Community Funding Board 12th Meeting

Unless you sealed yourself in a nuclear bunker back in 2019, you will probably know that the world has a teeny tiny problem right now. All this has meant that a few billion people are now living in lockdown, with many having their lives turned upside down. 

The Nimiq Community Funding Board has not been immune from the effects of COVID-19, with some community representatives living in the worst affected regions of the world. This meeting was therefore delayed one week to try to accommodate for the crisis. 

Ginghis, from Italy, was forced to sit out of the latest meeting. Fortunately, SirChef, one of the Community Representative alumni, was able to fill in for him. 

Matheo, a French representative from Team Nimiq, could not make it either. Sven from Team Nimiq managed to step up to take this board seat to ensure that the Nimiq Community Funding Board could operate properly, pandemic or not.

Team Nimiq would like to remind everyone in the community that we are in this pandemic together. We’ll get through this by pulling together and will emerge stronger because of it. True character is forged in the face of adversity.

Proposal Process Improvements

The first part of the meeting was focused on improving and streamlining the way the Board evaluates Community Funding Board proposals.

In the past, community members submitted proposals to the Board via email to proposals@nimiq.com. However, the Board decided that all new proposals should instead be posted on the Nimiq forum from now on. The logic here is that this will further increase the transparency of the Board and empower Nimiq community members to share their thoughts on submitted proposals. 

So, if you are interested in submitting a proposal to the Nimiq Community Funding Board, then do make sure you check out the updated instructionson the Nimiq forum.

Once the Board receives a proposal, it is evaluated in the next Community Funding Board meeting. If it is approved straight away, a member of the Nimiq Community Funding Board will reach out to the proposal submitter to sort out any funding or mentorship awarded by the Board. 

In the event that the Board decides that a proposal modification is needed, then the proposal submitter will be contacted and a Board member will tell them the exact changes needed to have their proposal approved.

Some proposals may be rejected. In this case, the Board commits to notifying the proposal submitter in writing.

What about decisions outside of meetings?

Some decisions are made outside of meetings. This makes the process quick and easy instead of having to wait one month for the next meeting. An example of this kind of decision is actually this blog post, which is written after the meeting and then shared with community representatives for approval by everybody in the board. These decisions and suggestions are voted upon through communication channels like email, or the Community Board’s Telegram and Discord channels. 

If consensus is reached then the suggestion will automatically be accepted. If there is not a full consensus then discussions on modifications will happen offline and proposal changes will be suggested. If there is unanimous agreement then consensus will be reached or it will go down to a Community Funding Board Member vote. Any decision here will be made via a majority vote.

Proactive Rewards

The Board then turned its attention to the hard work of Nimiq community members over the last month. @Serb was recognized for his great work with running NimiqBalkans and teaming up with @EB and Tomkha to set up a new mining pool. If that wasn’t enough, the guys are also talking about setting up a website to further support and strengthen that initiative. 

The Board decided to award 30K NIM to @Serb and 30K NIM to @EB to recognize their efforts this month. 

Discussion then turned to Nimizuela and the efforts of @Ralv and @Bushwack to widen Nimiq adoption in Venezuela. @Ralv is actually a compensated community manager over there, however, @Bushwack’s contribution is purely out of love for the project. To recognize this amazing effort, the Board decided to award him 50K NIM.

Decentralization of the Community Funding Board

So far, the Nimiq Community Funding Board has been operated in a pretty centralized way with key day-to-day operations being carried out by a few Nimiq Team members. The Board decided to decentralize all this by spreading out tasks between members. This includes things like this blog post, meeting minutes, responding to proposals, reviewing bounties, getting the NIM addresses from people who have been allocated proactive rewards, payment of those rewards, meeting agenda creation and more.

A back up person was also assigned to every task to ensure the continued smooth operation of the Board. 

This move not only shares Board responsibilities amongst its members, but also means that the Board will run in a much more decentralized manner from now on. Assigning back up people to responsibility also means that the Board is a lot more robust when it comes to its day to day operations.

Finally

There is no doubt the world faces an uncertain future. Amongst that backdrop it is easy to despair. However, the Nimiq Funding Board has attempted to take a more proactive approach and to take the steps necessary to ensure that the Board continues to serve the interests of the Nimiq community.

We’ll get through this together and come out of it stronger.

Pura Vida

Team Nimiq