[GCP 017] Gitcoin Citizens Retroactive Funding Round

Summary

This proposal is requesting $153k in GTC to continue a series of retroactive quadratic funding rounds to reward efforts supporting the Gitcoin Community, specifically by Gitcoin Citizens.

Citizens are value-aligned community members who are eager to contribute their time and skills in service of Gitcoin’s mission. Running these rounds lowers the barrier of entry for contributing to the DAO, determines what the community values most, and helps test (dogfood) all of our products, driving innovation. This budget will fund two more Citizens Rounds including operations, and a supplement for community engagement.

Abstract

Over the past two seasons we have run a 95K GTC-funded experiment, incentivizing community support for Gitcoin and its ecosystem. Round #1 stands as Gitcoin’s most successful crowdfunding versus matching round to date 1. With round #2 we doubled down on PGN as our network of choice, and invited our community to not only apply for retroactive funding but also submit planned work, as part of our initial GCP.

We’ve been blown away by the community’s enthusiasm and deeply impressed by the value they’ve created. Value by our community, for our community, without any top-down guidance. Further details can be found in this case study by Grants Stack, our reporting on round 1 and in our overall learnings report covering these initial two rounds. The Citizens Rounds have also served as a development testbed for Gitcoin between Program Rounds, and for us this is just the beginning. We’re eager to continue supporting our Citizens, helping them to better support the ecosystem while rallying the ecosystem itself to support our Citizens even more through these rounds.

For this reason we are requesting funding for two more rounds, aiming to further grow awareness and momentum for this initiative. Our goal is to establish the Citizens Rounds as a cornerstone of the DAO’s way of working and a key driver of Gitcoin’s essential intents.

Motivation

We view the Citizens Rounds as a model for our DAO, fostering a bottom-up, skills-driven owner’s mentality, bringing us back to the essence of what being a DAO is about. We’ll continue to check in with our community on missing pieces to achieve our goals, with a high focus on impact through retroactive funding.

The mission of the Citizens Rounds is deeply aligned with Gitcoin’s updated essential intents:

1. Network Effects: Each additional Gitcoin Citizen joining the network increases the value for all the other Citizens who now each have an additional potential collaborator and funder. This then increases the value of the round for the whole Gitcoin ecosystem. We’ve also seen other ecosystems starting their own retroPGF rounds for community contributions (Arbitrum Citizens, Ethereum contributors, Starknet, and of course Optimism), creating a positive flywheel that attracts more and more builders. 2. Community First: With our rounds we are telling our ambassadors that we see them, we appreciate them, and we want to reward them. Through funding and coaching we are empowering community members to actively contribute to Gitcoin’s evolution. 3. Financial Longevity: Our rounds yield significant returns on investments, with a low budget of $50-75K/quarter for all Citizens versus a total budget of +$3MM for full-time DAO contributors over the same period (details in our learnings report).

Specifications

Budget

This proposal is requesting a budget of 153K in GTC in funding for two rounds, including operations. The breakdown is as follows:

• 50K Round #3: 40K matching pool + 10K GTC signal boosting
• 70K Round #4: 60K matching pool + 10K GTC signal boosting
• 32K Staffing: 16K round operations + 16K community engagement
• 1K Reserves: expenses, eg. subscriptions, gas, transactions slippage

Further details on signal boosting and community engagement are provided below. Note that without community engagement (which goes beyond operations), the overhead cost is 12%. Our aim is to reduce this further in the future by offsetting round operator costs through round participation.

Changes Since Previous GCP

We have learned so much during our first two rounds, you can find a full overview of this in our learnings report 5.

Some of the key changes:

• Our next rounds will be fully retroactive, allowing us to focus on results, impact and a streamlined review process.
• We’re introducing a signal boosting mechanism, allocating an additional 10K/round for projects deemed impactful by our inner community. Key stakeholders will be airdropped the funding to divide this amount among projects of their choice, helping Citizens focus and inspiring stakeholders to communicate on future tasks more regularly.
• We’ll continue to update and revise our eligibility criteria, focusing on defining Citizens’ work and individual efforts.
• We want to gradually increase the awareness for this initiative. The ultimate goal is to make the Citizens Rounds into a perpetual, higher cadence, recurring initiative. We’re requesting a higher budget for the main round operator, to reflect the reality of round 1 & 2, and a recommended supplement for increased community engagement (see below).
• The proposed extra community engagement layer aims to heighten our focus on impact.

Impact & Community Engagement

Next to the budget for round operations (16K), which is similar to the one of the past rounds, we propose funding for related community engagement work, managed by the driving round operator. The (maximum) estimated cost is 100hrs/quarter or 8K for two rounds, totaling 16K.*

*Note: This is a maximum amount, which will be documented in detail similarly to the timesheets for round 1-2. As a Citizen the round operator will also raise funds for this part: whatever is community funded is not paid from the treasury.

Context:

Kris, as driving round operator, has been a dedicated ‘meta Citizen,’ bridging gaps between Citizens, product teams, and support. In the last two seasons, he has contributed around 180-250 hours to support Gitcoin without remuneration. He has been logging tickets, reviewing strategic documents and reading up and engaging on the forum and in discord, wherever and whenever relevant. This work, while not always directly measurable, enhances the efficiency and impact of Citizens.

We believe it is crucial for the success of the Citizens rounds to continue going this extra mile but would request for this crucial work to be funded as of now.

Goals:

1. Increase impact by directly supporting an ‘insider’ to educate and bridge between key stakeholders and Citizens. 2. Showcase transition: Demonstrate how a high-impact Citizen can shift from a retainer fee to full community funding.

Scope of Work

• Citizens Education & Branding
• Setting Community & Communication Guidelines
• Office Hours & Advisory Calls
• Discord & Telegram Management
• Social Media Presence & Management
• Crowdsourcing Open Tasks
• Stakeholder Engagement

Benefits

The Citizens Rounds can serve as a model for the DAO, emphasizing a bottom-up, owner’s mentality and encouraging the community to identify missing elements to achieve our goals, prioritizing impact through retroactive funding. This initiative is deeply aligned with Gitcoin’s updated essential intents, focusing on maximizing network effects, fostering permissionless community contributions, with a minimal budget, and a maximum return on investment. This round allows us to continue dogfooding our tooling, gives devs and product a place to test new features outside of program rounds, and provides a case study for others.

Drawbacks:

• The community could reward non-strategic or lower value work.
• The process could compensate at greater than market rates for popular deliverables.

Success measures:

• Two more funding rounds have been executed & lessons learned have been captured
• Key stakeholders continue to see the Citizens as creating value in line with our essential intents
• A project close out has been written with recommendations on if/how to proceed

Vote

Yes: Fund the Citizens Rounds for 153K GTC No: Do not fund the Citizen Rounds Abstain: I am missing context or am impacted by this proposal