Adopt DAOIP-5 Grants Management

[thelastjosh]

This issue summarizes some discussions and tasks following a conversation with @nfrgosselin and Eugene Leventhal, as well as older conversations with Ben + Jonas @ Optimism, Owocki, and Kevin Olsen.

Problem

The diversity of thought on how to best run grant programs has led to innovative approaches for grants management but has also fragmented capital and reduced transparency.

A standard set of (off-chain) metadata schemas for grant programs and projects can increase interoperability between grants tooling, improve the transparency of grant programs, and ultimately make grant programs more efficient for funders, administrators, and grantees. A standard would also lay the groundwork for a “common application” for grants as well as easier coordination between grants programs.

Appetite

Small Batch: This is a project that a team of one designer and one or two programmers can build in one or two weeks. We batch these together into a six week cycle (more on that later).

Much of the work has already been done on the specification side, as part of the DAOstar standards writing process with Gitcoin, Optimism, Solana, Karma, OpenQ, and others. Based on conversations at Istanbul and elsewhere, we believe the political will is there from leadership at Gitcoin and Optimism. Having Gitcoin and Optimism adopt will drive adoption through most of the rest of the ecosystem. To implement the standard, what remains is to (1) harmonize the current standard (which was based on Allo v1) with Allo v2 by creating and merging a PR in the main daostar repo, (2) check that Optimism is okay with those changes, and (3) update the Allo v2 API to reflect any field name changes.

Solution

The DAOIP-5 Grants Management standard, recently announced at Schelling Point Istanbul, was based on Allo v1 and intended to serve as a public specification for grant systems that multiple parties, especially Gitcoin and Optimism but also various L1 foundations, could adopt.

The standard is simply a set of JSON metadata standards for publishing information that Allo publishes already, along with some VC-based attestations architecture that is tied into the indexing strategy already implemented through EIP-4824.

References

1. The full standard is available at https://github.com/metagov/daostar/blob/main/DAOIPs/daoip-5.md. All the stuff necessary for implementation is in Specification section.

Rabbit Holes

1. A lot of the research behind the specification is written up here.

Planning Docs

Happy to use this issue as the main planning doc.

• Right now, the standard distinguishes grant system operators from grant projects from grant pools. One question that should be resolved is how to adjust this to reflect the fact that grant pools and projects are not distinguished in Allo v2.

[thelastjosh]

Next step after call with @thelostone-mc Jason Meg and Eugene, we should:

1. finish / update this issue to identify key next steps + the new profile structure + specific items for the dev roadmap
   2. expose a few APIs, then send to Jonas' team Optimism BY THE WEEK AFTER ETH DENVER (i.e. ~March 10) so they can get it started on the RPGF4 dev side
2. fold in Karma discussions

[codenamejason]

Working document for current specification: https://hackmd.io/@jaxcodes/BJdvY0WJA/edit

[thelastjosh]

Adding @tbsoc and @Rashmi-278 on this thread from our side, who are working with Sov on updating the standard to match current Allo v2. We want to get this ready before Devcon / FTC, where we're hosting a hackathon bounty for the grants standard. They may reach out soon @codenamejason , thanks again for your help :)