Refraction Creative Grants Community Fund

TLDR

A regenerative treasury funding creative projects within the Refraction DAO community.

Proposal

Refraction DAO is a diverse community of artists, activists, visionaries, and industry leaders who produce festivals and ongoing events, release NFT projects, and create written, visual, and audio content around art, culture, and music today. We’ve hosted flagship events at NFT NYC and Miami Art Week, and worldwide events in Tokyo, Berlin, São Paulo, Toronto, London, Kampala, and Montreal.

In 2022, Refraction launched the Creative Grants programme allocating 100k USDC from the DAO treasury to fund projects across the globe, from raves in Kuala Lumpur to internet flea markets in Miami. Applications to the Creative Grants programme were open to anyone, regardless of location or DAO membership, and were selected by Refraction’s curatorial team and a small self-nominated community committee.

The Community Fund is the next iteration of Refraction’s grants programme, introducing a more regenerative model for Refraction to support projects, and allowing the community to have a bigger stake in decision making.

Extending efforts from the inaugural Creative Grants programme, the Community Fund, powered by the Nouns builder, encourages further cross-collaboration via the funding of a new treasury. Continuing the programme mission of supporting and funding creative projects worldwide, this new funding and organisational structure allows the Refraction community to govern and fund projects in the ecosystem.

BuilderDAO mission alignment

The Creative Grants Community Fund is an experimental new use case of the Builder protocol, with the value of the NFTs extending beyond financial and membership benefits. Holders of the auctioned NFTs will be encouraged to propose, vote and support new projects, furthering the reach of the Builder protocol into creative communities around the world. The hope is that this fund will support creative projects in perpetuity, with projects encouraged to kick-back revenue generated using treasury funds.

We also intend to use the Nouns and Prop House infrastructure throughout the initial fundraising and proposal process, and will encourage funded projects to continue using these protocols during their production process.

Roadmap

Fundraising period - April 5th-June 4th, 2023 The Community Fund Nouns contract will deploy on April 5th, and will run for 60 days. NFTs sold using the Nouns builder platform will act as governance tokens during the proposal phase, and the proceeds from the sale will fund the Community Fund treasury. The NFT auction price will start at 0.05 ETH.

Artists and creative producers are encouraged to buy passes, which will allow them to submit proposals and govern the funds raised during the Proposal period. Silent stakeholders are also welcomed to buy passes during this time, allowing them to vote in the eventual governance process without requirement to generate proposals.

Proposal period - June 5th-25th, 2023 The proposal period will last for 3 weeks following the final auction. Artists or communities holding Community Fund NFTs are welcome to raise proposals to the group of passholders. Proposals will be submitted via Prop House, to ensure that funds are distributed equitably. Proposals cannot be raised for more than 50% of the overall treasury, and must be submitted by a Community Fund NFT holder to be ratified.

Refraction’s Curatorial team will steward this proposal and governance process, holding weekly calls for proposal ideation and discussion. Artists will be encouraged to think about the longevity of this fund, considering projects that will further fund the treasury with NFT or ticket sales.

Voting period - June 26-July 2nd, 2023 At the end of the proposal period, a vote will be held over the course of 7-days to allocate treasury funds to proposed projects.

Production period - July 3rd-August 31st, 2023 In the following 2 months, successfully funded projects will commence production with the intention to complete projects within the production period.

Allocation breakdown

Refraction will support this activity by providing 4 microgrants of up to $1k USDC each, to artist communities who participated in the inaugural Creative Grants programme, to assist in the purchasing of passes and promotion of the Fund within grantee communities. Refraction will also send $1k USDC to the Community Fund treasury upon deployment to seed the fund.

Refraction is proposing support from the BuilderDAO community, requesting 10 ETH to further seed the Community Fund treasury.

Accountability

Refraction will steward the Fund through the initial fundraising, proposal and production process, gathering project updates and milestones to share publicly and with the BuilderDAO community. Twitter Spaces, Discord Town Halls and Refraction editorial support will assist in this communication.

If successful, the requested BuilderDAO funds will be used to directly support creative projects within the Refraction ecosystem, with production on all projects completed by the end of 2023. A report on the first phase of the Fund will be published in early 2024, highlighting projects, artists, communities, and the future of the Fund.

Transparency

Refraction has previously partnered with Zora on various projects, using Zora tools to power Refraction’s creative projects and drops. We’re currently asking for support from the Builder community to help bring the Builder protocol and this grant funding structure to an extended network of creatives both in and outside of Refraction’s existing membership.

Relevant links

Refraction DAO + selected press https://www.refractionfestival.com/ https://twitter.com/RefractionDAO https://www.instagram.com/refractionfestival/ http://officemagazine.net/refraction-future-festivals https://zine.zora.co/refraction-malcolm-levy-refract-pass

Creative Grants + selected press https://www.refractionfestival.com/editorial/s02-s03-creative-grants https://www.refractionfestival.com/editorial/meet-the-refraction-season-02-grant-recipients https://www.refractionfestival.com/editorial/world-view-the-global-reach-of-refraction-s02-03-grant-recipients https://xlr8r.com/features/web3-weekly-wrap-water-musics-music-and-the-metaverse-playbook-refractions-creative-grants-program-vic-mensa-and-keyon-christ-and-more/ https://pickuptheflow.org/2022/07/09/creative-grants-refraction/