[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

How we perceive the problem

Groups and organizations in the Catalyst space need to know best practices on how to enable and enact community governance. We also need to test the effectiveness of Gimbalabs' new Andamio learning management platform specifically for governance-related learning materials, since so far it has been used only for more practical and experiential learning such as coding. Particularly, we need to test how Andamio's credentialling approaches work on governance-related learning.

Our solution

We propose to solve this by providing project-based learning (PBL) courses on Andamio on governance-related topics; enrolling learners; and collecting feedback.

Our PBL courses will cover governance topics such as decision-making, budget management, writing governance documents such as codes of conduct, using tokens to support governance, and documentation to support governance. Each PBL will take learners through a hands-on set of modules that will teach them governance principles using real-life projects, in order to learn, test, and reflect on different governance patterns and best practices.

Reasons for our approach

As Governance Guild, we have facilitated and participated in a number of groups in the Cardano and Catalyst communities and collectively learned many best practices and methods of organization and governance. Because of this, we are in a unique position to share our hard-won knowledge of what works, and share it with the community using the innovative Andamio project-based learning model.

What is unique about our solution, who it will benefit, and why this should be important to Cardano.

Each PBL (project-based learning) course we create will comprise basic onboarding materials to the course; building up of background knowledge so learners can discover the concepts and ideas around governance; specialization into specific best practices and patterns; and offering learners the opportunity to contribute back to the course and add their own unique knowledge and skills to further improve the course over time.

We will build these PBL courses on Andamio, an on-chain learning management system developed by Gimbalabs. This will allow us to both host and share the course materials, and also to issue completion certificates on-chain so students can demonstrate mastery of specific governance topics.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

By allowing developers to better understand and implement governance methods and patterns that are effective, this tool will help development projects move faster, be more collaborative, and achieve their goals faster and with greater cohesion and harmony between team members.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

• Number of developers and teams taking our courses

• Number of students who complete each course

• Qualitative course survey and feedback, including how confident learners feel in their new governance knowledge, and how effective they felt the Andamio platform was at delivering governance knowledge.

  [IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We will release the source and materials under a Creative Commons license that allows derivatives, so people can either take the courses as-is, or adapt them to their specific organization and add them as part of a larger curriculum.

We will release all of our material in both an open and running instance of Andamio, as well as the source repository of our course materials.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Governance Guild was funded in Fund 9 to produce several modules of Governance-related PBL (project-based learning) courses on governance topics such as decision-making in groups, and managing a treasury. This was done, and we have released the material as information for self-directed learning. As part of this proposal, we will take this existing material and migrate it into the Andamio platform (entailing some restructuring of the material itself), as well as developing certification and incorporating feedback to improve the material for the new Andamio environment. We will also expand our provision by writing 3 new PBLs on governance topics.

The fact that our Fund 9 material has already been successfully written verifies that we have the capability to write effective governance learning material. We have had discussions with Andamio and have developed an understanding of how it works; and one of our team, Nori Nishigaya, is also part of the Andamio team and will be managing the cross-team relationship. This demonstrates that we have the capacity to incorporate new Andamio-specific features such as on-chain certification, and to create new PBLs to fit the Andamio platform.

Treasury Guild are also part of our team. They have extensive experience in fund management and disbursement, and are trusted with the management of funds for several projects, including the ones that will use these tools. Our GitHub project boards will feature the ADA amounts to be paid out for specific tasks, helping to ensure transparency and accountability in our fund management.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goals for this project are

1) Launch governance PBLs on Andamio

• Validated by the successful implementation of our PBLs on the Andamio platform

2) Prove that a PBL-based approach is effective in teaching governance models

• Validated by learners successfully completing our PBLs and giving feedback

3) Have an impact on collaboration and cohesion of development teams and communities

• Validated by feedback from learners

4) Increase levels of trust and cooperation by enabling learners to prove what they have learned

• Validated by on-chain credentialing and emergent reputational value generated from the Andamio platform.

  [CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Milestone 1 - Setup & Migration

Main task & Key Activities - Set up Andamio instance, creation of website; migrate our existing PBL data

Success or acceptance criteria - a successful setup and migration

Proposed cost - 20,000 ADA (18.28 % of budget)

Expected timeline - November 2023

Milestone 2 - Producing new PBL content

Main task & Key Activities - Produce 3 X new PBL modules

Success or acceptance criteria - successful completion of 3 X new PBL modules

Proposed cost - 30,000 ADA (27.4 % of budget)

Expected timeline - December 2023

Milestone 3 - Learner onboarding, & conduct PBL courses

Main task & Key Activities - Onboarding learners & conducting PBL courses on Andamio

Success or acceptance criteria - successful On Boarding & Conduct PBL Courses

Proposed cost - 28000 ADA (25.59 % of budget)

Expected timeline - January 2024

Milestone 4 - Review and revise content and functionality of Andamio platform

Main task & Key Activities - Review and Revise Andamio platform

Success or acceptance criteria - a successful review, incorporating learner feedback on our PBLs, and our feedback to the Andamio team on how the platform worked

Proposed cost - 14,000 ADA (12.79 %)

Expected timeline - February 2024

Milestone 5 - Emergent reputation and governance; project close-out

Main task & Key Activities - implementation and review of Andamio's emergent Reputation and Governance mechanisms (completion tokens for learners) based on feedback from our learners, and our own observations. Project close-out report and video.

Success or acceptance criteria - Our review of Andamio's emergent reputation and governance functionality is shared with the Andamio team. Production and sharing of project close-out report and video.

Proposed cost - 17,400 ADA (15.9 % of budget)

Expected timeline - March 2024

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestone 1 - Setup & Migration - November 2023 - 20,000 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook and website documentation.
• Deliverables - Setup Andamio instance, creation of Website, migrate existing PBL data
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver setup of Andamio instance and migration of PBL data

Milestone 2 - Produce new PBL content - December 2023 - 30,000 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook and website documentation.
• Deliverables - Produce 3 X new PBL modules
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver production 3 X new PBL modules

Milestone 3 - Learner onboarding, & conduct PBL courses - January 2024 - 28,000 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook and website documentation.
• Deliverables - Learner onboarding & conduct PBL Courses
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver learner onboarding and the PBL course delivery

Milestone 4 - Review and Revise Andamio platform - February 2024 - 14,000 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook and website documentation.
• Deliverables - Review and revise Andamio platform
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver a review and revision of the Andamio platform

Milestone 5 - Emergent Reputation and Governance, & project close-out - March 2024 - 17,400 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook and website documentation & Close out Report

• Deliverables - Emergent Reputation and Governance (Completion Tokens) & Close out Report

• Outputs - This milestone will deliver Completion Tokens & Close out Report

  [RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

Software Licenses & Services

300 ADA

Documentation

Documentation setup and maintenance (maintaining documentation of PBL materials and commentary on GitBook and Website)

2,000 ADA

Publicity

Publicizing our work to the community via weekly posts on Telegram, Discord and Twitter (80 ADA a week x 25 weeks)

2,000 ADA

Project Management

(Regular reporting (monthly reports and milestone reports) - 3,000 ADA)

(Project management and Co-ordination - 3,000 ADA)

(Close Out Report - 3,000)

Andamio

(Setup, creation of website, data migration - 8,000 ADA)

(Produce 3 X PBL courses - 30,000)

(Onboarding - 12,000 ADA)

(Conduct PBL Courses - 12,000 ADA)

(Review & Revise Andamio Platform - 12,000 ADA)

(Emergent Reputation and Governance - 12,000 ADA)

Treasury management

10,000 ADA

-------------------------------------------------

Total - 109,400 ADA

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Jonathan Postnikoff (JP)

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-postnikoff/

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/JDPostnikoff>

JP has been a member of the Cardano Community since December 2020 and has been active in Catalyst since Fund4. Originally beginning as a Swarm member, JP became a proposal assessor (previously CA) during F5 and has participated as both a PA and vPA in all subsequent funds. JP has also fulfilled the CC Admin Team’s secretary role since the election of CCv2, and is a funded proposer in F6 and F7 in support of the Circle and admin team. On a professional level, JP’s strongest skills include meeting secretarial services, one-on-one and group facilitation, proposal drafting, editing, and ideation support, and community engagement.

Nori Nishigaya

Linkedin: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishigaya/>

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/Xeeban>

Nori Nishigaya is the Founder of the Salmon Nation Decentralised Alliance (SANADA) and co-founder of Bridge Builders. He is a current member of the Catalyst Circle Admin Team since it’s inception, core team member of Cardano4Climate, a Cardano Ambassador, PA, and Funded proposer. He is passionate about radical inclusivity and community and devoted to making Cardano the best community on the planet. Nori brings over 30 years of experience in software development, agile methodologies, leadership in managing teams, and founding and running technology startups. His current passion is discovering governance and organisational best practices for radically decentralised and self-managed communities through experimentation and hands-on practice.

Stephen Whitenstall

LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-whitenstall-166727210/>

Twitter: https://twitter.com/qa_dao

Stephen is the co-founder of Quality-Assurance DAO, https://quality-assurance-dao.github.io/. Stephen has provided project management consultancy for many Catalyst governance projects since Fund 4 including Catalyst Circle, Audit Circle, Community Governance Oversight, Training & Automation (with Treasury Guild) and Swarm. A Circle V2 representative for funded proposers. He has 30 years experience in development, test management, project management, social enterprises in Investment Banking, Telecoms and Local Government. A philosophy honours graduate with an interest in Blockchain governance.

Vanessa Cardui

Community engagement professional with 20+ years' experience of working with communities to record and collate their information, archive it, and make it discoverable (see for example https://creationofacommunity.wordpress.com and http://feministarchivenorth.org.uk). Part of QA-DAO where she led on documentation of Catalyst Circle (see https://quality-assurance-dao.gitbook.io/catalyst-circle-oversight-v3 ); part of CGO (Community Governance Oversight)’s Fund 8 project, where she facilitated meetings and edited the closing report; founding member of The Facilitators’ Collective.

Tevo Saks

Connecting Decentralised Open Source Services and Contributing to Community Governance Documentation.

https://linktr.ee/tevosaks

Miroslav Rajh (Treasury Guild)

Miro has 20 years of experience in managing finances. He also worked as a Human Resources Manager (HRM). Currently he is managing transactions for Swarm, Singularity Net, Governance Guild, Catalyst Training and Automation, Community Governance Oversight, Lead Generators, Edify.

LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/miroslav-rajh-94566845>

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

This proposal is requesting only those funds that are necessary to complete the work of running courses on Andamio and collecting and analysing feedback from learners over a seven-month period.

The pay rates given are self-employed rates, so they include the employment overheads of the resources contracted. The rates are based on the low end of US and European averages. The amounts are calculated for each milestone based on the hours to complete.

In addition, all the resources working on this project are taking on the currency risk of being paid in ADA. This means that a fall in the ADA price will result in being paid less or delivering less in each milestone. Any rise in the ADA price will represent a reward for investing in the Cardano ecosystem.

Consequently, given these factors, we believe this proposal offers excellent value for money in a volatile cryptocurrency environment.