Overall, Aave Grants is a force for good in the Aave ecosystem.
That being said - I would propose some changes/have some questions for this proposal.
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$150/hr is a lot of money for reviewers imo - even if capped at 10 hrs/week. I’d suggest potentially reviewing this as it seems like excessive cost (even though I agree Reviewers do great work).
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The spend over the course of the previous proposal shows that a good deal more was spent on Events than Grants. Noted that this time youre proposing about 1mill for events vs 1.5 for grants - but this is still a hell of a lot of money spent on events which could have huge leverage if redirected to grants. If you think about this cost in terms of contributors the DAO could hire a large number of great personnel within that cost range. For a grantsDAO this feels problematic, especially at a time when so much could be done to work on things like GHO. Here your idea on subDAOs seems good and I dont think it should be held until later. Ideally events and merch would not be a direct mandate of GrantsDAO and would instead be its own subDAO with its own budget so there is more transparency and the DAO has more control over spending here. Im a fan of the merch and events and think they have a positive impact for Aave, however the current setup doesnt seem like the most cost effective or reasonable way to achieve this positive impact. @MarcZeller mentioned something along these lines here and received support.
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On increasing independence - we should see a timeline here and key metrics. Current and previous spend on AC team attendance + an actual plan to change this over time and by when, if that’s what is desired as is stated "Over time, AGD will look to take over these roles while executing at the same high standard.” Would be great to see KPIs here like you have in other areas.
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I am wondering on Events and Sponsorship budget - where does merch fit into this? is it in the Events Sponsorship section? and where are travel/accomodation/booth etc costs fitting in?
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On the overall breakdown "a Grants Budget (44.6%), an Events & Sponsorship Budget (35.0%), and an Operations Budget (20.4%).” is this a % breakdown based on the new budget ask? or does it also include money left over from last agreement. ie. are these %s of AGD total budget after approval of this, or are they %s of what is asked for now only (ignoring leftover money).
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The KPIs seem slightly weak in general regarding both grants and events and merch. It would be good to have outlined how realistic they are based on past performance, and also to have some indication as to what it means if they aren’t hit. I guess it will impact renewal, but itd be good to have some skin in the game on these KPIs.
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At a time when all service providers are receiving much lower pay than they used to from the DAO when they renew, I think it is also worth considering reducing the budget here to help maintain the sustainability of the DAO.
Overall supportive of what AGD has been doing. Bill is great and so is everyone I know who works for AGD. Some good ideas in here - legal entity and subDAOs for example! But would be interested in answers/responses to the above to inform my opinion as to whether to support the proposal in its current form or not!