VDP-69 Proposal to Realign Working Group Structures

[alexdobrin]

Summary

VitaDAO has been operating for just over a year, and as part of feedback received by working group members individually and through a series of internal discussions, we propose to re-align working group structures and governance to establish better accountability and responsibility for achieving VitaDAO’s goals, while empowering the contributors who are able to help the DAO accomplish those goals.

This proposal replaces/suggests modifications to VDP-19 / VDP-36, and VDP-34.

Team

Todd White, Alex Dobrin, Laurence Ion, Theodor Beutel, Gavin, Hamza Qureshi

Motivation

VitaDAO has done quite well in its first year of operations in establishing itself within the DeSci ecosystem. As part of this past year, contributors had to cope with many of the growing pains of a new organisation spanning everything from scaling dealflow, treasury management, human resources, legal, and operational challenges.

From this, it has been determined that while the current working group structure as a whole works, there is a very clear opportunity for efficiency improvements via empowering individuals or squads to execute.

We propose that VitaDAO aligns around the concept of an execution layer and a consensus layer, with various contributors empowered to varying extents based on their role within each of those layers. To that end we propose the following structures and changes:

Specification

Token holders

• Token holders are the ultimate authority in what VitaDAO does, via the $VITA governance token
• Token Holders vote in the Stewards.

Working Groups

• Working Groups and their stewards are the execution layer.
• The Legal, Governance, Tech & Tokenomics Working Groups will become Squads in a Coordination Working Group as they are called upon by the “Longevity Dealflow” or “Community & Awareness” Working Groups on an as-needed basis. They don’t require their own Working Group and budget.
• A Membership Service Squad will be created to develop and deploy services for VitaDAO token holders to provide value
• A fundraising squad
• A dedicated marketing squad will be established within the Awareness Working Group to actively achieve outreach in the broader DeSci and public

Stewards

• Stewards execute and make decisions on a day-to-day basis within the bounds empowered by the token holders.
• Any Working Group member may nominate other members to the Stewards group. If the Stewards reject the nomination, VitaCore can ask for a tokenholder vote.
• Stewards appoint VitaCore members.
• VitaCore is an advisory group for strategic advice, they are not a “Board of Directors” who direct Stewards, but rather the opposite - VitaCore supports the Stewards. VitaCore members should be chosen to support a specific strategic objective of the DAO.

Multisig Signers

• The VitaDAO multi-sig signers (VDP-0)secure the multi-sig and execute the will of the DAO, as defined by the Token holders and Stewards. They are not a decision-making body.

VitaCore

• VitaCore helps support strategic initiatives, whether it be tokenomics, network growth, strategic partnerships, etc.
• This is where many of the strategic contributors of VDP-54 will be able to provide value based on their networks and experience.
• Ambassadors from other DAOs also can contribute here. VitaCore will be no larger than 10 people + stewards.

Implementation

If this proposal passes, the changes it introduces will be integrated into VitaDAO’s constitution on Discourse. Internally, the affected working groups and squads will reorganise their tools and channels accordingly, such as Discord channels and working group calls.

Ahead of the stewardship election , working group members will be invited to recommend candidates who will then be voted on by token holders. Within a month after the election, the elected stewards will appoint VitaCore members.

Success metrics

• Better execution
• Better operating margin

Poll

• Agree
• Agree with revisions (please comment)
• Disagree

[consigli3re]

Absolutely thrilled to be at the forefront of innovation in DeSci with VitaDAO!

[vincent]

Generally in alignment with this proposal, although would like to draft a follow-up improvement on this to balance powers best towards governance/token holders vs centralizing it to a shrinking amount of stewards and rather coming up with a more empowering and less hierarchical enablement, enabling a structure similarly to the one proposed here: [Discussion] Safe DAO Resource Allocation Model (OBRA) - Governance - Safe Community Forum or that Vitalik mentioned in DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters

• basically getting rid of stewards → and rather having initiative or pod leads
• rather having leads for specific initiatives that are part of the roadmap (some are continuous, some are over after the initiative i finished or delivered), that drive specific strategies → a large part of this would be longevity dealflow leads, shepherds as is already the case, or having a website lead or socials lead…

and dont think it makes sense for example that longevity + awareness dictates gov, tokenomics, fundraising etc., but rather a squad/lead forms around specific initiatives like “treasury management lead”, or “fundraising lead”, that would share specific governance proposals and drive those initiatives forward within a strategy, towards a measurable metric.

so instead of “calling upon” legal, gov, tech & tokenomics and many other streams by longevity or community, they’d be initiated via a gov proposals that drive a specific initiative within a strategy towards a goal.

instead of just stewards executing, it would be every empowered lead and squad enabled to execute within their budget, and initiative.

i’d make vitacore member appointed by gov and not stewards, same for stewards themselves.
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best visualized in these graphics

Vitalik - DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters

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Outcomes-based resource allocation (‘OBRA’) by PeterPan/1kx