I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to the Foundation and all the Grants Council members for their hard work and dedication this season. A special mention goes to @Bunnic, who, despite not being an elected member, stepped up to support me in operations. His outstanding work ensured everything ran smoothly, and he did so without incurring additional expenses to the governance fund, as I allocated a portion of the lead budget to him. Thank you, Bunnic, and the entire team, for making this season a success!
Assessment of Impact KPIs
- Builder Experience KPIs:
- NPS of finalists > 9/10: Achieved an impressive score of 91.7, demonstrating high satisfaction among finalists and meeting the KPI.
- Quality applicants unable to be supported (<5%): Out of 344 total applications, only 3 required Foundation intervention. This represents less than 1%, successfully meeting the KPI.
- Grant Performance KPIs:
- Intent 1: Commit 5% increase in votable supply:
- Granted 289,999 OP, 90% of which is locked for one year. Quality projects like Herotudus, Aragon, and Gitcoin provide confidence in achieving a 5% increase in votable supply over the next 12 months.
- Intent 3: Increase active developers by 150:
- Metrics introduced in Season 6 (e.g., active addresses, gas fees generated) will track progress. With 122 applications approved, achieving this milestone seems realistic, pending reports.
- Launch 5 OP Chain grant programs:
- Over 15 grant programs were approved, significantly exceeding the target.
- Clawbacks for milestone failures <5%:
- Clawbacks occur in subsequent seasons. Historically, clawbacks have been below 5%, and this season is expected to follow suit.
Key numbers
Applications:
- Total Apps: 344
- Total Apps Passed to Prelim: 290
- Total Apps Passed to Final: 258
- Total Apps Approved: 122
S6 Budget
- Intent 1: 500,000 OP
- Intent 3A: 6,000,000 OP
- Intent 3B: 12,000,000 OP
S6 Allocations
- Intent 1: 289,999 OP
- Intent 3A: 4,055,176 OP
- Intent 3B: 11,950,000 OP
Total returned to the Gov Fund: 2,204,824 OP
Major Problems and Proposed Solutions
1. Tight Timeline Between Elections and Grant Submissions
- Problem: The rushed transition from nominee elections to the start of the first Cycle left inadequate time for preparing forms, rubrics, and QA processes. This resulted in errors that had to be fixed manually during live operations, increasing stress and inefficiencies.
- Solution: Establish a task force immediately in grants council S7 budget approval to handle forms and rubric creation, ensuring enough time for feedback and QA.
2. Scoped Mission Requests (MRs)
- Problem: While scoped MRs improved the quality of applications, they excluded potential applicants whose projects didn’t align with the MR scope. This created frustration and reduced overall participation in creative solutions.
- Solution: Introduce a “General Innovation” MR to allow projects that don’t fit scoped MRs but still align with ecosystem goals.
3. Budget Stagnation for Certain MRs
- Problem: Some approved MRs had no strong applicants throughout the season, leading to unused OP. We observe 8 MRs for a total of 600.000 OP unused.
- Solution: Introduce a budget reallocation mechanism independent from TH. If an MR remains inactive for a specific period, its budget can be reassigned to active MRs like audits if the demand is there.
4. Audit Challenges
- Problem: The demand for audits exceeded available funding by nearly 1M OP. Additionally, the audit review process required significant time and effort, creating bottlenecks.
- Solution: Position audit grants as partial subsidies rather than full funding to manage expectations and stretch the budget further. Adjust future budgets to better accommodate audit demand based on historical data.
- S7 design suggestion: The Grants Council can handle submission and operations and coordinate reviews and scoring with DAB. (no more audits subcommittee)
5. Developer Awareness Gap
- Problem: Many developers were unaware of the Grants Council or how to engage with the program. This likely limited the number of high-quality applicants, particularly in newer or underserved segments of the ecosystem.
- Solution: Recruit a business development professional to increase awareness and engagement with the Grants Council. Promote the program through developer-focused events, partnerships, and direct outreach.
6. Different Objectives Across Mission Requests
- Problem: The presence of over 22 mission requests with different objectives caused confusion for applicants, many of whom found it difficult to navigate the process or identify the right MR for their projects.
- Solution: Streamline and unify MR objectives, consolidating them into broader, measurable intents. Provide clearer communication and guidance to applicants to help them understand how their projects align with these objectives.
- Lack of Unified Intent Across Key Actors:
- Problem: One of the most significant challenges was the misalignment of intents and priorities between multiple actors, including OP Labs, the Foundation, and the Collective. Each actor had slightly different visions and expectations, making it difficult to establish clear, cohesive objectives. This lack of unified intent not only created confusion in defining KPIs but also introduced inefficiencies in coordinating efforts, particularly when it came to evaluating and prioritizing grants. As a result, some opportunities were either delayed or missed entirely, and there was additional friction in aligning budget allocation strategies.
- Solution: Facilitate a pre-season alignment workshop with representatives from OP Labs, the Foundation, and the Collective to ensure shared goals and priorities. Clearly define and document common objectives in a collaborative charter that can guide the Grants Council throughout the season. Establish regular cross-actor check-ins to assess progress toward these unified goals and address discrepancies before they escalate.
Improvements to the Grants Council for Next Season
1. Include Business Development (BD) as a Core Component
2. Streamline the Mission Request Process
- Problem: Mission Requests (MRs) were overly complex, leading to confusion among applicants and some inefficiencies within the council.
- Improvement:
- Prepare a larger pool of predesigned, high-quality MRs before the season starts, with clear goals and guidelines for applicants.
- Introduce a hybrid MR model where budgets can be either fully allocated for applicants or partially available for standard initiatives aligned to S7 Intent.
- Simplify the application process further to make it more intuitive for participants, particularly for protocols unfamiliar with governance.
3. Incorporate a Tiered Reviewer System
- Problem: Reviewer expertise varied, leading to potential mismatches in the evaluation of applications.
- Possible Improvement:
- Establish Tier 1 reviewers (experts) for highly technical evaluations and Tier 2 reviewers (generalists) for broader application reviews.
- Focus expertise on Mission Requests requiring deep technical understanding, such as DeFi or Superchain integrations.
4. Reduce the Number of Team Members
- Problem: Leading 18 members was highly complex and required major discipline to keep processes running smoothly, often stretching coordination and management capacity.
- Improvement: Reduce the number of Grants Council members to a more manageable size, allowing for streamlined operations, clearer communication, and better accountability. A smaller team can focus on specialized roles, such as business development, mission request design, and grant evaluation, without overcomplicating workflows.
5. Elect Operations Roles as a Single Team
- Problem: Currently, lead and operational roles are elected separately, which can lead to misaligned responsibilities and inefficiencies in ensuring the Grants Council runs smoothly.
- Improvement: The Grants Council budget should include the election of a unified operations team, consisting of a Lead, an Operations Coordinator, and a Milestone and Metrics Lead if these roles are part of the council. These roles should be elected as one team in the budget, with a shared mandate to ensure proper functionality and accountability for the Grants Council. Reviewers can still be elected by the Token House, but the operational team needs cohesive leadership to manage the council effectively.
Improvements to the Grants Council mandate
- Problem: The lack of a clear and simple metric for the Grants Council mandate made it challenging to align efforts and measure success effectively. Ambiguous goals, such as “driving developers to the ecosystem,” were difficult to quantify and rally the team behind.
- Improvement: Define a single, measurable, and on-chain metric for the Grants Council mandate. This metric should provide a clear path for decision-making and success evaluation, such as the number of active contracts deployed, unique developer addresses interacting with Optimism, or cumulative gas fees generated by funded projects. This will focus the council’s efforts and ensure alignment across all members.