CoGov Weeks 1-3: Mission & Vision

Governance Proposals
1

As outlined in the CoGov announcement post, Weeks 1-3 of the ongoing collaborative governance redesign process will focus on defining the mission and vision of GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO, which will anchor all future design decisions.

The priorities for this area are:

  • Clarify why governance exists in the GoodDollar ecosystem
  • Develop principles and values that guide how governance should operate
  • Define the relationship between all major stakeholders

The purpose of this post is to provide guided discussion questions and propose ideas that will: 1) help us address these priorities, 2) deliberate during the upcoming community call, and 3) collaboratively work towards a draft of a GoodDollar Governance North Star document to be submitted on Week 3.

I. Why GoodDollar Governance and GoodDAO?

  • Provide a path toward influence for those who want to contribute to the growth of GoodDollar
  • Make decisions and distribute power throughout the GoodDollar ecosystem according to mechanisms and principles that stand in opposition to the centralization of wealth and power within current economic systems
  • Enable a globally diverse collective of people to have a voice in stewarding the protocol, treasury, and community
  • Reduce reliance on any single actor in order to ensure that GoodDollar continues to make a lasting impact on the world

II. What are the Mission, Vision, and Purpose (MVP) of GoodDollar governance?

  • Mission (what we do and how): To steward the GoodDollar protocol and GoodDAO treasury, promoting the growth and impact of the GoodDollar economy
  • Vision (where we are going): A global community translating local knowledge into sustainable economic activity that maximizes value for all
  • Purpose (why we exist): Building a new, parallel financial system that serves the needs and causes of the many, not just the few

III. What are the core principles of GoodDollar governance?

  • Inclusive participation: Empowering individuals across the world to make their voices heard
  • Distributed stewardship: Enabling the agency of all participants within the GoodDollar ecosystem
  • Subsidiarity: Channelling global pools of value according to the knowledge and needs of local networks
  • Regeneration over extraction: Fostering circularity over hierarchy, distribution over accumulation, and sufficiency over excess
  • Human-centered growth: Consciously advancing and evolving GoodDAO according to embedded humans values
  • Sustainable impact: Ensuring that GoodDollar continues to maximize value for all its stakeholders in the future

IV. Who are the key governance stakeholders & what are their roles?

  • GoodDollar Protocol: The technological layer of governance – the autonomous procedures and technical guarantees that underlie the legitimacy of the system
  • GoodDAO: The social layer of governance – the system employed by GoodDollar’s stakeholders to collaborate towards a shared mission
  • Governance Steering Committee (GSC): Provides expertise, continuity, accountability, and operational support in establishing priorities and upholding legitimate processes for governance
  • GoodLabs: Currently, GoodLabs proposes and votes on changes to the GoodDollar protocol. GoodLabs is also represented on the GSC. In the future, GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO will remain meaningfully separated from the influence of GoodLabs.

I hope these ideas will represent the start of a productive conversation among all members of the community. Feel free to reply async to this post with initial feedback and make sure to join the community call on December 4th where we will discuss further.

See you all on the call!

6 Likes
CoGov Weeks 4-6: Framework & Architecture
CoGov Weeks 4-6: Framework & Architecture
CoGov Retrospective Report
CoGov Weeks 7-9: Infrastructure & Mechanisms
2

Great. Good luck @sam_mccarthy

1 Like
3

I couldn’t make it to the meeting. However I want to express that IMHO:

  1. Projects sponsored by GoodDollar should have the beneficiaries they claim (if they claim to support children they should not support settlers or any other population)
  2. Projects sponsored by GoodDollar should not provide services or goods to military units, armed groups or violent populations.
  3. People who does not fulfill the ethical standards of GoodDollar should not be ellegible in future funding rounds.

I express this view after seeing discussion about Pesia’s Kitchen EAT at Notion

4

Below is a summary of the first CoGov community call, in which we provided context around the ongoing governance redesign and discussed the mission and vision of GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO. Here is a recording of the session.

Overview

Governance Re-Vision

GoodDollar’s governance is being redesigned to:

  • Address governance challenges, such as GoodLabs’ proposal dominance, token holder concentration, and lack of structural and procedural clarity
  • Align with a new strategic focus on building a sustainable ecosystem beyond UBI, with GoodDAO’s role expanding to govern a treasury and allocate funds for ecosystem investments and growth

For more information on the Governance Re-Vision, refer to this post.

CoGov Process

A participatory governance redesign performed collaboratively with the wider GoodDollar community via a 3-stage process:

  1. Mission & Vision
  2. Framework & Architecture
  3. Mechanisms & Tooling

For more information on CoGov, refer to this post.

Stage 1: Mission & Vision

The call focused on the mission and vision of GoodDollar governance and GoodDAO in order to achieve maximum alignment on the DAO’s purpose and the principles that will anchor all future design decisions. We used a FigJam board to generate ideas.

Group discussion centered around 2 questions:

  • Why should GoodDAO and GoodDollar governance exist?
  • What are the Mission, Vision, and Purpose (MVP) of GoodDAO and GoodDollar governance?

Given time constraints, we weren’t able to address the core principles and key governance stakeholders of GoodDollar governance—topics that we will discuss on future calls. I’d also urge all CoGov participants to post their ideas and thoughts below to keep the conversation going async!

Key Takeaways

Below are some of the ideas generated and discussed during the session

GoodDAO Purpose

  • Network of impact capital allocators, using GoodDollar’s infrastructure and active user base to coordinate funding for public goods across the broader ReFi ecosystem
  • Sovereign digital nation that exists to give its citizens the best public goods possible
  • Structure enabling participatory governance required of an inclusive, alternative monetary system
  • Vehicle supporting, scaling, growing the GoodDollar ecosystem

GoodDAO Vision

  • Supporting an economy that is both global and local
  • Building public goods that support an environment where private goods thrive
  • Attracting exponential growth of its ecosystem enablers

GoodDAO Mission

  • Grow G$ total value flow via UBI, credit, and incentives to ecosystem partners
  • Steward ecosystem by steering allocation of resources best aligned to its purpose

Core Tensions

  • Openness/inclusivity & effective decision-making
  • Global & local
  • Public goods & private goods

Future Discussion Topics

  • GoodDAO role and activities for 2026 (resources, decisions, responsibilities, etc.)
  • Pluralistic DAO structure where subgroups can make decisions on their specific area of interest & expertise (related: localized UBI)

Next Steps

Community

GoodLabs

  • Sam to draft a “North Star” document aggregating community ideas and post it to the forum for community review and feedback
  • Meri to share a calendar invite for the next two CoGov calls
  • Hadar to make his presentation from Devconnect available to provide context on GoodDollar’s new strategic vision
2 Likes
5

GoodDAO Governance North Star [v0.1]

A Good Collective for the Collective Good

This document outlines the vision, mission, and key guiding principles of GoodDAO – the highest level of purpose by which all members shall align themselves. These commitments shall serve as the basis for all decision making as related to GoodDAO governance. This should be recognized as a living document that will evolve over time, reflecting the dynamics of the GoodDollar ecosystem and GoodDAO’s desire to iteratively grow and adapt.

I. Rationale: Why GoodDAO?

Current economic systems centralize wealth and power, maximizing value for the few rather than the many. GoodDollar aims to change this.

GoodDollar is building an alternative monetary system that is more fair and inclusive. As such, the mechanisms by which decisions are made, resources are allocated, and power is distributed should embody those principles of fairness and inclusivity – an initiative manifested through the GoodDAO.

GoodDAO’s governance system exists to provide a path toward influence for those who want to contribute to and benefit from the growth of the GoodDollar economy.

Composed of a global collective of people from various backgrounds, GoodDAO enables its diverse participants to have a voice in stewarding the protocol, treasury, and ecosystem.

II. Preamble: Why a Governance North Star?

How GoodDAO is governed fundamentally depends upon what is governed and why. As the ecosystem grows and changes, governance must be able to rally around a consistent, shared motivation – a GoodDAO governance raison-d’etre.

A North Star outlines a clear purpose and culture of governance to help shape the boundaries and direction by which to align collective action.

This document sets the bearings for GoodDAO governance, guiding the endeavors of its globally-distributed body of participants. By communicating a shared vision and aligning long-term objectives, the GoodDAO Governance North Star makes it easier for those who share similar values to contribute.

III. MVP: Mission, Vision, Purpose

The following is the mission, vision, and purpose of GoodDAO governance:

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 the 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.

IV. Core Principles

Below are the principles central to the organization and direction of GoodDAO governance:

  • Inclusive participation: Empowering individuals across the world to make their voices heard
  • Distributed stewardship: Enabling the agency of all participants within the GoodDollar ecosystem
  • Subsidiarity: Channelling global pools of value according to the knowledge and needs of local networks
  • Regeneration over extraction: Fostering circularity over hierarchy, distribution over accumulation, and sufficiency over excess
  • Human-centered growth: Consciously advancing and evolving GoodDAO according to embedded humans values
  • Sustainable impact: Ensuring that GoodDollar continues to maximize value for all its stakeholders in the future
3 Likes
CoGov Weeks 4-6: Framework & Architecture
CoGov Retrospective Report
6

Thanks Vladimir
It is important to make the distinction between 3 entities
Good Labs foundation
GoodDollar Protocol
The Good DAO

We are specifically focusing here on the DAO here.

1 Like
7

I like it. @sam_mccarthy maybe you can share how you reached the final mission and vision from your initial thoughts and the first co-creation call

1 Like
8

@sirpy Can you explain a bit how these entities financially relate to one another? A bit more insight would help me think further about these governance plans.

My guess would be something like this. Please correct this where I am wrong.

  1. At the moment Goodlabs is in the lead for further development of the GoodDollar protocol

  2. GoodLabs also pays for this development (paid by donors? sponsors?)

  3. The Good DAO decides on what to do with the G$ revenue from the reserve, like paying the GIMT team

  4. The Good DAO approves proposals for development done by GoodLabs

  5. Who is paying for the UBI transaction costs? Is that payed from the reserve revenues?

  6. Is the GoodDollar system as a whole burning money? If yes, what is the runway and who is financing that?

  7. The current money for builders, where does that come from. The reserve revenue? Sponsors?

  8. How would financial incentives for staking, liquidity and the like be financed? The reserve revenue? Sponsors? Some other way?

  9. Hmm, lot’s of financial questions. Is there somewhere a financial year report for 2024 to get some overview?

10

Good Labs is an independent non profit foundation sponsored through donations with the mission to support the GoodDollar protocol. Good Labs can suggest changes to the protocol and run different community programs it thinks will benefit the protocol.

GoodDollar protocol changes are governed by the GoodDAO.

UBI itself is created through the money creation process, the expansion rate of the Reserve. This process theoretically dilutes the value of each G$.
The transaction costs (gas fees) are sponsored by Good Labs foundation.

Good Labs have commitments from sponsors for at least 2 more years

The GoodDollar protocol runway is the state of its reserve and G$ token. since inception the reserve and token price were generally growing.

The current builders rounds are sponsored by Good Labs

Financial incentives would mostly be financed through the money creation process. Today 90% goes to UBI and 10% to the GoodDAO. In the future the suggestion is that X% will go to different incentives.

There are a few community pools that should be activated as part of the governance reorg with around 140K$ worth of assets

2 Likes
11

Hey GoodDollar community,

I’ve been reflecting a lot on our governance lately, especially after seeing how proposals like GIP-23 or GIP-24 tend to stall early and how participation remains very low. We all share the vision of GoodDollar as a community-driven protocol that funds commons and delivers inclusive UBI, but right now the “democratic” part of the DAO feels more symbolic than real. Power is heavily concentrated in a few historical large wallets (because GOOD is non-transferable), and most community members don’t feel motivated or able to influence decisions.

I believe we can change that. I’d like to open a debate on how to make voting power as democratic as possible across all wallets while staying true to our community principles. The core idea: shift from pure “one GOOD = one vote” (which favors whales) toward mechanisms that give meaningful voice to every participant and turn active governance into a natural social norm.

Key Ideas I’d Like to Discuss

  1. Quadratic Voting as the foundation for fairer voting power Voting power would be the square root of staked GOOD (√GOOD).

  • Small and medium wallets gain relatively more influence.

  • Whales can still express strong preferences, but it becomes exponentially harder (and costlier in opportunity) for them to dominate completely. This model has worked well in projects like Gitcoin and Colorado’s quadratic funding rounds. Does this feel aligned with our values? Would it encourage broader participation?

  1. Complementary tools to enhance inclusion

  • Incentivized delegation: small G$ rewards for active delegates so passive holders can still have a voice without constant effort.

  • Soft caps per wallet (e.g., 1–2% max on major decisions) as a safeguard against extreme concentration.

  • Easy in-app voting: quick votes directly in GoodWallet (maybe a popup when claiming daily UBI) + push notifications.

  1. Turning participation into a community habit

  • Light rewards for consistent voting (e.g., 0.5–1% APY in G$ for streaks).

    • Gamification: badges, leaderboards, “Learn & Earn” modules about governance.

    • Cultural initiatives: monthly “Democracy Days,” live AMAs, and celebrating active contributors. The goal isn’t just higher numbers—it’s making governance feel as routine and rewarding as claiming UBI.

  1. Practical next steps (if the community likes the direction)

  • Start with a low-risk pilot on testnet.

  • Temporarily lower quorum to bootstrap engagement.

  • Fund initial development/education modestly from treasury reserves.

Questions for the community

  • Does quadratic voting resonate as the right path toward “one person, closer-to-one vote” while still respecting staking commitment?

  • Are there risks or downsides I’m missing (technical complexity, whale pushback, sybil concerns)?

  • Which elements would you prioritize first: QV, delegation rewards, in-app integration, or cultural campaigns?

  • Would you support turning this into a formal GIP after we refine it together?

This fits perfectly within the spirit of the ongoing Collaborative Governance (CoGov) process—we’re supposed to redesign governance collaboratively, right? Let’s use this thread to do exactly that.

Looking forward to your thoughts, critiques, and alternative ideas. Together we can make GoodDAO a real model of inclusive, community-led governance.

What do you think?

2 Likes
12

Thank you for the clarification!

13

I feel that Quadratic voting is an improvement but I don’t think it does much good in encouraging broader participation. Which I think is biggest stumbling block

Delegation, soft caps, easy in-app voting. All good. The problem is though that for many participants it’s not “part of their life”. It’s just one out of a million things to do each day.

It will remain difficult to involve more people in participation. So I think maybe a steward model is more appropriate in the long run. Where a board of stewards make sure that the decisions are steered toward the project goals.

And than maybe only once in a while involve the community in appointing new stewards.

14

@oliver75montes
We understand that and that’s why @sam_mccarthy is leading a governance redesign process to address all the issues with governance.
So I hope you watched the previous session (link in Sam’s update post) we had and please join the upcoming co-gov meetings where you can influence how the new governance system would look like.
see schedule and meetings here:

We have to understand that most people won’t have any incentive to participate in high level governance. That’s why we are thinking how to create different tiers of participation.

For example experimenting with Gardens pools - Fund pools by the DAO or Foundation and allow any G$ holders to vote on proposals. Gardens allow different voting systems to control the pool such as quadratic voting or 1 token 1 vote or fixed voting power per person. See our first experiment with the builders and data team pools.

We have also ran the builders program using flowstate where a mix of community votes, moderators and objective metrics decided how the funds are distributed to projects. The round was done using X votes per unique user but flowstate also supporting quadratic voting. And we incentivized voting using SUP rewards we have from the superfluid campaign.

So we are thinking how to make everything more inclusive, but also we have to be realistic about participation.

1 Like
15

The voting for proposals what to build is nice for participation. But the downside is that we end up we with scattered development of bits and pieces. I would prefer for GoodLabs to take more the lead and set out a roadmap for further development. Builders can than join that roadmap, so that we have a more cohesive further development.

For instance, I would like to see the GoodCollective further developed so that it can be used IRL. I think that could be a really good use case for GoodDollars. Over the past year development has halted though. Somehow it does not get picked up by builders in the current participation system helas.

So I would like to see the GoodCollective on a GoodLabs roadmap and that some of those builder funds are directed towards that development.

And if the choice is to not put it on the roadmap and further develop it, than that is a choice too and we can shut down the GoodCollective and focus on other topics.

So, what about GoodLabs taking more the lead in setting a roadmap for further development and direct available builder funds to that roadmap?

16

Every product needs a leader. As a small team we can’t lead everything.
So for example, If goodcollective is important for you, you might know what you need to be developed for your own use case. So you can create the work proposal and attract developers or try to reach to developers and they can get funded from the pool.

Eventually the products that we have will require to be led by the DAO / community.

2 Likes
17

Yes, of course, a small team cannot lead everything. Tough choices to make.