Section 3: Stewards
Stewards are elected members who are responsible for steering the DAO to ensure it is working towards its stated mission. Every Steward has the right to elevate proposals to binding Snapshot votes that successfully achieve the required elevation criteria defined in the DDIP Process.
Stewards must sign a Contributor Agreement with the Developer DAO Foundation.
3.1 Objectives of the Stewards
Keep track of ongoing Governance Proposals
Ensure Governance Proposals follow templates and guidelines
Review, comment and suggest improvements to inflight Governance proposals
Identify and triage overlaps and conflicts in Governance proposals
Coordinate activity between the Sub-DAOs
Define the DAO’s Seasonal (Quarterly) strategy, including setting DAO-level OKRs
Reviewing DAO and Sub-DAO performance against agreed OKRs, deciding on suitable action if Sub-DAO’s agreed deliverables are not being met.
Define DAO-level Treasury Strategy (any DAO Operational / Foundation costs, Treasury assets available for budget requests).
Review and decide on ad-hoc funding requests made during a Season.
3.2 Responsibilities
Stewards commit to 2 to 4 hours per week for reviewing and attending Stewards Council Meetings and performing their Steward duties as defined below:
Community Elected Stewards will be signers on the DAO Treasury
Attend fortnightly Stewards Council (minimum 4 out of 8 per season)
Arrive with pre-reading complete (when sent with more than 24 hours in advance)
Give Substantial feedback to minimum 2 DDIPs per Season
Provide input to relevant forum discussion
Bring relevant topics for discussion to Steward Council meetings
Act as moderators for CoC & Violation process being defined in the Code of Conduct here.
3.3 Stewards Council Meeting
The Stewards Council Meeting provides the space and conditions for higher-stake cross-DAO decisions to be vetted and discussed, enabling the DAO to efficiently and responsibly fulfill its mission. The council is responsible for strategic direction and acting as a decision-making body for DAO-Level topics. (Those that sit outside the Foundation or Sub-DAOs.)
The Stewards Council meets weekly on Thursdays at 4:00 pm UTC.
The Stewards council is an action-orientated session where Stewards seek to make decisions on pre-determined Agenda Items. Whilst some discussion is welcomed during the meeting, most should happen on the forum.
Every meeting must have a designated facilitator who keeps the meeting on track.
The nominated Foundation Steward will perform this role for the first Steward Council of each Season. After that, this role will rotate, with the next meeting’s designated agreed upon by the Stewards at the end of the previous session. If no facilitator is chosen, it falls back to the last chosen facilitator.
The facilitator must share the agenda with more than 48 hours before the meeting using this template. Any Steward can add items to the Agenda using the format defined in the same template.
The facilitator should add agenda items to a Slido ahead of the meeting and share this with Stewards attending to prioritize points for discussion at the start of the meeting.
Items not included on the Agenda before the meeting can only be discussed after the agreed agenda has been covered. Agenda items not covered are automatically added to the next meeting to be re-prioritized using the method outlined in the previous paragraph.
Meetings are restricted to the Stewards to ensure efficient decision-making and take place on Steward’s dedicated voice channel. Notes and audio recordings must be shared on the forum with Members by the meeting facilitator, including a record of any decisions and actions taken.
Decision-Making
Stewards are encouraged to discuss topics asynchronously as much as possible and only bring discussions to the Steward Council when there is a decision to be made following the format laid out in the meeting template.
Decisions during the Steward Council are made optimistically, facilitated by the meeting’s designated facilitator using the following format:
Steward requesting a decision spends no more than 2 mins explaining the Agenda Item and the suggested course of action.
If no one is present on the call objects, their suggested course of action is recorded.
If any Steward objects, the facilitator puts forward a 48-hour vote of the Stewards via discord Poll restricted to the Steward role with the following format:
For
Against
Requires more discussion
Where the vote “Requires more discussion”, a thread should be opened in the Stewards discord channel for this topic, or a separate call should be organized. The point should be brought back to the Stewards when a decision is ready to be made.
Where there is a tied vote, the vote defaults to Against
3.4 Accountability
Stewards are accountable to members on a Seasonal basis via Elections.
Any member can track Steward’s engagement in Governance discussion on this forum here and on snapshot via https://snapshot.org/#/profile/stewardswalletaddress to help them make informed decisions about supporting an existing Steward in future elections.
3.5 Elections
Before the start of each Season, a maximum of 10 Stewards are elected via DDIP.
A proposal is made by the sitting Stewards, which outlines the responsibilities and rewards for Stewards as defined in this proposal and invites any Member to nominate themselves as Stewards.
Nominations are made as comments to the DDIP Proposal with the following format:
Discord Username + Forum Username
ETH address (where $CODE tokens are held)
Statement of Intention / Your Values & Reasons for Joining
Qualifications.
Governance Record (link/screenshot of forum stats)
Snapshot voting record (link/screenshot of snapshot profile - Snapshot)
After five days of nominations, the election is moved to a Snapshot vote with a Weighted Voting strategy that allows members to allocate a % of their total vote across all nominated Stewards.
A maximum of 10 Stewards will be elected from this vote.
To be elected, Stewards must receive at least 1 vote.
If there is a tie between 2 or more Stewards for the 10th place, a repeat vote must be held with only those tied for the 10th place.
The Foundation directors must nominate at least one Steward each Season to provide the required context to the DAO on the legal implications of DDIPs on the Foundation.
3.6 Term length & limitations
Stewards serve for 1 Season at a time, with re-elections required before the start of each Season. There is no limit to how many times a Steward can be re-elected.
3.7 Compensation
Stewards are compensated in $CODE for the equivalent of the maximum number of suggested hours they might serve as a Steward multiplied by the current defined hourly rate of 15 $CODE.
8 weeks X 4 Hours X 15 $CODE = 480 $CODE Per Season.
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