Funded Budget Holders

[Kevin Stalker]

When a company grows above a certain size it gets to a point where every cost spend can’t be put before the board anymore. They haven’t got time to think it all through in the required detail. They create cost centres, with monthly budgets. The budget goes up and down a bit from time to time, but it is managed by a budget holder who spends it and reports using a reporting document.



This is what we have to do. This idea is similar to DashForce by @mastermined. DashForce was a cumulative proposal of many small things done to promote Dash with total budget of 205 DASH per month. I am proposing we think a bit bigger, and create a real change to our processes by enabling the idea with a change to our processes.



We will invent a new entity called a Funded Budget Holder. Anyone will be able to apply to be a FBH by submitting a request to the Masternodes in the same way as people currently submit Budget Proposals. An FBH will normally cover a proposed area/type of spend. Examples of these might be:

• Software Development
• Advertising
• Charity Donations
• Website development
• Training videos
• Legal Defense

I made these up, but anyone will be able to propose anything, so this won’t be the list. People are inventive.



Submitting a request for a new FBH will be more or less the same as submitting a current Budget Proposal. Put a request in front of the masternodes and they vote yes or no. In the request will be an explanation and a spend in DASH and everyone will vote Yes or No. No problem. The proposal might be slightly different in that it will be selling us on idea that we need a budget and describing the sort of things it will be spent on. The price will be the proposed price for the first month.



The difference comes once the FBH is running. There will be a budget spend breakdown document that will be completed by the FBH manager that will show:

• Spend on tasks this month
• The progress on each task, and estimated % complete
• Costs incurred
• Wages paid
• Dash retained for spend next month
• Narrative for what was achieved

The FBH manager will then submit this document along with a requested budget for next month. The masternodes will review performance and will be offered to vote for one of three options:

• Approve Requested budget
• Reduce budget by 10%
• Cancel this FBH

Whichever option gets the most votes wins. This means that when the proposal is first submitted the price is for the first month only. It could be a low budget, just a few dash to get started, a request in the second month could be made for a higher figure once the ball is rolling.



The advantages of this approach are:

• The manager of the FBH can take a wage. It may be part time, or full time, but it can be a wage. This may seem like extra cost, but its worth it. We need people to manage our processes. The masternodes won’t put up with unreasonable numbers.
• FBH managers will be able to plan for the longer term, because they will be able to expect ongoing revenue if they perform well. They will achieve a lot more than one-off projects do.
• If an FBH is failing or underperforming they will be voted down, or voted out. Simple is good.
• New Budget Proposals can still be submitted to the masternodes as they are now, but there will be a discussion going on about more specialised subjects inside each FBH, and a quickly available budget with stored funds. People will not be expected to submit small requests if there is an obvious FBH which covers that subject.
• We can retain a fee for submitting requests to the masternodes, to keep out the spam, and leave the micro-management to the FBHs.

What if there were 1000 new Budget Proposals being submitted a month? How would we cope? We will need to move faster using stored funds, we will need people’s time and attention, and we need people who specialise in knowing a lot about a subject. Masternodes are paid so that they care about the success of DASH, but they get paid whether they vote or not, and we can’t change that, so we have to ensure they are not swamped with requests. Instead we will use our money to create processes and people to do the work.

 

[Chadrick]

Kind of related to this subject... I posted this in another thread:

It would be great if a pre-proposal could have some kind of multi-sig address where backers could pool their money for proposals they like. It would be a kind of pre-proposal, "put your dash where your mouth is" - that doesn't quite roll off the tongue does it... Then if the proposal amount is hit the official proposal could use these funds to post the official one. Would be great if you could pull your own "pledge" if you decided something else was better.

I think the community needs to show their support for a pre-proposal and this should bring things to the forefront in front of FBHes. @mquimby from the dashnation slack is thinking of writing up a proposal to build and maintain a list of prioritized proposals. This fits right into that concept (I think)...

 

[paragon]

Kevin, are you proposing that the elected funded budget holder for each category of the budget, makes his proposal to us at the end of the month after he's reviewed all of the proposals in his category of the budget and has chosen which ones he'd like to accept and then we as masternodes can either agree or ask for changes?

Personally, I don't feel like we've yet hit critical mass where we are getting so many proposals per month in the categories you mentioned (listed below) that a "funded budget holder" is yet necessary. The categories you mentioned included

• Software Development
• Advertising
• Charity Donations
• Website development
• Training videos
• Legal Defense

I personally think many of us masternodes are happy to read and vote on the proposals and view this as a way to contribute to Dash and to safeguard our investment. For those who aren't interested in reading proposals and voting, they can rely on those who are interested to have only Dash's best interest at heart

 

[JZA]

I get the feeling, some are acting like we are getting hundreds of proposals a day. I think many people are acting like the numbers have skyrocket. Can anyone please verify if there is an issue here to begin with?

BTW this representative-based system is what got our Governments F***kd in the first place. Next thing you will have to get through the red tape of these 'middle man' organizations if you even want to be heard.

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[Naruto]

Maybe in the future. But not now. It seems quite centralism to me.


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[Kevin Stalker]

Kevin, are you proposing that the elected funded budget holder for each category of the budget, makes his proposal to us at the end of the month after he's reviewed all of the proposals in his category of the budget and has chosen which ones he'd like to accept and then we as masternodes can either agree or ask for changes?

In this system a proposer could choose to put their request to an FBH instead of the masternodes, and in that case the FBH manager would review and fund the project directly from their budget, more or less independently. He doesn't have to wait for the end of the month because he has a wallet with stored funds in it. He can store funds from one month to the next, and the masternodes simply review the accounts and fundings for that FBH once a month. I was considering a system where the list of proposals had to be reviewed by the masternodes to allow some to be voted out before any could be funded, but I thought that wouldn't scale as well as I would like, and would create delays. Some will say we are not large enough to warrant this yet, but I see a rosy future and I would like to see a process in place which allows long term growth. It sounds radical, but it works in real organisations, whether they are publicly or privately owned.

 

[Kevin Stalker]

Well, I seem to have some support. Even though only a few have voted. The next step is to work out some technical details as to how it would be coded, who would code it, and how much it would cost. I am willing to stump up the 5 dash for the proposal if the technical details are agreed. I think I need to get some feedback from the developers though. I can pay people to write the code, but I'm not sure if that's how we do things.

 

[demo]

Well, I seem to have some support. Even though only a few have voted. The next step is to work out some technical details as to how it would be coded, who would code it, and how much it would cost. I am willing to stump up the 5 dash for the proposal if the technical details are agreed. I think I need to get some feedback from the developers though. I can pay people to write the code, but I'm not sure if that's how we do things.

If you have 5 dash, I encourage you to post a simple sentence as proposal into the budget system, just to get an "ok" for your idea as a principle (and get back the 5 dash as reimbursed). If you get the initial "ok" from the masternodes , then you may elaborate more and propose something more detailed. The important thing is to have the masternodes to agree on the idea as a principle. If the principle is accepted by the masternodes, then more than one implementations could be proposed from more than one persons, and the masternodes will select the one that fits better to their needs, or the one proposed by the person they trust more.

I also agree with the idea as a principle, and I have already voted yes in your poll. But I have not 5 dash to propose something like that in the budget. And beware, dont take into account my "yes" vote in this poll, because I am not a masternode.

 

[lynx]

While I think there is no problem right now, I think it might be in the future. We have a lot of pre-proposals to sift through, but not that many proposals. Anyway, I don't think a FBH is a good solution. I'd rather pay someone (maybe more than one person so to have different opinions) to review pending, ongoing and past proposals and advise on them, rather than handle the money themselves. I think that position is somewhat related to what @jimbursch called a Comptroller, but could would also be involved in vetting.

PS: Now that I think more about it, Dr. Hosp's pre-proposal and others would clearly benefit from a third party escrow, so maybe you are onto something. So instead of a FBH, we could have unfunded budget holders that would only get the money once a real proposal has been approved? Just thinking out loud here...

 

[JZA]

I would rather make Amanda B Johnson even more rich (or another charming talk head), and get her a new show solely about interviewing the months proposal people, and subscribe to that, then make my decision based on it. Thats the way ICOs are doing at the moment with channels such as ICOCountdown on Youtube. They interview and grill the people behind the ICO in order to get people to buy their digital assets.
I can see a similar thing devolving in DASH.
My biggest concern is if the proponents dont speak english or have a hard time communicating through an interview. I remember such was the case when Amanda tried interviewing people from the NXT camp which are mostly Russians and Europeans.

 

[Kevin Stalker]

Great suggestions... The Amanda B Johnson idea would be a good stopgap, to get us through the next 3-6 months. However with that idea you are really just paying her to vet the ideas, in the same way I would pay Budget Holders in my idea. Its the same but less scalable. As you say, she doesn't speak all the languages or have specialist skills (other than the obvious) so surely a dedicated budget holder would be better and more scaleable.

With FBH managers it would be easy to have country specific disciplines which could speak the language and run forums in that language, etc.

One reason I think they should handle the money directly is for speed. Small budget proposals could be paid within a week, or even less. And nothing to stop scalability to large numbers of small proposals. Normal businesses pay for things from held money. You are right, many more proposals would go through if this proposal were implemented. Who knows how many are put off by our 5 Dash cost plus 1 month delay. The pre-proposal forum is not ideal.

However, I agree. I need to work on the detail around an FBH, and what steps a small proposal would go through. There could be a list of designated advisors who could discuss proposals to come up with a consensus. This would include any masternode voter who wanted to get involved. The question would be, do we allow just anyone to discuss? I think not. I think the people who contribute should be those with an incentive, meaning the FBH manager or the masternodes. Otherwise it all gets bogged down in spam.

An FBH manager could run discussion forums which anyone can contribute to, but these wouldn't form part of the text reviewed at the end of the month by the masternodes. That would be compiled and presented solely by the FBH manager.