Catalyst Contributor Treasury
A contributor treasury represents a rapid funding mechanism that is governed by full time contributors along with the wider community
The Catalyst contributor treasury is a way to govern a portion of the Cardano treasury for helping with rapidly deploying funding to where it is needed most in the Catalyst ecosystem.
Usage of funds from the contributor treasury have the same overall goal as the main treasury - producing the most impact possible for the ecosystem and community.
Importance of rapid funding
The proposal process takes 3 months and includes time consuming proposal writing with information needed around planning, auditability, budget, timeline, team and delivery. Proposals that need funds more rapidly that miss this funding window would need to wait another 3 months. Funding as a result can be slow and laborious for many people in the community.
For places where the community agrees there is value and impact being provided the issue of slow fund distribution delays the more immediate benefits of potential support and innovation.
Solving issues around the speed of funding can help make roles or projects more sustainable and lead to allowing them to more easily support and strengthen the ecosystem.
Treasury use cases
The following examples are a starting point to consider and not exhaustive to all the possibilities. Initially the Catalyst contributor treasury could delegate funding to any of the following:
Contributors within the ecosystem for performing high impact roles and tasks.
Local and online events that help drive awareness, education or help bring the community together over given topics and concerns.
Existing projects that need a small amount of extra funding support.
Ongoing initiatives in the community that provide value - e.g. Idea fest or after town hall events.
New small project ideas that have shown evidence they will provide impact or that the community reaches consensus to help support.
Governance using contributors
Full time contributors are the perfect candidates for governing and managing a treasury focussed on faster funding distribution that will help support and grow the ecosystem. Some reasons contributors are suitable include:
High involvement - Being full time maximises the chance that contributors are the most well informed on what is happening in the ecosystem which will help lead to better informed decisions.
Accountability - Full time contributors would be public faces in the community and as such would have accountability towards their involvement of any votes and the information provided that helps govern the decisions made.
High participation - A high number of full time contributors can be supported to work full time in the ecosystem. This high participation helps ensure there is a diverse amount of people involved in supporting the management of the treasury.
Community participation - Full time contributors can help involve the community for every governance decisions where it is needed and in cases where more feedback would improve the decision making.
Treasury sources of income
For the treasury to have capital to allocate it will need some forms of income. The main initial approaches for this would include:
Funded proposals - Proposals can be created to request funds to fund the treasury.
Stake pools - Mission driven stake pools can be operated by stake pool contributors where the profit of those stake pools is allocated to the treasury.
Contributor project support - If full time Catalyst contributors support other funded projects whilst being a contributor that work could be rewarded compensation for doing so which could be sent to the contributor treasury. This model works because the full time contributor is already being being paid a full time salary. An example could be a developer supporting another projects implementation for a short period as they have the technical expertise and it would provide a high impact to the community.
Governance process
A more thorough break down of a suitable process for each type of decision can be determined in the near future. For now, a simple approach for the governance process could follow these steps:
Request is made for treasury funding either by the community, projects or contributors
Contributors check request has valid information and reach consensus on what added information or data needs to be added to the request to make a fully informed decision.
Once the request is finalised contributors determine who should be involved in the governance decision. For example if the decision impacts community advisors then the contributors would be responsible for involving those participants.
Feedback is collected from the participants for any changes that may need to be made.
Voter participants are invited to cast their vote.
Funds get distributed based off a positive voting outcome.
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