[Rejected] Marketing for the Sacred Waters DAO - UPDATED 4/11


DAO/Council Members:
regentulummich.near
shiftshapr.near
cryptocoatl.near

Updated on April 11, 2022. Thanks to the input of @dacha, @cryptocredit, @adrianseneca, @satojandro, @cryptocoatl, and @shiftshapr.

Target: sacred-waters.sputnik-dao.near

KYC & Contract: TBD

Total Requested Funding Amount: $1000

Timeline: April 13 - 30

Objective: We are running an in-direct marketing campaign to onboard into the NEAR ecosystem a group of artists, scientists, environmentalists, and citizens concerned about changing Route 5 of the Mayan Train from Playa del Carmen to Tulum, back to the highway and not on top of the jungle and the biggest underground river system in the world, caves and cenotes. This will translate into growth of the NEAR ecosystem among people globally who care about the environment and the Mayan Riviera.

  • We will onboard every artist, activist, divers, scientist, and concerned citizens and tourists that through our social media reaches and joins the initiative. We will guide them in the steps of getting a NEAR wallet, a custom NEAR address, a DAO member NEAR NFT; joining the DAO; and joining the NEAR Governance forum.

  • Renowned environmental activist John Quigley who helped stop drilling off the coast of Portugal and has created a successful campaign of awareness of the situation with the Amazon deforestation through cofounding Artists For Amazonia has been mentoring on our Sacred Waters campaign in Tulum. John has got International media coverage on his previous campaigns and this issue is already getting international coverage. The creative efforts of this group, empowered by the DAO and supported by John, has the potential to get international media coverage. The media talking points will include the DAO and the support of the NEAR ecosystem as key contributors as well as this being one of the first DAOs formed for a regional environmental movement, which can showcase and be a model for future activism around the world.

  • We will enable people who want to contribute to donate to the AstroDAO.

Below are the marketing tasks that the Sacred Waters DAO will perform in the month of April:

  1. Community manager to create content and manage Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok accounts ($500)
  1. Paid ads on instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok ($500)

TOTAL BUDGET: $1000 in NEAR

Thank you,

Sacred Waters DAO

https://app.astrodao.com/dao/sacred-waters.sputnik-dao.near

6 Likes

Good evening, sorry not for me.

Ps: do you know anybody who represent Near Mexico community?

2 Likes

Yes we did the NCA training and part of our team were at the Daoist conference presenting Regen Tulum project. We met the Near Hispano team in Mexico city.

5 Likes

Hi Dacha

@regentulummich and I are both new here and still getting our sea legs. We’d like a little are context for your response. Are you suggesting that we reach out to someone we know at NEAR Hispano to fund this? We know @Montero, Alan, Cristian, and Christina.

Inquiring minds also want to know: how do you mean “sorry not for me”?

We would be very appreciative of any specific feedback on how we can improve. If “sorry not for me” is a “no”, we’d love to know why, and if and how it can be changed.

Warmly

2 Likes

Here is the link to the corresponding proposal on the Creatives DAO: [PROPOSAL] Sacred Waters DAO

1 Like

Good morning, no. Just wondering what’s happened with Near Mexico Guild . Haven’t heard of them in a long time

I don’t think that your proposal related with Marketing. The best way is work directly with authorities.

Ps: I have many friends in Playa del Carmen, great city :blush:

1 Like

Thanks! Pardon for the length of this reply. It didn’t start out this long in my mind :slight_smile:

Just wondering what’s happened with Near Mexico Guild . Haven’t heard of them in a long time

I had no idea there was a NEAR Mexico. We’re pretty new here. We just know NEAR Hispano folks as of yet.

I don’t think that your proposal related with Marketing. The best way is work directly with authorities.

The President and prevailing authorities - who are pushing for the potentially disastrous jungle route of the train - are discrediting the group we are working with of independent environmentalists and environmental organizations, scientists, divers, and concerned citizens, many who have been working on these issues in Quintana Roo for over a decade and seen Playa del Carmen lose entire beaches to human caused erosion that was warned about years earlier by some of these same people. The President is dismissing them as pseudo-environmentalists and saying that they are paid by his political opponents. While it is true that people outside the group have tried to infiltrate and also have impersonated the group on websites and on chats, Mich has from the beginning been trying to make sure political operatives and politicians do not find there way in the group and politicize the issue (which the President is also trying to do).

To prevent interlopers, the Whatsapp group is now using a derivative of a Google Form that Mich and I created and she presented to enable the group admins to screen people before they can accessing the new WhatsApp conversation group. The original WhatsApp group has been turned into an announcements channel.

Sacred Waters DAO was created to help organize their creative efforts (which amounts to marketing a message and call to action) to raise awareness of the issue and ultimately get the President to at least perform the environmental impact studies which are required by law, yet somehow absent. We need the requested NEAR to onboard people to the DAO, focus and incentivize creative responses, and also attract other supportive people to join the effort.

We think an essential part of the project is marketing to attract and incentivize creative artists to work with the scientists, environmentalists, and concerned citizens to create compelling and profoundly impactful works of art that catalyze a shift in the consciousness of the country, the President of Mexico, and the world to a future where sacred waters are more important than money.

We believe this is possible. In fact, the only other reliable way is legal, for which art-led movements are often complementary. Thanks to this conversation, I am seeing this DAO and all the people involved (and who make it happen) as art itself embodied on the Yucatan. We’re making something beautiful and high vibe, like NEAR.

Ps: I have many friends in Playa del Carmen, great city.

We are happy to connect with any of your peeps that you think might be interested in making sure the Mayan Train goes back to the highway.

Furthermore, instead of spending rewards on councils work ( if if charity project) I propose use the money for promotion in social media.

We agree. You’re right, we do need to do “promotion in social media.” From our perspective, that is what this proposal to the Marketing DAO is for.

instead of spending rewards on councils work ( if if charity project)

We see this as a decentralized movement rather than a charity project. Regen Tulum is a decentralized movement and we are excited to be supporting this emergent cause.

Organize two virtual onboarding events and follow up - $750 to be divided among the 3 council members

I will defer to @regentulummich address why she thinks virtual events are essential to onboard and explain the functionality of the DAO to people who are immersed in the ecosystem yet, and help create wallets and proposals to join the DAO.
a) she is the in direct communication with the leadership circle
b) She’s been there from the beginning
c) she has extensive social media and community management experience in this region.

Thanks again!

If anyone makes it to the bottom, porfa let me know with a heart? Gracias

4 Likes

Unfortunately is true at this point the authorites are not willing to change the route or sit down with the experts to analyze the best solution. The only way is what this movement has being doing that is create awareness of the importance and fragility of this ecosystems.

But the tools to organize are not optimal and many people wants to sabotage the movement, we have very basic tools to organize us and all the legal, graphic and media information thats why a DAO is of outmost importance for the success of the group.

We want to decentralize so there is no leader that can be targeted and all efforts and participants are clear and transparent. This is a social movement of people fighting to keep this magical place from being destroyed by the change of the Mayan Train route.

We need onboarding events to give an easy way to understand how the DAO works and create wallets for each already screened member of the group access to do proposals, vote, organize information, create NFT projects, get funded, etc.

I have been working on social media in this region for many years so I know is how people get information here and is important for our project.

Best!
Mich

2 Likes

Hi @regentulummich thanks for your proposal and I understand the issues you are trying to address.

I agree with @Dacha that this project does not fit with the funding objectives of the Marketing DAO. I would also suggest that you each out to the Near Hispanic guild or NEAR Mexico to see if they would like to support your project.

Not able to support this proposal in it’s current form.

2 Likes

Hi @Dacha & @cryptocredit !

I just wanted to give my community input here. I’m not sure I understand how Sacred Waters asking for funding specifically to market their project (using TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, instagram ~ all marketing platforms) is not within the range of Marketing? Are you suggesting that projects like this that are focused on urgent sustainability efforts are not what the
Marketing DAO prefers to support?

From the guides it looks like you support:

  • Growth Hacking
  • Social Media
  • Translations
  • Blogs
  • PR and Paid Media
  • Influencers
  • Events
  • Merch / Swag
  • Memes
  • Communication
  • Other paid marketing efforts

Is this not social media, communication, and PR?

Perhaps it is not seen how this project reciprocates back to the Near community? I feel that this initiative is in full alignment with the values of Near and has the potential to make tangible environmental preservation moves, educate and include Near community about impactful real world events, onboard new perspectives to near all while simultaneously promoting and showing the world that Near is an ecosystem that has strong ethics.

These are my thoughts on this proposal that I felt inclined to share as a community member and someone who deeply values projects that preserve the health of the Earth we all live on. Would love to hear more from you.

4 Likes

Let me start by saying that the Sacred Waters DAO is a worthy cause and I have nothing but respect and admiration for people who devote their time and efforts to fight these kind of causes.

This is not a questions of whether the Sacred Waters cause is a good one, or even whether it is worth funding at all, rather, this is a question of whether it falls within the Scope of the Marketing DAO.

It is also worth noting that these guidelines have been evolving over time, as we learn from an ever increasing range of proposals and their reports. Here is part of my reasoning, which is in line with @Dacha and @cryptocredit:

  1. The Marketing DAO is here to support Ecosystem Growth (NEAR, Aurora, or Octopus)
  2. This usually takes two forms:
    2.1 Direct Marketing Campaign (i.e. produce content about NEAR, etc.)
    2.2. In-direct Marketing Campaign (via Projects): here the formula usually is, we are willing to cover a particular project’s marketing campaign if growth of that project or community also translates in growth for the overall NEAR ecosystem.
  3. It may also be easier to grasp the nuance above by stating what we don’t fund:
    3.1 We don’t just fund private businesses when all the value is captured by them without any connection to the reader NEAR ecosystem
    3.2 We are not a charity funding just causes when there is no connection to the NEAR Community

With the framework above, I believe that is is possible to see why the initial response of the Marketing DAO is: we have no business in political and environmental activism in Mexico.

However, I believe there are some relevant considerations:

  • The extent to which you use AstroDAO, and any other NEAR tooling or related projects as part of your campaign
  • The fact that you are NEAR Certified community members

So how could this proposal be revised? Make it all about highlighting the unique properties of blockchain technology, and NEAR in particular that empower your group to become organised.

This would potentially be a very different proposal if:

  • It were a fundraising campaign were crypto community can donate to your Astro (see Unchain Fund initiative to raise money for Ukraine efforts)
  • Have media coverage on how the technology is being used: this is a powerful combination. You would be marrying a cause - which hopefully a lot of people can sympathyse with - with tools that would otherwise be boring and irrelevant to them.
  • Run your blog on Blogchain.app, a NEAR native, censorship resistant platform which could create a strong narrative about the need to share content and information that can’t be manipulated yay authorities, etc.

The above are just a couple of suggestions to tie in the project to the broader community.

Best of luck,

5 Likes

@marketingdao-council :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thanks for this reply!
I agree that we should be more clear about why we thought about proposing to this DAO, exactly coming from an experience that if people doesn’t understands what Near is an how to use it, will be impossible to get them on board, so the first work we need to do is the Near onboarding and protocol approach.
Cause as you said, may be there are a lot of people that having a use case will be a motivation to get on the protocol, learn how it works and use it for this purpose.
Hope we can have the @marketingdao-council to check this proposal and support.

3 Likes

I updated the post. I appreciate all of your input. And I look forward to grow the Sacred Waters DAO. Thank you for your support.

Besos

Mich

2 Likes

Thanks for your response. We are running an in-direct marketing campaign.

Guys, you can spend your council’s rewards on charity. I believe it will be great example for the love of nature. Thanks

2 Likes

You keep saying charity without understanding is not what we are doing here. I hope you actually take the time to read what we are talking about here. :pray:

In my opinion

And

Could be covered from council’s rewards, who can hold the virtual events for free.

Thanks

I also do not see this as a fit for the MarketingDAO though I do believe what you are working toward sounds like a worthy cause.

A reminder to everyone reading this that the MarketingDAO is not required to approve proposals and that when we decide not to approve a proposal, it is not necessarily because we think the project lacks value, but rather that we are committed to making responsible choices and funding projects that are tied to the NEAR ecosystem.

To give you an specific example of an environmental project that I think fits the definition of being directly tied to the NEAR ecosystem, check out Raiz:

As you move forward, you may want to reach out to the NEAR Grants team via the NEAR Foundation site and work with them to determine the best avenue for funding possibilities going forward.

I’m moving this proposal to closed as we have the majority of the council members who have not given support for this.

2 Likes