Discussion Details
Cardano Governance Workstreams
tevosaks
Description
Overview of Phases The proposed budget would be delivered in 3 phases. Following the IT-project planning structure, where activity usually responds to the budget activity.
Phase 1: Governance (Months 1–14, across the project scope) Budget: ₳503,143 (22.74% of total) Objective: Establish and run the foundational governance framework, including principles, structures, and tooling. Launch Initial Planned Workstreams. Info: Establishes the self management requirements for the execution of the work. The multisig-ROM is a Multisig framework that focuses around the concept of “Read Only Memory” taking raw work inputs and using AI to measure productive work accomplished resulting in multisig disbursements. Focus on the Future Worksteams mandate.
Phase 2: Future Workstreams Operations (Months 4–12) Budget: ₳1,239,429 (69.92% of total) Objective: Form and execute initiatives within governance workstreams, involving broader community participation. Launch remaining Workstreams periodically. Info: Operations is the catch all for the productive work needed to resolve the future workstreams
Phase 3: Retrospectives (Months 10-11) Budget: ₳30,000 (1.69% of total) Objective: Run retrospectives on all workstreams, capture lessons learned, and outline improvements for future collaboration.
You can find the visual Roadmap on the Miro Board.
B. More Details on Activities Phase 1 – Governance Governance Setup & Tools: Selection or development of collaboration platforms, documentation systems. Community onboarding: Workshops, educational materials, event costs Administrative & Coordination: Compensation multisig seat secretary, delegates, and alternates actively running the ROM governance body.
Key Activities
-
Create the multisig wallet Provide an address for receiving funds in a safe and trusted manner for the multisig using best practices already established by the Community.
-
Agree on Purpose, Principles, and Values Formally define the mission, guiding values, and primary goals for the governance body.
-
Create a Group Charter Outline roles (Committee, delegates, alternates), responsibilities, and decision-making protocols. Identify shared workspaces and collaboration tools.
-
Deploy Governance Structure Propose and adopt initial governance mechanisms (voting models, accountability measures). Provide pathways for evolution based on community feedback.
-
Examine, Organize, and Evolve Future Workstreams Assess planned workstreams, ensuring they align with governance objectives. Document scope, preliminary goals, and potential resource needs.
-
Identify Tooling for Engagement and Accountability Evaluate software platforms or community tools for transparency, collaboration, and record-keeping in a manner friendly to AI tools. Prepare an open call for community tool providers.
-
Define a Strategy for Community-Driven Initiatives Establish how proposals are submitted, reviewed, and approved. Clearly communicate pathways for both autonomous efforts and cross-team collaboration.
-
Set Expectations for Proposals and Fund Distribution Detail submission guidelines, approval processes, and success metrics. Outline a test-reflect cycle for the usage of funds.
-
Community Engagement & Education Finalize data collection and archiving processes to ensure knowledge remains accessible. Create initial educational materials to onboard community members beyond current delegates and alternates. Develop a communications plan (newsletters, open calls) to promote transparency and collaboration.
-
Launch the Program Officially commence governance operations, inviting broader community participation. Recognize existing efforts and explore collaboration opportunities.
Phase 2 – Future Worksteams Operations Phase 2 invites the community to form working groups and propose initiatives to accomplish progress toward specific milestone goals. Each initiative will have a defined start and end, provide be measurable output goals and responsible parties. For example, a community group could form to accomplish "Create Companion Document for the Constitution (Voltaire Papers)" under the "Participatory Governance" workstream.
Budget Usage Initiative Funding: Grants for companies, experts, consortia and/or other community-led initiatives to specify and resolve deliverables within workstreams.
Key Activities
-
Form & Execute Workstreams initiatives Invite the community to create targeted initiatives (with defined start/end points and measurable goals). Each initiative team includes at least one delegate or alternate to maintain continuity and archival knowledge.
-
Proposal Management Implement the proposal flow designed in Phase 1 (submission, evaluation, fund distribution) until the end of the proposal lifecycle. Track progress against milestones, adjusting processes as needed while reporting continuously to the multisig on fund usage such that their is full context around new multisig withdrawal requests.
-
Workstream Coordination Ensure that each workstream (e.g., “Participatory Governance,” “Constitution Companion Documents,” etc.) has clear objectives with input from the Multisig ‘board’ of experts. Provide resources and guidance while allowing teams to drive their own progress. Mandate clear raw data standards for equal and fair measurement by objectives while balancing flexibility for a diverse, temporally mixed and culturally rich ways of working.
-
Reporting & Accountability Require periodic status updates (written reports, open calls) to maintain transparency in a clear and agreed to format. (Github / AI call transcripts etc). Use established tools to keep records of all developments and decisions. Require peer-reports, all participants of decentralized initiatives must submit anonymized peer reporting for the purpose of improved incentives.
-
Community Expansion Encourage Delegates, Co-Delegates and active Cardano Community members to build further on their base of Constitutional knowledge and improve the ecosystem as a whole.
Phase 3 – Retrospectives Facilitation & Reporting: Logistics for retrospective workshops and drafting comprehensive reports. Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: Ensuring all retrospective insights are accessible for future governance endeavors.
Key Activities:
-
Comprehensive Workstream Review Evaluate each workstream’s outcomes, challenges, and impacts relative to its goals. Gather final reports and input from participants, including community, delegates, and alternates.
-
Retrospective Workshops Conduct sessions (in-person or virtual) to discuss lessons learned, roadblocks, and recommended improvements. Encourage open and constructive feedback from a broad range of stakeholders.
-
Continuous Improvement & Future Roadmap Document specific changes needed in governance, processes, or resource allocation for subsequent cycles. Compile a list of recommended enhancements or new initiatives.
-
Wrap-Up & Handoff Finalize knowledge transfer and archives to ensure future teams can build on this experience. Provide a transparent summary of budget usage and overall project metrics.
Key Proposal Deliverable(s) and Definition of Done
- Establishing a trusted model for decentralized collaboration that issues 1M+ ADA directly to initiatives that effectively and verifiably resolve constitutional debt.
- Resolved constitutional debt by opening to self-defined measurable and verifiable “Definition of Done” metrics. Impact on constitutional debt is measured and verified by the ROM-Management framework before complete payments and condoned by the multisig.
- Deliver productive solutions that are preferred in order to resolve key pain points of Constitutional debt.
Some hard requirements resulting from this proposal:
-
A second round of global Constitutional workshops will be hosted to gather input from the Cardano Community that impacts all workstreams and other pain points experienced during the initial stages of Cardano’s Governance.
-
Each future work stream will propose new draft text, revisions or comment their satisfaction per article of the Cardano Constitution that is relevant to their workstream. Such texts shall be reviewed by their peers and submitted to the Cardano community workshops for deliberation.
-
The outputs of this proposal will set the stage for triggering Article VIII of the Constitution, update the Constitution, and prepare the scope for the next Constitutional Convention.
-
During the project lifecycle all documentation and code created will be shared for re-use. The established multisig model, AI powered tooling and MICA compliant approaches of decentralized coordination and work will become available to the wider community to re-use.
-
Constitutional Delegates, co-delegates, and community members activated by their peers will be bootstrapped into roles of global governance in the process of pursuing productive outputs.
More detailed KPI’s can be found on the Budget Sheet You can find additional deliverables in the promotion timeline and plan document.
Problem Statement
Ensuring the completion of identified future workstreams, and the long-term implementation and evolution of the Cardano Constitution, requires sustained coordination, transparent governance continuity, structured processes and support — none of which are guaranteed under the current model.
- Delegates and Alternates have been entrusted with progressing Future Workstreams, but these efforts lack dedicated funding, continuity mechanisms, and long-term knowledge retention.
- The Definitions Document was a successful example of bottom-up, decentralized collaboration — but its success relied entirely on unpaid contributors, working without a stable coordination structure.
- Without clear structures to support this work, the principles of the Constitution risk being neglected, misinterpreted, or left unrealized.
🔍 Background: Between July and October 2024, 63 workshops were held in over 50 countries and involved more than 1,400 participants, where Delegates and Alternates were elected. The collective governance efforts of the Constitutional Delegates, Alternates, and other volunteers engaged in Cardano Governance have demonstrated that an open, decentralized, self-organizing, and adaptive approach significantly enhances decision-making, transparency, and overall organizational resilience. The path to ratification of the Cardano Constitution identified many areas that require future focus, named Future Workstreams. These were taken on by the Delegates and Alternates to resolve, by developing a path for the Cardano community to self-organize and take the initiative. The first of these was the successful completion of the Constitution's Definitions document - an entirely community-organised, volunteer effort.
Proposal Benefit
Cardano Constitution ratification was a major milestone, it surfaced multiple unresolved governance questions, now known as Future Workstreams. These workstreams represent essential areas of ongoing development (e.g. constitutional interpretation, dispute resolution, participatory governance design.
This proposal will enable the continuation and expansion of community-led governance work that began with the Constitution's Definitions document.
- Support cross-jurisdictional dialogue and implementation.
- Leveraging diverse cultural and geographic backgrounds to demonstrate how Cardano's tools, network, and ways of working can be effectively shared globally.
- This work does not cover the work of community hubs or other initiatives. Instead, this is an additional opportunity for Community Hubs to get involved with constitutional matters.
- Create a system of non-hierarchical stewardship of the workstreams (not power consolidation).
- Creating a pathway for the wider Cardano community to participate in solving governance challenges
- Leveraging AI technological advancements to push for fair ways of working.
- Establish a multisig system by which work can be reliably incentivized across the diverse Cardano community.
- Develop reproducible models for inclusive and transparent governance work in a decentralized ecosystem.
- Bridging from the Delegate cohort to the broader Cardano community, ensuring constitutional knowledge doesn't remain siloed
- Establishing clear methodologies for community-driven initiative-taking that allows for self-organizing while enabling high levels of collaboration and inclusivity
- Building structures that can evolve and adapt as the community learns and faces new challenges
The return on investment for the Cardano community includes resolving constitutional debt, creating more inclusive governance frameworks, and establishing processes that can be reused for future community initiatives.
Key Proposal Deliverables
- Formalized Updates to the Constitution.
- Foundational Governance Structures.
- Community-Driven Governance Workstreams.
- Incentivized, Transparent Work through the Multisig-ROM.
- Knowledge Preservation and Faciliation Operation Education.
- Enhanced Community Coordination and Engagement
Cost Breakdown
From our budget: Future Worksteams Budget Proposal
Phase 1: ₳567,143 (20.51%) Delegate Committee Operations: 39,429 ADA ROM Documentation Chair: 80,857 ADA Raw Input Measurement: 80,571 ADA Oversight Oracle: 151,714 ADA Multisig management: 114,571 ADA Representation in Events: 100,000 ADA Phase 2: ₳1,680,226 (73,78%)The cost estimation currently Affected by Cardano Proposal suggestions Phase 3: ₳30,000 (1.32%) Total: ₳2,222,369
Up to a Total of 835,798 ADA funds are returned to the Cardano Treasury if the included Workstreams proposals get funded elsewhere and choose a different Administrator aside from this ROM model.
The above costing is subject to change according to the will of the multisig. In such case the Multisig deems the work by the ROM and delivery parties as unsatisfactory the funds will be deposited back to the Cardano Treasury. If funds run out before goals set out by this proposal, a new governance action requesting additional funds may be submitted.
Initially, a similar initiative was administered and operated by Intersect, which cost up to 6.9 million dollars without detailed insights into day-to-day operational costs. With this proposal, we will provide more transparent budgeting costs at a fraction of the cost and a clear timeline that matches the proposal's expectations. As for constitution workshops, Intersect spent an additional 0.86 million dollars for the workshops and travel costs, where in this proposal, we are financing workstreams to improve the existing constitution.
If you are proposing to address Future Workstream problem areas or are already running workshops, join our weekly meetings or contact us to coordinate a collective roadmap.
Resourcing & Duration
15 proposal implementation members + 7 workstream leads + minimum 7 multisig owners The members can overlap, so estimating 22 members.
The proposal duration is up to 14 months where final deliverables are expected at the end of 12 month.
Experience
Several members of this proposal have demonstrated proposal deliverables for Cardano, managing large Treasuries and/or running governance workshops. Many contributors to the proposal were (co-)Delegates to the Cardano Constitutional Convention.
Maintenance & Support
The Proposal includes operations to plan the next steps and roadmap. It also includes 2 months after time for extra administration and treasury management to accommodate delays
A playbook will be published with details about how to repeat the process and include lessons learned
We will work closely with the original pioneers of the Cardano Constitution and the Voltaire process to share findings and the model of operation for re-use and expansion.
Supplementary Endorsement
This proposal is put together with encouragement from the Intersect Civics Committee and many individuals who participated in the Constitutional Convention. We are in the process of recognising endorsements to learn who would like to be part of governance or support this initiative. Governance Workstream Proposal Endorsements Google Sheet
If you would like to endorse this proposal, leave a comment in discussions with your name and contact or on Google Sheets.
Roadmap Alignment
It supports the product roadmap. This proposal is foundational for community engagement and ecosystem health. It establishes pathways for contributor growth, cross-cultural collaboration, initiative support, and governance literacy. Intersect 2025 Roadmap: https://committees.docs.intersectmbo.org/intersect-product-committee/committee-outcomes/2025-cardanos-roadmap/2025-proposed-cardano-roadmap
Does your proposal align with any of the Intersect Committees?
Civics Committee
Does this proposal align to the Product Roadmap and Roadmap Goals?
It supports the product roadmap
Administration and Auditing
Would you like Intersect to be your named Administrator, including acting as the auditor, as per the Cardano Constitution?
No
Ownership Information
Submitted On Behalf Of
GroupGroup Name
Governance Workstream Consortium (GWC)Type of Group
GovernanceSocial Handles
cardanocommunity2025@gmail.comKey Dependencies
- The proposal requires off-chain and on chain governance Data, analytics resources and the CIP process.
- Key tools and platforms such as Discord, Github, AI transcripts / translator, cloud infrastructure providers etc.
- Security of the Multisig, ROM management layer and Initiatives that received funding.
- Access to existing Constitutional documents and resources
- Engagement from original Delegates and Alternates (should be paid)
- Community participation levels. Multisig seats must be active at a minimum once a month such that initiatives may be funded and the project does not become stale / disbanded.
- Legal side of things: A MICA compliant framework has been proposed by the Cardano Community Nordics which is at an advanced stage and fits the ROM multisig model as well as auditability and transparency requirements.
The Cardano Ecosystem Constitution Delegates and Alternates were appointed through a selection process conducted by the jurisdictional communities and global workshops, representing the grassroots foundation of governance. This body may continue to function autonomously alongside Intersect, as its responsibilities lie beyond Intersect's designated scope of work. Furthermore, while certain aspects of their efforts may align with the committee's initiatives, this group is empowered to operate as an independent entity, wholly outside of IntersectMBO's jurisdiction, particularly with respect to future workstreams and the sustained development of the Cardano Constitution.
This initiative complements, rather than duplicates, the efforts of Intersect. While Intersect has taken significant steps to enable member-driven governance and infrastructure, the work of delegates and Constitutional volunteers exists outside formal institutional boundaries. It focuses specifically on:
- Grassroots constitutional interpretation.
- Community-led workstreams based on ratified constitutional commitments.
- Experimental governance processes not tied to any existing governance body or funding stream.
In fact, Intersect has supported and partially funded some of these early initiatives — and the continuation of this work is best seen as an extension of decentralized Constitutional implementation, not as an alternative institution or competitor.
In order to establish a more efficient solution, we will adopt a ROM model. More details about MultiSig ROM model can be found here MultiSig ROM - 1 pager
How Multisig owners will be selected and what requirements is yet open for discussions but the final details selection happens after proposal approval.
The treasury will be using multiple strategies. Which ones we will be using will be decided by the selected budget administrators. We will make sure to establish connections for institutions, businesses and individual community members.
Comments (9)
It appears that the group implementing this proposal has not yet agreed on their own governance structure. If they can agree on a good governance structure, it will demonstrate their ability to implement this proposal.
How can I see the other comments?
Thank you 🙏
-
Who are the members who can make the final decisions on these designs, and what percentage of them do they need to agree on? What happens if any community wants to join the decision-making members? What happens if any community wants to change the members?
-
There are many items on the budget, but is there any sort of priority?
-
Will this initiative require the same amount from next year onwards? Or will it result in significant savings from next year onwards?
Notes from Cardano Budget Proposals Review Workshop: Wada Team
This proposal stands out as a promising initiative from a well-regarded group within the Cardano community, known for consistently delivering on past commitments. It addresses the significant issue of constitutional debt—an area that has drawn attention and concern within the governance process. Notably, this initiative builds on a promise previously made by Charles Hoskinson, with SWARM stepping in to actualize that commitment. This alignment between community expectations and action lends the proposal a strong sense of relevance and timeliness.
Unlike many other proposals, this one presents few tradeoffs. The initiative is widely seen as both important and necessary, with no immediate downsides identified. It is viewed as a natural and essential step in the evolution of Cardano’s decentralized governance.
However, some areas would benefit from further clarification. A key question is whether the proposed bounty platform will prioritize delegates and alternates, ensuring that those already engaged in governance efforts are supported. Additionally, there is curiosity about how the proposed budget aligns with the financial commitments previously outlined by Charles at the last convention.
One critical detail missing from the proposal is the USD equivalent of the budget. Including this figure would improve transparency and aid in evaluating the request's scale and feasibility.
Overall, this proposal offers substantial value to the community by fostering trust and demonstrating follow-through on key governance promises. With a few adjustments and clarifications, it has the potential to play a vital role in reinforcing the credibility and functionality of Cardano’s constitutional process.
"1. How are the definitions and completion criteria for ""resolving constitutional debt"" clearly translated into objective and measurable KPIs?
- How is the requested total of ₳1,772,571 justified in proportion to the stated goal of resolving constitutional debt and supporting governance workstreams? How is the total ₳1,772,571 (~$1.24M) proven to be cost-effective in relation to its aim of building and operating constitutional governance workstreams? Are there comparative assessments against similar governance improvement initiatives?"
Are You Ready to Participate?
Building Together to Drive Cardano Forward.