RFP - Zcash Podcast

Hi all. ZCG is tryna drop fresh heat and get the ball rolling in the world of RFPs. This is an RFP for production of a Zcash Podcast.

A lot of the text is boilerplate from ZF (ty :pray:). Sections 8 and 9 contain the real meat of the request. Here’s a pdf you can download and share.

This is a new initiative and we are still learning & will greatly value ya’ll’s input on this and other RFPs as we shape great processes. Some requests for input on other RFPs will be forthcoming soon soon!


Zcash Community Grants (ZCG)

Request For Proposal (RFP)

Zcash Podcast

  1. Project Description

The Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) committee is inviting qualified individuals or companies (Grantee(s)) to submit a proposal to make a podcast dedicated to Zcash.

The relationship between the winning Grantee(s) and ZCG shall be that of a grantee and grantor, governed by standard grant terms and conditions.

  1. Background and History

ZCG (Zcash Community Grants) exists to fund projects that advance the usability, security, privacy, and adoption of Zcash, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. Here’s what we’ve funded so far.

Formerly known as the Major Grants Review Committee, ZCG was created by community members of the Zcash cryptocurrency in ZIP 1014, working within the Zcash governance process.

ZCG’s funds come from the decision in ZIP 1014 to allocate a portion of all newly created Zcash—over a four year period—to the ZCG.

Legally speaking, ZCG is a technology advisory board that constitutes a committee of the Zcash Foundation, under its bylaws. Grants are chosen by a committee of five members who were chosen by the Zcash Community Advisory Panel in an open election.

Operational support is provided by the Zcash Foundation.

Resources:

  1. ZCG Responsibilities :eyes:

ZCG will provide the Grantee(s) all available relevant information to aid in the successful completion of the project. ZCG will also provide:

Aside from funding, ZCG can provide you with ourselves as guests, our feedback as listeners, and are happy to try to use our inroads with ZF, the ECC, and the Zcash Community at large to help you connect with potential guests.

We will amplify any endeavor we fund wholeheartedly through our official and personal social media presences.

  1. Project Assumptions

The following assumptions were made in the development of this Scope of Work:

Content will be free to consume and distributed via a popular, globally-accessible podcasting medium.

  1. Proposal Submittal and Contacts

The Grantee’s proposal shall be submitted to the Zcash Grants Platform in PDF format, unless ZCG has otherwise requested supplementary materials in a different format. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Questions should be directed to ZCG.

  1. Project Schedule

The anticipated project schedule is summarized as follows:

4/18/2022 RFP Posted
TBD Proposals Due
TBD Contract Awarded
TBD Final Deliverables Submission Deadline

7. Scope of Work :eyes:

Problem

Zcash doesn’t have a dedicated podcast (or any regularly released content) Because of this, users don’t have an easily digestible source of up-to-date information, and Zcash updates are generally delivered via joyless text. The Zcash community is rather quiet & fragmented, and the level of discourse on the forums is rather technical.

Goals

  1. The goal of this project is to establish a project that consistently delivers audio content consisting of Zcash news, features, discussion relevant to digital privacy
  2. A consistently-produced podcast (monthly or twice-monthly) with live premieres (with community chat) that covers news updates, interviews figures in the world of Zcash, and fosters new discussions in the community.
  3. Vibes & quality similar to Bankless and Decred in Depth

Required tasks

Releases

1. At regular (at least monthly) intervals, produce a podcast, at least 30 minutes in length
2. Subject must be related to Zcash AND personal digital privacy
3. Forum post announcing each new episode
4. Social media updates

Monthly Updates

1. If there’s a delay in production, continue to make at least monthly updates on the Zcash forum related to your progress.

Deliverables

1. Contractors are required to deliver audio or audio/visual podcast content, released on a regular schedule to a major podcast platform.

1. Adheres to code of conduct
2. 6 months of releases
3. Payments made monthly contingent on content releases

8. Proposal Requirements

The Proposal shall outline the Grantee’s Scope of Services, which at minimum must include the criteria set forth within this Request for Proposal, and the Grantee’s approach to administer and complete the project.

Podcast magic doesn’t necessarily show on a resume. For this reason, we prefer applicants simply provide a short pilot episode with their application.

Absent a pilot, a detailed project approach will assist ZCG in understanding the Grantee’s comprehension of the project and the opportunities and constraints that a project of this complexity may contain. At a minimum the Proposal shall include the following:

  • A pilot episode
  • A budget

-or-

  • Cover letter detailing what specifically qualifies them to execute the project (maximum 1 page)
  • Project approach including any unique solutions and clearly identifying all assumptions (appropriate length for the complexity of the specific project)
  • Project process (check-ins, sign-offs, other applicable process actions)
  • Project team organizational chart
  • Response to Section 10, if applicable
  • Resumes (2 page maximum per resume) for key project personnel and any subcontractors to be used (unless prohibited by a specific SOW)
  • Samples of applicable work (attachments or links)
  • Itemized budget with any milestone payments clearly tied to completed intermediate deliverables
  • Any supplementary materials relevant to the project

  1. Selection Criteria

ZCG will review the Proposals and make a selection based on the best value, considering the following selection criteria:

Criteria Standard Weighting Factor
Cost Does the Grantee(s) provide a cost proposal that is deemed reasonable for the complexity of the work to be undertaken? Does it provide “value for money”? 4
Personnel Qualifications Do the assigned personnel have the skills and experience to produce the project’s desired outcome? Have personnel demonstrated success in these roles with documented examples of direct experience with this type of work? 3
Project Approach Does the Proposal approach show an understanding of project constraints and meet the project objectives? Do the proposed work hours accurately reflect the level of effort required to complete each Project task? Does the Proposal approach demonstrate an efficient, reliable plan of progression and achievable timeline? 3

The criteria scale ranges from 1 to 10: 1 is poor, 5 is average, and 10 is outstanding. Criteria will be multiplied by the associated weight to give a weighted score, which will be summed for a cumulative score. The maximum possible cumulative score is 100.

  1. Diversity Statement

ZCG believes in providing equal opportunity to all business enterprises to participate in all aspects of the ZCG grant program without regard to race, creed, age, sex, national origin, ethnic identity, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other legally protected basis, and will conduct its grant program so as to prevent such discrimination.

Recognizing that some individuals, groups and business enterprises, including Minority Business Enterprises, Women Business Enterprises, Disability-Owned Business Enterprises, LGBTIA+ Owned Business Enterprises and Veteran-Owned Businesses, have not historically received opportunities to participate equally in contracting opportunities and to ensure and reaffirm ZCG’s continuing commitment to progress and succeed in achieving the goal of equal opportunity, ZCG is committed to the goal of enhancing economic opportunities for Diverse Businesses. ZCG will make every good faith effort to identify and utilize Diverse Businesses.

A Grantee that is a Diverse Business may establish its qualification by providing to ZCG:

  • Its certification status from a federal, state or local governmental agency; or
  • Documentation that would enable ZF to verify that the Grantee qualifies (examples include community engagement, public declarations, etc).

This method is designed to cover those Grantees who are easily verifiable, such as sole proprietorships, small partnerships, closely-held corporations and small companies that do not engage in significant government business or do not have the resources to seek a governmental or third-party certification. ZCG will provide minorities, women, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ persons and veterans equal opportunity to participate in all aspects of contracting programs.

It is not the policy of ZCG to provide information or other opportunities to Diverse Businesses that will not be available to all other business enterprises. It is the intent of this statement to establish procedures designed to assure Diverse Business access to information and opportunities available to other business enterprises. ZCG’s intent is to widen opportunities for participation and to increase competition.

Definitions:

  • “Disability-Owned Business” means a business enterprise which is Owned and Operated by one or more persons with disabilities.
  • “LGBTQI±Owned Business” means a business enterprise which is Owned and Operated by one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual,transgender, queer, intersex, and other sexual and gender identities (“LGBTQI+”).
  • “Minority Business Enterprise” means a business enterprise which is Owned and Operated by one or more of the following ethnic minority groups: African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander and Native American.
  • “Owned and Operated” means (1) the business enterprise is at least 51% owned by a person or persons within one of the respective diversity groups, or in the case of any corporations, limited liability companies or partnerships, at least 51% of the voting stock or interests, as applicable, is owned by a person or persons within one of the respective diversity groups and (2) the management and daily business operations of the business enterprise are controlled by a person or persons within one of the respective diversity groups.
  • “Women Business Enterprise” means a business enterprise which is Owned and Operated by one or more women.
  • “Veteran-Owned Business” means a business enterprise which is Owned and Operated by one or more veterans
  1. General

  2. Selection of a Grantee(s) will be based on the selection criteria described above. The proposal shall address all of the selection criteria.

  3. All pre-award costs related to Proposal generation shall be borne by the Grantee(s).

  4. Proposal information is not considered confidential or proprietary. Trade secrets and other proprietary data contained in Proposals may be held confidential if the Grantee(s) requests, in writing, that ZCG does so, and if ZCG agrees, in writing, to do so. Material considered confidential by the Grantee(s) must be clearly identified. Such confidential/proprietary information must be easily separable from the non-confidential sections of the Proposal. Marking the entire Proposal as proprietary will be neither accepted nor honored.

  5. A potential or actual conflict of interest exists when commitments and obligations are likely to be compromised by the Grantee’s other material interests, or relationships (especially economic), particularly if those interests or commitments are not disclosed.Therefore, it is the Grantee’s responsibility to disclose any real or perceived conflict of interest with an officer or senior employee of the Zcash Foundation or a ZCG committee member, at the time of RFP submission and anytime during a subsequent grantor/grantee engagement, Updated Zcash Foundation and ZCG rosters can be viewed here.

  6. Grantee(s) may be required to agree to AML/KYC requirements as set forth here. Applicability of these requirements will vary based on multiple factors, to be determined at time of grant award.

  7. Upon ZCG approval, the selected Grantee(s) shall submit their winning proposal to the grants platform for tracking, milestone payment (if applicable) and transparency purposes. Instructions regarding community posting and update requirements will be provided upon grant approval.

18 Likes

Thank you for writing & posting the first RFP @BrunchTime :tada:
I am very much looking forward to hearing from interested applicants regarding RFPs posted by @ZcashGrants
And I’m excited for the ZCG committee’s upcoming RFPs for grants which we believe would make an impact to build and grow Zcash adoption.

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Look this, @yoditar!

Vamos a hacerlo en español… :wink: :muscle:

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I do hope someone steps up and produces an engaging podcast. This is one thing definitely missing in the Zcash ecosystem. Much of what I’ve learned about crypto over the past couple of years came from podcasts.

As a side note, even though I’ve never ran my own podcast, I would love to give it a however, my current employer would cut me loose as soon as they found out I was involved financially with any crypto. :joy::scream:

4 Likes

Hi @ZcashGrants, we received the first part of a grant to do such a podcast last year, called “Shielded Dialogues”: Shielded dialogues: media and advocacy for private transactions.

We’ve recorded three podcasts so far, one with Andrew Miller, one with Zooko, one with WhyRUSleeping. Each comes with a bounty for a challenge to make privacy relevant to the listener, posed by our interviewee.

We haven’t published any of those yet because we’re still deciding on a PR strategy to hit the minimum number of views in the proposal milestone.

We spoke to Natasha and David from ZCash Media, who were super helpful on this end (thanks again!) but any additional ideas and support on the PR side, or community sharing side would be super appreciated.

We feel pretty good about the content of the interviews and have a few other guests already in mind to interview; Zcash-relevant outreach is our bottleneck.

Happy to submit the podcasts we have ready privately to discuss strategy and would be grateful for any pointers, through this forum or a brief call.

Thanks!

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We recently engaged a PR firm and might be able to help. DM me if interested.

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If this is still unclaimed I’d like to throw my hat into the ring. I run a YouTube/Odysee channel/podcast called Digital Cash Network for several years now. Prior to this (and now as part of the channel) I have hosted 196 episodes of the Dash Podcast. I am a crypto user since 2013 and have been living exclusively off of crypto since 2015, and have been a consistent advocate of privacy generally and Zcash specifically for years.

I propose to host a monthly live podcast dedicated to Zcash on my channel, about 60-90 minutes in duration, live on YouTube and Odysee, which will then be syndicated across various platforms including audio podcast platforms. This will feature guests from the Zcash world and greater affiliated ecosystem and cover topical news as well as deep dives into particular subjects pertaining to Zcash.

If there’s interest, please let me know and I will submit a more official proposal. Thanks everyone!

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Thank you for your interest. Yes, this is still unclaimed, so please feel free to submit your proposal directly in this thread. If you have any questions, you can DM us at @ZcashGrants.

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I have officially submitted a grant proposal! Please feel free to comment here or on the dedicated thread here.

4 Likes

A proposal has been submitted for the Zcash Podcast RFP. When is the team making a decision? Thanks in advance for your consideration.

The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 28.

Thank you, that’s great. Is it your policy to notify people who submit proposals whether or not they have been selected?

Yes, we announce our decision on the forum in each specific grant proposal thread. Here’s an example from a recent grant we approved:

Thanks! Happy holidays.

1 Like

@indexstudios - I just want to clarify one thing I said above: our next meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 28, and we will discuss your proposal at that time. However, we like to give the community a chance to comment on proposals, so we may not make a decision on your grant at that meeting. The average turnaround time from submission to decision is approximately four to six weeks.

Can you please respond and post a link to your proposal so that the community is able to review it as well?

Thanks!

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Thank you. How do I submit a link to the proposal?

Should I just upload it in my reply so the community can view it? Thanks.

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Yes, please do. Thanks!

I tried posting the proposal but your spam filter removed it.

Here’s the proposal from @indexstudios:

ZCash Podcast - Proposal - Nov 21.pdf (62.0 KB)