The Steem Alliance just held an hour long briefing on what they are doing. Essentially they are organizing a request for proposals (RFP). That call should come out in the next couple of days. Then individuals or teams would have up to 6 weeks to design the structure of a foundation that aims to better Steem.
The call for proposals seems pretty open ended and I'm glad it is. They seem to be trying to allow for the maximum amount of people and ideas. I applaud them for that. Some of the community has had a hard time figuring out the proposals because they issue ideas like changing rewards or asking for money for stuff. It isn't that kinda proposal... yet.
The next steps for the Steem Alliance seem to be
- Call for proposals for the design of a foundation
- People submit proposals over a 6 week period where they have designed a foundation
- The community weighs in on which is the best fit
- The foundation(s) with the most traction will work on fund raising from Steemit, whales, and other sources.
Stars Align
I'm working with a team of people to put together the Stars Align proposal. At the core of this specific foundation design proposal is a non-profit entity designed to take proposals from the general public, filter them through boards with expertise, balance needs through an executive board, and finally get buyin/approval from the Board of Directors (which is comprised of Steem stake holders).
This model is a good one in my mind because it allows anyone on the platform to submit financial requests to get projects access to funds. It has teams of experts that can pay attention and review requests coming in with the keen eye of someone with experience. It will have checks and balances put in place!
- The Board of Directors can approve or disapprove, but can't design budgets.
- The Executive can set priorities, but can't review individual financial requests.
- The five "topical" boards can accept and approve financial requests but have no authority to fund them directly.
Because of this design the community will get the following benefits:
- The People get access
- Experts review
- Stakeholders get oversight
- It should be difficult to game the system for selfish profit
Just the start
No, this isn't the whole proposal, but this is at the core of what we're doing. We're building out a Discord Server so you can see the day to day of how this Foundation would run, and in that server we'll put in key details of things like how anyone could join a board.
If you align with the spirit of this proposal then come work with us. We're still assembling the team and the call for proposals hasn't even gone out yet. Together let's build something awesome that can help Steem get organized while still being decentralized.
Feel free to contact me initially in PALnet (http://minnowpond.org), and if it seems like a fit I'm happy to bring you into the Stars Align discord server and you can lend your voice to the details of how this particular Foundation will operate.