[TEMP CHECK] Aave Grants Continuation Proposal

[0xbilll]

Thanks for the feedback @eboado and @MarcZeller. I’ll outline two major changes AGD will make to this proposal and then address the more pointed questions and feedback.

Events Separation

After speaking with @AaveLabs - they are okay to move forward with a proposal covering the work outlined under the Events & Sponsorship Budget and beyond. As such, we will remove this from the scope of this proposal and AGD will only focus on the activities outlined under the Grants Budget.

This will remove the Events & Sponsorship Budget ask from the proposal. We will also reallocate the Digital Marketing spend that was proposed to be carried forward.

@TokenLogic - AGD will switch the AAVE portion of funding to stables to be in line with some other Service Providers. We agree supporting GHO’s price stability is important and will pledge to convert a portion of the stables holdings to GHO as mentioned. We appreciate your overall support for AGD and look forward to collaborating more in the future.

Based on the above, the new ask for this proposal is:

• $400k in ARB
• $328k increase in stablecoin allowance

Refocus Grants Funding & Introduce $20k Max Grant Size

Given the market conditions and feedback, lower grant sizes makes sense. This is something that has already been reflected in AGD’s activity as the average grant size awarded so far in 2023 is 52.8% lower than the average grant size awarded during 2022. This shift can be made more explicit by introducing a new $20k max grant size for all grants. AGD will double down on supporting thousands of new teams and developers to build on top of Aave and GHO by helping to kickstart their growth with small grants.

@eboado

Giving precedents, personally, I’m not really willing to participate with the current leadership, no matter the framework.

I’m sorry to hear that it’ll be difficult for you to work with me in the future. I hope the continued success of AGD will change your mind and we can still maintain a working relationship.

@eboado

Related to the previous, and regarding the point on the proposal of exploring RFPs, again, this is not and should not be the mandate of AGD. A grants committee does not have enough expertise to decide on RFPs at scale. This will degenerate into asking other contributors (like myself, which already happened) to participate in it, which will make the role of AGD completely useless in those regards.

It’s important to note that Request for Grants is meant to be more general and focused on higher level areas and impacts AGD is interested in. The idea is to balance giving direction to builders (e.g. apps driving GHO demand) with ensuring the team is still in full control of the vision and creativity behind the project.

We did reach out to other Service Providers for input. We don’t agree with the negative perspective surrounding engaging with other Service Providers, and believe collaboration with other teams is beneficial for all. If it is a personal concern relating to myself, perhaps we can have a different point of contact for AGD and BGD.

@eboado

Arguably, one of the most important benefits to grantees is the exposure Aave provides, in some cases, pretty certainly more than the monetary grant itself. What is the strategy for this at the moment?

Currently, we help grantees amplify their messaging or updates on social media (X, Lens, Mirror, Substack) and host Spaces/AMAs to engage with the Aave ecosystem around large updates from grantees. AGD also empowers grantees to leverage the “Aave Grantee” brand and funding as a stamp of approval to increase their reputation.

More can always be done to support the exposure and distribution of different grants we award and is something we will continue exploring.

@eboado

The ask for a quite important sum on ARB and OP tokens raises the question, what exactly is gonna be the focus on that specific side? From my perspective, it feels totally arbitrary.

We are open to receiving funding exclusively in stables or other tokens. The reason we proposed ARB is that AGD was mentioned multiple times in the conversation around how the Aave DAO should deploy the ARB and is in line with the community’s preference to use the ARB in multiple ways.

The OP was received based on an application that was made to Optimism and outlined spending the OP to grow the Aave Optimism ecosystem.

@eboado

Regarding the legal entity formation, who took this decision? Who is personally managing it? Which implications this has for the DAO in all senses?

Being able to interact with the real world is only one of the motivations behind establishing an entity. The main thing is having legal protections and clarity for contributors. The legal entity itself was mentioned and included as an explicit budget item in our last proposal.

If there is demand from the community to have a say into operational decisions of AGD then we can clearly outline all the information and present it on the forum in a separate proposal and let the community make the decision via Snapshot.

@MarcZeller

The “Award a minimum” approach is problematic. Quality should always supersede quantity. If there aren’t enough quality grant applications, it’s better to carry forward the budget rather than spend it for the sake of spending. The mindset of “spend this budget or risk a reduced budget next quarter” is detrimental and the reason why most governments are deep in debt.

We agree that quality is more important than quantity. AGD certainly did not fall victim to the mindset of “spend this budget or risk a reduced budget next quarter” as we presented this proposal with a large surplus compared to what was previously budgeted. That said, we can understand the concern and although it is not how the KPIs were envisioned we will remove these KPIs from the proposal.

@MarcZeller

budget proposal in the realms of what is currently proposed

I want to clarify that based on my experience, I would expect a new budget proposal from @AaveLabs to be larger than what is outlined in the Events & Sponsorships Budget. Historically, AGD has likely underpaid based on the quality of work received. I believe providing fair compensation for the work is part of the desire behind this change.

[AndrewA]

@eboado

I would say the problem is for Llama to agree on “collaborating” with a grantee when there was a paid mandate from the Aave DAO for them to do the same.

Just to clarify, I don’t think there’s a fault here. It’s still my understanding that the direction @MatthewGraham and @Dydymoon are taking things is not the exact same direction that @XenophonLabs wants to take things. So from my perspective, it wasn’t funding the same work. It’s funding competing ideas that impact the same Staking Module.

I just don’t want to see a world where “Provider A” has full authority on “Module X”, and funding for “Provider B” isn’t allowed to allocated to an idea that impacts “Module X” because it would challenge “Provider A”. This is what I’m pushing back on. Nothing else.

The context I provided in my prior reply was to illustrate how difficult it can be to determine what is duplicating work vs. not.

[MarcZeller]

Hello, the ACI has no additional remarks or concerns with the AGD proposal in its current state and will support the proposal.

I look forward to continuing working with AGD.

[0xbilll]

Thanks Marc. AGD will share an updated post on the forum and move to Snapshot.