Help Shape the Future of Stacks Grants

SIP
#1

Hey Stackers,

As SIP-031 efforts continue, it’s a great time to offer your insights about how newly created resources should be deployed. One of the biggest topics on the table is how a grant program (or series of programs) should work and what it should optimize for.

While the Stacks Endowment is still in the process of spinning up, we can start gathering ideas now so that when it’s ready, the program can launch quickly with the right information in hand.

If you have thoughts on grants, here are some prompts to guide your feedback:

  • What should grants optimize for?

  • How should grantees be held accountable? What reporting should be expected?

  • Are there grant programs you admire or think we should borrow from?

  • How should grants be prioritized? How should approval/rejection decisions be made knowing it’s not feasible to vote on every single one?

  • Should known builders have advantages or a fast track?

Thanks for your help!

5 Likes
#2

Here is my proposal:

#3

A couple thoughts…

  1. A Founder is looking for Help, not Homework. Grant programs in the past have had funds tied to tons of requirements, posts, cross marketing, etc… Many people are not looking for this help. They are looking for largely hands off funding. Obviously, having certain milestones and checkpoints are important, but let the founders run their projects how they want and largely stay hands off.

  2. Grants should allow people to work full time on a project. Current grants are way too small to really enable any team to do anything. We need big boy grants. A 2K STX grant while nice, is not really useful.

  3. Grants should be available in USDH or other stable coins. Issuing all grants in STX could lead to excessive sell pressure. If a founder is issued a large grant to cover some payroll and hosting costs the first thing that will happen is the STX is instantly swapped for a stable for actual payments.

  4. Have clear (and more importantly open) selection criteria. Grants of the past have only been issued on topics important to Stacks centralized leadership, and were not open to any project. This changed with DeGrants as sections were carved out for Art, Music, and other non-DeFi subject matter.

  5. Explain rejections. Submitters of Grants should get a clear explanation if a Grant is declined with proper reasoning and things that are missing. No form rejection letters.

  6. And most importantly… BE TRANSPARENT. Do not run Grants on a forum or behind some secret wall. Join the community, be invested as a grant provider to those you are giving Grants. Hold meetings in the open, judge in the open, make scores publicly available.

2 Likes
#4

Will put some thoughts together, but why not hold an X Space or two to talk about this?

The collaborative experience provided by an X Space is a great way to facilitate discussion, with important parts then making it into the forum. Many community members would appreciate it as this forum is rarely visited.

1 Like
#5

Thanks so much, appreciate this! We’ll be compiling all these ideas and feedback for reference/review as things come together. I definitely agree it’s very beneficial to talk through things live. there’s a Spaces scheduled for next Thursday (was set up yesterday so the word is just getting out).
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