Below please find the latest @ZcashGrants meeting minutes and Public Dashboard link.
Attendance:
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Amber
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Brian
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Burns
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Jason
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Michael
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Jack Gavigan (ZF resource)
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Alex Bornstein (ZF resource)
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Daniel Wolande (ZF resource)
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Deidra M acting as notetaker
Key Takeaways:
- Housekeeping Items
- Welcome, Amber!
- ZCG welcomes Amber as a new member of the committee!
- 2023 Transition
- Aditya and Amber will be meeting exclusively this week to help transition Amber into her new role.
- Discretionary budget
- The 2023 budget has been reset!
- Welcome, Amber!
- Open Grant Proposals
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Alphaday
- ZCG unanimously approved this grant.
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Program To Train 10 Devs in Africa
- The committee will vote on this grant once the applicant submits it on Submittable.
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Zcash Education Contributor (dismad8)
- ZCG to get on a call with ZecHub before resubmitting their more holistic proposal. Then, the committee will vote at the next meeting.
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Hindi EduZcash
- ZCG will vote on this proposal at the next meeting.
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Zecweb.com - online Zcash wallet
- During the January 13 brainstorm session meeting, all 5 members of the committee voted to reject this proposal. Dan will post a response to the forum.
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Alphaday
- Brainstorm Session Follow Ups
- Global Ambassador Program
- ZCG decided to continue the GAP program and will extend/renew Yoditar, artkor, Eric Vaughn, Aiden, and Madison Parks’ contracts to June 2023.
- The committee agreed that the ambassador program has no hard cap and prospective ambassadors will be assessed by goals and needs.
- 2023 RFP Plan
- ZCG agreed to continue the 2023 RFP program. Jason is currently working on a forum post outlining ZCG’s plan for the community and the new process change for multi-bidding scenarios.
- Small Grants Program (SGP)
- Cody is in the process of finalizing a proposal for a Small Grants Program that will utilize free2z with the intent to take some of the burden off the committee. This is a work in progress.
- Arborist Calls / Gardening Club
- ZCG would like more collaboration with ECC and ZF engineers and could achieve this via the Arborist Calls or restart the Gardening Club. This initiative is in the works.
- Global Ambassador Program
- Miscellaneous
- Major Grants
- In the coming months, the committee will strive to be proactive with prior major grant recipients to foster stronger relationships with them.
- Grant review process
- ZCG to test out an additional sentence to the ZCG website and Zcash grants page to applicants in order to promote more engagement early on.
- Communication guidelines
- ZCG will flag inappropriate or harmful comments on the forum moving forward to encourage a more welcoming environment.
- Annual COI Process & IC extensions
- Alex will send instructions to the ZCG members on the COI process and send IC extensions within the week.
- Compensation update
- ZCG stipends will be increased in line with inflation starting this month.
- Major Grants
Notes:
Housekeeping Items
- Welcome, Amber!
- Jason welcomed Amber to her first ZCG/ZF meeting.
- Amber was added to the various Signal groups, the recurring meeting invites, and agendas. She also met with ZF and completed her onboarding.
- Jason explained the minute-taking process to Amber. He reiterated that the minutes aren’t published to the forum until everyone on the committee has reviewed and approved them and asked the committee if everyone agreed that this policy still stands.
- ZCG unanimously agreed.
- 2023 Transition
- Because Amber is the only new addition to the ZCG committee, instead of a transition meeting, Aditya will reach out to Amber individually to discuss his impressions on the ZCG program and answer any other questions she might have.
- Amber informed ZCG that this meeting had been scheduled.
- Discretionary budget
- Jason wanted ZCG to be on the same page about resetting the budget for 2023, which is 3% of the ZCG slice of the dev fund with a floor of $250,000 and a cap of $1 million. The committee agreed. He also asked if ZF would add a new tab for 2023 in the dashboard. Jack informed ZCG that it was already done.
- Jason asked that the ZIP amendment, passed in 2021, be added to the ZIP repository to memorialize the amendment properly. Jack said that he would action this in the next few weeks.
Open Grant Proposals
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Alphaday
- Jason recapped the grant proposal. The applicant is asking for $4,900 to build a Zcash community dashboard that serves as a single endpoint for all Zcash users by aggregating things like social media, development resources, a calendar for all events, YouTube streams, trending discussions, etc. Jason added that the @GGuy suggested Alphaday could also integrate ZCG grants into the dashboard.
- Jason asked for the committee to vote. Cody responded that this grant is low-cost and has maintenance, so he voted to approve it.
- ZCG unanimously approved.
- Jason stated that the maintenance cost is $100 for 12 months and said it would be cool if at some point someone within the community or ZF could possibly maintain it.
- Brian asked if ZCG should request for the integration of the Zcash community grants website could be added to the applicant’s proposal. Michael agreed.
- Dan will add this to the response and inform the grantee to reach out to ZCG via DM when they are ready to set it up.
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Program To Train 10 Devs in Africa
- Jason summarized the proposal. The applicant asks for $10,000 for the Africa Youth Blockchain Ambassadors to train ten university students to become Zcash developers. The funds will be used to develop the course and create resources for the students and the program itself. Jason asked for initial thoughts on this grant.
- Brian expressed his overall concerns about ensuring that the persons creating this program would be knowledgeable and resourceful in developing something that will feed back positively on the Zcash ecosystem. He stated that he was unfamiliar with this group’s experience with Zcash and was not confident they could develop a Zcash program appropriately.
- Cody asked if this grant reached the Submittable platform, and it did not. Michael suggested that the applicant submit it on Submittable and then vote on a more completed application. ZCG agreed.
- Amber asked if there was a way to ask applicants to show prior work and demonstrate ability within Submittable’s application process.
- Alex said he would check the questions/wording in Submittable during the meeting and get back to ZCG that night. It is concluded that, yes, the question of showing prior work is indeed included in the application.
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Zcash Education Contributor (dismad8)
- Jason recapped this proposal from Dismad. This grant is for $40,800 for him to serve as the Zcash Education Contributor, primarily focused on ZecHub, where he’ll write tutorials, oversee the GitHub repo, recruit other members to join the DAO, manage all ZecHub socials, etc.
- Jason added that over the weekend, Ian from ECC (who started ZecHub) messaged ZCG on the forum and said he’d been speaking with Dismad and Jason Rogers, the two primary contributors to ZecHub, about withdrawing this grant and submitting a more holistic ZecHub-focused grant instead.
- Jason stated that he supports a ZecHub-focused grant and feels that ZecHub has been a valuable resource for the Zcash community and has a lot of untapped potential that it can achieve with proper funding. He added that he would like this grant to include a clear articulation of their long-term vision and how they intend to increase engagement. He asked for the committee’s thoughts.
- Brian stated that he was less concerned about low engagement because what ZecHub offers could be considered “timeless.” Amber added that she would be more inclined to fund a project over a person. Michael stated that he would also like a more holistic proposal. He noted that the ask is very high for what is being offered and would be more inclined to approve if there was a more precise vision from the applicant. Cody added that he liked the concept of ZecHub and the community effort behind it and would like this proposal to be more holistic.
- Jason asked for Dan’s thoughts. Dan disclosed that he is involved with ZecHub, & that he is a multi-sig holder for the DAO. Dan added his support to ZecHub and felt it had a lot of potential. He mentioned that ZecHub would be meeting on January 11 and that he would join.
- Jason suggested that after the ZecHub DAO meeting, ZCG and ZecHub (including Ian, Dismad, Jason Rogers, and Tokidoki) should get on a call before they submit the new proposal.
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Hindi EduZcash
- Jason summarized this submission. The applicant is asking for $25,000 to develop educational materials in Hindi with the goal of educating 1,500 new people on blockchain and Zcash. In addition, they want to create materials for blogs, videos, and infographics in the Hindi language because they think it’ll get more engagement in India.
- Jason stated that someone in the community asked for samples from them, and the applicant directed them to their Twitter account.
- Jason asked for initial thoughts from ZCG. Cody stated that the math seemed off and a bit unrealistic. Amber said she would like to see prior work from this applicant as the Twitter reference needed to be more evident in what they were trying to show. Mike and Brian said they still need to review the tweet and relevant experience.
- ZCG agreed that this grant would remain open and be revisited in 2 weeks.
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Zecweb.com - online Zcash wallet
- Jason recapped the grant. This proposal is from kworks. They are asking for $98,000 to develop zecweb.com, an internet browser web-based wallet to send and receive ZEC from both the Sapling and Orchard pools.
- Jason added that there were some concerns brought up by community members and Mike/Amber in their responses on the forum about web wallets not being private, not getting used, and being risky for storing funds.
- Jason asked for ZCG’s initial feeling on this grant and kworks’ response on the forum. All committee members are currently leaning towards rejecting it; however, this grant will be left open for more community feedback and will be revisited in 2 weeks.
- Update: During the January 13 brainstorm session meeting, all 5 members of the committee voted to reject this proposal. Dan will post a response to the forum.
Brainstorm Session Follow Ups
- Global Ambassador Program
- Jason stated that late last year, the committee met and jotted down some recommendations of things ZCG would like to improve with the program. The committee also said they would let the 2023 committee decide whether or not to continue the program. ZCG had their brainstorm session last Friday and would like to continue the program, with a focus for this year on iterating on the program to integrate some of the improvements they discussed.
- Jason also stated that some ambassadors need their contracts extended and asked where ZCG could find an updated list of ambassadors and their expiration dates. Alex responded that the list is currently on the dashboard and up-to-date.
- It is decided that all ambassador contracts approaching their expiration date soon will be extended until the end of June 2023, except for the Saudi Arabian and Ugandan ambassadors. The committee will reach out to Zoz to ask if they are still interested in being an ambassador before proceeding with an extension and then will also reach out to Yoditar to discuss Mucu’s last month contracted engagement, which ends on Jan 31, before deciding whether to extend. Alex to send extensions to the ambassadors indicated by ZCG.
- Cody stated that this program is currently at 10 ambassadors and asked if ZCG will adhere to a hard cap moving forward. ZCG agreed that the hard cap is flexible if the need is evident and they are the “right fit.”
- Jason brought up that Tim asked to be a Polynesian ambassador. Brian stated that ZCG should meet with him to learn more about why he wants to become an ambassador and his goals.
- The committee agreed. Brian will reach out to Tim.
- 2023 RFP Plan
- ZCG agreed to continue the RFP program in 2023. Last year, the committee put together a bunch of grant ideas, prioritized them, and wrote up RFPs for a few. The committee plans to revisit that list over the next few weeks, add new ideas, reprioritize projects, and start writing up RFPs and RFIs and publishing them to the forum. Jason stated that he is currently working on a forum post outlining ZCG’s plan for the community and communicating the process change for multi-bidding scenarios.
- This will all be posted in the next week or so.
- ZCG agreed to continue the RFP program in 2023. Last year, the committee put together a bunch of grant ideas, prioritized them, and wrote up RFPs for a few. The committee plans to revisit that list over the next few weeks, add new ideas, reprioritize projects, and start writing up RFPs and RFIs and publishing them to the forum. Jason stated that he is currently working on a forum post outlining ZCG’s plan for the community and communicating the process change for multi-bidding scenarios.
- Small Grants Program (SGP)
- Jason stated that Cody put together a proposal for a Small Grants Program that utilizes Free2z. The intention here is to take some of the burden off the committee with regard to reviewing small grants.
- Cody summarized that this program would be geared toward grants asking for $5,000 or less for meet-ups or small work. ZCG would select a group of 8-10 candidates who have small grants quarterly. They would have to use a Free2z page and use that page to raise a 50% deposit that they would want, up to $5,000. Cody added that this idea is still a work in progress and working on the details of this but asked if there was any reason why this could not happen from the ZF side.
- Alex answered that there are no restrictions on matching requirements, but it is important to use the correct language when promoting it. Once Cody finalizes this program’s goals and objectives, Alex will double-check the language because this is a typical stipulation in grant programs.
- Cody said he would start working on SGP more in the next month.
- Arborist Calls / Gardening Club
- Jason stated that Nate Wilcox mentioned last year the possibility of ZCG having a presence in the Aborist calls. The idea would be for ZCG to have agenda items to go over, including discussing open grants to get ECC/ZF’s opinion on, asking technical questions to engineers, etc. Jason added that ZCG thought this would be valuable and that ZCG would like to have more collaboration with ECC and ZF engineers.
- Jason added that a cool thing that might come out of this collaboration is something @GGuy suggested, which was for ECC and ZF to possibly collaborate with ZCG on RFP ideas.
- Jason brought up a concern that the Arborist Calls were typically limited to protocol discussions, and if that’s an issue, then a possible solution would be to start the Gardening Club calls again.
- Amber stated that she did speak briefly to Nathan about his feelings on this, and he told her that there could be participation from a ZCG member to give updates or ask questions in the club.
- Jason asked for feedback from Jack. Jack stated that the Arborist calls have traditionally been slated as protocol-focused calls, but there’s often discussion of broader topics, so there is no hard and fast rule. Jack also stated ZF is happy to facilitate more calls throughout the ecosystem so that more developers and engineers can interact with one another.
Miscellaneous
- Major Grants
- Many ZCG members have expressed a desire to focus more on major grants this year. To accomplish this goal, Jason encouraged ZCG to be more proactive with prior major grant recipients in order to maintain active relationships. Over the next month or two, Jason recommended that the committee set up calls with those recipients to find out what they have planned for 2023, get a general sense of what they might be looking for in terms of funding, and express that their relationship is important to ZCG and we want to see them continue to contribute to the ecosystem. Jason stated that the bear market has been challenging for everyone and he does not want to lose these great developers to other crypto projects.
- The committee agreed on the importance of this to the ecosystem.
- Grant review process
- Jason stated that ZCG discussed last year, but has not yet actioned, encouraging more communication with grant applicants at the start of the process to help the applicant with their proposal before submitting.
- Jason suggested a minor change on the ZCG website and Zcash Grants page to add a short paragraph to mention that the applicant can email ZCG a summary of their proposal. This way, we can help the applicant determine if their proposal is within the scope of something we’re interested in funding before they go through the trouble of submitting a formal proposal.
- Dan suggested that applicants can post to the forum first to gauge community feedback, then ZCG can prompt them to move forward on Submittable. Alex agreed in theory but stated that this would have the opposite effect and would be a duplication of work in practice.
- ZCG agreed that this would be a test first, but if it leads to more spam, they will leave the process as is. Alex stated once the statement is composed, he would add it to the platform. Jason said he would come up with the statement, send it to the other committee members for approval, and bring it to the next meeting.
- Communication guidelines
- Jason stated that there had been a lot of negativity on the forum, including negative comments towards grant applicants. In response to these negative comments, Michael composed a reply that ZCG will start to use this year. The response says to be friendly, assume good faith, and let’s all do our part to make this platform more welcoming.
- Jason suggested supplementing Michael’s blurb with communication guidelines to help encourage better feedback. The guidelines would not be rules or anything that can be enforced – because that’s the job of the forum moderators – but give suggestions on how to interact with grant applicants and how to provide constructive feedback.
- Jason said the communication guidelines would achieve three goals: (1) Help make the forum a place where people are comfortable giving feedback on grant applications because it’s something the committee takes into consideration when making decisions, (2) help community members provide more constructive and helpful feedback to the committee, and (3) make sure grant applicants aren’t getting mistreated by community members while ZCG sits there in silence.
- Jason also suggested that the committee should encourage community members to reach out with feedback privately.
- ZCG agreed. Dan suggested that in addition to Jason’s automatic response to applicants, ZCG could add a sentence about the guidelines and the private option.
- Jack stated that ZCG members should feel free to flag any inappropriate comments. There are a range of moderation options available short of a user ban. For example, a post can be hidden, thus signaling to the user that their comment was problematic in some way.
- Annual COI Process & IC extensions
- Alex stated that he would send an email after the meeting. The email will have instructions for COI. In addition, Alex will send IC extensions to the committee on January 11 via SignEasy. Finally, Alex reminded ZCG to reach out if there were any questions on their KYCs or any other concerns they might have.
- Compensation update
- Jack stated that the ZCG stipend had been $1,500 per month over the past year, but will increase to $1,725 per month beginning in January.
. Keep this momentum up and ZCG will be unrecognisable by the end of the year 
.
