<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*VwzqYl8tpzU6ldFH4Lfyrw.png"></figure><h4>A Guide for Building Habit-forming DAO Communities</h4>
The rise in the number of decentralized communities comes as every company in web3 realizes a community is needed to thrive, scale, and achieve profitability.
In order to address the community needs of DAOs, many web3 organizations not only focus on product-market fit and efficient marketing strategies but optimize for community-market-fit, efficient contribution models, governance structure, DAO structures &amp; tools, treasury management, etc. However, these new verticals, while still in their infancy, are vital areas of exploration to properly address the community needs of DAOs.
Thousands of communities have been created over time to integrate with the plethora of web3 narratives. The motivations of community members are just as diverse as community types.
Current projections put the number of existing DAOs at 6000+, (an 8.5x increase since May 2021). This massive increase in such a short time has resulted in a thin spread of members’ time, energy, and resource allocation in communities overall.
Web3 participants are now stakeholders, investors, collectors, or contributors, and the term “community” has taken on a new meaning. This has created a value gap for web3 community builders to fill as they now have to optimize their community building and management skills for building sticky communities — communities that members join, contribute to, and return to regularly amidst the noisy, community-filled ecosystem of web3.
To build sticky communities — to create DAO communities that keep members interested from the discovery stage to the contributing stage and into habitual participation — community builders must:
<ol>
<li>Make the onboarding process memorable</li>
<li>Define a shared goal with the community</li>
<li>Drive engagement and retention through education and tailored resources</li>
<li>Create an effective environment for members to contribute</li>
</ol>
<h3>Create a Memorable Onboarding Experience</h3>
For new users, onboarding to DAO communities can feel like playing the guitar or riding a bike for the first time. It’s usually challenging to fall into sync with new communities. Without a memorable onboarding experience, members are faced with the challenge of synching with the community and properly understanding how to get and stay involved.
Hence, onboarding activities should be geared toward the following:
<h4>1. Building intentional Relationships</h4>
Imagine, you met someone at an onboarding meeting. They tell you their name and then they ask you to be their best friend. That’s going to sound weird, and you’re probably going to avoid them.
Yet many DAO communities work like this: they bombard new members with numerous ways to interact. And members wonder what to do in a community with so many sections and activities. In the end, new members get overwhelmed and leave.
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/959/0*Qdvn05MHnHZug8y_.png"></figure>Building sticky communities require that community builders carefully build trust and engagement through individual relationships and member-member relationships.
A slow and intentional process that fosters trust is the key to creating a memorable onboarding experience in tokenized communities.
<h4>2. Helping members understand how they can align their goals with the community’s goals
</h4>
This usually happens during the relationship-building phase. New members get acquainted with the community and are guided on how to align their goals and expectations with the goals and vision of the community.
The community manager’s role here is to clearly buttress the contribution commitment expected from members and help align the member’s goals with that of the community. This can be done by providing clear documentation of what is expected of community members and implementing an application process to screen members.
This clarity attracts and retains high-value community members while weeding out individuals who are a wrong match for the community.
<h3>Define a Shared Goal With Members</h3>
Most communities will falter if there is no compelling reason for people to come together. It is like embarking on a journey by sea to a destination halfway around the world, only to discover upon boarding the ship that you do not have a destination to reach. Why should you continue on the journey?
Committing to a DAO feels the same. Time, energy, and talents are heavy resources that are invested into a DAO community and a community without a shared compelling goal isn’t worth belonging to or contributing to.
A shared goal enables members to accomplish things they can’t achieve alone, foster collaborations, and generate increasing network effects. This in turn creates a shared sense of belonging and togetherness, prompting members to join, contribute, and show up regularly to the community for the longest time possible.
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*aTH-vMb1K74mq_kB"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@hannahbusing?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Hannah Busing</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure>There are many reasons for members to stick to your community when you have a shared compelling goal. Some of them are:
<ol>
<li>They clearly understand the outcomes they can expect from a community</li>
<li>They are emotionally connected to your project</li>
<li>They see an opportunity to contribute and want to</li>
<li>They identify with the problem the community proposes to solve.</li>
</ol>
So, when building a DAO community, a good first practice for community builders will be to define your shared goal with their members. This is the North Star. It provides a clear direction for the community to follow.
To succeed, your community needs a purpose beyond its existence. — <a href="https://www.coinvise.co/">Coinvise</a>
It is also important that community builders take the following steps to define their community’s shared goal:
<ol>
<li>
Define with your members an important problem to solve: Community builders often set the goals of a community and try to build a community around it. The reverse should be the case if your aim is to build a sticky tokenized community. Brainstorm with community members to define the most important problem to solve for the community. Identify with community members the most pressing problem to solve, the benefits of solving the problem, and the solutions the community can come up with.</li>
<li>
Spread the shared goal through effective storytelling: Members need to believe they are going to be a part of something much bigger than them. Effective storytelling is important. Use narratives to persuasively illustrate the defined goal reached during the brainstorming session with your members.</li>
<li>
Implement this shared goal through open contribution opportunities: One way to make members feel involved is to make them actively work towards solving a shared problem. A good way to implement this is through daily community tasks and open contribution opportunities.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Drive Engagement and Retention through Education and Tailored Content</h3>
“Have a wiki or a map of the space — create a graphic. Having more resources that people can access is really important.” — <a href="https://twitter.com/mybellalogica">Nicole d’Avis</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/seedclubhq">Seed Club</a>
DAOs tend to move very quickly because of the influx of new people, better tools, new projects, and improved structure. However, this causes disorientation for new and old members who slowly catch up with the activities of the DAO. Providing adequate documentation of knowledge and processes for members to build context, get involved, and stay involved is critical to keeping members in a community.
Because the attention spans of community members are relatively short across several communities, providing tailored content for them is an effective way to keep them engaged.
Providing a well-structured knowledge base is also helpful for the onboarding process as new members can easily and immediately source answers to the questions they might have. This ensures members don’t wait too long to be provided answers and minimizes the disorientation drop-off.
Helping interested members stay educated and updated on important and relevant information on the operations of the community is critical to retention.
Members need to be knowledgeable on how to efficiently contribute to a DAO. They also need answers to pressing questions they might have to further their individual goals; it is up to the DAO to provide these knowledge resources as efficiently as possible. Depending on the DAO’s structure, operators can facilitate this by identifying the right cadence of information-sharing, both synchronously (recurring calls) and asynchronously (messaging, recordings, meeting notes, newsletter, Blog post, etc).
Thriving web3 communities and DAOs lean heavily on content. They invest a great deal in educating community members across multiple verticals of the community goals.
Some examples of web3 organizations driving engagement and retention through content are:
<ol>
<li>Coinvise: Coinvise is a simple &amp; trusted platform to mint social tokens, and manage, and build incentives around them. <a href="https://coinvise.notion.site/Coinvise-Tutorials-bf6e427d95524ecea2f03ea3db7988d9">Coinvise Tutorials</a>, <a href="https://coinvise.substack.com/">Coinvise Learn</a>, <a href="https://www.notion.so/Coinvise-Wiki-64b15ff7c1d04ce3b748ca49f7b3c31f">Coinvise Wiki</a>, and other social channels, attend to the content needs of all their community members and potential members.</li>
<li>Tally: Tally is a DAO operations platform that helps people start, join, and grow decentralized organizations. <a href="https://www.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> has a well-structured knowledge base that feeds <a href="https://docs.tally.xyz/">Developers</a>, DAOs, Creators, Community builders, Community members, and web3 enthusiasts an up-to-date learning feed that provides them with the necessary information to build, manage, and operate a DAO, and also to learn about the web3 ecosystem.</li>
</ol>
Tailored content, when structured efficiently, hooks and retains community members from the community discovery stage to the active contribution stage.
The goal is to create tailored content that serves the DAOs ideal member persona, and then come up with an efficient strategy for distribution where needed information can be sourced by every community member at any given point in time.
<h3>Create an Effective Environment for Members to Contribute</h3>
The key to creating an environment where members want to contribute and spend time is fostering a healthy work culture within your DAO.
At some point, every DAO contributor was a new member and had to learn how to contribute to the DAO by asking questions, building trust, and investing resources. At this point, they are vulnerable, threading on new grounds, and probably feeling insecure. It takes a bit of faith and trust in the community to become an invested contributor.
This conversion to an active contributor is heavily influenced by the DAO’s culture.
Ultimately, members need to feel trusted, respected, and accepted by the community in order to perform. While this can be addressed early in the lifespan of a community member, consciously developing and maintaining community spaces that encourage these needs keeps community contributors contributing.
Culture determines social behavior. In an ecosystem like this, the engineering of monetary systems can only take you so far. There needs to be human behavior models that can produce desired results. By creating a culture, a set of norms, and mindsets that engage the individual on an ownership level, you set the tone for the rest of the ecosystem. — <a href="https://twitter.com/abv_avg_joe">Above Average Joe</a>, BanklessDAO.
A DAO’s primary goal is to have loyal and habitual members at each vector of contribution. This community loyalty is derived not only from increased financial incentives but also from a sense of belonging and emotional ties to a network of connections.
As written in <a href="https://daomasters.mirror.xyz/SpQM5RxA2GvUq2KfZXrHMtVYQCiIBHfB5hkTIsfzAyw">The Challenges of Culture and Community in DAOs</a>, to create an effective work environment for contributors, community builders should:
<ol>
<li>Encourage meeting in person</li>
<li>Schedule regular synchronous activities aside from asynchronous ones</li>
<li>Implement rituals</li>
<li>Grow by invitation</li>
<li>Focus on cohesion within working teams</li>
<li>Cultivate sub-cultures within the DAO culture</li>
</ol>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
DAO development &amp; community management is still in its infancy, there is a tremendous opportunity to create rituals, tools, and projects that onboard and sustain a steady pool of active habitual members. Sticky communities are vital, so how do we build them?
Building sticky communities come down to intentionally designing community spaces that serve the interests and goals of community members. These communities are created when community builders build cultural spaces that positively impact the lives of community members. I encourage you to take the time to fully absorb the four principles I’ve outlined: take notes, share them with community members, and determine what is the best way to build your sticky community? Words are good but action is better, so let’s act.
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<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/4-principles-for-building-sticky-dao-communities-95fb482b71bf">4 Principles for Building Sticky DAO Communities</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

4 Principles for Building Sticky DAO Communities

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*d6xSlLdIKd4bjaABcRBpBg.png"></figure>The Who, The What, and The Why
You’ve heard of Solana, right? You know, this place:
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/564/0*QOdi8iTKyNKoRv1q"></figure>The Solana ecosystem can at times feel like the Wild West. It’s just a little crazy and things tend to break (like, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/cbovaird/2022/06/02/solanas-future-uncertain-after-high-throughput-blockchain-suffers-latest-crash/">a lot</a>). It’s also looked down upon by some in the broader web3 space. But regardless of your feelings on this corner of web3, there are some interesting DAOs building on this particular blockchain!
This overview will take you deep into the world of Solana DAOs. We’ll chat about the major communities–who they are, what they’re up to, and why they’re important
The first section will be a dive into the chaos that is NFT DAOs, as Solana has become one of the leading blockchains for NFTs (<a href="https://cryptoslam.io/">at least in terms of # of transactions over the last 30 days</a>). The low transaction costs seemingly lead many beginners to start their NFT journey on Solana, and degeneracy is abundant. The transaction numbers are high, the prices are low, and everyone is trying to make a quick buck.
The second section will dive deep into two DeFi DAOs building on Solana. These DAOs are heavily focused on impacting and supporting the greater Solana ecosystem–and for good reason, as their long-term outlook depends on Solana’s sustainability!
Now, without further ado, let’s jump right in!
<h3>NFT DAOs:</h3>
<h4>DeDAO</h4>
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/400/0*TLkSaTYL4gG9j2jg"></figure>I’d be remiss if I didn’t start this article with the largest Solana NFT project in the world by floor market cap–and it’s not even close. As of writing this article, <a href="https://www.degods.com/">DeGods</a> had a floor market cap of <a href="https://howrare.is/">$94.15 Million</a>. That market cap is &gt;3x larger than the next largest collection and larger than the next 5 collections combined.
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/577/0*tbkweuGFDUj6ctWb"></figure>The DAO is funded via creator royalties on secondary sales. 6.66% of every secondary sale goes to the DeDAO treasury. DeGods currently has 1.1M SOL of volume on Magic Eden, meaning that based on some paper math DAO treasury has accumulated somewhere in the realm of 73k SOL since its launch in November of 2021.
But what does it do with those funds? Well, they <a href="https://twitter.com/frankdegods/status/1499768719571968001?s=20&amp;t=9sI5Dy7QOZh9hteL8Npfiw">bought a bunch of NFTs</a>.
AND, <a href="https://www.thedefiant.io/degods-basketball-ice-cube">THEY BOUGHT a professional 3v3 basketball team, the Killer 3s.</a>
<h3>BIG3 on Twitter: "This season just got a lot more godly. Introducing @DeGodsNFT the official community jersey patch sponsor of the Killer 3s. 🐝 pic.twitter.com/ncHG9qDIiU / Twitter"</h3>
This season just got a lot more godly. Introducing @DeGodsNFT the official community jersey patch sponsor of the Killer 3s. 🐝 pic.twitter.com/ncHG9qDIiU
In typical web3 fashion, DeDAO bought the 25 NFTs (at $25k a pop) that gave them the ownership rights necessary to fully own and run the team. A cool $625,000 purchase for a DAO–not bad at all.
DeDAO members also earn $DUST every day by staking their NFTs. This $DUST can be used to purchase raffle tickets, merchandise, and even mint more NFTs produced by the DeGods team.
On top of all of this, the team behind DeGods is also launching a new NFT project, <a href="https://twitter.com/y00tsNFT">y00ts</a>, and each DeGods holder will have the opportunity to mint a y00ts NFT.
Oh, and the team behind DeGods just announced that their tech spinoff, <a href="https://twitter.com/dust_labs">Dust Labs</a>, just <a href="https://twitter.com/dust_labs/status/1566975856777777152?s=20&amp;t=9sI5Dy7QOZh9hteL8Npfiw">raised $7M to build out the $DUST ecosystem.</a>
DeDAO is one of the most exclusive and exciting DAOs in the world, and to join, it’ll cost you a cool 306 SOL, so get ready to break out the checkbook! (;
While much of DeDAO may be compelling to readers, where DeDAO seems to fall short is in the decentralization department. In many ways, it appears that DeDAO is a DAO in name only… While the “DAO” has held 5 votes, the last DAO vote appears to have been held on <a href="https://app.sqds.io/nft/GXQUBevZpYpt7AuZm6H1egZBU4JwJ7Ek6ctW9wBLcfN8/proposal/GjJiVFjvQN3KL1AwEfpajixuRszScLzGXVZt7PzfF9c6">January 3, 2021</a>, via Squads, the on-chain governance platform for Solana DAOs. Only 15 votes were counted for this proposal. It appears that DeGods leadership grew tired of basic DAO governance strategies (<a href="https://twitter.com/frankdegods/status/1500990298079461379?s=20&amp;t=golru58FFmrfzbNe3Xja1A">Exhibit A</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/frankdegods/status/1547461783375708160?s=20&amp;t=golru58FFmrfzbNe3Xja1A">Exhibit B</a>). Instead, the DeDAO is now led by <a href="https://docs.degods.com/dedao">the following groups</a>:
<blockquote>“1) The DAO Leads — The divine council of DeDAO and Community Leaders of DeGods
</blockquote>
<blockquote>2) The Divine Council — Gods who are voted in by members of DeDAO. They approve proposals from the community and team before allowing the members to vote on it.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
3) DeAlpha Team — A team of Alpha Gods who are abreast of the markets and have a proven track record of understanding and sharing consistently good Alpha in DeDAO.”</blockquote>
<h4>Monke DAO</h4>
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/400/0*IBZ7rWPHTxL4x9EA"></figure>The logical next NFT DAO to cover is the one with the second largest Solana NFT floor market cap–MonkeDAO. While you may think that a collection with less than 1/3 the market cap of DeGods isn’t nearly as important, I’m here to tell you that MonkeDAO is not monkeying around.
<a href="https://twitter.com/MonkeDAO">MonkeDAO’s</a> big claim to fame is being Solana’s first community-owned and operated NFT DAO, but being first doesn’t actually make you good. It just makes you early.
Fortunately for us all, MonkeDAO wasn’t just early, they’re also remarkably excellent.
MonkeDAO is a true trailblazer and pioneer in the web3 space. They refuse to just be a group of degens looking to pump the floor. Instead, they’ve become a true force for good in the space, and to their community members.
<a href="https://twitter.com/MonkeDAO/status/1551175390848200704">On July 18, 2022</a>, a cohort of MonkeDAO community members traveled to the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. and met with regulators and lobbyists about DAOs and NFT communities. <a href="https://twitter.com/MonkeDAO/status/1551175393243082752?s=20&amp;t=ddvTBdcAdCr-SOfSGpY1nQ">Their stated primary goal</a> was to “educate potential regulators on different use cases for NFTs and DAOs. It was important that we thoroughly explained why NFTs should be separate from cryptocurrency and avoid similar regulatory action.”
<h3>MonkeDAO🍌 on Twitter: "Debrief for Monkes in DC tomorrow# the-public-boardroom 🐒In the meantime, we would like Monkes to VOTE in # votes! 👀 pic.twitter.com/VSKjrv7IxY / Twitter"</h3>
Debrief for Monkes in DC tomorrow# the-public-boardroom 🐒In the meantime, we would like Monkes to VOTE in # votes! 👀 pic.twitter.com/VSKjrv7IxY
A <a href="https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKdEdkOVaGW?s=20">fireside chat was held via Twitter Spaces on July 22, 2022</a>, and some of the group’s participants relayed stories and experiences from the trip. The group met with the Department of Commerce, the House Energy &amp; Commerce Staff, and the House Staff and Blockchain Association. While it seems that those that the MonkeDAO group chatted with definitely had their concerns and preconceived notions (like how to compare NFT communities and DAOs to corporations), the speakers noted how interested their audiences were in actually learning about and understanding the topics presented. I’d recommend listening to the entire chat if you have some spare time!
Beyond their important diplomatic work (Isn’t it hilarious that a community called “MonkeDAO” was asked to speak to the leaders of the United States of America?!?!), they’ve also done some really cool things, like <a href="https://twitter.com/MonkeDAO/status/1537851789860425728?s=20&amp;t=9sI5Dy7QOZh9hteL8Npfiw">purchasing the intellectual property surrounding the NFT collection on which the membership into their DAO is based</a>, Solana Monkey Business, launched a MonkeDAO Validator and staking pool, and celebrated their 1st Birthday! You can keep up to date with all of the MonkeDAO goings on via their newsletter, <a href="https://monkedao.gitbook.io/welcome-to-monkedao/the-company/newsletter">Banana Split</a>!
Meanwhile, to keep up to date with all things governance, you’ll need to be a MonkeDAO member, as the governance process appears to happen entirely within Discord. MonkeDAO members are able to create proposals that go through a 3-step process. First, they go up for community discussion in the #vote-proposals channel. After 5 days, the proposal will pass if it has 51% favorable votes and at least 3% of the DAO supporting it. Passing proposals then go to “Governance Review” by the Governance team and/or Monke Board. The Monke Board is comprised of 16 DAO members who are voted on by the DAO every 3 months. The purpose of this review is to ensure that bad faith actors don’t push proposals through and that passed proposals are actually feasible. Finally, proposals that make it through the first 2 steps will require a community vote, which happens on-chain via a separate Realms account or via their own on-chain voting tool which they built earlier this year. Each proposal exists within 1 of 7 proposal categories, each of which has a different minimum vote duration, minimum quorum, and minimum passing vote. More information on governance can be found in the <a href="https://monkedao.gitbook.io/welcome-to-monkedao/governance">MonkeDAO Gitbook</a>.
<h4>There are so many more…</h4>
I tried to cover the most relevant NFT DAOs, but relevance is a relatively arbitrary metric, so here’s a list of 6 other Solana NFT DAOs that you might want to consider researching a bit more!
<ul>
<li><a href="https://degendaoo.academy/">DegenDAOO</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.woofsolana.io/woofdao">WoofDAO</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.broccolidao.com/">Broccoli DAO</a></li>
<li><a href="https://famousfoxes.com/">Famous Fox Federation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://galacticgeckos.io/">Galactic Geckos</a></li>
<li><a href="https://medium.com/@primatesnft/the-jungle-a48fff0c534f">Primates</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>DeFi DAOs</h3>
<h4>Mango DAO</h4>
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/400/0*ccC1EyRwMPTYEcV7"></figure>With a treasury of <a href="https://deepdao.io/organization/1323d31d-bd0c-4605-ba55-573dd7129324/organization_data/finance">$210 MILLION</a>, <a href="https://dao-beta.mango.markets/">Mango DAO</a> is the largest Solana DAO (by treasury) and the community behind the popular DeFi tool, <a href="http://mango.markets/">Mango Markets</a>. Mango Markets is an open-source platform that “<a href="https://docs.mango.markets/">provides a single venue to lend, borrow, swap, and leverage-trade crypto assets through a powerful risk engine.</a>”
With $192.6M in deposits, and $88.8M in borrowed funds (<a href="https://trade.mango.markets/stats">as of Monday, October 10th at 9 pm</a>) Mango Markets is a highly used and respected player in the ecosystem. And as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility.
Fortunately for the greater Solana ecosystem, Mango DAO seems to be a conscientious steward of said responsibility.
Holders of the $MNGO governance token comprise Mango DAO and are tasked with approving changes to the Mango Markets code. They also have the responsibility of voting on proposals and initiatives regarding how to use DAO funds.
One <a href="https://app.realms.today/dao/MNGO/proposal/B6kpumPPF4DzRinggUenrJjVo6GkdvqiZDnFnF5wcMUJ">recent proposal displays</a> both their commitment to the Solana Ecosystem and their concern about its sustainability. The DAO elected to fund a new company with $600,000 to employ engineers <a href="https://forum.mango.markets/t/mangolana-improve-solana-so-mango-runs-well/592">to focus on improving Solana so that Mango runs better</a>. The proposal passed with flying colors and will provide Mango DAO with the opportunity to impact likely every other DAO on this list, should its new team of engineers meaningfully impact the reliability of Solana.
If you’re interested in participating in Mango DAO governance, you’re in luck. Their governance structure is significantly more straightforward than either of the NFT DAOs’, in fact, they’ll walk you through EXACTLY how to vote <a href="https://docs.mango.markets/tutorials/how-to-vote-in-governance">here</a>. The TL;DR of it all is that they <a href="https://dao-beta.mango.markets/dao/MNGO">vote on-chain via Realms</a>. Token-holder must deposit their $MNGO tokens to use them for governance, and each token grants its holder one vote. Successful votes require a quorum of 100 million “yes” votes, and the “yes” votes must outweigh the “no” votes.
<h4>UXD Protocol</h4>
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/400/0*dY9ZkuQKHyhkIzJm"></figure>The second largest Solana DAO treasury belongs to <a href="https://uxd.fi/">UXD Protocol</a>, the DAO behind “the first fully-decentralized, capital-efficient stablecoin.” In January 2022, <a href="https://uxdprotocol.medium.com/uxd-launches-mainnet-beta-bringing-the-first-fully-decentralized-capital-efficient-stablecoin-to-74cd4075f4d9">the project launched on Mainnet</a>, allegedly solving “the stablecoin trilemma.” $UXD is designed to be (1) decentralized, (2) stable, and (3) capital efficient.
While being a member of a DAO often simply means voting on governance proposals and hoping that the token goes to the moon, holding the UXD Protocol’s governance token $UXP, comes with <a href="https://uxdprotocol.medium.com/introducing-uxp-the-governance-token-e7af3ca9f4f5">an additional set of responsibilities and benefits</a>. $UXP tokens act as the final defense in support of the $UXD stablecoin. Should its insurance fund be depleted, $UXP tokens will be the last reserve to back it. However, this added risk does come with some additional upside! Should things go exceedingly well, UXP token holders can vote to distribute cash flow to themselves. Seemingly, joining UXD Protocol provides you an opportunity to take a little more risk, for a little more reward! Which is definitely something that may appeal to some of you degens.
However, for the time being, it appears that generally there won’t be much for $UXP holders to vote on. <a href="https://discord.com/channels/734802141432250368/843515041898168320/1005295595906408569">According to Kento</a>, the founder of UXD Protocol, “The current voting scheme is, basically most decisions are made by team and for proposals that we think the community should decide, only the community votes and team refrains from voting. (Like the recent burn proposal.)” But when $UXP holders do get the chance to vote, it occurs at <a href="https://governance.uxd.fi/">governance.uxd.fi</a>. The Community <a href="https://docs.uxd.fi/uxdprotocol/overview/uxp-token-economics">currently holds</a> 38.6% of the 7 billion $UXP tokens. This was recently reduced to 38.6% from 57% <a href="https://uxdprotocol.medium.com/fdv-a-tale-of-two-minds-cd417c444882">via a recent token burn</a>.
I did find one particularly weird aspect of UXD Protocol that feels relevant to this article: A huge selling point of this whole project is that “Anyone can always mint 1 UXD for 1 USD.” However, if you are a resident of the United States, you actually cannot do this! This is because, “UXD PROTOCOL’S APPLICATION IS NOT AVAILABLE TO RESIDENTS IN RESTRICTED JURISDICTIONS, INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES.”
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*4piWJ55ef0MRgvM0"></figure>So, if you’d like to get involved with UXD Protocol, you’ll have to get a little creative to get started! But if you are able to get your hands on some $UXP token
<h4>Again, there are so many more…</h4>
We’ve only touched the tip of the Solana DeFi iceberg here. There are so many DAOs that we could’ve covered, but time is not endless and we must pick and choose where we focus our energy.
If you’re feeling excited about Solana DAOs, here are some other DAOs I’d check out!
<ul>
<li><a href="https://portal.projectserum.com/">Serum</a></li>
<li><a href="https://solend.fi/">Solend</a></li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.metaplex.com/">Metaplex</a> — technically not a DAO (yet), but they likely will be soon.</li>
<li><a href="https://blog.magiceden.io/magicdao-magic-ticket-litepaper?s=w">Magic DAO</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.meta-collective.digital/">metaCollective</a></li>
<li><a href="https://linktr.ee/grapeprotocol">Grape DAO</a></li>
<li><a href="https://t.co/ydAQK0sWPV">SolanaSail</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Wrapping things up…</h3>
I hope that you’re now feeling excited to go set up your Phantom wallet, buy some SOL, and start embracing your inner Solana degen by buying a DeGod. Or maybe just voting on some “exciting” DeFi DAO governance proposals…
At the very least, I hope that you feel like you’ve learned something over the last 5–10 minutes! Best of luck on your Solana journey!!
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=f7c5396ee48f" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/all-about-solana-daos-f7c5396ee48f">All About Solana DAOs</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

All About Solana DAOs

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*fVEsK1eNC9uik4eikUOxeg.png"></figure>An introduction to the essential on-chain infrastructure that helps run today’s biggest DAOs
<h3>What is a DAO framework?</h3>
Frameworks are structures around, in, and on which things are built. The structures that frame the things take some cogent and mutually agreed upon form (e.g., rules, laws, guidelines).
DAOs are coordination frameworks for humans and computers to do things together on the Internet. DAOs frame how humans use blockchain technology to coordinate decisions that pertain to community and capital.
<blockquote>A DAO framework defines the specific set of structured interactions that humans and smart contracts use to make and execute decisions in service of the DAO’s purpose. Essential to any DAO framework are the governance frameworks and processes it employs.</blockquote>
Part of what the “A” in DAO implies is that the organization will persist and community-approved decisions will execute autonomously on-chain irrespective of the DAO’s membership makeup. As Vitalk Buterin <a href="https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/05/06/daos-dacs-das-and-more-an-incomplete-terminology-guide">wrote</a> in 2014:
<blockquote>“a [DAO] is…an entity that lives on the internet and exists autonomously, but also heavily relies on hiring individuals to perform certain tasks that the automaton itself cannot do.”</blockquote>
This is what makes DAO frameworks and the governance processes that they run so important; they are organizational design patterns for building and upgrading autonomous, blockchain-based organizations composed of people and code.
Projects that have a 4/7 (at best) multi-sig and use Snapshot for polling may call themselves DAOs. But how can such organizations persist autonomously when so much happens off-chain and decision execution depends upon a small group of trusted humans?
The question above is not intended to criticize such projects. It is, however, intended to illuminate what, in a final analysis, may be perceived as a disingenuous representation of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. In order for DAOs to grow into their full potential, we need some convergence around standard definitions and agreed upon frameworks.
The rest of this piece looks at some of the most popular DAO frameworks available today, as well as the governance frameworks and processes that underpin them.
<h3>OpenZeppelin Governor</h3>
A DAO framework for modular on-chain governance
<a href="https://www.openzeppelin.com/">OpenZeppelin</a> is an open-source framework to build and operate secure blockchain applications. Their work is essential infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem and is trusted by blue chip projects like Aave, Optimism, and Compound.
This “blueprint for decentralized” systems is centered around OpenZeppelin’s two core products for building on Ethereum. <a href="https://www.openzeppelin.com/contracts">Contracts</a> is a library of modular, reusable secure smart contracts in Solidity, and <a href="https://www.openzeppelin.com/defender">Defender</a> is a security operations platform that helps teams ship secure applications quickly (<a href="https://www.openzeppelin.com/">source</a>). Both products, reviewed and battle-tested by the wider Ethereum community, contain primitives that open new possibilities for DAOs on-chain. One such primitive is OpenZeppelin Governor.
In August 2021, OpenZeppelin <a href="https://blog.openzeppelin.com/governor-smart-contract/">announced</a> a new secure, modular system for on-chain governance: OpenZeppelin Governor. Developed in collaboration with Compound, and drawing on their pioneering <a href="https://docs.compound.finance/v2/governance/">governance tools</a>, the OpenZeppelin <a href="https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/openzeppelin-contracts/blob/v4.7.3/contracts/governance/Governor.sol">Governor contracts </a>release marked a milestone in the path toward decentralized governance on-chain.
<h4>Modular Governance On-Chain</h4>
OpenZeppelin Governor’s ingenuity is in its modular system design. Core to this design are two required modules: Votes and Counting.
<a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#GovernorVotes">Votes</a> is where voting power comes from. Voting power, or weight, can come from a few places. First is from an <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/token/erc20#ERC20Votes">ERC20Votes</a> token, which specifies things like voter account and any delegates delegating their voting power to said account. Second is from <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/token/erc20#ERC20VotesComp">ERC20VotesComp</a>, which supports Compound’s voting and delegation. Third is from <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#GovernorVotesQuorumFraction">GovernorVotesQuorumFraction</a>, which draws from ERC20Votes token but also specifies a quorum.
<a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#GovernorCountingSimple">Counting</a> is where user voting options are set and define how votes are counted. A user can vote for, again, or abstain from voting. If a quorum is set, “for” and “abstain” votes count toward quorum but “against’’ votes don’t.
Key to the Governor system’s modularity is its suite of extensions. For example, a <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#GovernorTimelockControl">timelock</a> allows for a delay between when a proposal passes and when it is executed. A <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#GovernorSettings">threshold</a> sets the minimum number of votes required to create a proposal. You can learn more about the full set of extensions <a href="https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/4.x/api/governance#Governor">here</a>.
<h4>OpenZeppelin Governor in the Wild</h4>
<a href="https://wizard.openzeppelin.com/#governor">OpenZeppelin’s Wizard </a>makes it easy to interact with and customize the Governor contract to set up DAO governance. Users can set required parameters around voting and counting, as well as optional parameters like timlelock and threshold.
Through its intuitive user-interface <a href="https://www.tally.xyz/">Tally</a>, a core OpenZeppelin partner, makes it easy for DAO members to navigate proposals, cast votes, and visualize voting power.
If you want to join the ranks of major projects like <a href="https://docs.ens.domains/v/governance/">ENS DAO </a>and <a href="https://nouns.wtf/vote">Nouns DAO</a> and start using OpenZeppelin Governor for your DAO, check out <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/openzeppelin-governor-onboarding-guide-46b6875f5fa6">Tally’s onboarding guide</a>.
<h3>Moloch</h3>
A minimum viable DAO framework
Moloch is a DAO framework conceived as an idea for a “minimum viable DAO”. The minimum viability is straightforward: streamline grants in order to get value-adding developments funded faster (<a href="https://medium.com/molochdao/moloch-2019-year-in-review-eb6f53dc035">source</a>).
Launched on Valentine’s Day 2019, the aptly named <a href="https://molochdao.com/">Moloch DAO</a> was first to implement the Moloch framework and run on its set of smart contracts. Moloch DAO exemplified “minimal viable DAO” by focusing on grant giving to projects that furthered the then-somewhat-stagnant development of public infrastructure for the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem.
The <a href="https://etherscan.io/address/0x211a94468ba1e379236b45ca42dc63ee93139c7e#code">original Moloch smart contract</a>, which impressively was less than 600 lines of code, was optimized to balance community-driven decision making for capital aggregation and allocation, with an individual’s agency and right to reclaim their portion of the treasury should they disagree with the community’s decision. This novel governance mechanism, Ragequit, acted as an on-chain opt-out clause for DAO contributors.
<h4>Minimum Viable Governance</h4>
Moloch V1’s minimum viable DAO governance process works like this:
Proposal Submission
Only DAO members can submit proposals. There are two types: 1) the Membership proposal for deciding which new DAO members to accept/reject and, 2) the Grant proposal for deciding which projects to give grant funding. Proposals are capped at five per day.
Voting Period
The Voting Period is 7 days. Members get one vote each. Votes are won by simple majority with no quorum on the required number of votes. At the end of 7 days, votes are counted and finalized but, importantly, the result is not processed on-chain.
Grace Period
The Grace Period commences at the end of the Voting Period after the votes are finalized. It lasts 7 days. During these 7 days, members who voted “No” have the right to Ragequit should they disagree with the vote’s outcome. Upon exercising this right, a member receives their portion of the treasury but also foregoes their DAO membership.
The vote’s outcome is executed and processed on-chain at the end of the Grace Period.
If you’re interested in more detail on Moloch’s minimum viable governance process and other aspects of the framework, such as membership types and its anti-collusion mechanism, check out the <a href="https://github.com/MolochVentures/Whitepaper/blob/master/Whitepaper.pdf">whitepaper</a>.
<h4>Moloch V2 &amp; V3</h4>
Since 2019, the Moloch framework and its set of smart contracts have undergone two major upgrades: <a href="https://medium.com/raid-guild/moloch-evolved-v2-primer-25c9cdeab455">Moloch V2</a> in March 2020 and <a href="https://github.com/Moloch-Mystics/Baal">Moloch V3</a> (aka “Baal”) in February 2022.
While the minimum viable DAO ethos persists, the upgrades make the Moloch framework more extensible and flexible. Key governance process improvements include:
<ul>
<li>More detailed proposal and voting process (e.g., open proposal submission)</li>
<li>GuildKick to pass to vote on removing malicious members</li>
<li>Boosts to integrate with external apps like Discord or Snapshot</li>
<li>Minions to interact with external smart contracts</li>
<li>Privileged roles to do things like cancel a proposal and configure membership</li>
</ul>
Read more on Moloch V2 <a href="https://medium.com/raid-guild/moloch-evolved-v2-primer-25c9cdeab455">here</a> and V3 <a href="https://github.com/Moloch-Mystics/Baal">here</a>.
<h4>Moloch DAOs in the Wild</h4>
Today there are over 800 DAOs using the Moloch framework, including <a href="https://www.thelao.io/">The Lao</a>, <a href="https://metacartel.xyz/">MetaCartel Ventures</a>, and <a href="https://www.raidguild.org/">Raid Guild</a>. You can explore the Moloch ecosystem with <a href="https://daohaus.club/">DAOhaus</a>, a no-code platform for creating and managing Moloch DAOs.
<h3>Aragon</h3>
A DAO framework for a global network of DAOs
To call Aragon solely a DAO framework is overly reductive. Certainly, Aragon is a DAO framework. But it is also an expansive platform for DAO builders. Since its 2017 <a href="https://cryptorating.eu/whitepapers/Aragon/Aragon%20Whitepaper.pdf">whitepaper</a>, which described Aragon as, “a dApp that lets anyone create and manage any kind of organization (companies, open source projects, NGOs, foundations, hedge funds…) on the Ethereum blockchain,” the Aragon Network and community has since built a robust ecosystem of tools, applications, and services for creating a cryptonetwork for decentralized organizations to thrive (<a href="https://blog.aragon.org/the-aragon-manifesto-4a21212eac03/">source</a>).
An exhaustive elucidation of the Aragon Network, platform, and ecosystem is beyond the scope of this piece. Suffice it to say, however, that it includes a suite of solutions for everything from APIs to frontend applications that developers and non-developers alike can use for all things DAO. We’ll focus on one specific solution, <a href="https://aragon.org/aragon-govern">Aragon Govern</a>, and the novel governance framework that it is built around.
<h4>Optimistic Governance</h4>
Aragon employs a unique governance framework that assumes all proposals will pass unless indicated otherwise. This type of governance, called Optimistic Governance or “lazy” governance, defaults toward executing proposal transactions on-chain unless they are otherwise challenged. One of the biggest benefits of Optimistic Governance is that DAO members avoid the pervasive DAO problem of voter fatigue or burnout.
Aragon’s Optimistic Governance framework structures how proposals pass through the DAO using the <a href="https://hack.aragon.org/developers/products/aragon-govern/aragon-govern">Govern</a> set of smart contracts and is arbitrated by <a href="https://aragon.org/aragon-court">Aragon Court</a>. In the framework, DAO members can submit a proposal with a scheduled execution. An in-built delay period gives <a href="https://documentation.aragon.org/products/aragon-court/aragon-court#guardian-responsibilities">Court Guardians</a> time to review the proposal.
If the proposal passes, its execution is available and the on-chain transaction occurs at the scheduled execution time. If the proposal is challenged, a dispute is created and Guardians are drafted. The proposal goes through a series of <a href="https://documentation.aragon.org/products/aragon-court/dispute-lifecycle">dispute stages</a> and Guardians re-vote on it. If majority approves, the execution is available and the on-chain transaction occurs at the scheduled execution time. If it fails, the execution is canceled.
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*BkfACJbKRe5QeaGO"><figcaption>With optimistic governance, all proposals are passed by default unless challenged and resolved on Aragon Court (<a href="https://aragon.org/aragon-govern#benefits">source</a>)</figcaption></figure>Compared to Moloch’s minimum viable governance framework, Aragon’s Optimistic Governance framework requires less operational overhead from a DAO member perspective. However, the initial set up is less “out of the box” than Moloch’s given the parameters builders must set when setting up an Aragon DAO.
All of the above does come with a caveat though.
<h4>Aragon App</h4>
In April 2022, Aragon <a href="https://blog.aragon.org/rebuilding-aragons-foundations-for-the-future/">announced</a> plans to rebuild its foundation. Under construction at the time of writing, Aragon App seeks to integrate its existing solutions into a single experience and design system that makes it easy for any builder to create and run a DAO. This does not mean solutions like Govern and Court will go away. Instead they will operate “under the hood”. The Aragon team has not published any timelines on the release of Aragon app, but you can keep up to date on the <a href="https://aragon.org/aragon-app">App website</a>.
<h4>Aragon DAOs in the Wild</h4>
To date over 3,800 DAOs have been built with Aragon (<a href="https://aragon.org/">source</a>). Some of the more notable ones include decentralized oracle <a href="https://api3.org/">API3</a>, metaverse <a href="https://decentraland.org/">Decentraland</a>, and social identity network <a href="https://www.brightid.org/">BrightID</a>.
<h3>Other DAO Frameworks</h3>
OpenZeppelin Governor, Moloch, and Aragon only scratch the surface in this nascent and rapidly evolving space. An unexhaustive list of other DAO frameworks, platforms, and tooling systems includes: <a href="https://colony.io/">Colony</a>, <a href="https://tributedao.com/">Tribute</a>, <a href="https://www.openlaw.io/">OpenLaw</a>, <a href="https://syndicate.io/">Syndicate</a>, <a href="https://daodao.io/">DAODAO</a>, <a href="https://www.factorydao.xyz/">FactoryDAO</a>, <a href="https://www.xdao.app/">XDAO</a>, <a href="https://astrodao.com/">Astro</a>, <a href="https://daostack.io/">DAOstack</a>, <a href="https://www.metropolis.space/">Metropolis</a> (formerly Orca Protocol), <a href="https://app.kali.gg/">KALI</a>, <a href="https://www.metaphor.xyz/">Metaphor.xyz</a>, <a href="https://upstreamapp.com/collectives">Upstream Collectives</a>, and many more.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=8d7ad5af3a1b" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/a-pocket-guide-to-dao-frameworks-8d7ad5af3a1b">A Pocket Guide to DAO Frameworks</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A Pocket Guide to DAO Frameworks

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*A9rg2UcpYdaFXE8LfK9dnA.png"></figure><h3>The DAO Contribution Funnel</h3>
Building an Active Contributor Community
Fostering and growing an active contributor community is crucial to DAO success, but it’s not easy to do. In web3, the development of DAO onboarding experiences is still in its infancy. So far, the most accessible entry points to web3 have been NFTs and PFP projects. Community begins to become established through Discord servers, Telegram group chats, or IRL meetups — avenues that are easy for those new to web3 to understand and participate in.
But developing a deeper understanding of web3 inevitably requires interaction with the DAO ecosystem. Moreover, many people new to web3 are interested in DAOs and want to contribute, but they might struggle to navigate workflows or find opportunities, and over time, there’s little incentive for them to remain invested in the goals of a DAO.
These dynamics also play a part in the conversation on governance, low voting turnout on proposals, and creating a vibrant community that comprises people who feel they are having a tangible impact and can see the results of their work.
More experimentation and analysis needs to go into the DAO onboarding and contribution process. Why do some people successfully become core contributors or highly active community members, and why do others send one introduction message and never participate again? These questions can’t be answered by simply saying one person had more time, or worked harder, because while these reasons can factor into individual cases, broadly, DAOs still struggle with having active contributors beyond their core team.
<h3>The Marketing Funnel Framework</h3>
One way to frame the DAO onboarding process is through the concept of the marketing funnel and customer journey. These concepts don’t necessarily encompass the web3 ethos in how they’re used as part of traditional corporations’ marketing strategy, but I think the structure offers useful insight into how we might construct a DAO contribution funnel.
Let’s start by exploring the traditional marketing funnel.
<figure><img alt="Diagram of the marketing funnel" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/500/1*lsK_qSvAPVZT9dI-rbIgWg.png"><figcaption>The marketing funnel has five stages, from awareness to advocacy.</figcaption></figure>The marketing funnel has an inverted triangle structure with five layers: awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy. In an ideal world from a marketing perspective, each potential customer goes through all the stages of the funnel, interacting and creating trust with the brand until they feel comfortable advocating for it to others.
As an example of how the marketing funnel plays out in practice, let’s say a person is scrolling through their Instagram feed, and they come across an ad for a new video game console recently released by an indie gaming brand. They are interested in gaming products, which is why the ad popped up in their feed in the first place, so this new release from a brand they’ve never heard of catches their attention. This is the awareness part of the funnel.
A few weeks later, they begin considering upgrading to a new console. Maybe their existing one has become slow or out of date, or there’s games they can only play on a new console. In the past, they went with the newest version of their existing console by default, but as they’ve now seen the ad, the indie brand’s console is now under consideration. There’s a few reasons why someone might decide to make a purchase and go to the conversion stage, but for this example, let’s say that during their research, the person watches a glowing review on the brand from a YouTuber they follow.
After making their purchase, they’re enrolled in a loyalty program to receive updates and discounts, and as they’re happy with their console they begin casually mentioning it to friends and family. Over time, they interact more with the brand’s social media and access special offerings through the loyalty program, which motivates them to continue purchasing consoles from the same brand. These actions encompass the loyalty and advocacy stages of the funnel.
There are three key aspects of this marketing funnel that are worth pointing out. First, traversing through the funnel is known as a customer journey, an end to end process that requires consistent investment from both the brand and customer.
Second, the shape of the funnel indicates that as each stage progresses, less people continue on the journey. In non-web3 spaces, that’s expected, and most companies optimize their marketing to identify people who are most likely to make a purchase and end up as advocates for the brand.
Third, understanding the percentage of people who are making it through each stage provides a lot of information on the success of a marketing campaign and where its specific weaknesses might be. If the biggest drop-off in the funnel is from consideration to conversion, for example, the main issue with the campaign is likely not that no one knows about the brand. The issue is probably that there aren’t enough influencing factors at the consideration stage to push someone to make a purchase. In this case, the brand might decide to change up their sales process to better compare themselves to competitors, offer improved product demos, or update their website to provide more details about differentiated features.
Essentially, thinking about the customer journey in terms of stages allows for precise identification of the marketing issues that a brand is facing.
<h3>Creating a DAO Contribution Funnel</h3>
So how do these concepts apply to a DAO contribution funnel?
<figure><img alt="Diagram of the DAO contribution funnel" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/500/1*8hnFmx-Axi5SXUXbng_pgQ.png"><figcaption>The DAO contribution funnel has five stages, from awareness to post-onboarding and contribution.</figcaption></figure>My proposal for a DAO contribution funnel also has an inverted triangle structure with 5 layers: awareness, interest, joining, onboarding, and post onboarding / contribution.
The details of each stage are outlined below:
Awareness
The awareness stage of DAO contribution involves people who were previously unfamiliar with the DAO becoming familiar with it. This might be through word of mouth, social media channels, or other means, but it’s a crucial first stage for building out a contributor community. Awareness can encompass multiple levels — someone might only recognize the name but not know anything else, others might be very familiar with the goals and initiatives of the DAO. In general, having a more developed public-facing media and social arm helps to create a better understanding of a DAO for non-members.
Interest
The interest stage is where commitments, however small, begin to form. Most DAOs have some sort of application or expression of interest process. Going through the effort of submitting an application shows some level of commitment early on in the funnel. Alternatively, a mechanism such as requiring tokens to participate in a DAO would require an upfront financial investment as proof of commitment.
Joining
The joining stage happens after acceptance into the DAO. This likely involves a token-gated community platform, with Discord being the most popular option at the moment, and any other steps to become a member of the DAO.
Onboarding
Onboarding looks different for each individual DAO, but the process typically involves some background on the structure of the DAO, overarching goals, and potential work streams. Some DAOs utilize seasonal or cohort based onboarding and others onboard as people apply. Onboarding is typically a defined process, so new members’ formal onboarding experience will last a preset amount of time.
Post-Onboarding / Contribution
The post-onboarding and contribution phase involves any efforts by a DAO to connect new members to work streams or bounties, and begin seeing contributions.
<h3>So, how can the DAO contribution funnel help to cultivate a more active contributor community?</h3>
Understanding the road to contribution as a funnel made up of separate stages can help core teams identify areas in a new member’s journey that need more support. From an overarching perspective, similar to the ways we might analyze a marketing funnel and customer journey, if a certain stage sees a larger percentage of drop-off, that might suggest a specific weakness in how a DAO is operating.
For example, if the large majority of accepted applicants at the interest stage successfully join the DAO but only half engage in any kind of onboarding process, that could suggest that better vetting needs to happen early on to assess people’s commitment, or that the onboarding process is unclear or inaccessible in some way. This kind of dynamic can manifest in situations that have synchronous onboarding sessions for cohorts without proper asynchronous support or support for a variety of time zones. If a new member is unable to easily engage with onboarding, they’re not likely to continue down the funnel.
The identification of specific groups of new members also helps with this analysis. We can use the funnel to create groups that can more accurately represent how people are interacting with the DAO and act accordingly to improve the onboarding process.
For example, the groups that sit between the interest and joined stage might include:
<ul>
<li>Interested and joined: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and made it into the Discord</li>
<li>Interested and didn’t join: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and never joined the Discord</li>
</ul>
When DAOs experience a lack of participation and contribution, a gut reaction can sometimes be to look at the earliest parts of the funnel. They might think they need to develop a better way of assessing applicants, or reach out to different communities to attract the right kind of talent.
But I believe the groups with the highest potential for active contributors sit lower in the funnel. People who finished onboarding but never contributed after are prime examples of untapped potential. If they went through the onboarding process, that shows an interest and commitment on their part. A lack of contribution might be due to difficulties finding suitable work streams or coordinating with existing team members. In these cases, providing individual support to these people in the post-onboarding stage can create the investment and knowledge needed to empower this group to contribute. Similarly, people who began onboarding but didn’t complete it could also be good potential contributors.
Too often, Discords (or any other platforms for DAOs communication) can be filled with hundreds or thousands of people who don’t interact at all. Some of these people may never contribute for a variety of reasons such as a lack of time or interest, and that’s okay. But finding people, especially those new to web3, who just need a little extra support to become active participants in the community is worth it. In the long term, as people become more invested in the DAOs they contribute to, they become advocates for its success, bringing in connections and ideas that help propel initiatives forward. Utilizing the DAO contribution funnel as a framework empowers the continued development of a vibrant contributor community.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
As best practices for DAOs have continued to develop, it’s become clear that incentivizing contribution remains a key issue for many DAOs. For a variety of reasons, current onboarding structures aren’t working as well as they could. By using the marketing funnel as a framework for mapping out the contributor’s journey in a DAO, core teams can better understand why new members don’t end up contributing and how to improve their processes to cultivate action-oriented and successful contributor communities.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=c5713eaf9e78" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/building-an-active-contributor-community-through-the-dao-contribution-funnel-c5713eaf9e78">Building an Active Contributor Community Through the DAO Contribution Funnel</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Building an Active Contributor Community Through the DAO Contribution Funnel

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*1eOeQjWleW9Ps5s--PI0Nw.png"></figure>Some DAOs like to party, some DAOs like to make art, service DAOs like to make money.
Service DAOs are half social club, half agency. Think FWB if they had a consulting branch focused on web2 companies. Service DAOs connect contributors with a loose-flowing community of like-minded individuals while giving them opportunities to earn money with their skills.
<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/0*wrQbYg9hzsho7gcE"></figure>In traditional agencies, there are owners and employees. In service DAOs, everyone is a part-owner of the DAO due to the shared token, creating the potential for improved incentive alignment. Additionally, service DAOs are web3-native, meaning they will both attract better contributors and do a better job for web3-native clients than a traditional agency.
There are hundreds of service DAOs, but I selected three for us to go through that I think are representative of where service DAOs are headed.
<h3>Myosin</h3>
Last week, I had coffee with Myosin founder Blake Minho Kim, who gave me a breakdown of the DAO’s vision. Myosin is a growth marketing DAO that works with both web2 companies and web3-native companies on their user acquisition strategy.
Typically, growth marketers work in an agency model, but Myosin works as a collective with distinct guilds for content, strategy, product, and more. Thus far, Myosin has worked with gaming platform EveryRealm, web3 messaging platform Notifi, and Disney’s prestigious web3 accelerator Lockervere.
Myosin breaks their services down into three main categories: 1) Finding product-market fit, 2) accelerating growth, and 3) jumping into web3. This means that DAO members can be doing anything from go-to-market strategy consulting to setting up a Discord or providing weekly articles as deliverables.
To get into payment specifics, for each project, 75% of revenues go to the project contributor, 15% go to the DAO treasury, and 10% go to whomever referred the deal. Additionally, Myosin sends 1,000 $MYOSIN to each DAO member when they join.
Blake’s vision got me pumped for the future of web3 marketing. On top of servicing other companies, Myosin will be using its cash flow in the community treasury to build a suite of crypto-native digital products. What exactly those will be, Blake refused to tell…
<h3>Code4rena</h3>
Code4rena is a DAO that focuses on web3 security via blockchain audits. They’ve worked with OpenSea, ENS, Aave, Alchemix, Nouns, and a bunch more web3 projects.
Instead of protocols using typical bug bounties, web3 projects use Code4rena as a protocol layer to host audit contests — often with pot sizes of $50,000+ in USDC. Within the Code4rena arena, there are three players:
<ol>
<li>Wardens protect DeFi by auditing code</li>
<li>Sponsors create prize pools to attract wardens to audit their code</li>
<li>Judges decide the severity, validity, and quality of findings, and rate the wardens’ performance</li>
</ol>
Code4rena’s co-founder Scott Lewis led me to <a href="https://twitter.com/sockdrawermoney">@SockDrawerMoney</a> who told me that auditors often fall into two categories: learners making $50–500 per contest and pro auditors making anywhere from a $2,000 floor to $30,000 for winning the contests. The DAO uses $ARENA to pays out tokens to other types of contributors called “Masons”.
As for governance, @SockDrawerMoney told me that governance is on-chain and “highly focused on delegating the right responsibility to the right place.” The DAO Constitution requires votes for DAO treasury usage and changes to governance and token issuance; beyond those subjects, the DAO tries to avoid voting and instead uses Working Groups of 3–5 Community Members with relevant expertise.
<h3>Risk DAO</h3>
Risk DAO is a service DAO that launched earlier this year with the intention of giving companies access to novel risk management frameworks. Anyone who’s spent time in the crypto realm knows that poor risk management is essential.
Risk DAO offers audits and related services, especially for lending markets and stablecoin protocols. Protocol founder Yaron Velner told me that Risk DAO has worked with Aurigami Finance, Vesta Finance, Gearbox, and more undisclosed protocols.
There is no token at this point, but a few members control a multisig wallet. Often, the multisig receives the payment and distributes it to contributors, but sometimes protocols pay the contributors directly. Velner said there are no official titles, but the team has people who do business development, reach out to potential customers, etc. They also publish <a href="https://bad-debt.riskdao.org/">research papers</a> and open source tooling which gets them some traction and new customers.
Risk DAO knows that this space is fueled by the visionaries and the innovators but recognizes that many variables for success are overlooked. They found their niche in risk management and this service DAO enables these dreamers to execute and streamline a safety-first approach for builders and customers.
<h3>Honorable Mention: Opolis</h3>
We’ve seen a massive rise in both the gig and DAO economies. DAO workers in particular have great pay and flexible schedules, but lack the typical employee benefits of a corporate environment. Opolis is a vessel to offer employee benefits for independent workers. It’s a collective that services service DAOs.
The DAO is split into Employee Members (independent workers) and Coalition Members (non-US frens, DAOs that want to refer members, and investors). Opolis Executive Steward Joshua Lapidus told me that there are roughly 450 Employment Members who are members of what he calls an “Employment DAO”.
Actions in this ecosystem revolve around a token called $WORK. Yes, it’s a token. No, it’s nothing to get worked up about. Just view it as a tool for incentivized coordination. The $WORK token is awarded to all members for activity within the DAO — from actually just using the shared services to then referring new members.
But why is Opolis even structured as a DAO? This community of independent workers is able to leverage their newfound collective status to reap benefits typically reserved for companies. This means members can access fiat and crypto payroll tools, discounted group healthcare insurance, payroll tools, and additional services.
Members only pay for these services when used, and profits are shared between members based on activity. Participants transition to owners of this shared network through $WORK. Future moves are dictated by accumulating this token and governing the DAO.
<h3>Closing Thoughts</h3>
In college, I worked for an SEO agency. Very strict rules and screen-captures every 10 seconds to make sure you’re working on the clock. Service DAOs are the opposite.
Since starting writing this piece, I’ve joined the aforementioned Myosin and gotten involved with the community. It’s been really fun to join product calls and I’m hoping to land a freelance gig through them soon.
I’ll leave with this. Strip away the fancy descriptors and DAO terminology and these frameworks simply humanize connection while increasing individual flexibility. DAOs encourage a type of connection and self-sovereignty that scales. Regarding the future of work, service DAOs are a step in the right direction.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=7e850105305c" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/at-your-service-a-deep-dive-into-3-service-daos-7e850105305c">At Your Service: A Deep Dive into 3 Service DAOs</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At Your Service: A Deep Dive into 3 Service DAOs

<div class="medium-feed-item">
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/finding-synergy-between-contributors-and-the-dao-8db2593fc1d2?source=rss----f5000451a166---4"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1400/1*pPaz1clkf8QFaaWqq-zi0g.png" width="1400"></a>
Will the exchange between contributor and collective ever be equal?
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/finding-synergy-between-contributors-and-the-dao-8db2593fc1d2?source=rss----f5000451a166---4">Continue reading on Tally »</a>
</div>

Finding Synergy Between Contributors and the DAO

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*c-c7XMrs7mTVfFS7QLillg.png"><figcaption>What is an NFT DAO?</figcaption></figure>an overview for everyone
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) enable communities to organize, coordinate, and pursue a common goal on a global scale. They form the fabric of web3 organizations that empower members and create shared economic upside. NFT projects are leveraging the power of DAOs to create community-led organizations that drive immense value for the project and its holders.
<h3>What is an NFT DAO?</h3>
NFT DAOs combine the governance frameworks and shared treasury of a DAO with the power of NFTs as a membership and governance token. This enables NFT projects to establish a formal structure that empowers holders with collective ownership over the direction of the project. NFT DAOs create a foundation that embodies some of the core values of web3–collaborative, decentralized building with shared economic upside.
<h3>How does an NFT DAO Work?</h3>
There are three core components of an NFT DAO–a community treasury, governance, and membership. NFTs act as a membership and governance token while driving revenue for the community wallet through secondary sales. In essence, the NFT enables the core components of an NFT DAO.
<h4>Community Treasury</h4>
NFT DAOs create community treasury wallets that are funded with a percent of proceeds from the initial mint and ongoing secondary royalties. The treasury is typically a multi-signature smart contract wallet like Gnosis Safe with signers from the core team and community. This provides seed funding and ongoing revenues to support the DAO that is owned by the community.
The community treasury is used to invest in member initiatives that may generate value for the project, its holders, and the overall web3 ecosystem. These projects may include derivative works, investing in “blue-chip” NFTs, donating to various causes, and supporting new web3 ideas. The community treasure forms the backbone of an NFT DAO that enables members to participate in on-chain and off-chain governance.
<h4>Governance</h4>
NFT DAOs use governance processes similar to traditional DAOs which involve three main stages–proposal, feedback, and a formal vote. Any member (or members) of the DAO can create a proposal that receives feedback from other members before being put to a vote. The voting may occur off-chain through Snapshot, on an L2 chain like Gnosis or Polygon, or on-chain like NounsDAO.
Forums are a popular tool that enables the management of the proposal and feedback phases of the governance process. This allows the DAO to capture all the pertinent information in one place before a formal vote. The proposal is then uploaded to Snapshot where members of the DAO may cast their votes.
<h4>Membership and Voting</h4>
NFT DAOs are permissioned communities that use NFTs as membership and governance tokens. The NFT serves as a proof of ownership that grants the holder access to the DAO, its benefits, and the ability to vote on proposals. This ensures that only people with a proven, vested interest in the DAO can influence policy and affect decisions.
While DAOs are constantly developing new voting mechanisms, many NFT DAOs use the common rule that 1 NFT = 1 vote. This rewards a holder that owns multiple NFTs in the project with additional voting power in the DAO.
<h3>Why do NFT DAOs Matter?</h3>
NFT DAOs distribute ownership of an NFT project across the original creators and all holders. The founders act as stewards for the DAO by building alongside holders in hopes of generating value for the project and the community. This creates an exciting dynamic between the founding team and the community.
<h4>Decentralization</h4>
While many projects engage with and consider the opinions of holders, most remain centralized organizations. The founders of the project retain decision-making power and control of the project wallet. Holders must trust the core team of the project to make decisions that align with the values of the community.
NFT DAOs decentralize projects by distributing ownership across all holders through governance protocols and a shared community treasury. Holders may actively participate in governance by creating, discussing, and voting on proposals. This creates a more trustless and decentralized
<h4>Shared Economic Upside</h4>
NFT projects change the landscape of economic upside for creators and holders. All participants in the NFT market experience more upside than in traditional markets. Project creators experience the most economic incentives through mint proceeds and secondary royalties.
NFT DAOs take shared economic upside a step further with a community treasury. This further distributes the upside across the project, its founders, and its holders. As the DAO generates value that leads to price appreciation, holders experience an increase in individual holding value and in the community treasury via secondary royalties.
<h4>Community-driven</h4>
Traditional corporations, especially social media platforms, built wildly successful businesses off of their communities. Most of the economic value created accrued for shareholders and the top creators on each platform. This structure created a highly extractive model for communities allowing a small subset of people to profit.
Communities form the heart and soul of NFT projects. An NFT DAO empowers its community to participate and engage in guiding the future direction of the project. The decentralization of decision power and shared economic upside create a more community-driven approach.
<h3>An NFT DAO in Action</h3>
Nouns DAO is the main governing body of the Nouns ecosystem and one of the most successful NFT DAOs. Nouns are an experimental attempt to improve the formation of on-chain avatar communities by bootstrapping identity, community, governance, and a treasury that can be used by the community.
<h4>Community Treasury</h4>
The Nouns Auction Contract acts as a self-sufficient Noun generator and distribution mechanism. Every 24 hours, a new Noun is generated and auctioned with 100% of the auction proceeds automatically deposited in the Nouns DAO treasury. The treasury is governed by Noun owners.
<h4>Membership and Voting</h4>
Each Noun is an irrevocable member of Nouns DAO and entitled to one vote in all governance matters. Noun votes are non-transferable meaning if a holder sells their Noun, the vote goes with the Noun. Noun votes are used to direct the treasury.
<h4>Governance</h4>
Nouns can create and vote on governance proposals that execute transactions when approved. The governance process takes place on <a href="https://discourse.nouns.wtf/">Nouns Discourse</a> where Nouns create proposals and hold longer form discussions about the Nouns ecosystem. When a proposal is ready for a vote, a member of the Nouns DAO can submit a proposal on the <a href="https://nouns.wtf/vote">Nouns governance site</a>.
<h3>NFT DAOs Empower Communities</h3>
NFT DAOs leverage a shared treasury, governance, membership, and voting to empower holders to actively participate in the future of the project. This creates a more decentralized, community-driven NFT project with shared economic upsides between holders and founders. While not every NFT needs a DAO, NFT DAOs create a powerful structure that embodies the ethos of web3.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=b4db974e9379" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/what-is-an-nft-dao-b4db974e9379">What is an NFT DAO?</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What is an NFT DAO?

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*fKZS-aKmVCu2Qfy_Z4Fjig.png"><figcaption>Title: 3 Questions That Will Help You Build Better DAO Communities</figcaption></figure>Addressing the challenges of community management in DAOs
DAOs are member-owned communities without centralized leadership.
DAOs are autonomous and transparent: This is because smart contracts lay the foundational rules, and execute the agreed-upon decisions. DAO activities like proposals and voting can be publicly audited.
Hence, a DAO is governed by its members who collectively make critical decisions about the future of the project — such as technical upgrades, business development, and treasury allocations.
Efficient member coordination in these decentralized communities is one of the most challenging aspects of running a successful DAO; This pivotal duty falls on the shoulders of community managers.
Despite leveraging smart contracts and digital platforms, community managers still face the challenges of coordinating humans around a DAO’s goals and mission.
This piece is aimed at addressing the challenges of community management in DAOs by providing insights into three questions:
1. How do we design better onboarding systems that help members build context about a DAO?
2. How do we convert members into active contributors?
3. How do we create opportunities for DAO contributors to build a sense of ownership?
<h3>How do we design better onboarding systems that help members build context about a DAO?</h3>
Many DAOs don’t take into consideration the need for members to properly contextualize/understand a DAO on their onboarding journey.
Onboarding design for many DAOs looks like this:
<ul>
<li>A contributor learns about a DAO on Twitter, Discord, or Newsletter with some catchy copy or announcements.</li>
<li>The contributor heads over to the website to read documentation that does not fully capture the operations of the DAO. Sometimes, the documentation is too vague to understand.</li>
<li>The contributor fills out a form stating interest in wanting to join and provides information used to asses if they are a good fit for the DAO.</li>
<li>The contributor joins the Discord to get involved. This user is met with a host of messages and announcements, a bunch of proposals in progress, and scheduled events that do not help them contextualize the community.</li>
</ul>
This basic onboarding process is inefficient and does not foster the orientation needed to build context and properly integrate into the community. It is basic, dormant, and is not the best approach to onboarding new members.
Although there are no perfect rules to designing a superior onboarding process, there are certain qualities that must be considered when designing one.
A great onboarding design should:
<ul>
<li>Help new members build context for the DAO’s purpose and goal</li>
<li>Encourage conversation and proactiveness</li>
<li>Limit disjointed information on joining</li>
<li>Be structured around ease of involvement</li>
</ul>
A recurring problem I have observed working and interacting with DAOs is the issue of context building.
Context building is the ability of new members to understand the circumstances, events, and operations of a DAO. Basically, it is understanding the who, why, and how of a DAO and knowing how to operate in the DAO.
Proper context building is important for members to take necessary actions and align properly with the DAO’s goals, priorities, and areas of focus.
For members to build the right context about a DAO, they have to:
<ol>
<li>Understand the key goals, directions, and method of operations of the DAO.</li>
<li>Be able to map and navigate the DAO ecosystem, i.e. they must have a reasonable understanding of the DAO marketplace, competitors, partners, collaborators, and opportunities.</li>
<li>Know how to get involved and actively contribute.</li>
</ol>
While DAOs are quick and permissionless to join, context building takes time and usually requires a lot of effort from the members and the community managers. New members need to carry out proper research to build understanding, while community managers must ensure they make the research and learning process as seamless as possible.
Designing an onboarding process that takes into cognizance the human need for contextualizing their environment (in this case, the DAO community) to become familiar is the unlock for this challenge.
To do this, community builders should:
<ol>
<li>Design an onboarding process that reframes the navigation, activation, and learning process of new members</li>
<li>Optimize for a shorter learning curve</li>
<li>Build an organized and easily accessible knowledge hub to aid knowledge transfer and context building.</li>
</ol>
<h3>2. How do we convert community members into contributors?</h3>
Most DAOs follow the 1–9–90 rule. 1% of the members create the community experiences (these are the core builders), 9% engage and actively contribute to building the community, while the remaining 90% are passive, consisting of lurkers and inactive members.
In DAOs, the active participation of community members is as important as that of users to web2 businesses.
Active participation supports the building and expansion of the organization, ultimately leading to the achievement of the organization’s goals and mission.
Community builders are always trying to answer the question: How can we convert members into active contributors?
While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question at the moment, there are some best practices that can help.
<h4>Knowing your ideal community member</h4>
Strong DAO communities are very loud about their target audience. One way to break down web3 target audiences is by level of experience:
<ul>
<li>Crypto newcomers: Recently joined the space, opportunity seeking, and not very knowledgeable.</li>
<li>Crypto enthusiasts: Bull market-driven adopters who know enough about the niche they are interested in.</li>
<li>Crypto natives: Very sophisticated with lots of technical knowledge, value-based investors, seen through multiple market cycles, and are mostly driving the innovations.</li>
</ul>
Knowing your audience is essential for the following reasons:
<ul>
<li>It helps to define your approach to designing and building your community.</li>
<li>It helps to customize the business and community experience, helping members to align easily with the DAO’s mission</li>
<li>It helps to provide a clear path to designing community spaces and activities that caters to the specific needs of the community</li>
<li>It helps builders to be thoroughly informed about the community members which can be used as a feedback loop to better improve the community.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Encouraging active contribution</h4>
<blockquote>Every community has a few members who show up more than anyone else in the community and bring a massive amount of passion and energy. They are the lifeblood of your community. Make their happiness your priority.</blockquote>
<blockquote>— David Spinks</blockquote>
As stated earlier, most digital-first communities follow a 1–9–90 rule. When the stats are so skewed towards ‘inaction’ what steps can we take to encourage more participation?
One of the best ways to encourage proactive participation is by recognizing active contributors. This sets up an organic fly-wheel within the community. Active members get recognized and this encourages more members to contribute and take responsibility resulting in more active members in the community and then the flywheel rotates again.
<h4>Engaging Lurkers</h4>
<blockquote>Make it as easy/attractive as possible for others to engage (suggest topics, remove friction, celebrate people who engage, help solve their problems)</blockquote>
<blockquote><a href="https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg/status/1237805475854340097">— Erik Torenberg</a></blockquote>
There are many factors that keep lurkers in DAOs from becoming active contributors. The community builder’s role is to identify these barriers and remove them.
Community builders must create novel ways to add more value to lurkers and inactive members alternatively. Community managers must also make it easy for them to participate or get value out of the community by:
<ul>
<li>Iterating on the pivotal decisions, most popular discussions, and upcoming events from the community.</li>
<li>Providing easy access to the community knowledge base. This should be addressed in the onboarding process as easy accessibility to the community knowledge base reduces the friction of sourcing needed information.</li>
<li>Designing intrinsically and extrinsically motivating benefits for active contributors, highlighting them, and nudging members to take action.</li>
<li>Asking for feedback on how to improve the overall community experience.</li>
</ul>
<h3>3. How do we create opportunities for contributors to build a sense of ownership?</h3>
Most DAOs want to achieve a set state of decentralization, community governance, and active contribution from the onset, but in reality, this is only achievable when contributors develop a sense of ownership within the DAO.
Fostering a sense of ownership among contributors is key to retaining key contributors and participants in a DAO.
When contributors have invested enough of their time, resources, and energy to a DAO, they grow a sense of the ownership mentality that primes them for active contribution in the long term. Community builders must then create avenues quickly to sustain this sense of ownership in the community. This can be achieved by:
<ol>
<li>Identifying enthusiastic and high-value contributors, and assigning them to key community tasks. These are members with a unique set of skills, high reputation, and high performance.</li>
<li>Allowing active contributors the opportunity to influence and participate in key community decisions, discussions, and forums of importance. The goal here is to ensure that community members feel heard and get empowered to have a real impact on the future direction of the community.</li>
<li>Providing open opportunities for members to take on contribution opportunities. The key here is to make opportunities readily available across all spheres of community operations.</li>
<li>Giving contributors opportunities to take on more responsibilities via community leadership roles such as running workshop groups, leading community proposals, or managing new vectors of community businesses. eg. <a href="https://forum.metacartel.org/t/metacartels-paladin-role-strategy-ops/650">MetaCartel’s Paladin role</a>.</li>
<li>Rewarding contributors with vested tokens/network ownership for their work, commitment, and the value they bring to the community. For example, <a href="https://gov.indexcoop.com/t/iip-36-full-time-contributor-retention/1021">Index coop’s full-time retention proposal</a>.</li>
</ol>
Fostering this sense of ownership among community members and contributors is the key to retaining key community contributors and fostering more active contributions.
<h3>Conclusion: The Future Of DAOs</h3>
We are still in the early days of understanding how to better design and effectively build communities for decentralized organizations.
Tons of research work and funding is presently being allocated to building innovative and better coordination systems for DAO community operations.
As of the time of this writing, there is still no clear-cut winner — no single DAO has fully cracked the decentralized community building code.
Nevertheless, it is exciting to see new solutions emerge, ones that will guide the next generation of community builders to create better-decentralized communities that fully satisfy the needs of DAOs.
<img src="https://medium.com/_/stat?event=post.clientViewed&amp;referrerSource=full_rss&amp;postId=987d08ec7db0" width="1" height="1" alt=""><hr>
<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/3-questions-that-will-help-you-build-better-dao-communities-987d08ec7db0">3 Questions That Will Help You Build Better DAO Communities</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

3 Questions That Will Help You Build Better DAO Communities

<figure><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*MI5EebXaWdzyiTdg3XCmgw.png"></figure>Burnout in the future of work
In today’s fast-paced work environment, burnout is becoming a hazard employees face with increasing frequency. Though it may provide more employee freedom than traditional employment, contributing to DAOs is not exempt from the challenge of burnout. In fact, Web3, which is currently being used, populated, and built by those with extreme passion, may possibly be even more susceptible to worker burnout due to that very energy and enthusiasm.
<h3>What is “DAO fatigue”?</h3>
In a word — Burnout. “DAO fatigue” (also known as DAO burnout) is simply a common term for DAO contributor-specific burnout, something already plaguing workers globally. Along with the usual risk factors, causes, and symptoms of typical job burnout, there are some additions, more specific to the DAO space.
The World Health Organization describes <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases">burnout</a> as a workplace phenomenon characterized by feelings of exhaustion, increased mental distance, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.
Common causes include:
<ul>
<li>Abnormal or dysfunctional workplace dynamics</li>
<li>Extreme shifts in types of activity</li>
<li>Lack of Social Support</li>
<li>Work-Life Imbalance</li>
</ul>
It’s important to not confuse burnout with general stress. Stress is the feeling of pressure from taking on too much work, too much responsibility, or being short on time. Burnout is when you feel you don’t have enough motivation, stamina, or energy to accomplish even mundane tasks. A state of lethargy becomes your new normal.
<h3>Double edge sword of ownership</h3>
As most DAO contributors tend to spread their efforts across many different organizations, wearing oneself too thin can be especially insidious. The current DAO landscape is primarily populated by passionate and energetic “true believers”. Much like the early internet, the enthusiasm that is the prime mover of the current DAO space can also be a vulnerability.
The first problem can be summed up by a phrase often attributed to Albert Einstein:
“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”
Though not precisely an accurate explanation of physical relativity, personal time-dilation does seem to be a real experiential <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797611435817">phenomenon</a>. The activities we enjoy doing or emphatically believe in rarely feel like work. We perceive time passing most rapidly when doing something we find enjoyable and goal-motivated. This can wreak havoc on our ability to properly estimate goal completion times. This, in turn, can cause DAO contributors to over-commit and over-schedule. The cumulative effect of this can eventually result in a hard crash into DAO fatigue.
Another contributing factor is getting pulled by the overall communal goal, much like attempting to swim through a strong current. DAOs tend to have some direction towards an agreed-upon result, mission, or set of goals. The majority of contributors usually move in the same relative direction to achieve these ends. This can sometimes create a current-like effect, pushing everyone along its flow. Sometimes this results in a positive effect on the whole group, forcing each individual to dig deeper than they thought possible and ultimately persevere. Inversely though, they also often lead to contributors voluntarily overwhelming themselves with a too heavy workload or attempting to work outside of their personal experience, comfort level, and/or given skill set. The outcome of which can be detrimental to the organization as well as the end product.
The biggest and most obvious drivers of DAO fatigue though, are the binary reasons DAO work is so enticing to begin with, ownership and freedom. Contribute to a DAO, even just occasionally, and the culture itself will make you feel ownership. Words like ‘our’, ‘we’, and ‘us’ are uniting symptoms of a mentality of collective ownership. This is a stark contrast to the work experience the vast majority of people are used to. The level of individual ownership most DAOs feel inherently imbued with is a constant motivator to achieve goals. Nobody wants to stay and work late for the ACME corporation but if you personally own the local neighborhood ACME depot, you will work late, come in early, and even work on holidays if necessary. Ownership cultivates a desire to succeed. However, that desire coupled with individual workload freedom can cause anyone to overestimate their own capabilities or the amount of time required to accomplish a task.
Having a highly in-demand skill can also lead to burnout. If there isn’t enough of you to get things done the nature of a goal-oriented organization tends to try to stretch you to be enough anyways. It’s easy to let it and requires discipline to prevent. You’ll likely not even notice as it incrementally pulls you for just a “little more”. Like a lobster in a pot doesn’t feel the gradual increase in temperature until it’s too late. Know the value of your skills and protect yourself accordingly
Contributing to a single DAO can only be as consuming as you allow it but spreading efforts across several DAOs simultaneously can amplify those hazards, as well as increase exhaustion due to the brain switching focus too often. This is not to say multi-DAO contributions should be altogether avoided. It just requires an extra level of awareness. In this instance, I’ve found that narrowing tasks to a smaller bandwidth of skills can help. Sticking with a few of your main talents. This provides a throughline across DAO work while providing the option and flexibility to learn new things along the way.
<h3>Monitoring for DAO fatigue &amp; solutions</h3>
The best barometer of DAO Fatigue, or any burnout for that matter, is feeling the loss of passion, excitement, and enthusiasm behind your work. The sense of that motivational energy subsiding is a strong indicator you may be taking on too much. Additionally, there are a few other common burnout signs and symptoms to keep an eye out for.
Some of the usual suspects are:
<ul>
<li>General fatigue</li>
<li>Insomnia</li>
<li>Depression</li>
<li>Quick temper</li>
<li>Irritability</li>
<li>Alcohol or substance abuse</li>
<li>Irregular heartbeat and/or pulse</li>
<li>High blood pressure</li>
</ul>
The best way to not fall victim to DAO fatigue is to prevent it altogether. Proactively take steps to counter the intense zone we sometimes get sucked into while being productive. Budget your time wisely and stick to your schedule. Another good habit to get into is reevaluating work-related decisions several times over. This is a great way to prevent mistakes, incompatibility issues, overlooking something, etc. Make careful, well-thought-out decisions. Also, it helps to keep work and home life separate. Leave a few quiet minutes alone to make the transition between the two. Try not to cross these by excessively discussing work during home-life time, or vice-versa. Constantly shifting between these can quickly fatigue the brain. Make time for hobbies or other interests. Eat healthy, exercise, unplug, leave time to unwind before bed, and get plenty of solid rest. Plan regular activities with family and/or friends. Personally, I try to watch a movie with my family once a week. It’s something that we all enjoy and provides us with a common touchstone.
In the eventuality you do fall victim, knowing how to recover can lessen the impact and bring back the enjoyment of your work. First, you have to recognize and acknowledge the problem. Then consider taking some time off to relax. Even if it is only a few days, just disconnecting can rapidly improve the situation. After you recover, assess the situation, what factors led to the overload, and how to prevent it from happening again. Map out a plan to handle those factors, make those changes, and stick to your plan. Frontrun the risk of it happening again.
As DAOs attempt to change the landscape of work there will likely be a plethora of new complications that arise. The law of unintended consequences. As new solutions are created and we find ourselves in the future it’s important to not overlook or underestimate the old problems we carry along with us. Burnout is one that we won’t likely shake off anytime soon. If it can’t be totally eradicated, knowing warning signs and how to avoid falling victim to burnout will be a key advantage.
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<a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/dao-fatigue-7ebe58549a8f">DAO Fatigue</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.tally.xyz/">Tally</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.