A beginner’s guide to V0 of NDC Governance
The NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) is an ambitious project that brings together users, projects, stakeholders and partners of the NEAR ecosystem to create a radically new way of governing itself. As a reminder, the NDC is not an entity, or DAO, it is a framework for self governance.
To achieve this goal, the NDC is on a journey to create a governance model that allows it to serve the needs of the community. As a result, governance will go through a number of iterations as the project grows, and its needs change.
In this piece, we’re going to be exploring V0 of the NDC Governance model. It’s important to understand that V0 will not be the final version of governance of the NDC, but is best thought of as a simplified version to allow the establishment of different community-led functions later.
An overview of V0 of the NDC Governance Model
There are three core components to V0 of the governance model:
- Create the Community Treasury
- Appointment of Trustees
- Establish Grassroots DAOs.
V0 kicks off this ambitious governance project by launching the Community Treasury. The Community Treasury is organized under a legal framework to facilitate the distribution of funds.
In V0, its primary purpose is to take on the role of distributing community funds to Grassroots DAOs and the Governance Working Group (GWG) to continue the work to implement V1 from its treasury.
In V0, the Treasury will only distribute funds to the Developer DAO, Marketing DAO, Creatives DAO, and the Governance Working Group. In the future, the NEAR ecosystem will decide on how the NDC governance evolves.
The Community Treasury will have an initial round of funding of 5.7 million NEAR, which will be donated to the Treasury as part of the USN stablecoin spindown. To ensure funding is handled correctly, trustees will be assigned to check due process and to distribute funds.
Appoint Trustees to create oversight for the NDC
In V0 of the Governance model, trustees will be appointed through the community input and a vetting procedure which is currently being created by the Legal Working Group.
At present, the Legal Working Group is finalizing this procedure and we will share more information on the NEAR governance forum. A more detailed explanation of the legal framework of the Community Treasury, its specific purpose and the duties of the trustees will follow.
Establish Grassroots DAOs to help distribute funding
Grassroots DAOs will be one of the main avenues by which funding will reach the community. In V0, there are currently three Grassroots DAOs that will be the recipients of funding:
- Creatives DAO
- Marketing DAO
- Developer DAO
The role of each DAO is to review and fund the proposals raised by the community based on their area of expertise.
Currently, community proposals, once approved by Grassroots DAOs, are funded by NF after completing KYC requirements.
The initial Grassroots DAO grants process eliminates the need for centralized funding by giving power to Grassroots DAOs to organize themselves as per their mission and values, keeping track of all activity on chain.
In V0 of the Governance model, Grassroots DAOs will create budget requests for quarterly funding from the Community Treasury.
The process of how this works is currently is being drafted and is underway, and documentation on how Grassroots DAOs apply for funding can be found here.
What happens next?
V0 of the Governance model is likely to be in place for Q1 and Q2 of 2023, to allow the Governance Working Group (GWG) to finalize a timeline for sharing an overview of the V1 Governance model.
Once ready, the proposed V1 Governance model will be put to the community for a vote and hopefully adoption.
Where can I learn more?
Head on over to the GWG documentation page where you can dive in deeper to governance and every other aspect of the NEAR Digital Collective.
About the NDC
The NDC, originally proposed by NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin, is now an independent movement led by the NEAR Community. Its goal is to establish a community treasury and governance model that allows the ecosystem to collectively make decisions on everything from funding intiatives to electing representatives.
NDC’s purpose is to steward NEAR towards becoming a truly decentralized network that can self-organize and self-govern.
Join the NDC Community Hub to learn all about the NDC, stay up to date and find out how to contribute.
