Missions
Season 4 aligns the entire community around Collective Intents. All work supported or executed by the Collective should be in pursuit of our Collective Intents.
This is a simple concept, but it is distinct from the way work is supported and executed in most DAOs. The Season 4 structure is designed very intentionally, based on our research, to avoid some common challenges faced by other daos. These challenges usually relate to a structure wherein working groups resembling persistent business units are individually funded for an indefinite period of time. Individual budgets are allocated out of an unscoped treasury and consolidate into an overall budget that is unsustainable and tends to overfund non-core work and underfund strategic work (see slide 8).
As an alternative to the traditional working group structure, Season 4 introduces Token House Missions, to support specific initiatives aligned with our Intents.
What is a Mission?
Missions are specific initiatives aimed at achieving one of the Intents. They are tightly scoped to be accomplished start-to-finish by the end of the period (in this case Season 4).
Missions request support for a specific initiative to be executed by a set of contributors rather than requesting support for a group of contributors with a vague scope of work.
For example:
“Upgrade OP Mainnet to the Bedrock Release” NOT “Fund developers for the next 3 months”
There are two types of Missions:
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Proposed Missions must be submitted under an Intent. Each Intent will be equipped with its own budget. The Token House will then approval rank Proposed Missions until the budget for each Intent is fully allocated. This creates a prioritization mechanism for the initiatives most strategically aligned with each Intent. More details below.
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Alliances can also apply to accept Foundation Missions (RFPs), which must also be published under an Intent. Foundation Missions are pre-specified by the Foundation and are akin to transparent Requests for Proposals. Foundation Missions are supported by the Partner Fund and not budgeted from the Governance Fund. As currently occurs with the Partner Fund, the Foundation will select which proposals are selected to complete each Foundation Mission. While the Token House will not vote on Foundation Missions, the Token House will have visibility into all Foundation Mission (RFP) applications. You can see Foundation Missions (RFPs) here. More Foundation Missions (RPFs) will be added before the start of Season 4. More details below.
Who Executes a Mission?
Missions are executed by Alliances, groups of contributors that temporarily work together to accomplish a Mission. Alliances may be external organizations or groups of internal contributors. We may host a process to help facilitate the formation of internal Alliances. Alliances may only propose Missions or apply to accept Foundation Missions (RFPs) at their corresponding Collective Trust Tier. If an Alliance is comprised of individual contributors tiers, the Tier at which that Alliance may submit should be the Tier at which the Alliance Lead qualifies. Due to their narrow and specific scope, Alliances may wish to submit multiple Mission proposals. Alliances may submit a maximum of three Mission proposals per period. You can read more about forming an Alliance here.
How do I Apply to Accept a Foundation Mission?
If you’re interested in applying to accept a Foundation Mission, you may do so by:
- Submitting your Foundation Mission application on github by the end of the relevant Voting Cycle’s review period. Please note that Alliances may only apply to accept Foundation Missions at their corresponding Collective Trust Tier.
- In Season 4, the deadline to submit Foundation Mission applications is June 28th at 19:00 GMT.
- The Foundation will aim to announce the selected proposal by the end of that Voting Cycle’s voting period. An Alliance may be selected for up to three Foundation Missions at a time.
The Foundation may create Foundation Missions at the start of any Voting Cycle since their budgets does not need to be approved by governance.
How do I Propose My Own Mission?
Alliances are encouraged to submit their own Mission proposals. Proposing a Mission allows Alliances to suggest initiatives they believe will best accomplish the Intents. Please note that Alliances may only propose Missions at their corresponding Collective Trust Tier.
If you’re interested in proposing Mission, you may do so by:
- Posting a completed Mission Proposal to the Forum:
- Please be as specific as possible in defining your measures of success and KPIs so that Token House delegates can accurately measure your progress and Citizens’ House badgeholders can accurately measure the grant’s impact.
- Please note all Mission grants will need to identify critical milestones. If a grant recipient fails to meet a pre-defined critical milestone, they may be subject to the grant clawback outlined in the Operating Manual.
- In Season 4, Missions should be completed by the end of the Season (i.e. marked as
done). If continued in the future, this process will occur alongside RetroPGF rounds and may fund Missions for longer periods of time. Voting Cycles and Seasons will continue at their regular frequency.- Each Mission proposal will require 4 delegate approvals to be considered valid. If delegates do not believe a proposal works towards the specified Intent, they should not approve it.
- Valid Mission Proposals will be added to a Voting Roundup under the appropriate Intent by the end of the relevant Voting Cycle’s review period. In Season 4, this will be June 21st at 19:00 GMT and must recieve 4 delegate approvals by June 28th at 19:00 GMT.
- The Token House will then vote to approval rank Proposed Missions under each Intent until the budget for that Intent is fully allocated.
How Do Proposed Missions Get Approved?
Proposed Missions are supported by Intent Budgets (which come out of the Governance Fund. Proposed Missions under each Intent will be approval ranked by the Token House following the process outlined below:
1.) The Token House will vote to approve Intent Budget Proposals for each Intent
2.) Alliances can propose Missions, to be funded out of the budget for each Intent
3.) The Token House will approval rank the Proposed Mission under each Intent until the approved budget is depleted. Only the top ranked Missions that fit within the Intent Budget will be approved. If a Mission would push the Intent Budget over the approved amount, it will not be included. Any Intent Budgets left over will be returned to the Governance Fund.
All Missions should specify a baseline reward amount required to execute the Mission. All Missions will be assessed for retroactive rewards, via RetroPGF, at the end of the Season. Missions with an impact that exceeds their baseline grant are strong candidates for RetroPGF, thus incentivizing execution to maximize impact. Over time, the proportion of baseline grant to retroactive rewards should shift towards RetroPGF until everything is funded by RetroPGF. All approved Missions that receive RetroPGF for their impact will also receive an Attestation.
This process is designed to prioritize work and incentivize execution, which are common challenges in many DAOs.
All grant recipients are subject to the Code of Conduct and must KYC with the Foundation to receive rewards (as with all grants).
What about the Access to Upfront Capital?
Mission grants are awarded in the form of OP governance tokens. These tokens will be locked for a period of one year (similar to Grants Council builder grants). We understand this presents some limitations and we’re excited to pilot two initiatives to increase access to upfront capital in Season 4!
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Co-granting contracts by Syndicate: Syndicate matching contracts allow investors and/or community members to contribute USDC to automatically match Grants Councils grants.
All grant recipients in these categories will receive a pro-rata portion of the matched capital once grants are approved. Co-grantors will receive a co-grantor NFT as well as an Optimism Attestation for provisioning upfront capital. Read about the additional benefits of co-granting here.
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Small Cash Grants (<10k USDC) :
- Promising builder grants may be by considered for a small upfront cash grant to support their Mission. Interested builders can indicate their interest on their Mission proposal or application. There is no guarantee that any Mission will receive a cash grant.
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Pilot of RetroPGF Investment
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There are a number of investors interested in supporting projects across the Optimism Ecosystem. These investors are interested in two types of projects:
- Projects that plan to become revenue-generating businesses.
- Projects that believe they will be included in the next round of Optimism RetroPGF. Receipt of a RetroPGF grant is not guaranteed as RetroPGF grants are subject to badeholder voting on behalf of the Citizens’ House.
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Approved Missions will be eligible to apply for investment from this pilot set of investors.
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This means reward distribution for select Missions may look something like the below (illustrative only):
What Does This Mean for Delegates?
Delegates will vote on Proposed Missions for each Intent during Voting Cycle #13.