[Mission Request] Analysis of Grant Programs

Governance Fund Missions 🏹
1

Delegate Mission Request Summary:

Conduct a comprehensive analysis of different grant programs and their failure modes to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of future grant cycles, especially as Superchain participants begin their own grant programs.

S6 Intent:

Intent 1: Progress Towards Decentralization

Proposing Delegate/Citizen:

Brichis

Total grant amount:

10,000 OP

Should this Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants:

By one applicant

How will this Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

This mission request will directly support the Progress Towards Decentralization (Token House governance) intent by conducting a comprehensive analysis of past grant programs and their failure modes. The insights will be a valuable tool for the Grants Council and documented in the Collective DAO Archives, supporting long-term decentralization and robust governance. Additionally, this mission will be especially useful as Superchain participants start their own grant programs, ensuring they can learn from past experiences and avoid common pitfalls.

What is required to execute this Mission Request?

  1. Define the scope and objectives of the research:
  • Set clear goals and outcomes for the analysis.
  1. Data collection and analysis:
  • Gather data on various grant programs, including successes and failures.
  • Conduct interviews with grant recipients and program administrators.
  1. Case studies:
  • Develop in-depth case studies to highlight specific examples.
  1. Framework for evaluation:
  • Create a framework for evaluating the effectiveness of grant programs.
  1. Report and recommendations:
  • Compile findings into a comprehensive report.
  1. Presentation and dissemination:
  • Present findings to the Collective.
  • Create accessible summary materials.

How should governance participants measure impact upon completion of this Mission Request?

Governance participants can measure the impact of this mission request by tracking the following metrics:

Quantitative Metrics:

  • Number of grant programs analyzed and documented.
  • Number of case studies conducted.
    Qualitative Metrics:
  • Identification and documentation of failure modes in different grant programs from DAOs considered in the Collective DAO Archives.
  • Feedback from stakeholders (such as grant applicants, Grants Council members) on the usefulness of the analysis.
  • Integration into the Collective DAO Archives.

Milestones:

  1. Initial Research Phase:
  • Complete literature review and data collection
  1. Case Study Analysis:
  • Analyze and develop case studies
  1. Framework Development:
  • Develop evaluation framework
  1. Final Report and Presentation:
  • Compile findings and present to relevant parties

Metrics:

  • Number of grant programs analyzed.
  • Number of case studies conducted.

Impact:

This mission request will positively impact the Collective’s governance decentralization by providing a thorough understanding of past grant programs’ failure modes. This will lead to more effective and efficient future grant allocations, ensuring sustainable growth of the Superchain. Additionally, it will serve as a complementary document for the Collective DAO Archives.

Has anyone other than the proposer contributed to this Mission Request?

@olaolapaola

Which metric will the success of this Mission Request be evaluated against?

The North star metric against which this Mission Request should be evaluated is total amount of OP delegated from new addresses using the grantee’s protocol, as it helps assess the aggregated effect that this initiative has on the total votable supply. This metric was suggested by the Foundation and approved by the Grants Council.

6 Likes
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This sounds like a really good Mission, there is already a lot of good work to build on top of with rich study cases such as:

  1. The State of Web3 Grants by Eugene and Mashal (and there’s a v2 in the works)
  2. Grant Maturity Index by the Grant Innovation Lab
  3. This report by Fracton which focuses on the quant side

I believe there will be plenty of very qualified teams with a good background that will be able to apply to fulfill this mission, I would therefore highly encourage the Grants Council to ensure that one of the main differentiators in proposals focuses on the deliverables being very oriented to the needs of the Chains in the Superchain, and for the needs required for a multichain Grants Program to succeed.

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Would also propose outputs like the the work I did for S5R2 into the mix. Some people are more visual and its easy to spot trends with data vis like this.

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A North Star Metric has been added at the bottom of this Mission Request in an effort to enable the Collective to make data-driven decisions. By using a single metric for each Mission Request, the Collective is better able to evaluate the performance of all the Season 6 missions in a standardized manner, which will be critical when the Collective makes decisions about Intents, budgets, or other critical components of governance.

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I would like some clarification on the scope of the [Mission Request] for the Analysis of Grant Programs.

The mission entails conducting a comprehensive analysis of various grant programs and their associated failure modes to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of future grant cycles. However, I am uncertain about the specific focus of this analysis and would appreciate some guidance on the following points:

  1. Analysis of Protocol-Specific Grants: Should the analysis concentrate on protocols that have received grants from Optimism and subsequently distributed those tokens through their own grant initiatives? For instance, if a protocol received 100K OP as a grant and then implemented its own grant program, should we assess the success and failure of these secondary grant distributions under the overarching framework of Optimism’s initial grant?

  2. Broader Ecosystem Grant Programs: Alternatively, should the analysis focus on the primary grant programs by different ecosystems(other L2s/L1s) and their failure modes to enhance the effectiveness and sustainability of future grant cycles? This would involve evaluating broader grant programs across various ecosystems and identifying their respective successes and failures.

Gaining clarity on this matter will help us in our decision to apply to fulfil this mission request.

Thank you for your assistance.

1 Like
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Assessing the secondary distribution sounds great.

It will enhance your chances of getting the grant.

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GM @ARDev097! The original idea I had was to include primary grant programs from different ecosystems in the Collective DAO Archives, making it a useful tool for Superchain participants to create their own grant programs. However, after reading your comment and considering Gonna’s interest, I think it would be great to also analyze the secondary grant distributions of the Superchain Grant Programs. It’s up to you, but I agree that this addition could make your application more valuable. Thanks for your interest on this Mission! :sparkles:

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Hi,

This North Star is also really confusing in relation to this proposal, I understand our goal to simplify how we generate quantitative data that can lead us to understand if the Mission Requests being executed are efficient and a better way to deploy funds to achieve a joint goal.

I do wonder though, which metrics should applicants be looking at and optimizing for in these instances where we have such divergent goals as here:

Should they optimize for the metrics listed in the Mission Request? Or should they optimize for “total amount of OP delegated from new addresses using the grantee’s protocol”.

Will an applicant be “punished” for not meeting the later introduced North Star metric?

I know we’re learning and I strongly support standardization of data generation, I think for this one we’re not aligning to the right incentives of what was aimed for with the Mission Request and if do have a punitive behavior towards those applying to execute it or the creators of the Mission Request then we’re setting a bad precedent. I would therefore suggest we, as mentioned, consider the timing for future enforcement of North Star metrics to Requests in the future and be lenient to Missions suggested this Season.

2 Likes
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Thanks for your thoughtful feedback! To clarify this right away — applicants will continue to be evaluated based on the completion of their defined milestones, as has been the case in the past, and the North Star metrics will have no bearing on that process. Instead, the main purpose of this metrics framework is to analyze the grants program as a whole and to get a better sense of whether OP is generally being granted for initiatives that generate impact.

As a result, the North Star metric should not be viewed as a singular end-all and be-all for evaluating this Mission Request, but rather as a crude barometer of the impact that this Mission Request generates toward the Intent-level goals. Therefore, while we’re still bootstrapping the data infrastructure needed to accomplish this goal, the collected data will simply be available for informational purposes and to help foster greater transparency around certain decisions.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, this means that applicants won’t be penalized for failing to move the needle on the assigned North Star metrics in Season 6. This Season should serve as a testing ground for applying the metrics framework to hopefully pave the way for a more integrated approach to evaluating the aggregated impact of our grants program in Season 7.

2 Likes
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I have applied for this mission CharmVerse - The Network for Onchain Communities.

Here is my preliminary literature review

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1 Like