GIP-72: Should GnosisDAO fund Common Ground to support onboarding DAOs to the Gnosis Chain Ecosystem?

Simple Summary

This proposal would fund Common Ground, the all-in-one communication & governance platform for DAOs & Communities. Built as a public good, Common Ground supports the onboarding of DAOs and web3 communities to the Gnosis Chain ecosystem.

Abstract

In May 2022, Common Ground launched a closed alpha that onboarded over 90 communities by now including MetaCartel Ventures DAO, Radicle, Giveth, and Outlier Ventures. These communities selected us to provide their members with a more secure, web3 native communication and coordination platform.

We are uniquely positioned to introduce DAOs and web3 communities to the Gnosis Chain ecosystem. Our current and future features like token-gating, on-chain governance voting, and token issuance act as entry points for the Gnosis Chain ecosystem. We recently bridged our Governance Token to Gnosis Chain to reduce transaction costs and improve speed. In the coming months, we plan to launch a public beta of our badge system that could be a great introduction to a more formal Gnosis Chain integration on Common Ground.

Test the closed alpha yourself with this referral link Common Ground will enter public alpha soon™

We are seeking a USD 50,000 grant from GnosisDAO to further support onboarding DAOs and web3 communities to Gnosis Chain by making it the default EVM in all our web3 tooling features. Our goal is to establish trust and build our track record with GnosisDAO to explore larger opportunities in the future.

Motivation/Rationale

Every web3 community relies on communication and coordination to accomplish its goals in a decentralized manner. The core of these activities occur on web2 platforms that are not designed for web3 use cases.

We built Common Ground to address three core communication and coordination pain points that web3 communities face:

• Web3 native: Our platform is built for web3 communities and their members. We plan to integrate WalletConnect into our platform so communities can implement features like token-gating, on-chain governance votes, token issuances, and airdrops. Members can craft their profiles by connecting multiple wallets, showcasing their NFT collection, and building their on-chain reputations.

• Security: Community and user safety is one of the top priorities for our platform. We introduced core features like token-gating so communities don’t need to install bots and third-party apps. We also introduced the concept of “human-gating” which allows communities to restrict read or write-access to channels to verified humans. Users may opt to verify as a human through our partnership with Fractal. This functionality unlocks our ability to develop a full-grown Web of Trust that ensures the integrity of all social interaction on our platform and can be utilized by other projects in the Gnosis ecosystem.

• Onboarding: Communities thrive when they have a frictionless, user-friendly onboarding experience. We built our own content management system to allow communities to create content flows catered to onboarding, announcements, and more. Current and prospective members can easily read the latest announcement as well as in-depth articles, learn more about the community, and rapidly onboard without searching across multiple platforms for information.

These core features are why web3 communities love our platform and will use our platform for on-chain activities like token issuance, governance voting, and airdrops. Our comprehensive communication and coordination platform stands to introduce communities to Gnosis Chain, Safe, and the broader Gnosis ecosystem.

How Common Ground Onboards DAOs to Gnosis Chain Ecosystem

Common Ground creates multiple opportunities to drive awareness and onboard communities to the Gnosis Chain ecosystem. Currently, our governance token and token-gating feature introduce communities and users to Gnosis Chain. In the future, our on-chain governance voting, token issuance, and more will drive communities directly to Gnosis Chain.

Currently, a major part of the liquid supply of our governance and fee tokens is maintained on Gnosis Chain. We are also already issuing our community governance NFTs on Gnosis Chain. As we continue to develop our platform and require it for many on-chain transactions, communities and their members will discover Gnosis Chain. This serves as one of the earliest touch points into the Gnosis ecosystem.

In the future, these are three of the major paths we envision that will onboard communities and DAOs into the Gnosis Chain ecosystem.

Web3 Communities

Communities are the precursor for many successful DAOs. As more and more communities explore the power of web3 and DAOs, they will look for guidance and tooling that frictionlessly onboard them. We’re building Common Ground with this major use case in mind by developing tooling for companies to easily launch a governance token, implement on-chain voting, and handle mass airdrops to existing members.

Common Ground is positioned to be the trusted source to transition communities into DAOs as the communication and coordination layer for them. In all our tooling, we can place Gnosis Chain as the default EVM that will drive awareness and adoption of Gnosis Chain. Our communities will appreciate the low transaction fees, high speeds, and safe bridging onto Gnosis Chain. This will likely motivate them to explore the Gnosis ecosystem further.

Existing DAOs

Common Ground addresses some of the core pain points that growing DAOs experience – onboarding, on-chain governance voting, and security. These features attracted our core user base for our closed alpha and contribute to consistent applications for our closed alpha. As DAOs continue to adopt our platform, we have the opportunity to introduce and onboard them to Gnosis Chain.

DAOs strive for on-chain governance but hesitate due to Mainnet transaction costs. Our future governance feature allows DAOs to streamline on-chain voting and improve engagement while reducing transaction costs by leveraging secondary chains. This is one of the key areas where we can onboard DAOs into the Gnosis Chain ecosystem. We can place Gnosis Chain as the default EVM to make use seamless.

Common Ground serves as an onboarding platform for the Gnosis Chain Ecosystem. Our tooling introduces and onboards communities and DAOs seamlessly. We have the ability to raise awareness and grow the DAO community on Gnosis Chain.

Web2 Communities & Users

There are hundreds of thousands of communities that may investigate more formal governance and DAO structures in the future. We want to make onboarding these communities seamless by developing a knowledge repository about web3 that features helpful articles, how-to videos, and more.

Common Ground would feature Gnosis Chain as the default chain in its educational articles and how-to videos. This would introduce communities to the Gnosis ecosystem to drive the adoption of Gnosis Chain, Safe, and more.

Specification

Common Ground will deliver governance and token issuance features to support onboarding communities and DAOs onto Gnosis Chain. We will place Gnosis Chain as the default EVM for each of these features.

Deliverable #1: Integrated Governance Features

• Expected Completion Date: Mid Q1 2023
• Estimated Budget: $25,000
• Features:
  • On and Off-chain voting with native UI
  • Polls and temperature check tooling
  • Multiple voting systems (e.g. single choice, approval voting, quadratic voting)
  • Discussion tools for the governance proposal process
  • Snapshot integration
  • Chain picker with Gnosis as the default chain
  • Documentation with text and video tutorials

Deliverable 2: Integrated Token Issuance

• Expected Completion Date: End of Q1 2023
• Estimated budget: $25,000
• Features:
  • Native UI
  • Default smart contracts for the most common token standards (e.g. ERC20, ERC721, ERC1155)
  • Integration of best practice solutions for the most common token features (e.g. vesting, time-locking, liquidity providing, etc)
  • Chain picker with Gnosis as the default chain
  • Documentation with text and video tutorials

Fund Dispersal

The funds will be managed and deployed by the Common Ground DAO multi-sig wallet. The signers on the wallet are the board members of the Common Ground Association as well as trusted core team members. Leftover funds will be deployed towards general improvements of the overall platform in terms of security, scalability and useability.