The grants program consists of (1) designing a framework and (2) executing/managing/overseeing the grants. (1) is done by Plurality Labs and (2) by Questbooks. Plurality Labs is handling the Gitcoin round and donations.
Introduction
In early August, members of SeedLatam, a DAO delegate for Arbitrum protocol, put forth a proposal to design an incentive system for delegates. The incentive system would in essence be a compensation system to reward delegates for performing their jobs. Currently, Arbitrum does not compensate delegates, which, allegedly, creates long-term problems for the DAO.
Supporters of the program argue that compensating delegates will help with voter apathy and yield more positive outcomes for the DAO since delegates will treat governance work like a job and put in more time, energy, and effort into reading proposals, participating in forums, creating new proposals, and voting. Ultimately, the hypothesis is that deliberations, scrutiny, and discernment will make votes more meaningful since more thought will be put into them.
Designing an incentive system comes with a host of challenges. Questions arise such as: is voting power a good metric for compensation (don’t want to leave out smaller delegates who have a lot to add), what is the budget, what metrics should be used, should there be a centralized team who regularly project manages, should delegates self-report, what system is used to track contributions, how transparent is this system, who owns the keys to this system?
There are also questions (of my own) around professional delegates. Since they are paid already, should that impact what they are paid through treasury? meaning, should they get paid less or is that an organizational decision outside of realm of the DAO? what about bigger groups vs smaller groups? i think this goes back to voting power as a metric. What about token delegate program?