Internal Operating Procedures (IOP) for the Grants Council: Season 8

Elected Representatives 💼 Internal Operating Procedures
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The Internal Operating Procedures in this document govern the activities of the Season 8 Grants Council. This document outlines the processes the Grants Council will follow in fulfilling the Charter. This structure is supported by the S8/9 governance-approved budget.

The Grants Council (GC) conducts formal reviews of proposals submitted by projects that aim to drive measurable growth in interop-ready TVL and transaction fees across the Superchain.

If any discrepancy arises between a Charter and these IOPs, the Charter always takes precedence.

Communications

  • Community members can contact GC members via Discord (#mission-grants), Telegram, or in their application’s comments.

  • The GC Lead will hold one Office Hours session per Cycle for open discussion on GC or grant process matters.

  • A Grants Cycle Report will be published at the end of each Cycle.

Community Feedback

  • Primary feedback should be shared in the forum, especially during:

    • Cycle Roundups (end of each Cycle)

    • Final Season Retrospective

  • Feedback is used to improve future Cycles and Seasons.

Cycle Management

  • Each Cycle lasts three weeks, matching governance voting cycles.

  • Applications are always open until the entire budget is allocated (or drops below ~2%). At that point, a vote will decide, by simple majority, whether to continue with further Cycles.

Review Pipeline

  1. AI Review

    • Applications are scored dynamically by a custom AI.

    • If the score is below threshold, the Application is marked for rejection unless promoted by a GovNERD.

  2. GovNERDs Review

    • Review AI-rejected Applications and can promote them to Final Review.

  3. Final Review

    • Applications with a passing AI score, or promoted by GovNERDs, go to Final Review.

    • Final Reviewers may request DAB feedback for technical context.
      Final Reviewers may request changes or more information to better align the Application with S8 Intent.

    • Applications are approved by a simple majority (3/4) of Final Reviewers.

    • Grants are awarded if enough budget remains.

    • Final Reviewers must flag cases where AI filtering criteria should be updated, based on their experience and GovNERDs’ recommendations.

    • If no single Application fits the remaining budget, GC may choose to return funds to governance.

Cycle Timeline (Suggested)

  • Submission Intake – 5 days

  • GovNERDs Buffer – 1 day

  • Ops Sync – 1 day

  • Final Review – 5 days

  • Final Decision + Buffer – 2 days

  • Ops Wrap-up – 1 day

Workflow Management

  • Ops will export all relevant data to spreadsheets from the application platform.

  • GovNERDs and Final Reviewers will work in dedicated sheets provided by Ops.
    Ops must:

    • Maintain and communicate the status of workspaces

    • Send periodic progress reports to all Council members

    • Ensure timely completion of tasks by issuing reminders to GovNERDs and Final Reviewers, and reporting any delays to the Lead

  • Once the platform adds relevant features, all tasks will move into the same platform.

Internal Consensus and Voting

  • All Council decisions require simple majority.

  • The Lead breaks ties if needed.
    Quorum = 3 out of 4 Final Reviewers voting.

  • Members with a conflict of interest must:

    • Clearly declare it

    • Automatically be marked as abstaining (but still counted toward quorum)

  • Ops may vote only on procedure/operations-related matters.

  • The Lead breaks ties on votes involving Final Reviewers and Council-wide decisions, unless otherwise specified.

Change Process

  • The Council may review and propose improvements to the IOPs each cycle.

  • Amendments require a simple majority vote.

  • All changes must be recorded as comments on this post.

  • Unless urgent, amendments should take effect starting the next Cycle.

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