Community Grants
The Decentraland DAO possesses a MANA fund that has been set aside to help sponsor and facilitate the continual growth of the Decentraland platform. One avenue used by the DAO to achieve these goals is a grants program that was voted in place by the community.
This grants program allows any member of the community to request funding to help reimburse their efforts in community building and education, creating 3D content for the world, or implementing new features and improvements to the platform.
Grants can be requested by completing a proposal form within the DAO. If approved by the community, then the DAO Committee will execute the transfer of funds to the grant beneficiary by means of a one-time transfer, or a vesting contract.
Grant categories #
Grant requests can fall under one of four broad categories: Community, Content Creator, Platform Contributor, or Gaming. These four categories represent areas of Decentraland that benefit most from community contributions.
Community #
Growing, educating, moderating, and maintaining a healthy community of players, creators, and developers is important to Decentraland’s success. Grants under this category may fund activity such as:
- Community education
- Outreach and event organization
- Moderation
Projects might also include creating documentation, tutorials, videos, or other forms of content intended to educate and support the community.
Content Creator #
Filling the metaverse with engaging and immersive content takes time and effort from skilled, independent technical artists. Grants in this category help to support artists to create scenes and models for Decentraland. Applicants to this category must provide portfolios of related work within their grant requests for the community to review.
Platform Contributor #
Decentraland is an open source platform with many moving parts. Grants within the Builder category should motivate and reward impactful contributions from developers and engineers in the form of:
- New features
- Bug or vulnerability fixes
- Other improvements to existing code
Gaming #
Engaging experiences in Decentraland often take the form of games, especially multiplayer games. This category bridges the Creator and Platform Contributor categories by funding individuals and teams committed to building complete games for Decentraland.
Grant tiers #
Grants may be requested for any amount within one of three possible tiers, regardless of the grant category. For example, you may request a Content Creator grant in either Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3.
The specific tiers, and their ranges, are:
Tier 1 #
- Up to $1,500 USD in MANA
- One-time payment
- VP Threshold: 1M VP
Tier 2 #
- $1,500 - $3,000 USD in MANA
- One-time payment
- VP Threshold: 1M VP
Tier 3 #
- $3,000 - $5,000 USD in MANA
- 3 months vesting contract (1 month cliff)
- VP Threshold: 1M VP
Tier 4 #
- $5,000 - $60,000 USD
- 6 months vesting contract (1 month cliff)
- VP Threshold: 2M VP
Tier 5 #
- $60,000 - $120,000 USD
- 6 months vesting contract (1 month cliff)
- VP Threshold: 4M VP
Tier 6 #
- $120,000 - $240,000 USD
- 6 months vesting contract (1 month cliff)
- VP Threshold: 8M VP
When are payments made for each tier? #
Tier 1 and Tier 2 #
Funds for grants in Tiers 1 or 2 are transferred directly to the beneficiary address within a week of the grant’s approval from the DAO.
Tier 3, 4, 5, and 6 #
Funds for grants in those Tiers are made available to the beneficiary address via vesting contracts. These contracts vest every second, and have a one month cliff. After the cliff, the owner of the beneficiary address may withdraw the vested funds. Past the cliff, the beneficiary may withdraw any newly vested funds.
Grant requirements #
- Every Grant must be approved by the DAO community through an open proposal on the Governance dApp under the Grants category.
- Any work funded by the DAO must comply with the Decentraland Content Policy, Terms of Use, and Code of Ethics.
- Regardless of category, each grant proposal must include clearly defined and measurable outcomes.
- Grant recipients must provide regular and thorough reports on their project’s progress for the community to review. These reports may be shared through the Discord server, the Governance dApp or the Forum. Failure to provide these reports may result in the revocation of grant funding.
- Failure to provide the pre-established outcomes, as well as to provide clear reports on the advances and milestones will result in the removal of the grant funding.
- Grants with one-time payments are to be transferred upon the DAO’s approval of the grant.
- Grants with vesting contracts have a one month cliff beginning 7 days after the grant’s approval in the DAO.