Contributing to the Collective

The DeFi Collective, as the name suggests, is a community-driven organization. Its very purpose is to improve DeFi’s resilience and ethos as a whole, and to achieve it; it was understood since the start that involving the DeFi community is necessary. In this article, we’ll highlight how one can contribute to the Collective in ascending order of commitment.

Support the cause [Anyone]

To follow the Collective’s action, as often in DeFi, the best is to onboard the Discord server: here, you’ll find frequent updates on the association’s activities and have direct access to all the active contributors of the Collective if you’d like to take your engagement to the next level.

While you are at it, consider supporting all of Collective’s public-facing accounts: the “Media” branch of the Collective is a crucial part of the long-term vision. Indeed, as the Collective grows its presence on web2 and web3 social networks, it enables it to drive more awareness and attention to its own activities and the mission-critical projects it supports. Below are the four critical commitments of ant in becoming:

1. Join the Discord server and spread the word.
2. Follow the Collective on Twitter, and help us relay its news.
3. Subscribe to the Collective’s YouTube channel.
4. Attend the Community Calls held on Discord, where you’ll be briefed on the latest achievements and how to contribute.

Lend a hand [Anyone + Skill-Based]

Since the launch of the Collective, several community members have stepped up and helped the cause thanks to their various expertise, including:

• Ricogourmette: producing PDF & visuals for monthly/quarterly reports
• Stengarl & MajeStyle: wrote written summaries of community calls and spaces
• Disiaque: helped to structure and improve the Discord server, ideas and suggestions for improving the community’s involvement
• Arem & fredozz__: brainstormed for the production of the Collective’s manifesto

Such contributions are open-ended, depending on your skills and the efforts you are willing to put in. We’re widely open to suggestions, so if there is any area where you think you could make a difference, hop on Discord and let us know.

Lately, we’re interested in improving in two key areas and considering hiring a contributor to handle these missions:

1. Marketing and communication of the Collective and its supported projects.
2. Grant hunting: applying for the various grant programs available in DeFi and following up with the applications.

Become a contributor [Expertise + Recurrent Availability]

Among community members who lend us an occasional helping hand, some eventually assume a recurring and essential role; when that happens, their status is formalized as a contributor, meaning:

1. They sign a contributor contract with the Collective (public doxing not required; we can and do accommodate for anons, 👋 Abmis).
2. They receive monthly compensation, paid in LUSD (on Arbitrum), for their contributions.
3. They commit to continuing to deliver on their mission and making themselves available.

To protect the Collective from turning into an association primarily focused on sustaining itself and its contributors, as often seen with public institutions, several measures are put in place:

1. Contributors’ engagement is capped to 50% of their working hours: the Collective cannot be a contributor’s primary source of income; we’re looking for profiles already involved in DeFi.
2. Contributors’ compensations are moderate, below the industry average, and with a spread no more than 2x between the lowest and highest compensations. It currently ranges from 1500 LUSD (entry/mid-level contributor) to 2500 LUSD (senior profile with high industry-specific expertise) per month.

If you’re interested in becoming a contributor, you are in charge! Indeed, before anything, we look for individuals who are value-aligned with Collective, motivated, and able to self-appoint tasks deemed relevant. There will not be a manager telling you what to do, but that means you need to figure it out independently. You’re welcome to ask questions on Discord to understand how your unique expertise could be best harnessed to help the Collective.

If you’re curious about becoming a contributor, feel free to hop on Discord to ask questions; you’ll also find below the experience of Luude, the latest contributor onboarded.

Luude’s story, the latest contributor onboarded to the Collective

GM, Luude here. I am the latest contributor onboarded into the DeFi Collective, and I wanted to share my story:

One of the things I love most about crypto is that anyone motivated enough can contribute and find a role for themselves. Possible roles for motivated contributors come in all shapes and sizes, from core team roles, business development, meme lords, or even someone to manage Discord; the power is in your hands to find where you can provide the most value.

When I saw the first tweet from the DeFi Collectives on my X (Twitter) feed, I had to reach out and see what the Collective was all about and how I could contribute. TokenBrice and I hopped on a call to discuss the Collective, its mission, and the overall DeFi landscape. Although I already work full-time in the Web3 venture space, I realized I had itches that needed scratching from areas other than investing. With a passion for stablecoins, pegged assets, and how liquidity is managed across DeFi, the appeal of contributing to The Collective, learning new skills, and supporting the most resilient DeFi protocols was too good to pass up.

My first steps as an ant

As with any opt-in community, it relies on the contributor’s initiative to show they are committed to the cause. During my initial conversation with TokenBrice, he stated that the Collective was about to embark on a marketing push before the launch. With this information, I contacted various connections in the space who could assist with podcasts, written publications, or any other marketing connections.

The result of my proactive efforts was rewarded with an invitation to assist TokenBrice and Abmis, one of The Collective’s genesis contributors, in joining the weekly liquidity management voting and harvest sessions. These sessions focus on the devisement and execution of The Collective’s liquidity strategies to support the protocols that fall under its mandate.

Over the next few months, I was privileged enough to ask questions, learn, assist with data capturing, and contribute to developing liquidity management and deployment strategies. This resulted in official onboarding as a fresh contributor to The Collective from December onwards.

I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity and excited to learn from DeFi’s leading liquidity strategist and contribute towards research alongside board members Nils & Florian. Above all, however, I am proud to contribute directly to the future of immutable, trustless, and censorship-resistant decentralized finance.

Joining the colony

Did you know ants working together can carry objects far heavier than themselves? The output of their combined efforts is greater than the sum of their individual powers. This is what we can do when we work together in cohesive ways.

If you want to contribute to any Web3 organization, I encourage you to find somewhere that resonates with your values and proactively pursue making a difference to that organization in any way possible. The Collective is still seeking autonomous, self-driven, and yet colony-aligned ants to tackle even more significant challenges; if that sounds like you, you can start just like I did: head to Discord and introduce yourself — just like I did!

Become a member of the association [Value-Aligned Individuals]

The Collective is legally established as a Swiss non-profit association and formally controlled by its association and board members. While the board members take up an executive role (see next section), the association members ultimately steer the course of the Collective.

Association members have a broad range of responsibilities, such as the election and dismissal of board members or signing off on reports, budgeting, and financial statements and validating the policies framing the association’s missions and means. They exercise their duties through the general meeting of association members, which is held virtually or in person at least once a year (more frequently upon request). Every association member is equal and has one vote in the general meeting. To understand the Collective’s corporate structure in more detail, you can always read up on the most current version of our Articles of Association and additional policies.

Currently, the three initial board members - Florian, Nils, and me (TokenBrice) - are the only three association members. However, from the start of the Collective, we have stated our aim to 51% attack ourselves and add at least 4 additional members (individuals or organizations) in the short to mid-term to decentralize our internal governance once the broader corporate and policy framework is finished.

Become a board member [Value-Aligned + Expertise + Commitment]

Finally; the Collective also has board members tasked with executive responsibilities (aided in daily work by the contributors) – the initial board comprises Florian, Nils, and me (TokenBrice). Board members are onboarded based on their expertise, which synergizes the Collective’s mission. An extension of the current board is currently being considered, focusing on onboarding two new profiles dedicated to two missions currently underserved:

1. Community Engagement & Communications: growing the Collective’s community is essential to delivering its mission, including awareness and adoption of the projects within its scope.
2. Governance activities: the Collective is a militant DeFi association looking to get involved in the governance of major DeFi protocols to push them towards more resilience and responsibility.

We hope this article will help all ants find their path to contribute to the Collective. As you might have noticed, joining the efforts starts by joining the Discord server, where you will be able to discuss with current members and contributors of the Collective and figure out the next step of your involvement: we’ll see you there, anon!