Title: Funded mentorships
Authors: Alejandro Santander
Date: 02/12/2022
SUMMARY
Sum up this proposal in a few bullet points or sentences
Reduce friction in the formation of mentorships by providing an allowance to validated mentors, after the presentation of a document specifying how the allowance is to be used, and how the mentorship plans to contribute funds back to the DAO.
BACKGROUND
Why are you making this proposal?
What problem or opportunity does this proposal target?
What are the driving factors behind why you think this is a good idea?
Mentorships that pay the mentee for the hours they spend, either learning or building, offer them a form of security that catalyses their transition from web2 to web3. Mentees feel more secure to leave their web2 jobs sooner when they receive remuneration in this limbo phase where they still haven’t been hired neither temporarily, nor permanently by the targeted web3 protocol.
Usually, when a successful mentorship is approaching its end, the mentee is already making contributions to the target protocol, and the protocol already understands the value that the mentee can add to it, so at that point they are ready to offer the mentee a temporary employment agreement with the intention of turning into a permanent one after some trial period.
Trying to secure preliminary funding for the mentee before such agreements between the protocol and the mentee prove to be a very tedious process, since the mentor needs to promise value with no assurances. Additionally, the funds involved in this preliminary funding are small enough that it’s really not worth the protocol’s time nor legal complications.
This is a huge point of friction that is keeping new mentorships from opening. If the EthernautDAO could remove this point of friction altogether, mentorships should begin opening at a higher rate.
MISSION AND VALUES ALIGNMENT
How does this project help the DAO achieve it´s mission and with it´s values?
The EthernautDAO can reduce this point friction easily by providing validated mentors an allowance, per mentorship, that the mentor can use to compensate the mentees’ work during training.
As soon as the target protocol is ready to sign an employment agreement with the mentee, the EthernautDAO can withdraw this allowance.
Mentors are invited to request rewards from the targeted protocol upon the signing of such agreements, with a percentage going to the EthernautDAO in a way that restores the funds it initially provided.
All this would be in accordance with the EthernautDAO’s principle of minimal intervention, as it would simply be reducing friction for the formation of new mentorships, allowing mentors to discuss funds with targeted protocols, only after they have added value to them.
SPECIFICATION
Explain the project in detail. You’re expected to have done your homework and the more exact numbers and implementation details, the more likely the proposal will be approved. Include team details, including any positions that have yet to be filled.
You can get creative with the formatting of this section. For example, feel free to break it up into multiple specifications, include a project plan, or explain how the project will achieve its objectives in some other way.
Funding committee
This is a governing group designated by the council that will oversee all matters related to funded mentorships. It may be a sub-group of the council and will be in charge of validating mentors and mentorships that require funding, keep track of funding operations, keep accountability records, etc.
Mentorship sub-treasury
This is a second multisig, controlled by the funding committee, to which mentors are given allowances during funded mentorships. The idea of having a second, isolated treasury is to increase security, and contain expenses per period.
This treasury is itself funded by the main treasury, and the funding committee must ask the council for funding per period.
Mentor profiles
Mentors that intend to be granted allowances will need to set up a profile in the forum. Here, they can present any information that may be required by the funding committee for their acceptance in funded mentorships.
Funded mentorship applications
Before a mentorship starts, mentors need to present all the details of the mentorship to the funding committee for allowance approval, including:
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Target protocol and role
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Mentee details
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Expected duration of the mentorship
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Hourly compensation for the mentee
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Expected number of hours to be remunerated
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Expected rewards from the target protocol upon signing of a temporary contract of employment
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Expected rewards, vested or otherwise, from the target protocol until the signing of a permanent contract of employment
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Reward ratio for the EthernautDAO and the mentor
Potential pilot
To illustrate how this process could flow, I’d like to use a real scenario in which I’m in right now as an example.
An emerging protocol called Grateful is looking for consultancy advice from me, as well as help from the EthernautDAO to form a technical team. As part of my counselling, I am helping them raise capital. They will strike a deal with a decentralised group of investors via the Aelin protocol, but they also want to strike a deal with the EthernautDAO for the initial bootstrapping of their team.
Note: Grateful is basically a protocol that allows users to stream micro-donations to people whose online content they feel grateful to. All donations originate from DeFi yields aggregated by the protocol.
My negotiations with Grateful with regards to forming this team will materialise in a deal that I will present to the EthernautDAO, representing a number of $GRATEFUL tokens at different stages, vested, etc, with a fee to the mentor or mentors involved in the process via one or more mentorships.
I would have to apply to the EthernautDAO as an official mentor, then present this deal, and then be given an allowance to cover mentee compensation expenses.
As the mentorship transpires, I should be spending part of such allowance. Upon reaching success milestones, I should be able to secure funds from the new protocol into the EthernautDAO’s treasury, hopefully not only restoring the initial funds, but contributing to the growth of the treasury overall.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Include details about funding requirements. You must include a detailed breakdown that explains how the funds will be allocated. Funding will not be approved for proposals without a funding breakdown. This is where the team can request rewards for their expected contributions to the project, including any work done to scope the project and create the proposal.
This section only needs to be completed for projects that are requesting funding
The EthernautDAO should try this out in a contained manner initially.
The mentorship treasury should be set up with a small amount of funds intended to cover a small amount of mentorships in a reasonably short time period.
A maximum budget per mentorship and mentee should also be stipulated.
All movement of funds should be carefully accounted for and exposed to the community with absolute transparency.
BRAND USAGE
If the project will use the Ethernaut DAO brand outside the DAO, explain in detail how the brand will be used and add a “Ethernaut Brand” tag to the project.
We should encourage protocols working with the EthernautDAO to be very explicit about collaboration or even partnership with the EthernautDAO whenever deals are stricken.
SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS
How will the project’s success be measured?
This proposal should cause an increase in the number of mentorships opened. This should be measured and validated.
It should also produce an outflow and an inflow of funds that should all be carefully measured and accounted for in order to determine the feasibility of opening up this process at a larger scale in the future.
NEXT STEPS
Immediate action items, should this proposal be accepted
- Create a mentor section in the forum
- Create a funded mentorship section in the forum
- Designate a funding committee
- Set up a mentorship treasury with a small amount of funds
- Choose initial mentor/s for trial run
- Choose initial mentorship/s for trial run
- Present and approve mentorship proposals
- Provide allowance to mentorships
- Keep track of all finances during these mentorships