CoGov: Collaborative Governance Redesign
Campaign Duration: November 24, 2025 - February 6, 2026
You can view the Google doc version here
The Collaborative Governance (CoGov) campaign engaged the GoodDollar community in a participatory redesign of the governance system over a nine-week period, addressing critical governance challenges while establishing a foundation for GoodDAO 2.0.
I. Overview
Context & Purpose
CoGov emerged from the broader GoodDollar Governance Re-Vision, an initiative to reevaluate and rebuild the governance system employed by GoodDollar’s globally distributed stakeholders to contribute and collaborate, make decisions about protocol changes and shared resource allocation, and support GoodDollar’s mission. As part of this process, several critical challenges were initially identified:
- GoodLabs’ proposal dominance creating centralization concerns
- Token holder concentration limiting inclusive participation
- Lack of structural and procedural clarity
- Need for alignment with GoodDollar’s evolving strategic focus
CoGov was organized as a structured community hackathon to address these longstanding challenges, with the purpose of co-designing a more sustainable and engaging governance system capable of expanding the DAO’s role to encompass broader ecosystem stewardship.
Primary Objectives
- Collaborative Deliberation and Decision Making: Engage all stakeholders and aligned participants in participatory governance design discussions
- Community Engagement: Onboard external partners and reinvigorate participation from the wider GoodDollar community
- Feedback Loop Creation: Establish sustainable channels between governance, community, and GoodLabs to define future priorities
Campaign Structure
The campaign was organized into three distinct three-week stages, each addressing a critical layer of governance design:
- Weeks 1-3: Mission & Vision - Establishing philosophical foundations
- Weeks 4-6: Framework & Architecture - Designing organizational structures
- Weeks 7-9: Infrastructure & Mechanisms - Defining implementation tools
Each stage followed a consistent three-week progression:
- Week 1: Context-setting forum post with proposals and guided discussion questions
- Week 2: Open community call for focused discussion and collaborative workshops held in a CoGov Figma Board
- Week 3: Retrospective forum post summarizing design specifications and implementation plans
II. Breakdown of Activities & Discussions by Weeks
Weeks 1-3: Mission & Vision
| Objective |
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| Priorities |
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| Discussion Topics |
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Key Ideas Generated
GoodDAO Purpose:
- Network of impact capital allocators using GoodDollar’s infrastructure to coordinate funding for public goods across the ReFi ecosystem
- Sovereign digital nation providing optimal public goods for its citizens
- Structure enabling participatory governance required for an inclusive, alternative monetary system
- Vehicle for supporting and scaling the GoodDollar ecosystem
GoodDAO Vision Themes:
- Supporting an economy that is simultaneously global and local
- Building public goods that enable private goods to thrive
- Attracting exponential growth of ecosystem enablers
GoodDAO Mission Focus:
- Grow G$ total value flow via UBI, credit, and ecosystem partner incentives
- Steward ecosystem by allocating resources aligned to its purpose
Core Tensions Identified:
- Balancing openness/inclusivity with effective decision-making
- Reconciling global reach with local implementation
- Managing the relationship between public goods and private goods
Deliverable: GoodDAO Governance North Star [v0.1]
Weeks 1-3 culminated in an initial draft of the document, which establishes the following:
- Mission: To steer the flow of G$ towards projects and communities aligned with the purpose and growth of the GoodDollar economy.
- Vision: A global network allocating resources and supporting public goods that promote the sustainability of the GoodDollar economy and maximize shared value.
- Purpose: To enable the participatory governance required of an inclusive, alternative monetary system that serves the needs and causes of the many, not just the few.
- Core Principles: Inclusive Participation, Distributed Stewardship, Subsidiarity, Regeneration over extraction, Human-centered growth, Sustainable impact
Resources
Weeks 4-6: Framework & Architecture
| Objective |
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| Priorities |
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| Discussion Topics |
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Key Ideas Generated
Design Insights:
- Inclusive governance is generally preferable, while only a small percentage of members participating is acceptable
- Combine broad inclusivity for high-level strategic direction with permissioned committees for efficient operational execution
- Start lean and centralized to build value and momentum, and expand inclusivity as the project matures and can absorb the costs of decentralization
- Participation requires both financial (even if symbolic) and non-financial incentives (reputation, influence, access)
- Governance power over money creation is a primary participation driver
Design Implications:
- Modular Framework: Ensure appropriate expertise and context for specific decisions, avoiding pitfalls of broad delegation
- Governance Seasons: Focused engagement periods to align with strategic goals and reduce constant demand on participants
- KPIs: Define measurable indicators for governance success
- Delegation Mechanics: Structure delegation to trusted groups while maintaining accountability
Resources
Weeks 7-9: Infrastructure & Mechanisms
| Objective |
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| Priorities |
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| Discussion Topics |
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Key Ideas Generated
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One-Person-One-Vote (vs. Token-Weighted Voting): Greater alignment with GoodDollar’s values, but limits available decision-making mechanisms and threatened by identity farming and Sybil attacks
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Optimistic Approval Process: Balances efficiency with accountability, but requires clear risk mitigation for committee capture
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Network Alignment System: Provides a clear path to scale UBI toward its ultimate goal while being immediately impactful, but subject to potential misuse of funds by member projects not driving value back to GoodDollar
Resources
III. Key Takeaways
The following represent the learnings taken from the community during CoGov that have been incorporated in the design and architecture of GoodDAO 2.0:
1. Purpose
- Network of impact capital allocators
- Community that manages money distribution to grow a collaborative economy
- Alternative monetary system with participatory governance
2. Design Principles
- Simplicity with the possibility of growing in complexity
- Subsidiarity: channeling global resources according to local knowledge and needs
- Inclusive participation for idea generation, combined with expert-driven execution
3. Design Specifications
- Hybrid approaches that match decision-making authority to context and expertise
- Clear delineation between GoodLabs and GoodDAO
- Governance mechanisms that promote inclusivity, transparency, and accountability
4. Architecture
- Dedicated autonomous teams
- Alternatives to universal token voting
- Localized UBI for smaller sub-groups in the network
5. Risks
- One-person-one-vote is vulnerable to Sybil attacks
- Proposal and veto spamming, as well as social pressures caused by optimistic approval system
- Unclear division between bureaucratic rules and the space for human deliberation
- Long-time contributors left without sufficient governance power
- Social pressures being afraid to challenge an optimistic proposal for social reasons
- Projects receiving community UBI may not drive proportional value back to ecosystem
IV. Conclusion
The CoGov campaign represents a significant milestone in GoodDollar’s evolution toward a more inclusive, effective, and sustainable governance system. Over nine weeks, the community collaboratively established philosophical foundations, designed organizational structures, and proposed concrete implementation mechanisms for the next iteration of GoodDAO. The resulting GoodDAO 2.0 framework will directly reflect the discussions held during CoGov and the insights offered by the community throughout.
Overall, CoGov proved invaluable as a tool for GoodDollar’s participatory governance redesign process. The conversations, tensions, and ideas generated will form the foundation not just for GoodDAO 2.0, but for an ongoing culture of collaborative governance that will continue to evolve and support the expanding vision of the GoodDollar ecosystem.