GM Builders,
The closer we get to the end of the year, the more I am sure I want these posts to be as short and as actionable as possible. Today, we're centering on a simple idea.
"You can't DAO alone."
If you've been in crypto for any length of time, then you likely know someone who works as a delegate or just some sort of governance professional. The value to DAOs for that type of profession is obvious. People who have been around long enough to understand what decision-making systems have been working well and what systems should be avoided, are critical to the long-term success of any sort of decentralized community.
What may be less obvious, however, is that for governance systems that these people employ to work, you also need some sort of set of project managers monitoring the minutiae on a daily basis. That means having people whose sole job it is to track metrics like voter participation, forum participation, proposals made, proposals made by category, proposals supported or rejected(by category, and otherwise.
While the governance leads create and tweak the systems, these people monitor everything to ensure the leads can do so in the best way possible. You don't succeed in DAOs alone. In any sense.
Now take that same principle and apply it to a DAOified grants program, such as what we have at Push DAO.
You need someone or more than one someone to see the big picture and the ideal smaller pieces that make it run efficiently.
You also need a team to deal with day-to-day requests from grantees, reviews, and review+progress related meetings. DAOs need multiple lines of defense. Strategists and those who live to be on the field.
And above all else?
You need as many people as possible who are both core contributors and naturals with people.
Real empaths.
I've seen plenty of decentralized communities fail because they have all the technical talent in the world but essentially no one like this.
The gold lies in having both.
We'll scale DAOs to new heights once we prioritize more empaths who are also technically talented, at the delegate/leadership level and throughout every piece of the DAO stack. That way you avoid all sorts of problems that stem and scale from simple people-to-people miscommunications.
If I could sum all this up in a phrase, I'd say, "let's prioritize super-communicators in DAOs."
Want to know more about all of this and what it leads to/how we're doing the same at Push DAO?
Stay tuned for next week and if you want to contribute to Push DAO or build something together, reach out to us at gov.push.org.