Societal: Advanced Treasury, Governance and Member Management Systems for Decentralized Communities
Dear Polkadot Community,
My name is Graeme Fox - Co-Founder & CEO of Societal. Societal is building a parachain that makes it easy to organize, govern, and grow on-chain communities. Its streamlined SaaS application is the ideal platform to run any Polkadot community’s operations, including the creator economy, protocols, social clubs, gaming, DAOs, and more.
Societal is asking for $135,477.72 USD / 26,616 DOT in treasury funding to provide the ecosystem with a platform for community (token holder) operations and governance. Our application will work with any tokenized project in the ecosystem that is looking to add governance, treasury, and community management services to their operations.
Earlier this Summer, Societal previously submitted a referendum for treasury funding, which you can find here. The proposal made it to the confirmation period twice, however it was aborted in the final hours and did not pass. We believe that we answered all the questions that were asked about the proposal to the best of our ability, and were pleased to see a strong community discussion and voter turnout. Our conclusion from the previous proposal is that the amount asked for was too large, especially as it was our inaugural ask for funding. We have gone back to the drawing board, and reduced the proposal by ~$52k.
The reduction in the amount does come with a slightly smaller scope of work. We want to continue to prove ourselves as builders in the ecosystem and hope that we can be given the chance to do so with the new proposal amount.
Societal has already completed most of the work required to become the operating system for decentralized communities in the Polkadot ecosystem. We are seeking funding to complete an array of final features of the product, including token import, governance, and proposal features, along with the management UI to support them. We will also use the funding to conduct final testing and to start onboarding users. These features will allow new and existing communities in the ecosystem to have access to a full suite of governance, treasury, and member management systems.
Please find the revised proposal here. It would be great to hear your input and questions about our proposal and hope that the new amount suits the community.
Societal’s Track Record/Accomplishments below:
- Attended Inaugural Polkadot Blockchain Academy
- Inaugural Polkadot Relayers Secured
- Three Web 3 Foundation Grants — Grant 1, Grant 2, Grant 3
- Accepted to Substrate Builders Program and Submitted Milestone 2
- Multiple Polkadot Panel Discussions - Academy Alumni, ETHDenver
- Rococo Testnet Deployment
- Product Walkthrough Videos
- Scytale Academy Graduate
- Accepted to Berkley Blockchain Accelerator 2023
- Cross Ecosystem Engagement Initiatives
More information about Societal can be found here:
Comments (5)
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Aye (55)0.0 DOT
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Hello from Polkadotters!
Your Societal proposal demonstrates a clear commitment to enhancing on-chain communities, adapting based on past challenges and refining the funding request accordingly.
I'm just curious, have you considered the possibility of positioning Societal as a common good parachain?
@pmensi
Hey Polkadotters! Thanks for the kind words - we are indeed very committed to enhancing the on-chain community experience for the extended Polkadot ecosystem, and are hopeful that we’re given the opportunity to prove ourselves as builders to the community.
To answer your question, we have considered positioning Societal as a common good parachain, however, we decided to not go that direction as we eventually want Societal to become a self-sustainable, revenue generating SaaS platform. By doing this we can remove future treasury spend.
With that being said, if the community would like our platform to be a common good chain, we would be happy to explore that route.
While the project looks great, if private returns are involved I'd like to see more sleeve rolling before coming to the community. Especially when the project is so close!
Have you considered retroactive funding or perhaps a repayment plan?
@Dom
Hi Dom, thanks for your comments / questions!
From our perspective, we feel that we have shown a good amount of sleeve rolling and development before coming to the community. We have been a part of the inaugural Polkadot Blockchain Academy, participated in multiple Polkadot-focused accelerator programs, completed two milestones of the Substrate Builders Program (Chains Track), and have completed a significant amount of development work. We believe that these steps we have gone through show that we are committed to building a project in this ecosystem.
In regards to the retroactive funding, we would like to bring on additional resources to complete the scope of work, which is why we have asked for funding up front. Additionally, we hope that our experience and reputation in the ecosystem is strong enough to know we will deliver the work, and the corresponding amount of funding requested is reasonable.
In terms of a repayment, we have not seen other projects required to do this with treasury funding. If this is how the community would like to start funding projects that are not common goods, we would be happy to explore. However, quite a few variables would need to be worked out as a standard: the debt loan terms, interest rate on debt (if any), default rate, and if the amount returned would be in DOT or USD equivalent. Ultimately, I don't think a repayment plan would be the right avenue to the default risk and management of loans, but think a token allocation to the treasury could be more interesting.