Foundation for Interwallet Operability
FIO Token Holders vote in the Foundation Board of Directors via an ongoing poll. The Foundation appoints the Steering Committee to execute its charter and approves the budget.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee members are compensated under a dedicated Worker Proposal and are compensated in locked FIO Tokens.
The Steering Committee makes decision by simple majority vote.
Steering Committee’s responsibilities include:
Define and publish Strategic Objectives, Focus Areas and/or specific Projects it is willing to fund.
Review, approve, and fund Worker Proposals that satisfy the Strategic Objectives and ensure every Worker Proposal has clearly define set of KPIs.
Meet at least monthly to review progress against KPIs of all funded Worker Proposals and to decide on continuation of funding.
Meet with Foundation Board at least quarterly to provide update on progress towards Strategic Objectives.
Steering Committee’s responsibilities specifically do not include:
Managing individual projects, its objectives, activities, staffing, etc., other than via setting KPIs and budgets.
Individual Steering Committee members may also be involved in specific project being funded and if they are their vote will not be considered when deciding on their Worker Proposals.
Community members interested in being an official member, may submit their candidacy to the Steering Committee for consideration and presentation to the Board. Candidates qualifications include:
Experience with managing budgets via Key Performance Indicators
Experience with blockchain and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
Familiarity with the FIO Protocol
Worker Proposal
What it contains?
Must deliver a complete project without any dependencies not in control of the Worker Proposal Lead.
The Worker Proposal Lead is responsible for all elements required for success including Product Management, Design, Development, Hosting, Marketing, etc. It may, in turn hire additional resources to fulfill those needs. As a results the Worker Proposal includes enough funds to cover all required resources.
The Worker Proposal Lead acts as the CEO of their Worker Proposal and makes all decisions that help them achieve the KPIs. Specifically, the Steering Committee does not direct or act as a stakeholder to the projects executed as part of the Worker Proposal, other than KPI accountability and budget. If Steering Committee members are critical to the success of the projects, their time and compensation should be secured directly with the individual.
Some initiatives may intentionally be funded only for initial development with the idea of them becoming self-funding businesses. Others may contain recurring payment provisions for operations.
Must include specific KPIs which will be monitored and used as basis to determine if it will continue to be funded.
KPIs should state some expectations of what would be considered success, or failure, e.g. “Success: >1000 registered domains” and not “Domain registrations going up.”
Must include requested budget.
The budget can be for the entire project or monthly. If not monthly payment milestones must be specified.
The budget denominated in USD.
Desired payment method. See https://fioprotocol.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DAO/pages/487358465/Governance#What-are-approved-payment-methods%3F
The budget payments may be paid directly to individuals or vendors completing work for that Worker Proposal as long as payment is approved by Worker Proposal Lead.
Must state which Strategic Objectives it enables.
Must clearly state who owns the intellectual property upon completion. The code and domain knowledge produced should be open-source unless specific exception is granted by the Steering Committee.
See Worker Proposal Process and Payments for detailed field description.
Who can submit one?
Anyone can submit a Worker Proposal as described above.
What criteria is used to determine if it will be approved?
The Steering Committee is going to evaluate each Worker Proposal based on the following criteria.
Does it contain all required information?
How well does it align with the Strategic Objectives and Focus Areas?
How experienced is the Worker Proposal Lead and Team?
How competitive is the proposed budget and does it fit within overall budget set by the Foundation?
The Foundation has a higher FIO budget than USDT budget and therefore will be more likely to approve FIO Token compensation than USDT compensation.
The Foundation may ask for detailed budget breakdown, especially for projects which will require multiple resources and/or payments to other vendors.
How is progress reviewed and payment made?
Every Worker Proposal Lead will be asked to present to the Steering Committee at least monthly. The presentation should include:
KPIs at last review
KPIs now
Major activities and/or accomplishments since last review
Major activities planned for immediate future
Major issues and/or learnings since last review
Adherence to budget
Budget changes (if any)
The Foundation may ask for detailed actual budget breakdown, especially for large projects.
Unless specifically stated in the Worker Proposal budget milestones, payment is facilitated by the Steering Committee as described in the Budget, irrespective of the KPIs achieved. In other words, the KPIs are used to determine if the project should be funded in the future, not if the payment for elapsed period should be made.
What are approved payment methods?
The Worker Proposal payments can be made in any combination of the following:
USDT.
Liquid FIO - denominated in USDT, but paid in FIO Tokens.
Locked FIO - denominated in USDT, but paid in FIO Tokens, which are locked for a period of 2 years with 4% unlocking every 30 days. This payment also comes with 100% premium, meaning if this payment method is selected, the payment amount is doubled. For example if Worker Proposal has been approved for 1,000 USDT and Worker Proposal Lead changes it 1,000 USDT worth of locked FIO, when the payment is made 2,000 USDT worth of locked FIO will be paid out.
BTC or ETH (requires prior Foundation approval).
Anytime the denominated amount is converted to FIO Tokens, the USDT/FIO rate of exchange is taken from http://coinmarketcap.com as the closing price for the 3rd day before end of the month (for monthly payments), or for the day before payment is made (for one-time payments).
How are budget deviations handled?
Worker Proposal Lead is responsible for coordinating expenses in order to avoid exceeding the approved budget.
If there is a good reason to exceed the budget, the Worker Proposal Lead must first obtain Steering Committee approval in #steering-committee Discord channel.
Payments to some vendors may often vary based on a variety of factors such as time spent on project, cost of 3rd party services, etc. If that is the case:
The Worker Proposal Lead should make reasonable estimate and then include the actual amount spent in their Payment Request, meaning unspent budget should not be assumed to automatically be paid to the Worker Proposal Lead, unless it was reallocated to other needs and benefits the KPIs.
If certain spent occurs on a different frequency than payment frequency, the Worker Proposal Lead would still need obtain Steering Committee approval, but the justification would be obvious, e.g. “Requesting approval to exceed this months budget by $10,000 as vendor bills quarterly and spend reflected in budgeted amount”.
If the budget is changed as a result of converting some payments between payment methods such that the budget USDT amount is increasing, Steering Committee needs to approve it, otherwise no approval is necessary.