Ambassador Fellowship: Sprint Team Tip Request - Arash Torbati
Beneficiary: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.i
Comments (6)
Dear Proposer,
Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is ABSTAIN.
The Small Tipper track requires 30% 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
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🗳️ 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.