We are excited to announce that the Grants Council has opened proposals for Season 4.
Season 4 will consist of three Cycles (13-15). This post will cover some basic details and discuss some improvements relative to Season 3.
The primary location to follow the Council’s activities, to submit forms, and to track proposals will be the Council’s landing page. The Season 4 Landing Page can be found here. Note that the Season 3 page has been deprecated and will exist as an archive.
Proposers should log in to CharmVerse here and then navigate to the proposals page to submit proposals. Proposers can see the Season 4 calendar here. For a step-by-step guide to submitting a proposal, please review this page. Proposals can be submitted for Cycle 13 through June 22 at 19:00 GMT.
For proposers, there are three tracks to consider: Builders, Experiments, and Requests for Grants (RFGs).
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Builders: these grants are intended to maximize the number of builders (developers and visionaries) building novel applications on Optimism. Novel applications are a focus for the Council’s intent this season and the proposal forms are designed to elicit information that will help reviewers determine to what degree the proposer is building a project that furthers the Builders mission. You can learn more about the Builders Sub-Committee here.
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Experiments: these grants are intended to maximize the adoption of (a) novel applications and (b) tangible use cases on Optimism. Experiments grants are designed to reach end users and are not intended for the use of the proposer. The proposal forms are designed to elicit information that shows how the proposers project and plan for implementation will extend the reach of the Optimism ecosystem and enhance the adoption of novel and useful applications. You can learn more about the Experiments Sub-Committee here.
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Requests for Grants (RFGs): these grants represent a transitional moment. Often grants programs are designed to satisfy supply-based grants. Supply-based granting is implemented by providing grants to those grantees who show up. RFGs endeavor to create demand-based granting. The RFG track will focus on determining the needs of the Optimism ecosystem and issue requests for teams to submit proposals that solve problems that have the highest demand. To that end, the Council will issue requests in each cycle. Each request will specify what the Council seeks, how to submit a proposal for the request, and how the proposals will be assessed. The draft procedures for the RFG process can be found here and may be updated over the course of the coming week.
This Season has some new processes.
First, we are thrilled that Syndicate has created a mechanism for the community to provide co-grants for Builders and RFG grants that enable proposers who have limited up-front funding to access community grants of USDC up-front. While this process is not managed by the Grants Council, the Council is thrilled that nearly $100k has already been made available through community donations. You can learn more about the co-granting process here.
Second, the Grants Council has migrated its landing page and proposal submissions process to CharmVerse. This was based on consistent integration issues with the Governance Forum. The Council is endeavoring to ensure that the proposals made on CharmVerse will be replicated on the Forum. However, the community should post comments on CharmVerse. This decision was made by the Grants Council operations manager (@Gonna.eth). You can read about the process he followed to make the decision here. Note that CharmVerse was a recipient of a grant in Season 3.
Third, the Grants Council has three new roles: Communications Lead, Operations Lead, and RFG Lead. The Council is excited to announce the roles as follows:
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Communications Lead: @katie
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Operations Lead: @Gonna.eth
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RFG Lead: @jackanorak
You can expect to hear more from each of them this Season and you can find more about the roles here.
Over the next week, the Grants Council will finalize the Cycle 13 rubrics, vote on the Internal Operating Procedures, and finalize the Cycle 13 RFG procedures (including the publication of the initial slate of RFGs). Please follow the Latest News. If you have questions or comments, feel free to comment here, on Discord, or email grants@optimism.io.
The Grants Council looks forward to reviewing this Season’s proposals and moving the field of community grants forward.
. I hope velodrome and lyra get a good refill 