Financial Proposal: ESD S1 Budget Request for Continuous Funding of Existing AN_DAO Initiatives

1. Summary: Current Initiative Funding

The Executive Sub DAO (ESD) requests funding according to section 5 (5) (e) Aragon Network Charter of 440k USD equivalent to bootstrap AN DAO current initiatives from April 1 2022 until 31 July 2022.

This proposal sets out fixed funding so that the ESD can more effectively execute the powers as granted by section 6 (2) (a) of the Aragon Network Charter:

1. Pay members of other Sub-DAOs
2. Make grants to other community members at their discretion, providing;

• such transactions are disclosed transparently on the Aragon Forum website.
• an Escrow is used to hold funds until the completion of the agreed-upon deliverable.
• the deliverable has been fully assessed by the members of the ESD
• the funds are used grow and maintain the Aragon Network

1. Pay suppliers of the Aragon network, providing such transactions are disclosed transparently on the Aragon Forum.

This financial proposal is in addition to

• ESD S1 Budget Request for Discretionary Funding of New Initiatives 2
• ESD S1 Budget Request for Discretionary, Strategic Funding
• Unallocated funds Q1 of ~ 60k USDC equivalent

These proposals should be read in conjunction with the ESD End of Season Report March 2022 1 which highlights that the ESD needs to increase transparency, ensure our own accountability and improve community engagement. To this purpose the following ESD statements are provided to support all three current proposals

• S1 Funding Allocation Process & Reporting
• S1 Aragon Scout Program 1 (subject to budget approval)

2. Situation/Rationale

Season 0: our funding request strategy was very much about supporting mission-critical operations and contributor activities under progress since DAO formation. We funded projects on a first come first served basis in order to secure the talent of key contributors - provided proposals defined clear deliverables and timelines. Through this process and thanks to the sterling and committed efforts of core and community contributors, a number of initiatives were funded. Reported here 1 Tracked here
1

Season 1: We request a budget for continuous funding of dtech, onboarding and education, business development and DAOOps. This funding would enable the expansion of teams and their remit as they move towards establishing guilds. These teams are expected to make funding proposals directly to the Main DAO for the next funding cycle.

While this funding request is based on the above forecast/estimates for existing initiatives, funding does NOT automatically rollover. Past deliverables, as well as new scope and objectives, will be assessed, before decision to further fund.

We will also consider alternative proposals from other teams to pick up actionable workstreams, if they can make their case. Zero funds have been allocated, all S1 activity will need to undertake the ESD funding request process in order to receive ESD funding.

3. What impact will this project have?

Core Operations & Community: We believe that funding the Executive SubDAO supports the ongoing operations of the AN DAO community. Approval of this budget request is another step towards growing a community that will set a global leadership example for the effectiveness of the Aragon DAO tech stack. We can achieve global leadership through our community by securing and retaining key talent.

Continuous funding is allocated using the standards set out in the Aragon Network Charter and the S1 funding strategy to boostrap proposals that we believe will ultimately

1. grow the number of active Aragon DAO and
2. support the overall purpose of the Aragon DAO defined in the Aragon Network Charter

ESD Team Members(s) @lee0007 @fartunov @daniel-ospina
ESD Discord: tag @Executive Sub-DAO members or danielo#2815 | Ivan | AN#6678 | lee0007#8152

How will you interface with the community?

• ESD Public Governance Discord for KPI reporting and responding to community inquiry
  ESD Notion ESD meeting agenda and minutes
• End of season forum posts 1 for transparency, visibility and reporting on Exec SubDAO activity and summary KPI’s
• Funding request forum proposal requiring a minimum of 7 days
• Monthly reporting for projects with discretionary funding tied to deliverables
• Monthly Community AMA to provide opportunities for contributors to seek advice on developing new funding proposals

4. Proposal Budget

The ESD has been given substantial power by the Charter which creates the need for strong alignment with and high transparency of spending. We are acutely aware of the need to increase transparency around the governance process and with the support of DAOOps members we look forward to providing increased transparency.

At the same time, we want to balance the speed and impact of capital deployment being robust enough to minimize funding overlaps but nimble enough to scale funding. In terms of spending, there are fundamentally four types of funding; continuous, discretionary, fixed and strategic.

This is a proposal for 440k Continuous funding, 110k per month, currently unallocated but budgeted for based on estimates provided for current operations only, therefore it provides a fixed forecast over four months.

4.1 Full S1 ESD Budget Request

Portion of continuous funds requested in this proposal shown in bold based on 440k

Applied assumptions for continuous funding proposal

• Rational: Streaming of 800k funds to the Main DAO is a primary determinant of the total ESD S1 funding requests.
• Carry Over: Funding beyond 800k accounts for ~60k unallocated funds from Q1 2022 (USDC ANT ETH)
• Continuous: 440k unallocated for current operations.
• Denomination: ANT equivalent values based on current accounting proposal 1
• ANT USDC Allocation: 30:70 ANT: USDC based on current accounting proposal 1

4.2 Payment of Funds

ESD Gnosis Safe: 3/4 0x394Feb37899BB9aF6963B823a2d84668929d59f7

Charter Aragon Governance proposal section 5 (f) 3 a By default, all Financial Proposals involving a deliverable should use an Escrow (see Additional Definitions). In cases where the use of an Escrow is omitted, a justification must be included in the Description. b. Greet.me shall be the default Escrow provider for Financial Proposals.

Justification for Use of Multisig: Our experience in season 0 has highlighted the need for a simplified payment process. There is a technical error that is blocking USDC payments from Govern and for this reason, two multi sigs were used for payments in the last month of season 0.

We herein formalise the use of a multisig in favour of default escrow. We believe this is necessary to effectively function and meet our commitments to contributors in a more timely manner. Once funding is approved by ESD the full funded amount is transferred in a single payment via Govern to the EDS multi-sig. This will significantly reduce the number of monthly transactions and minimise unforeseen issues that have delayed contributor reward payment.

The ESD are committed to upholding

The Aragon Network Agreement | The Aragon Manifesto | The Community Guidelines | Aragon Governance Proposal Process

Voting will be scheduled within 7-14 days of this proposal

ANT holders are asked to vote YES or NO

• YES fund ESD request for 440k continuous funding
• NO do NOT fund ESD request for 440k continuous funding
• ABSTAIN