Proposal: Using $RAID for New Member Championing Incentives

Raid Guild
#1

tl;dr

  • Implement a new incentive mechanism for championing and onboarding new members
    • Champions must stake $RAID to sponsor a new member.
    • If the new member is successful, the champion gets their stake back plus additional $RAID as a reward
  • Requesting 250,000 $RAID be moved from the RAID Incentives minion to a new Championing minion to cover championing rewards for the next 10

Background

Raid Guild grows organically, adding new members as individual existing members deem appropriate and champion them in. The championing process relies both on the champion being a good judge of who is a good fit for the Guild as well as on the champion’s reputation within the Guild being at stake.

That has previously worked quite well when the Guild was smaller and it was easier for everyone in the Guild to evaluate new members once championed. But as we grow and that becomes more difficult, we risk a drop-off in the quality of our new members.

It is crucial that we not dilute our talent pool even while we grow.

Another challenge presented by growth is the process of ramping up within the Guild after a new member joins. With a wider community and greater to complexity to navigate, it’s more imporant than ever that new members have a guide during their first few months.

Purpose

  1. Ensure the quality of new members, by stengthening the incentives for champions
  2. Help new members succeed by creating incentives for current members to support them

The New Championing Program

Current Process

Currently, champions are responsible for…

  1. Identifying somebody they would like to see as a new member.
    • Often this is somebody they’ve worked with from a cohort; it could also be a friend or acquaintance they know from outside the Guild.
  2. Sponsoring that person’s new membership proposal

New Program - Overview

This new process would add three major new components

  1. Champions need to stake $RAID to champion a new member
  2. New members need to achieve a few early goals relating to engagement and fit
  3. Champions receive a reward in $RAID if their new member meet the criteria from (2). If not, they lose their stake from (1)

$RAID Staking

To champion a new member, a champion must stake X $RAID. If their new member achieves the criteria defined in the next section, they get their stake back. Otherwise, they lose their stake.

New Member Success Criteria

New members are successful when they contribute to the Raid Guild community, bring in value to the Guild, and earn income for themselves.

Within the first two months (60 days) after their membership proposal is processed, new members should:

  1. Successfully join at least 1 raid or RIP
    • Includes completed raids/RIPs as well as raids/RIPs still in progress (provided that the new member is in good standing on that project)
  2. Attend at least 2 Guild meetings
    • Includes Roundtable and Raider Roundup
  3. Demonstrate shared values with the Guild
    • This is at the discretion of the Guild

Champion Reward

If the new member meets the criteria from the previous section, the champion is also eligible for a reward of Y $RAID.

This reward creates an incentive for the champion to support the new member, help them understand how things work, get included in a new raid or RIP, etc.

Alternatively, the champion is free to contract with another member to serve as the new member’s “buddy”. The champion receives the reward, but can share it with anybody who helps mentor the new member.

MVP

Initially, we can facilitate all this without much building by creating a separate Championing minion:

  • Before championing a new member, champions must deposit X $RAID into the Championing Minion.
  • When the new membership proposal is created, it must include a link (ie on blockscout) to the $RAID deposit tx.
  • Any new membership proposal that does not include a link to the championing stake should be voted down.
  • If/when the championed new member meets the new member success criteria, the champion can submit a minion proposal to withdraw X + Y $RAID to receive their original stake plus their reward. The DAO should vote this proposal down if any of the 3 criteria are not met (including the subjective #3).

We should deposit enough $RAID to cover rewards for the next 10 new members (250k $RAID).

Note: this is an MVP, and is likely to change as we learn more about how it works. For example, RAID stake amounts, success criteria, and other criteria for champions will likely evolve. See the Potential Subsequent Adjustments for some possibilities.

Initial Values

Stake

Full stake for “off the street” applicants: X = 50,000 $RAID

  • currently valued at ~$3k
  • the idea here is create a big enough downside that champions think very hard about who they want to champion into the guild. Current members should not champion new members if they’re not confident they’ll get their stake back, ie they’re not confident the new member will be active and a good fit for the guild.

Half stake for applicants who have gone through a cohort: X / 2 = 25,000 $RAID

  • currently valued at ~$1.5k
  • cohort applicants are much more likely to be aligned with the guild and have more exposure to current members. Less reliance on champion to make the right decision means a lower stake is required
  • champion may not be from the same cohort; if so, full stake required

Reward

Y = 25,000 $RAID

  • currently valued at ~$1.5k
  • the idea here is to create a positive incentive large enough to make it worthwhile for a current member to spend time mentoring the new member
  • the upper limit on this reward amount is the value that the guild places on new members

Potential subsequent adjustments

This proposal is not meant to be the final mechanism. We will likely want to iterate on the initial mechanism as we learn more. Here are a few potential tweaks we could make:

  • Champion reward in proportion to new member raid/RIP earnings
  • Partial stake slashing for partial new member achievements / fit. For example:
    • get slashed 100% if the new member is a bad fit (eg gets guildkicked)
    • get slashed 75% if the new member has zero activity in the first two months (attends no meetings, joins no raids, etc.)
    • get slashed 50% if the new member does not successfully participate in any raids or RIPs in the first two months
  • Require that champions have at least some non-minimal number of RG shares (eg 150) before they can champion

Related ideas

  • members earn $RAID from going on raids and RIPs
    • important to give new members a path to eventually champion other new members
  • Recruiting (could use part of the champion reward to incentivize recruiting)
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#2

I think the spirit and first draft implementation of this idea are great incentive-alignment. New members would benefit from a more clearly articulated list of expectations for the support champions provide (e.g. weekly calls at least until the staking is complete). Not only would standardizing this kind of mentorship help to smooth the onboarding process logistically and culturally, I see it as part of what the champion is getting “paid” to do with the reward. Simply rewarding for “identifying” people who would be a good fit is clearly not sufficient; members more involved with the cohort process (e.g. tae, scott, mkdir, jp, and others) have already done much of this vetting. In other words, I hope we can shift from implicit to explicit ideas about how the champion helps to ensure the new member meets the three success criteria Spencer outlined.

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#3

Thanks @Derrek! This is an important topic. I have a few thoughts, which I’ve articulated below as responses to individual pieces of your post.

I definitely think that new members would benefit from this. However, I’d caution us against prematurely codifying the mentorship process before we learn more about works well.

One of the goals of the present proposal is to create an incentive for more members to actively engage in new member onboarding. We should seek to avoid any system (whether explicitly designed or implicitly occurring) that relies on a handful of members going above and beyond to help bring in new members.

Additionally, the present proposal explicitly endeavors to reward champions for active mentorship by introducing incentives for champions to ensure that their new member succeeds. What this proposal doesn’t do is prescribe what mentorship means or how a champion should go about it. I suspect that as we see champions experimenting with different approaches, we’ll learn more about what works and can provide some guidance for champions and perhaps some expectations for new members.

Btw, there is no reason a champion has to both identify and mentor a new member. I can envision a scenario in which some champions specialize on the scouting / identification piece, and then place each new member with other members specializing in mentorship. In this scenario, champions would split rewards with mentors.

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