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 state the Valid from and Valid till dates. These dates represent when the Worker Proposal work will take place. The Foundation typically approves ongoing work in 3 month increments. All payments for Worker Proposal must be submitted and approved by WP Lead no later than 14 days after Valid till date.

• Must include requested budget.

  • The requested budget is the total budget for the full duration of the Worker Proposal.

  • The requested budget can be paid monthly or in one-time payments.

  • The requested budget can be denominated in USD or FIO.

  • Desired payment method. See Worker Proposal | What are approved payment methods?

  • 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 USDC budget and therefore will be more likely to approve FIO Token compensation than USDC 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:

• USDC. It has replaced previously used and no longer available USDT.

• Liquid FIO

  • Denominated in USD, but paid in FIO Tokens.

  • Denominated and paid in FIO Tokens irrespective of Rate of Exchange.

• Locked FIO (typically locked for a period of 2 years with 4% unlocking every 30 days)

  • Denominated in USD, but paid in Locked FIO Tokens

  • Denominated and paid in FIO Tokens irrespective of Rate of Exchange.

• BTC or ETH (requires prior Foundation approval).

Anytime the denominated amount is converted to FIO Tokens, the USD/FIO rate of exchange is taken from as the closing price for the day preceding the date when Payment is approved by WP Lead.

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 by submitting WP Change Request.

• 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.

How are individual Workers hired and paid?

• The decision on who contributes to the Worker Proposal and how much they are compensated is made by the WP Lead.

• The Foundation may make payments directly to workers if so desired by the WP Lead.

How are Worker Proposals and payments tracked?

See