Proposal: Ecosystem Growth Council Formation

Proposal Type: Growth

Summary

This proposal is meant to outline the first formal council in Scroll DAO, the Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC). The EGC's goal will be approve, oversee, and evaluate growth programs that can help the success and sustainability of the Scroll ecosystem.

The EGC will oversee a budget of 2m SCR from the DAO to allocate across relevant growth programs. Using a combination of an RFP and sourcing new ideas through the DAO, this council will be responsible for standing up Scroll DAO ecosystem growth efforts that are aligned with overall activities in the network, as well as the interests of token holders.

The Ecosystem Growth Council will be a 5-7 person council, with 2 members from the Foundation and 5 chosen members. Members can be either delegates or relevant professionals interested in a committed part-time project. The envisioned balance could be something like 3 delegates, 2 Foundation members, and 2 hired professionals. The council will be able to start operating once there are at least 3 chosen members identified + the 2 Foundation team members. Once the initial 5 are identified, the Foundation team will review if bringing on 2 more will be a priority at that point or not.

EGC roles should be viewed as commitments that require approximately 10 hours per week. The proposal is intended to cover a 6 month window.

The expected outcome of the EGC is to have at least one focused ecosystem growth initiative in place by the end of August 2025, and in turn to support the goal of getting 20 highly aligned Scroll founders.

Motivation

We have had a few attempts at getting some kind of ecosystem growth effort off of the ground since we did our first Co-Creation Cycle at the end of 2024. While we get some quality high-level ideas, we have not been able to get a detailed proposal in this category that instills confidence in delegates.

As a result, we believe creating a dedicated council may be the best path forward. By combining a mix of delegates, growth professionals, and Foundation employees, this council would be well positioned to approved and oversee growth efforts that are aligned with Labs and Foundation.

We believe this process would help get the highest chance at a quality growth proposal.

Execution

Operational

Recruiting

The first step would focus on recruiting the council. This will happen as a transparent recruiting process managed by the governance team. A mix of forms and discourse will be used to receive applications.

Responsibilities

Once formed, the EGC would review the responses to the RFI . The EGC is also able to propose new ideas (need to be mindful of potential CoI if the EGC members include themselves in the execution team) and call for more ideas from delegates and the wider community. They may also need to field new outreach from service providers who might have other ideas for ecosystem growth.

The council members should also familiarize themselves with some research on the topic, including, but not limited to:

• Research done as part of the Velora proposal that @SEEDGov mentioned, including an overview of research done and some lessons from DAO led growth programs by another delegate.
• Feems conducted some research on grant programs, accelerates, and other growth related areas.

The overall set of responsibilities of council members will include:

• Attending regular meeting (at least 2 team check ins per month)
• Reviewing and responding to RFI responses
• Approving growth proposals, ensuring there is the appropriate alignment and oversight in place
• Reporting on the results of the council's activities
• Sourcing potential external collaborations

Here is an example of what a tentative timeline could look like: Month 0: voting cycle, approval, recruiting process (assuming this is June 2025) Month 1: council officially commences, reviews RFIs, reviews research Month 2: scope additional RFIs/RFPs, review, provide feedback, refine Month 3: begin making decisions about which growth programs to support (specific projects that can be considered on an ad hod basis), initial reporting, continue sourcing new ideas as appropriate Months 4-5: depending on the volume and quality of ideas/proposals, the EGC could still continue the review and approval process, and/or can shift to working with the awarded initiative to maximize success. Additionally, a draft of the charter should make it to the forum during this time so that it can be included in the voting cycle taking place during month 6 to avoid disruption (assuming that reflects the interest of the DAO). Month 6: Final report, extension or renewal including charter.

Approval / Multi-sig

The EGC would be able to use it's budget to approve new growth initiatives. The council would need a 4/7 vote to pass any proposal that uses less than 25% of the total budget, and a 6/7 to pass any proposal that would use more than 25% of the budget.

After the first 6 months, the council will need to produce a charter that outlines it's duties and relevant governance processes. This charter will be needed to request more budget or to extend it's window of activity beyond the first 6 months if there is remaining budget.

To start, the multi-sig will be managed by the Foundation. The charter that will be created in these first 6 months will outline a future policy for the multi-sig.

Reporting

The EGC will be responsible for producing a report before the end of the 6 months to help a) evaluate the program, and b) help position if there should be an extension. There should be a 3-month check in as well, where an update is shared on the forum and in a community call.

Reporting should generally capture:

• summaries of council actions (including info on the individual members decisions)
• overviews of major decisions
• share information on funded activities, outputs, and outcomes,
• lessons learned

The EGC should track and report on data related to proposals that come in. This should include:

• the total number of proposals received
• the number of proposals that received feedback
• the breakdown of approvals and rejections

Additionally, meeting notes from the meetings will be have notes made available for transparency purposes, within 3 business days of the meeting.

Veto & Offchain Vote

Once votes conclude, a 3 business day veto window kicks in once the decision and rationale are posted on the forum. During this time, delegates are able to call for a veto on a EGC decision if they see fit.

In the case where the EGC makes a vote that the delegates want to veto, delegates would comment on the relevant forum post (or create a new forum post) requesting an offchain vote to confirm a veto. At least 5 separate comments from delegates requesting the vote would be needed to initiate the veto. If that snapshot receives more than 50% voting for a veto, then the proposal is reworked and put forth to the EGC for a new vote. This can be done once. If that vote is vetoed again, then the proposal will not proceed.

The EGC can choose to review a proposal beyond that on an ad hoc basis and will need to share rationale after on the forum within 2 weeks.

Charter

The EGC will need to generate a charter that will outline the policies relating to the EGC beyond this initial 6 month proposal. This will include, but is not limited to, questions such as:

• Term limits / when the initial council members will roll off
• Future recruitment process
• Future multi-sig signers
• Revised metrics

Personnel & Resources

The 7 person committee would consist of:

• 3-4 delegates
• 1-2 professionals
• 2 Foundation members, likely from the governance team

The EGC will be able to start operating once the 3 delegates are identified. The delegates will be selected either by the Foundation via a transparent recruiting process. Concurrently, applications will be reviewed for the professionals.

Financial

This proposal would include a total budget of 2m SCR from the DAO treasury. Of this, 380k would be reserved for overhead costs (labor, software / tooling, marketing, etc.).

If any of the 1.62m SCR is needed for anything besides a growth initiative, then EGC members can put forth a proposal that would require a 6/7 vote and would need to clear a 3 business day veto window (if there is at least 25% voting against this non-growth spend in the veto, then it does not pass).

Passing this proposal is not a commitment to spend these funds no matter what. If this proposal does pass, that means the EGC has up to these amounts to spends. Any funds not used will be returned to the DAO treasury.

Evaluation

The primary goal for this council is to put an ecosystem growth initiative in place. As such, the primary outcomes will be the creation of the initial initiatives and any relevant metrics that emerge from that initiative. It's important to recognize that a 6 month timeline may be a challenging one to recruit the council, review programs, approve at least one initiative, and oversee the initiative as it gets going. As a result, there will be limited available data on the impacts of the funded initiative itself, so the success of the council in the first 6 months will center on the operations and transparency.

Other aspects for evaluation include:

• Has the EGC been hosting regular meetings (at least 2 per month)?
• Do all meetings have public notes shared within 3 business days?
• Is there a 6-month report?
• Have all proposals been reviewed and given feedback?
• How many proposals have been approved?
• Were any vetos triggered?
• Were any triggered vetos resolved?

Conclusion

This proposal puts forth the idea of forming an Ecosystem Growth Council (EGC) with a budget of 2m SCR (up to 380k for overhead and marketing, and no less than 1.62m set aside for growth proposals. This council would be require a commitment of at roughly 10 hours per week for 6 months. The EGC would have the ability to review and approve or reject proposals directly without requiring a full DAO vote, though their decisions could be veto'ed by the DAO.