[Discussion] Introducing Steering Committees and Council Structures

Proposals Phase 0: Discussion
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Please note that this proposal is currently in a pre-draft stage and might be subject to revision based on discussions within the DAO and Foundation requirements. The content presented here is intended to spark discussion and gather feedback, and as such, it may undergo changes before reaching its final form.

Authors

Andre Geest (Safe, @Andre), Amy (Safe, @amy.sg)
Special thanks to Hats Protocol team who helped shape the design

Abstract

This proposal from the Governance team introduces organizational structures to the existing OBRA framework. The proposal consists of 3 parts:

  1. Introduction of Organizational Structures: Steering Committees and Councils
  2. Initial Steering Committees at Launch
  3. Initial Strategies with Councils at Launch

Background

In order to avoid excessive spending and misallocation of community resources to low context individuals, the OBRA framework introduced a hierarchical structure between goals, strategy, and initiatives with no working groups.

Since the launch of OBRA in 2023, 51% of proposals have been OBRA funding requests but voter participation has dwindled. After onboarding 21 teams and conducting an OBRA retro, guardians and delegates have shared various pain points for ensuring effective capital allocation:

  • Lack of context to Safe’s overall strategy
  • Unclear how funding has been effective in the development of Safe’s needs & growth
  • Lack of community participation and feedback
  • Initiative teams want more strategic guidance from high context individuals to provide input on validation of the initiatives’ work

These challenges can be visualized in a flywheel for effective funding:

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The structure intends to maintain OBRA’s original intention of keeping the funding scope narrow via strategies. However, it creates agility by giving agency but accountability to high context individuals to develop focused initiatives that drive growth toward a vibrant ecosystem. This proposal outlines a plan to redirect collective focus through the following:

  1. Drive Safe’s Strategy → Introduction of a Strategy Steering Committee
  2. Increase Ecosystem Initiatives → Introduction of new strategies and initiatives
  3. Develop High Quality Ideas & Proposals → Councils to introduce focused initiatives and filter for quality
  4. Allocate Funding Effectively → Efforts from all the above with introduction of Treasury Management Steering Committee

Introduction of Organizational Structures: Steering Committees and Councils

Organizational Structure Visual
Organizational Structure Visual1220Ă—1228 71 KB

This proposal evolves the existing OBRA structure by introducing two types of high context groups: Steering Committees and Councils. Steering Committees provide strategic guidance while Councils execute the strategies by developing initiatives that effectively allocate the assigned budget. The initial launch will comprise of:

  1. Strategy Steering Committee
  2. Treasury Management Steering Committee
  3. Community Development Council
  4. Governance and DAO Operations Council

Below outlines the definition of Steering Committees and Councils. For sake of conciseness, operational details and templates will be provided in the next phase after the initial discussion of the overall structure.

1. Steering Committees (SC)

A Steering Committee is comprised of trusted members who have high context and expertise of Safe’s vision for providing strategic guidance on Safe{DAO}’s capital allocation strategies.

Responsibilities

  • Provide strategic guidance for Safe{DAO}
  • Produce reports per Season
  • Document and exercise decisions for dispute resolution between Councils and Initiatives
  • Review and provide feedback on Council’s work
  • Manage Steering Committee Member and Council Member onboarding and offboarding

Powers & Accountability

A Steering Committee is directly accountable to Safe{DAO}, with token holders / delegates evaluating, re-approving, or providing feedback on the Committee’s work. At any point, token holders are able to offboard a Steering Committee Member. Additionally, a Steering Committee Member can resign using an Offboarding template.

Roles

  • Steering Committee Lead: Responsible for onboarding Steering Committee members onto the Committee and communicating directly with Safe{DAO} (although any member can also do so at any time). However, to avoid any group apathy, all members are expected to be active and represent the Steering Committee as a whole. Additionally, a Lead as a role does not define the decision making structure of the Committee. A Committee is open to structuring their decision making as needed, as long it is documented.
  • Steering Committee Members: Responsible for fulfilling the Steering Committee responsibilities and actively communicating to Safe{DAO} in regular intervals.

Steering Committee Details

  • Membership: Minimum of 3 and maximum of 5 members.
  • Terms: Terms will be defined by seasons (e.g minimum one and maximum four seasons). After terms are completed, individuals must reapply.
  • Compensation: Steering Committee members are compensated (unless an employee of SEF).

Eligibility Criteria

  • High context to Safe’s vision and overall strategy
  • Commit roughly 30 hours per Season, front-loaded to the beginning and end of the season

Creating/Dissolving a Steering Committee

In this initial phase of the iterative structure, the Safe Ecosystem Foundation (SEF) will be the sole party creating and dissolving Steering Committees.

2. Councils

A Council is comprised of highly engaged individuals with high context in a specific domain who can help drive effective resource allocation. A Council is responsible for executing a Strategy by proposing initiatives that effectively allocate the assigned budget. Councils develop these initiatives for individual contributors or teams to apply for funding.

Responsibilities

  • Develop initiatives based on budget and strategy, utilizing any form of capital allocation strategies (RFPs, grants, etc)
  • Review, approve, relay feedback on proposals from individuals and teams who apply for initiatives
  • Document each initiative’s outcomes and produce a report (list of initiatives, outcomes, budget) at the end of the Season
  • Be an Initiative Individual Contributor (IC) or Team’s point of contact
  • Manage/administer operational processes as necessary (Multisig, KYC/KYB, payouts)

Powers & Accountability

  • Accountability: Council members are directly accountable to a Steering Committee who are evaluating, re-approving, or providing feedback on the Councils’ work.
  • Offboarding Council Members: Only the Steering Committee is able to offboard a Council Member. A Council Member can always resign using an Offboarding Template.
  • Offboarding Initiative Contributors: With strong reason, Councils are able to offboard an Initiative IC or Team prior to the completion of their initiative. However, Initiative Contributors or Teams can appeal directly to the Steering Committee using an Appeal form.

Roles

  • Council Lead: Responsible for onboarding Council members onto the Council and communicating directly with Safe{DAO} (although any member can also do so at any time). However, a Lead as a role does not define the decision making structure of the Council. A Committee is open to structuring their decision making as needed, as long it is documented.
  • Council Members: Responsible for fulfilling the Steering Committee responsibilities and communicating with Safe{DAO} when necessary.

Council Details:

  • Membership: A minimum of 3 and maximum of 5 members.
  • Terms: Terms will be defined by seasons (e.g minimum one and maximum four seasons). After terms are completed, individuals must reapply.
  • Compensation: Council members are compensated (unless an employee of SEF).

Eligibility Criteria

  • Expertise in the specific topic of the Strategy
  • SEF will initially appoint Council members, but any contributor can nominate either themselves or another individual for consideration via a nomination process. In future iterations membership will be through open elections.
  • Commit roughly 10-20 hours per week

Creating/Dissolving a Council:

  • A Steering Committee can create and dissolve a Council and individual Council members.
  • Token holders are able to dissolve a Council (not member unless the member explicitly violates a Code of Conduct as they have less day to day context to a Council member’s work).
  • Councils are directly tied to a strategy. If the strategy changes or is no longer appropriate, the council is dissolved. However, members can join other Councils if their expertise is appropriate.

Other Important Notes

  • Separation of Powers: Individuals cannot be a member in both Committees and Councils. Additionally, Initiative teams who actively get funding (defined as at least two Sprints prior to start of term) from Councils cannot be Committee nor Council members.

Implementation Details

  • As part of our principles of dynamic governance, this structure will be an iterative process.
  • If ratified, this proposal will go into effect in the next possible sprint.
  • Additionally, the ratification of this proposal will replace current OBRA strategies, budgets and payout terms. However, initiatives with ongoing funding are not affected.

Initial Steering Committees at Launch

Below is the initial list of Steering Committees at launch. As mentioned above, details including members, operational setup, and templates will be provided in the next phase after the initial discussion of the overall structure. The initial launch will comprise of:

  1. Strategy Steering Committee
  2. Treasury Management Steering Committee

1. Strategy Steering Committee

The Strategy Steering Committee is responsible for driving Safe{DAO}’s strategic direction by proposing a Season’s strategies and respective budgets. Their mandate includes evaluating, reviewing, and providing feedback on the Councils’ work, which is presented to Safe{DAO} via a report at the end of each Season.

In the initial launch:

  • The Strategy Steering Committee will be the only entity to propose Strategies. However all Strategies must be proposed and voted in by token holders. The next iteration may open the proposal of new strategies via application for Steering Committee review then Safe{DAO} vote.
  • SEF will be the sole members of the Strategy Steering Committee.

2. Treasury Management Steering Committee

The Strategy Steering Committee is responsible for working with treasury managers to develop an overall Safe{DAO} treasury goal and objectives. Their mandate includes evaluating, reviewing, and providing feedback on the Treasury Manager’s work, which is presented to Safe{DAO} through periodic reports as determined by the Treasury Management Steering Committee.

In the initial launch:

  • SEF will initially appoint Treasury Management Steering Committee members, but may open nomination applications for consideration.
  • Treasury managers must be voted in by Safe{DAO}.

Initial Strategies with Councils

Below is the initial list of strategies and councils at launch. As mentioned above, details including total budget requested, Council members, operational setup, and templates will be provided in the next phase after the initial discussion of the overall structure. The initial launch will comprise of:

  1. Community Development
  2. Governance and DAO Operations

1. Community Development

Linked Goal: (Goal 1) Foster vibrant ecosystem

The Community Development strategy should create a platform to grow wide, enabling Safe{DAO} to eventually scale beyond CC/SEF. This Council responsible for this strategy should:

  • Create a talent pool of contributors
  • Identify and inform Safe{DAO} of various stakeholders segments and interests
  • Create engagement pathways
  • Relay and amplify key messaging from Safe
  • Surface community voices and innovations
  • Propose and execute on growth marketing strategies
  • Enable people to learn about Safe’s products and features

Initiatives will include, but are not limited to hosting IRL events and community calls, creating tutorials, articles, newsletters, podcasts, community analysis.

2. Governance and DAO Operations

Linked Goal: (Goal 2) Resilience through decentralization

Governance and DAO Operations strategy should improve participation experience in Safe{DAO} and facilitate processes that drive effective governance. The Council responsible for the strategy should:

  • Increase the decentralization and capture-resistance of the DAO
  • Increase accessibility through tooling, services and campaigns
  • Ensure the security of DAO and governance processes
  • Facilitate positive and effective governance participation experience
  • Enhance transparency and efficiency in the governance system

Initiatives will include, but are not limited to managing OBRA operations, governance security (dashboards, processes, alerts & notifications), governance documentation accessibility and management, delegate campaigns, governance participation research with implementation suggestions.

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Hey all Erik from Avantgarde Finance here - first of all, hats off to you @Andre @amy.sg and the Hats Protocol for sketching this out (pun very much intended)!

I have personally been an advocate for introducing specialised working groups into the DAOs that I’ve been active in for a while and as mentioned in the gov call yesterday I think this is a great step forward!

To me this looks well thought through and, given my background and interest in political science, I particularly like the emphasis you’re placing on separations of power to avoid conflicts of interest. I’m very much for this type of division rather than a winner takes all type of approach, and think the benefits for the DAO are quite obvious in this regard.

Would be more than happy to contribute to these efforts, DMs are open! Looking forward to see how this develops!

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Hi @amy.sg and team,

Thanks for providing such a detailed write-up of the Committees and Council Structures.

Some comments and Qs from my side:

  1. How will the Strategy Steering Committee get input from the SAFE ecosystem to create strategies? With all initial members being SEF members, we risk this becoming an internal discussion, with information and rationale becoming siloed. Let’s ensure there are paths to provide input and good documentation of the process and rationale.
  2. I feel “Community Development” could be changed to “Ecosystem Development,” as much of Safe’s success depends on the solutions built on top of and around our ecosystem. I believe this pillar should also focus on clear business and value alignment/programs between Safeecosystem participants and optimize long-term ecosystem health.
  3. The governance and DAO operations strategy could be better run as a working group, instead of adding another layer of coordination. For DAO ops, from my experience, having a high-context, hands-on team who are judged by the combined impact of the design and execution of DAOops works best.
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Thank you for this proposal, Amy and Andre. I appreciate the efforts to improve SafeDAO’s governance with better-defined hierarchical structures. However, I believe we might achieve better results by forming empowered working groups that allocate resources and also actively execute the DAO’s goals.

When those who set strategy and allocate funding are separate from those who execute, we can risk misalignment and slower progress. By establishing working groups that decide on initiatives and carry them out within their scope, we can ensure accountability and a direct link between strategy and meaningful action. Examples like the ENS DAO stewards, the Compound GSWG, and other successful implementations show how smaller, focused teams strengthen governance by directly engaging in planning and implementation. Their involvement keeps them accountable and closely connected to the community’s needs.

I suggest we form such working groups in key areas like Community/Ecosystem Development and Governance. These teams should have the authority to make decisions within their scope, execute initiatives, and report transparently to the community, while also allocating resources to support community contributions in their domains. Enforcing term limits for members would be essential to avoid entrenchment here, as mentioned in feedback from a few others.

I’m interested in hearing more thoughts on this. Should we consider replacing Councils with Working Groups that not only hold key responsibilities for resource allocation and act as filtering functions but also execute specific initiatives under their aligned strategies? Perhaps some of the administrative tasks listed under the Council scope that might make the working groups’ workload burdensome with such refinements could be transferred to the Strategy Committee. This is also open for discussion.

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Thanks for your feedback Luuk!

There are a few areas:

  • All strategies must be voted on by delegates/token holders, therefore they need explicit action and feedback. This follows the same framework from the original strategies: [Discussion] OBRA strategies and budget. The difference is that it moves the development of strategies to a clear owner, while still having accountability to the greater DAO.
  • The initial phase is launching with two, but with more strategies can be added on in the near future.
  • Beyond the launch period, the Strategy Steering Committee can open up to non-SEF members in the future.
  • Additionally, we are currently hoping to launch a GardenDAO experiment in parallel, which is majority non-SEF members. Details on this will be coming soon on the forum.
  • Can you elaborate more on your definition of “Community Development” and how you see it different from “Ecosystem Development”? These are the nuanced details that would help refine the strategy.
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Summarizing a few points made by various people across this and the Implementation of Transition Period Proposal thread:

Concerns

  1. Concerns that councils/committees can add more process / a bureaucratic layer
  2. The lack of available talent with high-context to Safe’s ecosystem is hindering the proper formalization of conflict of interests between delegates and council members.
  3. @NoNonsenseValue argues there’s currently not enough accountability of delegates

Open Discussions:

  1. Should the group (currently “Councils”) responsible for a specific strategy make funding decisions within their scope and have the authority to execute specific initiatives?
  2. In relation to the point above, should delegates be allowed in Committees and Councils as well?
  3. Should we uphold delegation accountability with firmer requirements (terms, participation threshold), with launch of split delegation?
  4. Should we have working groups instead of councils/committees?
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My understanding is that the steering committee set the strategies and corresponding budgets, and it is then it is up to the councils to execute on their respective strategies given the budget that has been allocated to them.

My question is about what latitude the councils have in deciding how they operate?

For example, a council could potentially operate as a:

  1. grants allocation council, taking open submissions for relevant grants and allocating funding to whichever projects, and in whichever amounts, it collectively deems fit.
  2. curation layer for a quadratic funding round, deciding one which projects are eligible but leaving it to the QF round to decide which projects get how much.
  3. R&D lab, hiring / contracting teams to execute on ideas / solutions to the steering committee’s strategies.
  4. RFP council, defining things to be built in support of the steering committee strategies and requesting bids/proposals from external teams to execute on the ideas.
  5. a VC-like entity, making strategic investments in teams/projects/protocols that might impact the metrics given by the steering committee.
  6. etc…

Are these the only modes of operation? Or just two examples?

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Those were only two examples. So all the examples you given are other ways a council can structure itself. Councils have full autonomy to decide on the structure in which they operate.

Are you suggesting we limit or keep it open as is?

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I was suggesting that it was unclear. Personally, I’d prefer that councils have full autonomy.

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I have concerns around centralization in this proposal because it grants SEF significant control during the transition, including the ability to pause OBRA initiatives and extend the soft launch provision. This limits community participation and places too much authority in SEF’s hands without sufficient checks.

I believe that token holders should always have the opportunity to override key decisions made by SEF to ensure that the governance process remains decentralized and accountable to the broader community. Additionally, there should be an automatic sunset period on temporary governance measures, so if the new design leads to reduced participation or engagement, it does not automatically become the default governance model without further evaluation.

This would prevent unintended centralization and ensure that the transition reflects the community’s will, rather than locking in a structure that could limit future participation and feedback. These mechanisms are crucial to maintain an open, flexible, and community-driven governance structure.

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