Balancer subDAOs Formation

This proposal appears on Balancer's forum.

This proposal is the culmination of a lot of hard work across the Balancer Community, with a special shout out needing to go to the Ballers. They have especially shaped this vision for BalancerDAO’s future, through their commitment, effort and belief in the protocol!

BACKGROUND

Balancer DAO has grown organically, with interested contributors stepping up and helping out where they saw fit. Up to this point, this approach to DAO organization has been successful. However, in order to continue to develop a sustainable, self-executing organization as the DAO grows, a more formal structure is proposed.

CORE PROPOSAL - subDAO Formation

This proposal is for the inclusion of subDAOs into the existing DAO organization structure going forward.

subDAOs are autonomous groups of contributors empowered by BAL holders to act independently in the best interest of Balancer, within a certain area, with clearly defined decision making powers. subDAOs will have plenty of support from the rest of the DAO and the community itself. It is important to note that contributors are not required to be BAL holders themselves.

The motivation behind establishing the subDAOs is to manage DAO-related decision making in a way that facilitates execution, without the need for every initiative or decision of the DAO to be passed as a proposal.

subDAO Contributors

Within a subDAO, there are three kinds of contributors:

• Signer (responsible for executing decisions)
• Members (active contributors doing work)
• Observers (contributors who don't do much work - e.g. BAL holders)

Accountability:

• The Signers of each subDAO are accountable to all contributors of the subDAO.
• Ops subDAO is responsible for connection between each working group and provides community interface through reporting of working group progress, milestones and initiatives.
• Ops will formally approve whenever a Signer is added or removed from a subDAO, though it is likely that subDAO has the most visibility into who among the contributors would make a good leader. It should not be Ops making a unilateral decision, but the Signers are ultimately accountable to Ops and Ops is accountable to BAL token holders.
• The Community is responsible for holding the Ops subDAO accountable to reporting and communication transparency.

Notes:

• Non-signers can weigh in, do work, or make proposals but only the signers decide on taking action.
• Social consensus means signers will decide through an off-chain process within their team - it can be as simple as yes/no in the chat.

subDAO Formation Guidelines:

• A minimum of three Signers are required and are to be identified for the subDAO
• subDAO powers are to be clearly defined, as these responsibilities are to be delegated by the BAL holders (wider community).
• Decision making processes/frameworks are to be defined in a clear and transparent manner
• Within each subDAO there should be one clear Point of Contact (POC) for external inbound enquiries
• Optional: quarterly budget are to be developed and must include sufficient justification

The above guidelines can be considered as the minimum requirement for creation of a new subDAO: Future new subDAO will be required to present a proposal to BAL token holders outlining each of the above points.

subDAO Dissolution Guidelines:

• A subDAO can be dissolved through development of a Proposal requesting the dissolution of the subDAO/s
• If an active proposal is put forward to dissolve a subDAO, all subDAO funds are to be frozen with immediate effect, pending the outcome of the vote.
• If the dissolution Proposal passes, all unspent subDAO funds from that cycle must be returned immediately to the DAO treasury.

DAO STRUCTURE

We propose the following initial structure as part of this proposal.

This proposal is the culmination of a lot of hard work across the Balancer Community, with a special shout out needing to go to the Ballers. They have especially shaped this vision for BalancerDAO’s future, through their commitment, effort and belief in the protocol!

BACKGROUND

Balancer DAO has grown organically, with interested contributors stepping up and helping out where they saw fit. Up to this point, this approach to DAO organization has been successful. However, in order to continue to develop a sustainable, self-executing organization as the DAO grows, a more formal structure is proposed.

CORE PROPOSAL - subDAO Formation

This proposal is for the inclusion of subDAOs into the existing DAO organization structure going forward.

subDAOs are autonomous groups of contributors empowered by BAL holders to act independently in the best interest of Balancer, within a certain area, with clearly defined decision making powers. subDAOs will have plenty of support from the rest of the DAO and the community itself. It is important to note that contributors are not required to be BAL holders themselves.

The motivation behind establishing the subDAOs is to manage DAO-related decision making in a way that facilitates execution, without the need for every initiative or decision of the DAO to be passed as a proposal.

subDAO Contributors

Within a subDAO, there are three kinds of contributors:

• Signer (responsible for executing decisions)
• Members (active contributors doing work)
• Observers (contributors who don't do much work - e.g. BAL holders)

Accountability:

• The Signers of each subDAO are accountable to all contributors of the subDAO.
• Ops subDAO is responsible for connection between each working group and provides community interface through reporting of working group progress, milestones and initiatives.
• Ops will formally approve whenever a Signer is added or removed from a subDAO, though it is likely that subDAO has the most visibility into who among the contributors would make a good leader. It should not be Ops making a unilateral decision, but the Signers are ultimately accountable to Ops and Ops is accountable to BAL token holders.
• The Community is responsible for holding the Ops subDAO accountable to reporting and communication transparency.

Notes:

• Non-signers can weigh in, do work, or make proposals but only the signers decide on taking action.
• Social consensus means signers will decide through an off-chain process within their team - it can be as simple as yes/no in the chat.

subDAO Formation Guidelines:

• A minimum of three Signers are required and are to be identified for the subDAO
• subDAO powers are to be clearly defined, as these responsibilities are to be delegated by the BAL holders (wider community).
• Decision making processes/frameworks are to be defined in a clear and transparent manner
• Within each subDAO there should be one clear Point of Contact (POC) for external inbound enquiries
• Optional: quarterly budget are to be developed and must include sufficient justification

The above guidelines can be considered as the minimum requirement for creation of a new subDAO: Future new subDAO will be required to present a proposal to BAL token holders outlining each of the above points.

subDAO Dissolution Guidelines:

• A subDAO can be dissolved through development of a Proposal requesting the dissolution of the subDAO/s
• If an active proposal is put forward to dissolve a subDAO, all subDAO funds are to be frozen with immediate effect, pending the outcome of the vote.
• If the dissolution Proposal passes, all unspent subDAO funds from that cycle must be returned immediately to the DAO treasury.

Any responsibilities not designated under the subDAO falls into the category of Working Groups and exist within the wider Balancer DAO (e.g. community support and community development). Working groups are defined as: A group of contributors working together on a shared goal. Their formation does not need to be blessed or approved by anyone. Working groups operate by:

• A “Working group" starts when someone/a group decides to work on something that will benefit the DAO.
• Working groups do NOT have any powers delegated to them from BAL holders.
• Compensation of working group contribution is handled by the Ops subDAO through balleries and coorindape circles.

DAO STRUCTURE

We propose the following initial structure as part of this proposal.

subDAOs Overview

subDAO	Community Objective	Responsibility	Decision Making (consensus)	Contributors
Ops	Providing guidance and support to enable smooth DAO operations.	*People (onboarding, compensation, etc), *Quarterly Budget deployment, *Formally add/remove signers from other teams, *Reporting - communication DAO information (DAO activity, spending), *Communication standards (discord, notion)	2 of 3 social	Signers^: Solarcurve Mkflow Mog
Treasury	Advance the treasury	* Farming, *Meta-governance *Quarterly report	3 of 4 social	Signers^: Solarcurve Xeonus Zekraken Luuke
Partnership	Developing and supporting strong partnerships across the ecosystem. Executing liquidity mining rewards.	*Partnerships (growth mechanism within protocol), *Implementing/supporting partnerships (biz dev + technical), *Liquidity Mining Committee Ensuring that liquidity mining rewards are decided upon each week, a snapshot vote is run & and updates are pushed to the github repo on time each week, *Biz Dev - partnership (due diligence)	2 of 3 social	Signers^: Andrea MikeB Luuke
Marketing	Activating and educating the DAO community.	*Marketing (education, awareness) *Events *Content creation	3 of 5 social	Signers^: Andrea RP Maria cryptocomical JoeyWong
Grants (existing)	Providing funding for project development to support protocol growth.	*Evaluating proposal, *Supporting projects, *Technical support	4 of 6 social	Signers^: Zeb, Solarcurve, Zekraken,Luuke, Kei, John, Nick RP
DAO Multisig (existing)	Decisions made by teams that require on-chain execution will be performed by the DAO.	*Deployed using Gnosis Safe, *Guardians of the DAO	6 of 10 multisig	Existing signers
				^Initial Signers have been nominated from the existing Balancer DAO community

Cycles

subDAOs operate on quarterly cycles ( starting 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 Oct). Quarterly cycles are used for budget allocation, reporting, goal setting and alignment across the DAO.

A learnings and review document will be created by each funded subDAO at the end of each cycle. These documents will be compiled into one document by the Ops subDAO for posting on the forum. Any unspent resources at the end of the cycle can be rolled over as part of the budget allocation for the next cycle.

Examples:

Proposal Template:

​​https://docs.balancer.fi/ecosystem/governance/governance-process

Budget Breakdown:

Item	Amount in BAL	Description
1	100	compensation
2	200	events
Total	300 BAL

RISK ASSESSMENT/MITIGATION

1. subDAO’s not held accountable

subDAOs could be formed that don’t generate any progress/ complete any work. Each subDAO is therefore responsible for creating a learning/review documents for presentation to the community at the end of each cycle, informing them of:

• Work completed
• Budget spend
• Learning for next cycle
• Planning undertaken

The report will provide the foundation for the subDAO being funded for the next cycle.

2. subDAO’s operating outside of delegated responsibilities

Any change to existing responsibilities ratified through this initial proposal will require the subDAO to present a Proposal to the community.

CONSIDERATIONS

1. The Grants subDAO and the DAO Multisig already exists within current Balancer DAO operations and their management practices won’t change.

2. Decisions made by subDAO teams that require on-chain execution will still be performed by a multisig.

3. It's important to note these subDAOs are not the only ones who can contribute to Balancer DAO. As needs arise or contributors step forward, new teams can and will form in the future. Any individual or group can contribute to Balancer DAO outside of the formalized teams.

4. There is agreement that formation of a Treasury subDAO is required to optimize management of DAO’s treasury funds. This task requires a significant amount of evaluation, analysis and strategy. It is therefore proposed that the Treasury subDAO responsibilities will be restricted at the beginning, to allow further time to develop the underlying treasury framework. Future treasury function could include:

• Tokenomics
• Reinvestment
• Diversification

5. Delegating any new responsibilities (not listed in this proposal) into any of the subDAOs will require a new Proposal to be developed.

IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE

• Dec 2021 - Present draft subDAO proposal to community
• Jan 2022 - Consolidate proposal feedback and post final Proposal + Vote
• Feb 2022 - Structure + Budgets Live

It is proposed that the initial subDAOs (listed above) take full effect from 1 February 2022. This will allow a 2 month window for subDAO processes to be tested and refined before starting a quarterly cycle beginning 1 April 2022.

VOTING

This proposal will be posted on the forum for 1 week prior to voting. Voting will then be open on Snapshot for three days. This vote will be a single choice vote. You may vote on the Proposal by selecting “Yes, let's do it” or “No, this is not the way”.

Voting “Yes, let's do it” on this proposal means you support:

• The formation of subDAOs within the Balancer DAO
• Delegation of defined responsibilities to each subDAO listed above in the Proposal
• The establishment of processes for developing, managing and dissolving of current/future subDAOs.