RAW — Compensation Model 1.0

Context

This document presents a compensation model proposal for RAW DAO, designed to preserve decentralization and honor the goals outlined in its organizational design document.

The proposal is divided in two sections: short-term and long-term:

• Short-term compensation aims to address the issue of funding the basic operations of the DAO in a more immediate time-frame, and provide opportunity for newcomers to be integrated and quickly rewarded for their work.
• Long-term compensation aims to compensate members for continued and valuable presence and contribution to our community, rewarding those who take responsibility for important work and make themselves continuously present and available to the community. This is critical for retaining talent.

Proposal

Short-Term Compensation

The proposed steps for short-term compensation of member contribution are as follows:

1. Each area of the DAO shall have its general activities and responsibilities predetermined (refer to RAW Organizational Design)
2. The compensation period will happen in a monthly basis
3. Goals will be chosen and agreed upon for each area before the start of each month
4. At the start of each quarter, the community will approve a monthly compensation budget for each area of the DAO, with a split between fixed and performance-based compensation for each area (e.g. 60% fixed, 40% performance-based)
5. Work happens
6. At the end of each period, total compensation of each area is calculated based on its achievements, like so: Total Compensation = Fixed Comp. + Performance Comp. x Goals achieved/Goals set
7. Contributors inside each area then vote among themselves (using Coordinape.com) for the division of compensation, where each contributor starts with 100 votes to assign to other contributors (can't assign to themselves). Individual compensation is then assigned proportionately based on the share each member got from the total votes a. moderators will be able to assign up to 300 votes
8. Compensation is paid with ETH (via disperse.app)
9. A new compensation budget is approved for the next period, and the cycle repeats
10. Total ETH compensation paid during the year shall not exceed the yearly compensation budget

Long-Term Compensation

The proposed system for long-term compensation is the following:

1. The total votes obtained by members in the short-term compensation system through the months will be normalized, summed, and used as a live ranking to grant $RAW tokens and extra Coordinape points to top performing members
2. The following Discord Role hierarchy will be established to identify members by their level of contribution:
   1. Top Contributor
   2. Gold Member
   3. Silver Member
   4. Bronze Member
   5. Active Member
3. Roles and grants will take place according to the following table:

4. The maximum amount of Coordinape votes any member can yield will be capped at 300, and the minimum will be 100
5. Coordinape placement in the bottom 20% or absence in any one month will result in full role demotion and coordinape vote reset to the minimum amount of votes
6. Contributors can negotiate a total aggregate vacation period of 1 month per year to avoid inactivity sanctions
7. Top contributors can pledge to become full-time employees, to be approved by the community
8. The community will be able to award members with the Most Excellent Order of RAW Honour, to identify and reward those who have accomplished outstanding acts of contribution to our organization. A one-off extra compensation grant can be included with the Honour.

Closing Remarks

This model might seem complicated, and will require a bit of getting used to from newcomers. However, it has the advantages of being transparent, meritocratic and decentralized.

All members can choose to work and get compensated by these rules.

By having everyone do a little bit of compensation work, we avoid the need for a centralized HR or top management arbitrarily deciding others' compensation.

This definitely isn't a flawless solution, and the idea is to iterate on it as we go (hence the 1.0).

In case this experiment is successful, we'll be pioneering a novel way to organize and compensate individuals.