Grant Process Roles

Everyone can contribute to making the grants fly. If you notice that some conversation could use some support, or the process needs to help to get going, you are empowered to speak and act!

The below are a couple of roles which have emerged from the past couple of rounds. They're rough. Let's improve them together :)

MC (master of ceremony)

This person gets the ball rolling and keeps it rolling. They do things like start the thread which invites grants, remind people of what it means, and progress the process to the next stage (e.g. applications are closed people, what do you think?).

The final role of the MC is to pass the microphone to the next MC for the following month.

Noted Adventurers (proposed fundees)

Those who submit a proposal to the next/current grant selection period. Submitting a proposal puts you on the community radar as a person with an awesome idea that they're eager to explore, and this adventure could help the entire scuttleverse.

Chosen Adventurers (selected fundees)

The people from the 'noted adventurers' who are chosen to carry out their quests this month.

"This month" is important: if a proposal is not chosen, it doesn't mean it was bad or unnecessary. It likely means that it may be more useful (or better supported) when this month's chosen proposals are done first; and so the proposal rolls over to the next month to see if that's a better time. Or, it means the adventurer has an awesome idea, but they haven't fully fleshed out the map to get there. In this case, not being chosen is an opportunity to better refine and communicate their map.

Zach's Note: I added the name and descriptions for adventurers, based on Mikey's post in the scuttlebutt thread. The names are slightly humorous and fantasy-like, and if that's distracting we could change it, but I wanted to try to communicate the spirit of the proposals. Experimentation is encouraged, as is doing work that expands what is possible with SSB. So there's this feeling that the proposers are going to explore the unknown to bring back knowledge and treasures for our community. 'Fundees' doesn't fully cover that spirit, to me.

Participants

everyone who shares why they think a particular grant is or is not worth funding during our grant process.

Shapers (or process masters)

The people who give actionable, specific, and kind feedback when someone doesn't follow the agreed process. They help guide the community and process so it's clear to everyone and moves as quickly as it should. There will ideally be many people in this role, but at least one person should state they wanna take on this role for each month.

One example of shaping the grant process, from Dominic: Any arguments/discussions that arise in the context of the grants thread should be promptly moved out into another thread, to avoid delaying the process. A shaper, then, would notice when such a discussion is starting to form, and direct it to its own thread--with an explanation to the rest of the group for why we do this.

Ritual Writers(process designers):

Those who design the ritual we go through for these grant proposals. What Mix is trying to do. There's a mixture of both working with the group to figure out the best process, and then writing this down into a ritual for others to follow (If another grant were to come to someone else, who wanted to distribute it like Dominic did, for example.)

process consenters:

Those who consent to the process

Adjudicator

This person makes the final decision on which grants are funded. They fold in all of the feedback and opinions from grant discource, perhaps asking clarifying questions.

We don't know how this role will be passed. I (mix) recommend that Dominic and the current Adjudicator decide the one for the next month and evolve the process from there.

Governor General

Dominic is ultimately the point of contact (and contract) with Dfinity. As a representative of that relationship, he has the right to dissolve the current grant process if he does not have faith in the current process.

This power is to protect him and his relationship with this Dfinity, and also a last resort safety mechanism to protect the community.

The title for this position is taken from New Zealand government. We have literally this role which has this power over parliament. It's a power that's never been executed in my lifetime.

Alternate titles for this role could be Emergency Brake. Underlord. Backstop. Subcomandante.

Payout Clerk

This is Dominic. He gets your details when you are a grant recipient and makes sure you get paid.