Grant Proposal: Graph Advocates Spotlight weekly newsletter

[Colson]

Due to a technical misfunction in the grant application process, I will manually post this grant application on the forum.

Grant ID: 3rb51yw

Summary:

The Graph Advocates Spotlight is a weekly newsletter published in various social media platforms that has two core objectives.

The primary objective is to showcase Graph Advocates who choose to participate by highlighting their interests and accomplishments both inside and outside of their role as an Advocate. Showcasing the Advocates publicly provides positive non-financial value by increasing their social network and receiving much deserved recognition for their contributions. I also hope that by highlighting Advocates skills and interests they will be connected with fellow Advocates who share similar passions.

The second objective of the newsletter is to enable anyone to get or remain up to date on all the significant news, events, and data in The Graph Ecoystem each week, just by taking 10-12 minutes to read the “Community Roundup”, “Advocate Events”, and “Data Depot” sections of the newsletter.

As of 10/30/22, 14 Issues of the newsletter have been published. The first 8 issues were only made available on Discord, but every issue from #9 on were published on Twitter, Reddit, The Forum, and mulitple Discord Channels. All future issues will be published on those social media platforms as well.

I have read and agree to the privacy policy:

true

If available, please enter a link to your project below:

https://twitter.com/KyleLaRue11/status/1585673831666032644?s=20&t=F0YzYvokpCIGJsjelowmTg

Are you applying as a team or individual?:

Individual

What type of grant are you pursuing?:

Long-term (continuous)

Please select the category your project best fits into:

Other

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:

Delegators, Curators, Subgraph Developers, Other

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):

8475.88

Provide a breakdown of your requested funding:

• $155.88 ($12.99/mo) for Canva Pro (the platform the newsletter is created on)

• $8,320 (4 Hours per issue x $40/hr x 52 weeks)

Total: $8,475.88

Have you applied for (or already received) funding from somewhere else?:

No

If yes, please describe where you’ve received funding from and how much you have, or will, receive:

N/A

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:

My hope for how this project will impact the Graph is listed above in the description. But I would like to add that after partnering with one Text Translator Advocate to provide the newsletter in Spanish each week (!) I am looking forward to partnering with other Advocates to incorporate additional languages in the future. My hope is that this will attract more non-english speaking folks to join The Graph community.

What can you share about any past work that is relevant to this grant?:

I am member of the Graph AdvocatesDAO Grants Committee and manage millions dollars of worth of grants in my day job as a Program Director for a nonprofit.

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:

My only web3 experience is a Graph Advocate and DAO member, which I have been for 6 months. But during that time, I have helped to staff events (Graph Day & House of Web3 Grand Opening), launched the newsletter, and contributed towards the DAO’s Advocates and Grants Committee as much as I can.

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:

I believe The Graph is the future of data indexing (and more) and it’s vigilance and dedication in moving the world towards decentralization is inspiring. I really hope to help push The Graph’s mission further in any way that I can and, currently, I believe the newsletter is the best way I can do that.

Primary Community Poll

Do you fundamentally support this grant application, knowing that the final scope and grant amount may differ from the requested proposal?

• Yes
• No

Grant Committee Vote

Do you recommend this grant to the DAO?

• Yes
• No

[Montero]

Kyle has been doing a brilliant job with this newletter and advocate engament!

I fully support this proposal!

[Chidubem]

Kyle started this initiative and evolved over time from spotlighting advocates to showcasing everything currently happening in the graph ecosystem. He has also consistently released an issue every week.

I’m fully in support of this proposal.

[AlexGas]

This is a great idea. Good job done. Many thanks to the author for this!

[pdiomede]

I totally support this grant, Kyle’s effort is making the Graph Advocates Program well known and well recognized everywhere. The newsletter provides an insight into what is being part of the program and get everyone to know our amazing cohort.
Well done

[doxe01.eth]

It’s a very cool initiative, I supported it in its initial stages and also took part in it myself, but I don’t remember which episode I was on.

But I have a question. Perhaps this type of grant comes specifically within the PoC, i.e., as a type of contribution, for which you can then already be reimbursed as for working hours.

I am still a learner and would like to hear your thoughts? @Colson @juliannaMLN

[GRTDataHub]

Kyle is doing a great job within the community! The newsletters and easy to digest, straight to the point and exact what the community wants for a quick update on what is happening. I am fully in support of this grant, hopefully it will keep going and progress in the future. I have been in talks with Kyle to integrate these weekly newsletters within each chatbot and have them translated for that. This is something we will discuss outside of this forum and make work. It will be great to see other advocates collaborating on this project.

[Mr.1776]

Thank you so much for all the positive feedback and support @Montero @Chidubem @AlexGas @pdiomede @doxe01.eth and @GRTDataHub!

@doxe01.eth I had a similar question about whether this should be an Advocate Grant or a Community Grant. I could be wrong but I don’t believe that question has been resolved in the DAO yet since there are other applications that have created the same question, so I figured I’d apply and leave it up to the Committee to decide. I’m happy to move in whichever direction the Committee determines is best.

Thanks again everyone! I sincerely appreciate the kind words.

[drakoo369]

I’ve been reading the last issues of this newsletter and I’ve personally found them to be very valuable not only as a developer interested in The Graph but also as a new advocate, this newsletter has given me a much deeper perspective of what is actually happening inside the AdvocatesDAO and the kind of activities that are taking place in The Graph ecosystem as well.

“My hope is that this will attract more non-english speaking folks to join The Graph community.” This is an amazing thought and actually one of the main reasons I’m becoming an advocate I’d be very happy to translate issues of this newsletter to Portuguese so it can reach an even wider audience.

[juliannaMLN]

Hey @doxe01.eth
I don’t remember when and how the idea for Advocates Spotlight was born, but I suppose it was purely @Mr.1776 's initiative and he worked on it by himself (correct me if I’m wrong!). So in that sense, it is an individual contribution, rather than a team’s. And we are dealing more with established teams, or even companies in Community Grants - I say “more” it is not a rule, because there is a bunch of proposals from individual applicants as well. However, this is a pioneer project going outside of the boundaries of any Advocate role and Advocates program itself. In my opinion, Advocates Grants are more about past contributions and Community Grants are more often about future contributions.

Taking that all under careful consideration I’m coming to the conclusion that this application is in the right place, especially since the plan for going public was already implemented and it’s being translated already by Advocates with Text Translator role, which will increase the reach and extend the impact of the project.

The budget needed to do it seems reasonable and it’s very straightforward.

I’m in full support of this grant proposal and vote YES!

[doxe01.eth]

Yes, thanks for your thoughts! I’m still figuring it all out and learning, so I’m asking for advice. I also support this initiative!

[Mr.1776]

Thank you so much for your time during the presentation today @juliannaMLN! It doesn’t look like I can attach the entire PowerPoint slide deck that I used so I’m just uploading the images below. Also as discussed, here is the proposed budget modification (I couldn’t adjust the original post):

• Since applying, the addition of coordinating with multiple translators and managing the public archive is taking an additional 20-30 minutes per week to manage. Given that, I would like to request adjusting the hours applied for from 4 weekly hours to 4.5 weekly hours. This would increase the total compensation line item from $8,320 to $9,360, an increase of $1,040.00. The new total applied for would be $9,515.88

Presentation Slides:

[Mr.1776]

I hereby agree to this grant agreement of the Graph AdvocatesDAO with the GitHub commit-hash 3858eb9315ef3a0a93d0701961ffbc2a57d45205. That document forms the legal agreement of the proposed grant with the following terms:

• Scope
  • Weekly newsletter “Graph Advocates Spotlight” published on various social media platforms (Twitter, Reddit, The Forum, and multiple Discord Channels) showcasing accomplishments of Graph Advocates both inside and outside of their role as an Advocate
  • Enabling readers to get or remain up to date on all the significant news, events, and data in The Graph Ecosystem each week, by reading the “Community Roundup”, “Advocate Events”, and “Data Depot” sections of the newsletter
• Core Deliverables
  • The newsletter will be published every Thursday on Twitter, Graph Discord servers, The Graph Forum and Reddit (and on other platforms upon request from the Graph AdvocatesDAO)
  • Showcasing Advocates, their contributions and interests. Increase the “networking” benefit of the Advocacy Program. Connect Advocates with each other.
  • News and Data Hub for the Graph community members
• Additional Deliverables
  • Provide the newsletter in multiple languages
  • Highlight dApps that are utilizing subgraphs on the Decentralized Service
  • Contribution Spotlights
  • Monthly dashboard with contributions and Advocate Hours each month/quarter
• Total Grant Amount
  • USD Value: 9,515.88 USD
  • Token: GRT
  • Token Amount: 137.911,31 GRT
• Disbursement Schedule
  • Initial Funding: 60% (82.746,78 GRT)
  • Upon Completion: 40% (55.164,53)
• Term Length
  • Start Date: September 1st, 2022
  • End Date: August 30th, 2023
• Receiving ETH Address: <0x725d73327A4bB1Ba9B4223aDCCA69A504581c8D0>

I understand that the agreement will only be executed upon a successful completion of a corresponding on-chain vote by the Graph AdvocatesDAO. I also understand that the grant will be disbursed on Gnosis Chain.

[Mr.1776]

Hello,

Since the final Graph Advocates Spotlight newsletter issue (#52) for this grant period was released yesterday I wanted to share a final update on the impact and deliverables of this project and grant agreement. If the DAO or any community members have any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

• Core Deliverables

  • 46 issues of the newsletter were published (the vast majority on Thursdays) on Twitter, Graph Discord servers, The Graph Forum, Reddit (added posting to multiple Graph Telegram channels as well) throughout this grant period. However, scheduling conflicts caused me to have to post the newsletter on Fridays and Saturdays from May 2023 - August 2023. Additionally, there were a total of 6 weeks where I did not publish a newsletter because either: a lack of content and a period in May where I stepped away from all DAO/crypto activity to handle familial issues. Also, I stopped posting on Reddit because my posts were being blocked for some reason.

  • A total of 40 Advocates were showcased in the “Advocate Spotlight” during the grant period.

  • In every newsletter published, I gathered all the news/content in The Graph protocol ecosystem I could find and thought was relevant in the Community Roundup.
    Additionally, the Data Depot served as the Data Hub for community members as described in the grant agreement.

• Additional Deliverables

  • There were a total of 111 translated issues of the newsletter into 10 different languages, including English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu, and Yoruba. A HUGE shoutout to all the Graph Advocates that made that happen!

  • Three Subgraph Spotlights were published. This component of the project was halted because Edge & Node was working on similar initiative.

  • ~6-10 Contribution Spotlights were published throughout the grant period.

  • The first monthly dashboard with Advocate contributions was published for the month of July. I will continue creating those monthly moving forward.

All of issues of the newsletter (including all translated versions) are available on the public (and web3 powered) archive on ChainSafe:

ChainSafe Files

Beyond the deliverables, a lot of effort went into improving the design and content of the newsletter throughout the grant period. There was initially no twitter threads with the newsletter PDF image posted on Twitter. Now every issue comes with a thread that includes all the links to everything in the Roundup, which has generated a huge increase in engagement. The best example of this increased engagement is that I received 12 “Nice Shares” badges on The Graph Forum which are awarded for sharing a link that was clicked by 25 or more outside visitors (behind only Payne and Jim from WaveFive for the most on The Forum).

Below are a few before and after photos of the Community Roundup and Data Depot pages to demonstrate the improvements as well (hurts my eyes to look at the old issues to be honest, lol).

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I’m supposed to be able to get insights from Canva on the number of views, likes, retweets, comments, from each issue posted and I’d like to share the cumulative data on that, but their system isn’t cooperating at the moment. I’ve reached out to their support team to get those figures and will post them here as soon as I recieve them.

Lastly, I would just like to extend a very big thank you to the DAO and Advocate community for their support of this project over the last year. It’s really meant a lot to me and I’m looking forward to continue bringing as much value as I can to the community through this newsletter.

[doxe01.eth]

Greetings! @Mr.1776

Yes, I’d say the results are amazing. You consulted with me on a few things, so I was happy to work on some of your questions. Overall, I like everything and the work you’ve done is clearly worthy of attention.

But the question is, what do you plan to do next, do you plan to submit the same proposal again for continued funding or?

Thank you!

[Mr.1776]

Hi Doxe,

Thanks for the kind words and feedback!

I certainly plan on applying for another grant and continuing publishing the newsletter weekly but probably won’t have time to complete an application until mid-September.

Thanks again!

[doxe01.eth]

Congratulations! The final funding of your grant has been approved by the DAO. Thank you for contributing to the growth of The Graph and web3 ecosystem.

Now it’s time to focus on promoting your accomplishments! If you haven’t already done so, evaluate different ways to showcase your grant across different platforms, such as Twitter, the Graph Forum, Discord, Telegram or LinkedIn. Also feel free to reach out in the Graph AdvocatesDAO Discord server to seek help from others to promote your grant.

For information in how to getting paid for your grant, have a look at our official documentation here.

Please note, that the total amount of the grant shall be set forth in the Grant and is stated in U.S. Dollars and are payable in GRT. The USD-GRT conversion rate (the “Conversion Rate”) provided to Grant Recipient will be the monthly Conversion Rate determined by the AdvocatesDAO.

For further information, please refer to the Grant Agreement, here.