Funding new Ambassadors and emerging communities

[vaspholdings]

@Palmar, @Batuhan, your experience organising Zcash community-focused initiatives on the ground is greater than mine. But I hope together we can observe what has worked, and not worked well, in the history of Zcash community outreach.

After introducing the two wings/specialised teams concept for ZCG, Batuhan asked:

Do you think such a separation would improve the quality and speed of evaluations, leading to a more efficient process, or would it be better to maintain the current unified evaluation structure?

In my two previous posts, I outlined why I think no, that model would not work well.

But I am in full agreement that more capacity is needed in regional teams and community outreach.

Where I differ is where I think that capacity should live.

I would put the extra resources into people doing the work, not more people governing ZCG.

We already have useful machinery:

ZCG → ZecHub → new Ambassadors and emerging communities

Established regional organisations can continue applying directly to ZCG.

ZCG already uses this route. Its 11th May minutes record Hanh describing the standard approach for a new university outreach team as putting them in touch with ZecHub first, so they can build a track record. Other community applicants were pointed in the same direction.

Right now that referral is informal. Perhaps we should make it an explicit, funded route, with a way back to ZCG for direct funding.

There is already history here.

The original Global Ambassador Program was suspended in January 2024 because money was tight, not because the work had stopped mattering. ZCG said the decision was purely financial and would be revisited when market conditions improved.

Happily the gap was short. ZecHub was already trialling Ambassador provisioning in 2024, and by late 2024 Ambassador activity was operating through the ZecHub DAO.

ZecHub’s 2025 grant then explicitly expanded that model. It earmarked 40% of the bounty fund, 400 ZEC, for Ambassador initiatives, with DAO approval, monthly Forum reports, and a 100 ZEC cap per approved initiative.

Ambassadors did not disappear from the 2026 ZecHub grant application either, although their allocation was much reduced. 20% of the bounty fund, 20 ZEC. Despite ZEC increasing in USD terms still a budget cut for Ambassadors. DAO approval and monthly Forum reporting remain.

So the machinery already exists. What I am suggesting is scaling it.

A larger, ring-fenced ZCG allocation for Ambassador and emerging-community work, administered through ZecHub, would make the route explicit rather than leaving it as a small part of ZecHub’s general bounty fund which has to compete with other priorities.

ZecHub certainly looks like the natural place to incubate and coordinate Ambassador and emerging-community activity, if the ZecHub team wants it.

Yes, the ZecHub DAO is a decision-making body too. But it spends a delegated, capped budget on smaller local decisions, where many voices genuinely help. ZCG can resize that budget each year. Adding permanent ZCG seats is a much heavier commitment.

Successful Ambassadors and regional initiatives can then graduate into directly funded regional organisations.

For example, a new city meetup series could start through ZecHub. Build six months of activity and monthly Forum reports. Demonstrate that people actually turn up and useful work gets done. Then apply directly to ZCG.

We already have examples of that kind of progression for individuals.

@Artkor was in the first cohort of Global Ambassadors in 2022. He now sits on ZCG. @yoditar was another original Ambassador and is still building Zcash en Español, which is now directly funded by ZCG.

Pick a change that scales productive capacity.

Adding another ZCG committee does not do that.

[vaspholdings]

@artkor @yoditar @Michae2xl @AidenZ @gordonesTV

You have all been involved in regional Zcash outreach over the years, several of you through the original Global Ambassador Program.

I would be interested in your thoughts on what worked, what didn’t, and whether scaling the ZecHub model looks like the right next step.

[gordonesTV]

Greetings!

In my opinion, ZecHub is providing great support to small and emerging communities as they launch their initial activities. Once a community grows, develops its own content, event, and education strategy, and becomes active—as is the case with Zcash Brazil and Zcash en Español—the ZCG takes over its funding.

I believe this represents a natural evolution of the ambassador program. Previously, funding went to individual contributors; now, the program funds, drives, and supports entire teams that are clearly delivering results.

Personally, I would like to see active Zcash communities in more countries, such as Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Chile. Here in Europe—beyond Spain—we need a stronger Zcash presence in countries like Germany, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The narrative around privacy is gaining momentum in these regions, partly due to the excessive overreach of the MiCA regulation, among other factors.

I am based in Barcelona, ​​Spain, and we are gradually getting people accustomed to seeing us at events and meetups, discussing privacy, and teaching them how to use Zcash wallets. We have to keep going!

We are on the right track, but there is room for improvement.

[palmar]

Thank you for sharing your perspective and bringing the debate to life.

I’ve been consulting with other community members, and it seems that, at this moment, there is no need to implement the two-wing proposal, given that the ZCG’s overall performance has been good. If you read my response for the June election, you’ll see that I thought the same at the time. The idea of two wings has only seemed interesting to me as something to explore and to gauge what the community thinks.

That said, I appreciate that you recognize the importance of regional communities. I personally joined Zcash when Yoditar sent me an encrypted memo in ZecWallet while he was a Spanish-language Zcash ambassador under the ZCG program. So I understand firsthand the reach these communities and ambassador programs can have.

Regional communities are in direct contact with a very valuable layer of Zcash: end users. For privacy to become normal, we need anyone to be able to use Zcash to buy a taco, a soda, or even a cookie. I’m not naive, and I know that takes a lot of work on many fronts, but regional communities are the ones closest to that layer.

Having a wing dedicated to community grants, backed by a ZIP, could be one way to ensure this work continues. I mention this because some past ZCG candidates have floated the idea of cutting the budget for regional communities. I know they are not the majority. In fact, the work Zechub and the ZCG have done supporting communities seems very good to me.

I also think it would be valuable for members of these communities to run for the ZCG, since they can bring a lot of relevant experience. In the case of Latam, a community member could explain why they believe a grant should be approved—because something that may seem unnecessary to someone in Europe could be useful to someone in Argentina.

Your proposal regarding Zechub and the communities is very interesting. I’ll wait to see what the broader community, Zechub, and the ZCG committee itself think.

I believe the first point to review is that Zechub DAO members do not receive financial compensation (as far as I know). It is reasonable to expect that if Zechub DAO formally took on the main flow of grant requests from communities or educational/social events, its members would need to commit more time to reviews, and the responsibility would increase because they would be managing a much larger budget. At the ZCG, I think the compensation members receive more than justifies even full-time dedication. Zechub DAO has 23 members. A community wing of the ZCG could be made up of 5 or 3 people.

[vaspholdings]

Thank you both for your thoughts.

@gordonesTV, that progression is exactly what I had in mind. ZecHub helps new communities get started and build a track record. Once they are established, like Zcash Brazil and Zcash en Español, ZCG funds them directly.

@palmar, glad we agree the two wings are not needed right now. And Yoditar’s encrypted memo bringing you into Zcash is a perfect example of what Ambassador work can do.

To be clear, I don’t mean ZecHub should take on the main flow of community or educational grants. I am thinking only of the incubation stage: new Ambassadors, city meetups and emerging communities, where ZecHub already does this work.

If that grows, then yes, DAO workload and compensation would need looking at too.

I also take the point that “ring-fenced” may sound too fixed. What matters to me is that there is enough funding for this work, rather than another permanent ZCG committee.

[yoditar]

Community building in Zcash has been a process that has at times been organic and at other times driven by specific organizations within the Zcash community.

The ECC ran an educational project that brought financial literacy and privacy education using Zcash to low-income communities.

For a time, the Zcash Foundation supported Zcashers interested in organizing local meetups to promote Zcash.

But it was the ZCG’s Global Ambassador Program (GAP) that formally paved the way for building local and regional communities across several continents by leveraging the scattered efforts of various community members who were working on a volunteer basis.

After that, once the GAP was discontinued, there was a restructuring of priorities, and ZecHub eventually took over this program, building on previous experiences.

The ZCG used the already established communities (Zcash Brasil and Zcash en Español) as a reference to formalize the process of community building and establish the necessary reputation before funding proposals with a greater community commitment.

That is why ZecHub became the necessary first step before submitting a more ambitious grant proposal to the ZCG—a natural step toward building trust and credibility with the global community.

I believe this makes a lot of sense at this stage of Zcash’s development, and we’re even seeing how local or regional communities are contributing to this process by helping to build communities that later become independent by applying for funding from ZecHub and the ZCG.

An example of this is the Zcash Clubs project by Zcash en Español. This initiative has helped create clubs such as the Zcash Club Querétaro in 2024, which Palmar has led from the start. Today, after nearly two years of supporting them—including through funding and mentorship—they have taken a step toward becoming independent and transforming into Zcash Mexico by applying for grants from ZecHub and the ZCG. All of this has been built organically and strategically with the goal of spreading the Zcash message to a country that greatly needs financial privacy.

I believe that the way communities are built within Zcash serves as a model of organization, planning, and strategy—both on the part of ZecHub and the ZCG, as well as the already established communities (Zcash Brazil, Zcash en Español) that forge relationships with members who share a passion and interest in the Zcash vision to lay the foundations for strong communities while respecting the language, culture, and unique characteristics of each locality. The message cannot be spread in the same way everywhere. There are many variables to take into account.

The Zcash Africa communities are also a great example of this—they began as a community led by Chidi (a former GAP Ambassador) in Nigeria (now a project funded by the ZCG as Zcash Nigeria) and have since expanded to countries such as Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.

I hope this goes some way toward answering your question, which is quite broad in terms of what works and what doesn’t.

[vaspholdings]

Thanks @yoditar. If I’m not misunderstanding, this says to me that the model already exists and also works.

New Ambassador or community → ZecHub → build a track record → direct ZCG funding when established.

It’s clear from you guys’ feedback we don’t need to invent another ZCG wing.

The question now is simpler: does ZecHub have enough funding and capacity to do the incubation stage properly, particularly if we want more communities to come through it?

[zcashminer1]

I’d like to chime in with my 2 cents here. For some context, I founded and ran the Bitcoin Cash Association a number of years ago and one of the activities we did was build out the exact system you are discussing right now. Before I left we had helped establish over 100 in-person groups across ~30 countries. We carried out a bunch of different activities as an organisation but I would say that establishing that global network was probably the most valuable thing we did for BCH with by far the highest ROI.

The model was quite simple really:

1. Make it super easy for people to start a new group by providing lots of useful resources (leaflets, talk ideas, guides to hosting a meetup).
2. If possible give them extra resources (perhaps some ZEC to cover costs and to give out to attendees) once they have held an event or two.
3. Provide a key person they can come to for support.
4. Provide a private online chat that only ambassadors (and support) can access so they can support each other and cross pollinate ideas.
5. Create an excellent source for all the needed resources.
6. Create a place that people interested in zcash can find the existing groups.

Doing all of the above significantly increases the number of groups that start popping up and does so at a very low cost. In-person groups/events are very valuable as they are where people build trust and relationships. If I remember correctly I think it cost something like $30k to get all those 100 groups established and having in-person meetups roughly every month.

I’ve already started the process to try and offer as much of this as possible. See my post here: Introducing meetzec.com: a small toolkit for starting in-person Zcash meetups (work in progress) - #3 by zcashminer1

… about https://meetzec.com

Obviously if ZecHub wants to take this over that is also completely fine. I think ZecHub could potentially be a good place for it. I can also make the map and group data available via an API so it could be pulled into a page on ZecHub if that’s preferable.

Happy to provide any more info as necessary and am very interested to support in any way I can.

[vaspholdings]

Thanks @zcashminer1. Very interesting.

What you describe sounds like the practical side of the incubation model: make it easy to start, support people once they show activity, and give organisers somewhere to go for help.

The 100 groups across around 30 countries for roughly USD 30K is also a useful benchmark.

You mention ZecHub could take this over, or pull the map and group data into ZecHub via API. Either way, the funding/governance layer and the practical meetup tools could work together.

As meetzec is a new project, and involves people and location/contact data, we should be cautious about what information gets collected and retained, and the site security controls around it.

What do you other guys in this thread think? Can I call on you specifically, @yoditar? Does this practical meetup layer fit with the ZecHub incubation model we’ve been discussing?

[Dre_Nesthub]

One thing I’d suggest is that we Maximize the usage of the wiki
An events resource page will be cool @vaspholdings

[zcashminer1]

Completely agree about information storage/requests. Ideally any information retained is all public info anyway. The only real communication needed is to find out about the groups being set up and their public info to make it easier for others to find. You could really put that channel anywhere (zcash discord or thus forum would do).

[Sewa]

@vaspholdings Your post made me take a deep dive into the history of the Global Ambassador Program (GAP) and I am still learning. Looking back at the GAP one of the most interesting lessons may be that it became more than an outreach program. It also created a pipeline for future community leaders.

Jason McGee was already thinking about this in his 2021 proposal:

@aquietinvestor

• Global ambassador program: Zcash is too US-centric. I would like to see ZOMG fund a program that sponsors “ambassadors” in European, Asian, and South American countries to host meetups and other educational events focused on Zcash. Perhaps these ambassadors could be future ZOMG committee members

That last sentence is especially interesting in hindsight. Artkor eventually joined ZCG, while Yoditar, Michael2xl, Chidi and AidenZ continued building communities and taking on broader leadership roles.

Maybe that is one of the most valuable lessons from the program. Rather than simply recreating it, could we learn from what worked and what didn’t and become more intentional about recognizing people already showing leadership, supporting and mentoring them, and helping them grow into the next generation of community leaders?

I think that history could be really useful as ZecHub and ZCG think about how to support emerging communities today.

Jason’s original 2021 post:

Jason McGee (@aquietinvestor) Candidacy Announcement For ZOMG (December 2021)

Introduction My name is Jason McGee (aka aquietinvestor). I am a long time ZEC holder and active member of the Zcash community. I have a strong background in finance, accounting, and management. I am the former Head of Operations for a well-known hedge fund in NYC where I managed a team responsible for all daily activities related to trading operations and fund accounting. Working in this capacity, I designed and implemented a framework of policies, procedures, and controls to create effici…

[Dpeluola]

great read,
you’ve said so well,
making better what already exist would be cool

[vaspholdings]

Thanks @Sewa, for recapping a useful piece of history. You have been doing the same reading as I have. What you point out is an important lesson from the Global Ambassador Program: it was not just outreach, it also gave people a doable way to prove themselves and grow into bigger community roles.

I also agree with the wider point. We should be learning from both what worked and what didn’t work before, rather than trying to recreate old programmes exactly.

And thank you @Dpeluola, yes, that is where I am ending up too. Build a clearer path from early activity into something more established, with funding that matches each stage.

[vaspholdings]

@Dre_Nesthub Yes, I agree this overlaps with what @zcashminer1 is building with meetzec. Perhaps the useful split is meetzec for the practical meetup layer, and the ZecHub Wiki for the reusable resources and guidance behind it.

[vaspholdings]

After a bit of discussion behind the scenes/review, I’ve come up with a proposal draft for a new (temporary to test it) ZecHub sub-DAO for incubating community projects.

Do keep talking here about the general topic, and see the specific proposal over here.

[yoditar]

I think it would be good to have more funding to support more ambassadors and communities. The program is growing and needs financial support.

[yoditar]

I’ve already seen your proposal, and I’ll be reviewing it whenever I have a moment amid the activities we’re carrying out for Zcash’s anniversary month. Please excuse my delayed responses—we’ve had several activities that have kept me focused on our efforts to grow the Spanish-speaking community.

[vaspholdings]

Thank you, @yoditar.

[vaspholdings]

And now we have three alternative approaches surfaced so far.

(For readers coming in later, here is where this whole discussion began.)