary funding for the NEARCON Engage-a-thon and side event noted above, with potential for the rejection of the entire October funding request from CDAO. Thank you.

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