This proposal aims to signal SafeDAO’s intent to move forward with a Committees and Councils Structure and introduce a transition period to allow sufficient time for its full implementation. The proposal includes the temporary pause for funding new OBRA initiatives and an extension of the soft launch provision for Season 4.
Proposal types
SEP: Constitutional Proposals
SEP: Governance Proposals
Other SEPs
Proposal details
Purpose and Background
Background:
In this governance amendment sprint, the Committees and Council Structure proposal was introduced to resolve SafeDAO’s most pressing resource allocation pain points. However, the robustness of the proposal deserves ample time to discuss, shape and transition into the structure.
By allowing this transition period, SafeDAO ensures that the governance structure is carefully considered and well-aligned with the goals as outlined in its Constitution. Pausing OBRA during this time helps maintain focus on the strategic shift and mitigates risks associated with overlapping governance structures.
Proposal Details:
1. Signal support for committees and councils structure
The ratification of this proposal signals the intention to move forward with the proposed Committees and Councils Structure, as outlined in the Committees and Council Structure Proposal.
While this signaling is non-binding, (the Committees and Council Structure proposal must be separately formally ratified through a vote to be implemented), it serves as a strategic direction for governance improvements.
Full details of the structure, responsibilities, and processes will be iterated on until submission into Phase 1 by the Governance team for Season 4 Sprint 1 with the proposal intended to go into effect in Season 4 Sprint 2.
2. Pause new OBRA initiatives for Season 4 Sprint 1
To ensure a smooth transition to the new governance model, OBRA (Outcomes-based resource allocation) will be paused for one sprint until the full implementation of the council structure in Season 4 Sprint 2.
During the pause, no new funding initiatives can be submitted through OBRA, allowing the DAO to focus on finalizing the council structure.
Initiatives with ongoing funding are not affected.
3. Extension of Soft Launch Provision
At the launch of the governance framework, a soft launch provision was implemented, which allows the SEF to deviate from the governance cycles if necessary to give SafeDAO the possibility to vote in a flexible manner, ensuring an efficient decision-making process. This has been extended for subsequent seasons.
The soft launch provision for the governance framework and OBRA will be extended for the entirety of Season 4.
This will provide time for further refinement and feedback on the proposed structure before full rollout in Season 4 Sprint 2, ensuring the governance framework aligns with DAO goals and needs.
Timeline:
Season 4 Sprint 1: Governance team to finalize details for the Committees and Councils Structure.
Season 4 Sprint 2: Full implementation of the Committees and Councils Structure and resumption of OBRA.
Effects and Impact Analysis
This proposal signals support for the transition to the Committees and Councils Structure: This signal is non-binding, yet offers a strategic direction for governance improvements.
This proposal suggests no new OBRA funding initiatives submitted for Season 4 Sprint 1: The temporary pause on new OBRA initiatives ensures focus on the transition without overlapping frameworks. While this may delay new funding initiatives, it promotes a more cohesive governance model.
This proposal extends the soft launch provision: This extension prevents the transition being faced by the governance cycles as a roadblock, providing flexibility to refine and propose changes to the structure at any sprint in the season based on feedback.
Alternative Solutions
Immediate implementation of the Committees and Councils Structure: This approach could create confusion and inefficiencies due to insufficient time for proper planning and feedback, leading to potential governance misalignment.
Continuation of OBRA initiatives without pausing: This would result in overlapping governance structures where initiatives get funded although SafeDAO signaled to move to a new structure. This makes it harder to focus on the transition and dilutes attention from the new model’s implementation. Additionally, pausing the acceptance of new initiatives also allows for prudent budgeting, as the funds can be strategically reallocated within the new council structure, enhancing financial efficiency.
Delaying the transition until Season 5: While providing more time, it risks significantly delaying necessary governance improvements.
Implementation
[X ] Own implementation possible
Own implementation but with funding (how much % to implementation)
Request for technical support through Safe matter experts
Thank you for the thoughtful propsal @Andre and @amy.sg
I believe the proposed structure might overlook a specific type of conflict of interest prevalent in delegate-led governance. The expressed opinion does not comment on any single delegate’s individual qualities. Resilient systems should be designed with adversarial players in mind.
Delegates, as a stakeholder group, have strong incentives to support the creation of layers, administrative positions, and committees where they take seats. Those positions are lucrative as they rely on election processes, making the roles more sticky than simple re-delegation.
The obvious solution is to prevent delegates from sitting on committees and councils. We recently observed an apparent conflict when delegates who supported the controversial proposal for the Arbitrum gaming fund were elected to sit on the committee to keep the fund accountable. However, the lack of talent with sufficient knowledge about Safe’s ecosystem makes such a solution potentially impracticable.
With that in mind, we should carefully examine the need to create a structure that would potentially transfer power from the team and the tokenholders to delegates - a third stakeholder group with a vastly different payout function (they have no downside exposure).
@NoNonsenseValue makes a great point here about avoiding inefficient incentives that could lead to bureaucratic lock-ins. However, I would propose tackling this in the complete opposite way!
Because of the lack of high-context / availability talent, I believe Delegates should be able to participate in Committees and Councils. I would even argue that having a minimum number of SAFE delegates to your account, either through owning it yourself or having other SAFE token holders delegate to you, should be a pre-requisite for being part of a Committee or Council.
This way, all Council and Committee either have direct exposure to SAFE and/or have to showcase to SAFE token holders that they are operating in the best interest of Safe{DAO}.
As a result, Committees and Councils will likely operate better and more in public.
Naturally, this would be your stance—it gives you personally more power in both reach and durability.
I agree that SAFE ownership is a requirement for inclusion in committees and councils. Considering the change of delegation is virtually non-existent, nobody in good faith can argue that tokenholders hold delegates accountable.
I would argue whether a committee is needed in the first place and if so probably the best people to join it are the project founders and large token holders.
I would want anyone, myself included, to only fill a role in Safe{DAO} if they have the required skills, context, and skin in the game that forces operating in public and good faith.
Because the change in delegation is minimal, we could include a minimum self-delegated SAFE amount and increase the delegation required over time.
I left a comment on the other thread sharing a comparable perspective on Committees - IMHO, I prefer working groups with clear KPIs and commitments > Committees in some cases.
This is perhaps one of the most overlooked features of the split delegation SEP.
I’d guess that Banteg and myself stand to be most negatively impacted by this in terms of losing delegated vote weight over time, but forcing conscientious re-delegation, rather than entrenching delegates that happened to be active at launch, seems to be a critical component to the long-term health of the org.
I have two main concerns with the council structure:
Bureaucratic Bottlenecks: SafeDAO is already quite process-heavy, so depending on how the committees end up operating, I could see this being further exacerbated by committees. What’s not clear to me from the discussion is the budget and latitude that councils have towards achieving the desired outcomes. If councils are restricted to acting as a kind of grants committee, then they’ll almost certainly be a bottleneck. If they have more discretionary latitude around designing and experimenting with solutions, then I could see them potentially being quite effective.
Conflict of Interest: the folks that are probably best suited to take part in the councils are unlikely to be able to justify the time commitment and/or have conflicts of interest. OBRA handles these kind of conflicts for delegates by disallowing them to signal for their own proposals (as @amy.sgreminded me here). This is generally a non-issue since there are many delegates that can signal for a given proposal. But a council has much smaller number of inputs, so it’s not clear that forcing council members to abstain due to a conflict of interest is viable.
All that said, as a delegate with sufficient voting power, I believe this proposal is ready for a vote.
Thanks for the input @auryn ! A clarifying question:
When you say designing and experimenting with solutions, do you mean own the implementation of the strategy? Do you see it as solely owning the strategy? For example, are members in the community development council proposing initiatives such as region specific community growth and executing, but not opening proposals to the wider community? Feel free to utilize your own examples. I’m trying to understand how you are differentiating away from the “grants committee” model.
For clarity on the current design: Councils receive a budget cap and strategy definition. They have flexibility for creating initiatives for getting contributions, but also responsible for the success of those initiatives. For example, they can create initiatives in the form of a set of RFPs in which case they are doing both the design and reviewing proposals like “a grants committee”, and/or design an incubator program that they are running.
Thank you all for the great discussions and input! Please keep them coming, but it would be helpful to move them to this thread on the framework itself.
We appreciate @Andre and @amy.sg’s proposal and agree in principle with the need for a more structured governance model.
At this stage, the Safe ecosystem may lack the maturity to effectively manage the operational complexity that the Councils and Committees architecture discussed in the related thread introduces—the separation of decision-making and execution offering limited benefits compared to the associated costs of complexity. While such governance models can be effective in more developed environments, implementing them prematurely risks introducing unnecessary bureaucracy, potentially hindering progress. Instead, simpler and more adaptive governance structures would better address the ecosystem’s current needs by integrating faster decision-making with execution, maintaining agility as Safe evolves.
We acknowledge that the current proposal focuses on the general need to establish a governance framework, rather than on the specifics of its design. In line with this goal, we propose introducing task-specific Working Groups as a flexible and practical approach to governance. These groups would address key challenges and focus areas, starting with the ecosystem’s most pressing needs. Each group would have a clearly defined scope and set of responsibilities, operating under a six-month term followed by a re-election process. As @auryn mentioned, such a term limit on delegates could be beneficial and we think this should extend to Working Groups. This structure ensures accountability by requiring a renewed vote of confidence for each term, thereby incentivizing performance and promoting a results-driven environment. A relevant example of this model can be found in ENS DAO which is currently structured in three working groups. These groups have clear focus areas and accountability around strategy and execution, making ENS one of the few DAOs which have managed to create value while maintaining a reasonable degree of decentralisation consistently.
For establishing governance structures, karpatkey suggests that each group’s term, resources, KPIs, and scope be clearly defined in advance. Subsequently, candidates could be evaluated based on their relevant experience and technical capabilities. In essence separating the role formation decision from the staffing one. This approach would enhance decision-making and foster a meritocracy culture.
Conclusion
We support the migration to a more structured governance framework. However, we believe the example used in the proposal is too complex for Safe’s current stage of development. In our view, Working Groups with specific goals, accountability, and term limits would better serve Safe’s immediate needs while being more flexible and agile.
We look forward to collaborating with the Safe team to shape how this governance structure evolves, laying a solid foundation for future grow
). This is generally a non-issue since there are many delegates that can signal for a given proposal. But a council has much smaller number of inputs, so it’s not clear that forcing council members to abstain due to a conflict of interest is viable.