Half Yearly reports – Overview
This report is a global overview of all Circle Reports (aggregated in this report) combined with the general retrospective and outlook from DF Staff; Jan and Rafael. Individual circle reports as well as monthly updates can be found on each circle’s detail page.
Rounds and platforms
It seems ages ago that we moved from the good old Swae portal to our new WordPress-based platform. But it was just last February that we started our ‘Round 4-beta’ to test the new platform.
As with any new platform, some things needed improvement, but most were on the cosmetic side. We also experienced some performance issues, which we believe to be caused by a plugin. But all in all, it was a very good experience, followed by an even better experience in the full round 4. As in previous rounds, we agins(!) managed to double the number of proposals coming in. We are more than satisfied with the way that the program has evolved, in terms of numbers.
From zero to eight
It must be early 2023 when we, as the staff of Deep Funding, decided that the best way to grow a community-driven program is to ‘expand externally’. We set the goal to keep the full-time headcount as small as possible and grow the organization with engaged but part-time working community members. Fast forward to today: we are still only 2 FTE on the staff but are surrounded by more than 30 capable Circle members, organized in 8(!) circles, doing useful and essential work for our program. Looking back at this development fills us with pride and gratitude.
Workgroups
Another new initiative is the start of ‘Workgroups’. Workgroups are small temporary ‘cross-circle’ groups, that dive deeper in a particular topic. To date, we have had workgroups on the RFP process, A jobs and collaboration Portal and DFR5 rules and conditions. The objective of being able to discuss these topics in depth with a dedicated group seems to work very well, and we expect to see this continued. If you have a topic that would benefit from this approach; let us know!
Despite the good numbers above, there is no reason to get complacent! There is still plenty of work ahead:
In general, we need to improve quality. The quality of awarded projects, our processes, our internal communication and decision-making, enhanced automation, etc.
On the Circles front, we need to ensure a good dynamic within the teams and, even more importantly, between teams. We need to ensure that we are able to recruit new people with the right expertise. We are expanding the scope of our work and it will take some time to mature in terms of setting achievable goals, improving processes and automation, and the quality of our deliverables.
The launch of our Community site
One important milestone that will support these goals is the launch of our community website: community.deepfunding.ai. This site will be the single source of truth for all our events, give information on all Circles, and keep everyone updated with the latest governance and community news. And, perhaps most importantly; On every Circle page, there is a form where Circles can advertise needed roles and interested people can apply for a suitable role that will help them grow personally and professionally.
Growing our Community Experts
One area that will have an extra focus is the creation of a differentiated group of ‘Community experts. Last round, for the first time, we were able to have all incoming proposals reviewed by a group of ‘Community Experts’.
We did notice that expert ratings didn’t correlate with the voting outcomes as much as we hoped. We are aiming to improve this in multiple ways:
Improving Content and Outreach
We have 3 circles that are working on visibility and outreach: The Marketing Circle, The Events Circle, and the Developer Outreach Circle. All of these circles benefit from good-quality content. Therefore, during this Half and onward, we want to focus on the creation of improved content, starting with the Website itself, but including PDFs, videos, infographics, and more. Read this blog for more information on the topic and visit the Marketing Circle page to apply.
We hope to see these 3 circles collaborate and thereby develop their own specific domains better and faster.
Decision making
We have purchased a license on Loomio to support decentralized decision-making in our circles. We hope to develop a culture where every individual can make their opinion heard on topics that are important to them. It becomes clear that without dedicated efforts in this direction, it is all too easy to spiral towards a hierarchical structure where formally or informally a handful of individuals are involved in decision-making and the rest of the ‘All Circles community’ takes a backseat. We rebooted the process by discussing and voting on the DFR5 proposals (albeit not in Loomio), and we are aiming to do this more often. One measure that looks promising is breaking up larger initiatives into smaller topics on which people can more easily form (and share) an opinion. Voting is an option too, but listening to ideas and objections and discussing options are more important than a simple majority vote.
Analysis of Circles Workload and Payment
The workload data, for the Focus Group, Marketing, and Review Circles, reveals an interesting trend regarding the consistency of effort across its members from January to June 2024:
Modest Contributions
The majority of members tend to log fewer hours each month. Specifically, 25% of members work less than 30 hours in a given month. This confirms our understanding that most contributors participate on a part-time or periodic basis, possibly balancing other commitments or focusing on less time-intensive tasks.
Aligned Payouts
These modest contributions are reflected in the payouts, which are directly proportional to the hours worked, as we reward members on a global fee of 10 USD per hour. Members contributing fewer hours consistently receive lower compensation, ensuring that the payout system remains fair and transparent.
Balance in Work Distribution
The fact that 25% of members consistently log under 30 hours suggests that there might be an opportunity to distribute the workload more evenly or encourage higher engagement during periods of lower overall contribution.
In essence, the system reflects consistent, smaller-scale contributions from most members, while a few individuals take on heavier responsibilities during peak periods. This distribution may be shaped by role requirements or availability and could help inform future resource planning and scheduling. The fact the coordinators also work more hours, normally, also impacts this distribution.
Peak Effort in May
The peak in hours worked during May is particularly significant, as it coincides with Round 4 of Deep Funding. This round demanded higher levels of engagement from members, resulting in a substantial increase in hours logged. The additional workload reflects the intensive activities required to ensure Round 4’s success, such as proposal reviews, community coordination, and overall project management. This spike highlights the team’s dedication to delivering a high-quality round, explaining the notable rise in both hours worked and corresponding payouts for that month.
Consideration of Regularity in Payments Per Circle
Marketing Circle:
Focus Group:
Review Circle:
Overall Observation:
Consistency vs. Peaks: Marketing and Focus Groups show more consistent payments, while the Review Circle experienced larger fluctuations, highlighting its critical role during intense periods like Round 4
Overall Stability: The total amounts paid each month show a relatively stable trend, with fluctuations reflecting workload variations.
Monthly Range: Monthly payouts range from $6,037.50 (in February) to $10,684.00 (in May), indicating that while there is consistency, certain months see higher levels of activity.
May Peak: The largest payment occurred in May ($10,684.00), which correlates with the increased effort and hours worked during Round 4. This represents a significant peak compared to other months.
Steady Months: Most months, including January, February, April, and June, had payments between $6,000 and $7,500, suggesting a steady workload across much of the period.
Total Payment: The total amount paid across all circles over six months was $44,237.50, demonstrating the cumulative effort across all teams.
DFR 5 changes
This initiative aimed to build upon the successes and lessons learned from previous rounds, ensuring that DFR5 meets and exceeds the expectations of our diverse community of developers, researchers, and innovators. Following our goal of increasing decentralization, we engaged stakeholders from the Deep Funding Community to achieve that mark.
Over the course of 10 weekly live meetings, more than 100 hours were allocated in total, with each member dedicating an average of 20+ hours to the discussions. In addition to the live encounters, asynchronous conversations were held on Mattermost, allowing for continuous engagement. Participants were rewarded at the same rate as Circle members, receiving $10 per hour for their contributions.
All 13 proposed changes were accepted by the All-Circles in a live consent process, marking a unanimous agreement across the participating groups. This collective decision was reached during the meeting to ensure that the adjustments will be implemented moving forward.
Deep funding is evolving. We have established a rhythm of having Deep Funding ‘Rounds’ about twice a year. We have recently added ‘Request For Proposals’ (RFPs), as a new funding route. At the time of writing, we have 15 RFPs open for submission, with a total of 1.25M of awards available. An important next step is to complete the RFP route by enabling the community to ideate and create RFPs for selected ideas.
RFPS
A lot! I’m looking forward to seeing a new target audience coming in to submit proposals to the AGI RFPs. I hope we will see more partner RFPs, both with Cardano and other entities in our ecosystem.
One thing we will prioritize next is completing the RFP process by enabling the community to post and comment on RFP proposals and develop RFP’s as a paid assignment.
Diversification of funding routes
It will not stop there. As outlined in my blog ‘The funding trilemma‘, there is some rationale to a strategy of diversification in funding strategies, at least at this stage of our life cycle. A possible route that we will be discussing in the coming weeks/months is the option of a ‘third funding route’ (next to Rounds and RFPs) of ‘Challenges’ that have a budget assigned to be allocated over a longer period, and are always open for submission. Such an approach could support exceptional project proposals that are both urgent and important and are not well suited for the Round-based process. The selection process in a decentralized community-driven context is an important topic, and this may lead to some interesting new approaches.
With these new funding routes, we hope to attract a wider, capable audience of ‘builders’ and elevate the quality of the outcomes of Deep Funding to a new level.
Community operations and governance
At the same time, we are building out our community website, making it easier for people to get acquainted with the work of the ‘All circles’ and the people involved. We hope this website will also become an ‘always-on’ recruitment platform that will bring new talent and help create a healthy dynamic of inflowing people to improve quality and complement natural outflow. There is also new functionality we would like to see, such as a web presentation of our new ‘Workgroups’; temporary cross-circle collectives of a handful of people diving deeper into a specific topic. We started this approach in H1 2024, and it looks very promising. Not just by sharing ideas and making better decisions, but also as a means to have people from different circles work together, creating a kind of cross-pollination that strengthens the network characteristics of the program.
A Community platform
With Funding and governance covered in our plans as outlined above, there is one important domain left needing attention: Creating a community of builders. We aim to extend the functionality of our platform with richer profiles, better search options, and add options for people to reach out to each other, offer or request jobs, or collaborate on new ideas, etc.
This is a long journey, that we will start on our current website, but may lead to a dedicated Deep Funding- or even ASI Social Network Platform. We are currently collecting input from a wide audience to help us understand what is most needed and desired. For more information read this blog on the collaboration platform, or go directly to our survey and get a sneak peek on our first concept screens.
All in all, we are on a trajectory of growth. We want to grow our community, offer more and better tools, and increase the quality of the program and its outcomes. Both in terms of useful software delivered and in building an enthusiastic, capable, and collaborative community of Builders. In between all threats and opportunities we may face, one thing is absolutely certain. We can’t do it without you!
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