Ambassador Fellowship: Sprint Team Tip Request - Gerard Murphy
Beneficiary:Gerard Murphy was a paid member of the OpCom team from 20 January - 19 February 2025. He worked to deliver the first cycle of the Ambassador Fellowship until 3 May 2025. This is a tip request for one month payment only, at $50 per hour, for 40 hours per week. A fraction of what was delivered, but a token towards work done.
Work produced:
As a compensated member of the team:
- Fellowship Onboarding & Orientation Framework V1.0
- Rewards and Recognition Framework
- Resources Repository
- Fellowship Terminology and Narratives
- Guide to Fellowship Verticals V1.0
- Guide to Fellowship Ranking System V1.0
- History & Timeline of Polkadot Ambassador Initiatives: Birth of the Fellowship
- Rank I Objectives and Roadmap Guide V1.0
- Rank II Objectives and Roadmap Guide V1.0
- Rank III Objectives and Roadmap Guide V1.0
- Guide to the Fellowship Promotion Process V1.0
As a volunteer, post Op Com involvement:
- Created a comprehensive Notion platform from scratch, split into a public-facing page and a more substantive private Ambassador-only workspace. This includes::
- News and announcements
- Global calendars
- Ambassador directories - with full edit permissions for each member, galleries, reviews, NFT & rewards showcasing & Web3 CV templates
- Testimonies & reviews submission forms, database and front end display for ambassadors to leave peer reviews and endorsements.
- Easily referenced call and meeting archives
- Internal jobs board
- Included custom internal surveys, feedback forms, ideas logs & public contribution mechanisms,
- Manually uploaded and formatted a wealth of information including and resources to the platform. See screenshot One, Two and Three displaying the landing page and an idea of content available.
- Solely oversaw the ongoing maintenance and updates to the Notion platform.
- Individually added each ambassador signed up to the Notion workspace, ensuring correct access and unique ambassador profile cards correctly set up.
- Developed an interest form and database for people interested in joining the next round of ambassador inductions (currently 50+ forms on file)
- Made walkthrough videos on how to sign up to notion & the features and how to use the ambassador notion platform
- Co-ordinated with Distractive on updating the Polkadot.com ambassador landing page to reflect the new Fellowship
- Developed a Fellowship guide for setting up and securing funding for meetups or pop-ups (uploaded to notion)
- Produced a comprehensive social media plan for the Miami Mega Week to boost program visibility and engagement.
Background for the rest of the team:
During the first funded phase of the Ambassador Fellowship, we achieved remarkable success — even amidst periods of uncertainty and transition. This success was largely thanks to the dedication of individuals who stepped up as volunteers to ensure we not only met but exceeded our deliverables within the agreed timeframe.
Per the agreement with the Advisory Board (see Sprint Overview Document), a discretionary payment was to be made to the core team upon successful delivery by May 3, 2025. Through careful financial stewardship — managed solely by myself — $230,000 remained in the Ambassador Fellowship fund. The plan was to distribute $29,000 to the team, with the remaining $201,000 returned to the treasury when the Board stepped down (five weeks later than anticipated).
The delivery deadline was met, and the Advisory Board confirmed the work was completed successfully.
However, during this period, several Board members resigned due to the extended duration of their roles. With diminished capacity and activity, decision-making became increasingly difficult. Ultimately, the remaining funds — including the portion intended for the team — were returned in full to the treasury for administrative ease. As a result, the promised payments were not made.
Today, the Ambassador Fellowship remains active and is preparing a proposal for further funding to support its continued growth. Cohort Two is currently being seeded, and a waitlist for Cohort Three is already forming — a clear sign of the program's community value and continued success. You can find our Delivery Report here.
After careful consideration and consultation, I believe the fairest path forward is to submit individual compensation requests on behalf of each team member. These individuals fulfilled their commitments and contributed significantly to the Fellowship’s outcomes. The full list of team members and corresponding payment amounts can be found in this Spreadsheet.
Thank you for your continued support of the team, the principle of fairness within the ecosystem, and the enduring impact of the Ambassador Fellowship.
Comments (6)
Proposal Passed
3
of 3Summary
0%
Aye
0%
Nay
Aye (12)0.0 DOT
Support0.0 DOT
Nay (22)0.0 DOT
Comments (6)
Dear Proposer,
Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is ABSTAIN.
The Big Tipper track requires 35% participation (i.e. the vote is an abstain before this participation requirement) and simple majority of non-abstain voters according to our voting policy v0.2, and any referendum in which the majority of members vote abstain receives an abstain vote. This proposal has received zero aye and one nay votes from ten available members.
The full discussion can be found in our internal voting.
Please feel free to contact us through the links below for further discussion.
Kind regards,
Permanence DAO
Decentralized Voices Cohort IV Delegate
📅 Book Office Hours
💬 Public Telegram
🌐️ Web
🐦 Twitter
🗳️ Delegate
I am casting this comment on behalf of the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️:
Dear Lucy and the Polkadot Community,
We have voted Nay on this and other ongoing Ambassador Fellowship related proposals for the following reasons:
The budget for proposal #1287 was controlled by the Advisory board and they clearly stated their stance when they effectively halted operations and withdrew support at the end of March (15th of April due to delays) and sent all remaining funds back to the treasury later.
The program director, Lucy stated publicly that all Ambassadors (including herself) are volunteers from the 15th of April with no compensation, but a potential discretionary bonus at the end, if the Board agrees the OpCom did “good work”. Since no bonus was awarded, we must assume that the Board did not find their work met their standards.
Even though Lucy shared more context on different platforms, the key points made by the Board in their May 5 Forum post still stand best to our knowledge:
“… the Board must also acknowledge that the current operational structure has not fostered cohesive and efficient collaboration. Despite individual efforts, there have been delays in implementation, misalignment in governance, and ultimately, stagnation in areas crucial to long-term success.”
This statement is reiterating the ongoing problems, delays, inconsistencies and the failure to deliver proposal #1287 creating no meaningful impact in the community.
We’re not looking to punish the community member named in this proposal, but we don’t think the payment is justified, especially since the Board, whose role was to decide if any payments was supposed to be made, had a different view.
Going forward, we’d really like to see some changes in how the Ambassador Program is run. Lately, it’s felt more like a traditional company with a top-down setup, rather than something aligned with Web3 values like decentralization and shared responsibility. We believe the program is important for the ecosystem, and with the right people leading and working together in teams, it could really thrive. That kind of structure would also make it easier to ensure ambassadors who do great work are paid fairly, and we’d fully support that.
You can view how the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️ evaluated this proposal on our public page here.
Dear Proposer,
Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is ABSTAIN.
The Big Tipper track requires 35% participation (i.e. the vote is an abstain before this participation requirement) and simple majority of non-abstain voters according to our voting policy v0.2, and any referendum in which the majority of members vote abstain receives an abstain vote. This proposal has received zero aye and one nay votes from ten available members.
The full discussion can be found in our internal voting.
Please feel free to contact us through the links below for further discussion.
Kind regards,
Permanence DAO
Decentralized Voices Cohort IV Delegate
📅 Book Office Hours
💬 Public Telegram
🌐️ Web
🐦 Twitter
🗳️ Delegate
I am casting this comment on behalf of the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️:
Dear Lucy and the Polkadot Community,
We have voted Nay on this and other ongoing Ambassador Fellowship related proposals for the following reasons:
The budget for proposal #1287 was controlled by the Advisory board and they clearly stated their stance when they effectively halted operations and withdrew support at the end of March (15th of April due to delays) and sent all remaining funds back to the treasury later.
The program director, Lucy stated publicly that all Ambassadors (including herself) are volunteers from the 15th of April with no compensation, but a potential discretionary bonus at the end, if the Board agrees the OpCom did “good work”. Since no bonus was awarded, we must assume that the Board did not find their work met their standards.
Even though Lucy shared more context on different platforms, the key points made by the Board in their May 5 Forum post still stand best to our knowledge:
“… the Board must also acknowledge that the current operational structure has not fostered cohesive and efficient collaboration. Despite individual efforts, there have been delays in implementation, misalignment in governance, and ultimately, stagnation in areas crucial to long-term success.”
This statement is reiterating the ongoing problems, delays, inconsistencies and the failure to deliver proposal #1287 creating no meaningful impact in the community.
We’re not looking to punish the community member named in this proposal, but we don’t think the payment is justified, especially since the Board, whose role was to decide if any payments was supposed to be made, had a different view.
Going forward, we’d really like to see some changes in how the Ambassador Program is run. Lately, it’s felt more like a traditional company with a top-down setup, rather than something aligned with Web3 values like decentralization and shared responsibility. We believe the program is important for the ecosystem, and with the right people leading and working together in teams, it could really thrive. That kind of structure would also make it easier to ensure ambassadors who do great work are paid fairly, and we’d fully support that.
You can view how the 🌶️ Hungarian Polkadot DAO 🌶️ evaluated this proposal on our public page here.