Thanks @Sasha for sharing your thoughts. Really appreciate it! 
Would you be okay if the Program Manager was up for election right away?
We welcome any member from the community to nominate themselves for the program manager role and are open to the selection of program manager through an election. However, we strongly recommend having an experienced individual for the first phase (atleast for one quarter) of the grants program. To produce the best outcome and build trust among the community members and proposers, a program manager is required to ensure a low TAT, keep the community members updated, be familiar with the reporting structures and tools and possess a thorough understanding of what it takes to make a grants program successful. At the end of each quarter, the ApeCoin community will evaluate the performance of the Program Manager and vote to retain/replace them using publicly available data. Having extensive experience in setting up and managing multiple grants programs, I am well-versed with the demands of the role and understand the key factors that contribute to the success of a grants program. As program managers for CGP 2.0, we have received very positive feedback from several proposers who have shared their experience as follows 
Would you mind also disclosing if/how much you’d be paid from the 5% that Questbook would collect? And what equity and any other financial interest do you have in the company and this proposal?
Sure, I am an employee of Questbook and will not personally receive any financial benefit from the revenue collected by Questbook through this proposal. Any proceeds from this proposal will go to Questbook to cover the operational costs associated with running the program. If elected as the Program Manager, my primary responsibility would be to ensure the success of the grants program and to ensure that all the funded projects align, further the mission of the ApeCoin DAO.
At the end of each quarter, the ApeCoin community will evaluate the performance of the Program Manager and vote to retain/replace them using publicly available data.
THE TOTAL COST -Assuming 1M in grants distributed over X quarters, we’d have……Please let me know if I miscalculated anywhere.
Thank you for providing detailed calculations . Domain allocators are expected to disburse $1M over a period of two quarters. We estimate a quarterly allocation of a maximum amount of $500,000 from the domain allocators. Taking into account, the proposed committee compensation and product fee, the maximum spend for each quarter will be ~ $75,400 ($36,00 + $14,400 + $25,000) . This spend per quarter is expected to remain consistent for a budget of $500,000/quarter and is not expected to increase every quarter.
The domain allocators and program manager will be required to track their hours and provide weekly reports that will be accessible to the community. If the domain allocators have clocked fewer hours than estimated, the total spend will be lower than the proposed spend. If there are fewer grant requests or smaller grant amount requests for a particular domain, the unused fund from every domain will be returned back to the treasury after two quarters. For instance, in the case of CGP 2.0, not all domain allocators spent an equal amount of time reviewing and funding proposals for their respective domains. Some domain allocators spent comparatively less time than the budgeted 15hrs/week due to the time required to review proposals and the volume of proposals received within their domain.
The proposed budget represents the maximum amount needed to ensure the success of the grants program and to avoid the need for frequent community ratification for budgets for the proposed ApeCoin DAO Grants Program. It does not guarantee that all the proposed expenses will be incurred. The unused fund from every domain will be returned back to the treasury after two quarters. 
You mentioned elections of PM after 2 quarters. Is that how long you think 1M distribution would take? If not, how many quarters do you expect it to take to distribute the money?
The ApeCoin DAO’s community will evaluate the performance of the Domain Allocators and the Program Manager each quarter using the publicly available data and vote on the following outcomes every quarter:
- Change the domain
- Change the allocator/program manager
- Change the budget
Yes, you are correct . We expect the disbursal of $1M across 4 domains over the course of two quarters.
Lastly, how did you arrive at proposing 4 domain allocators (and not 3 or 5)? The volume here is rather low, and frankly even if it doubled or tripled I could run the whole grant allocation program just by myself during a regular 8-hour day (used to process 15-20 apps/day at startup accelerator). Perhaps you can elaborate on how this is different or why we need so many domain allocators.
Thank you for the detailed answers!
Thanks for your kind words and sharing your thoughts! We have proposed 4 specific domains after researching and going through ApeCoin DAO’s past funding allocations, number and relevance of past proposals, Apecoin foundation’s transparency report and recent Working Group Twitter’s spaces. When finalizing the domains mentioned in our proposal, we have ensured that they align with ApeCoin DAO’s goals and cover its broader mission, while avoiding any redundancy. I have personally been in touch with more than 20 active community members over Twitter, Discord and Telegram and have incorporated their feedback to determine the domains that are most important to the ApeCoin DAO. However, we are open to adding more domains and incorporating changes based on the feedback of the ApeCoin DAO community 
After conducting a brief analysis of the funding requests received by the ApeCoin DAO on Discourse, we observed that the DAO has received ~ $8M in funding requests in the last two quarters (Oct - Mar). A breakdown of some of the proposals is provided below. We also noticed that the foundation has paid out only $96,000 of the reserved $181M grants budget to proposers according to the Apecoin foundation’s transparency report
Funding Requests
| Proposal | Proposed Domain | Funding Amount Requested |
|---|---|---|
| ApeCoin Esports (ACE) - The ESports League DAO Powered by ApeCoin | Game Development | $2.5M |
| Team ApeCoin // Esports Team Accelerating The Growth Of Web3 Gaming | Game Development | $1.5M |
| AIP-214: Sponsoring The DAM Show + Live Game Shows | Game Development | $95,000 |
| For old times’ sake, Melonade is bringing back a timeless, classic bored game | Game Development | $70,000 |
| AIP-179: NFTCG Generation 2 - ApeCoin DAO Physical & Digital Trading Card Game | Game Development | $55,885 |
| AIP-148: Forever Apes // Upgrade #3 // Biweekly card games and tutorials for all $APE holders | Game Development | $20,000 |
| BAYC / MAYC Collectible Trading Card Game | Game Development | - |
| AIP-226: ApeCoinIRL - Decentralized Events Network | Community Growth and Events | $2M |
| Eco-friendly Apecoin Carpets | Community Growth and Events | $180,000 |
| ApeDAO Partners with Kickback! | Community Growth and Events | $100,000 |
| AIP-218: Rumblerz by Gamed Productions - A stop-motion animation/claymation TV show leveraging existing IP | Community Growth and Events | $80,000 |
| Ape IRL Community Building & Expansion | Community Growth and Events | $60,000 |
| AIP-64: IRL Events Feasibility Study — Recap | Community Growth and Events | $10,190 |
| AIP-134: Bug Bounty Program for AIP-21 | Security and Tooling | $1M |
| AIP-235: ApeTalent // Beyond Talent: Building the Future | Security and Tooling | $330,000 |
| AIP-232: Resubmission of Building Apeverse: A Multi-language Information Hub for the Ape Ecosystem | Security and Tooling | $135,000 |
| AIP-225: Ape Page - One place for everything about your Ape | Security and Tooling | $125,000 |
| AIP-227: Nothersight - Public goods for building DAOs based on islands in the Otherside | Security and Tooling | $48,000 |
| AIP-234: Boring Beverages | A community built & part-owned beverage brand | Education and content for new user onboarding |
| AIP-195: Forever Apes // Upgrade #6 // ApeCoin Media Collective - Connecting Communities And Creators | Education and content for new user onboarding | $85,000 |
| Beyond the SWAMP: Bimonthly ApeCoin & Yuga Labs Focused Magazine + NFT | Education and content for new user onboarding | $52,500 |
| AIP-151: ApeCoin DAO Animated TV Series | Education and content for new user onboarding | $38319 |
| AIP-187: Expanding web3 Access | Education and content for new user onboarding | $37,000 |
| AIP-236: Fantasy Novel about NFTs | Education and content for new user onboarding | $28,150 |
| AIP-191: ApeCoin DAO Mission Statement Workshop | Education and content for new user onboarding | $19,000 |
| WEB3 Learn to Earn Program | Education and content for new user onboarding | - |
| Brainstorming - How would you attract new users and their participation in the DAO? | Education and content for new user onboarding | - |
| Total | ~$8M |
While we recognize that the ApeCoin DAO has dedicated its entire treasury to support proposals that advance its mission, we are concerned about the underutilisation of reserved funds and the dearth of high-quality proposals. Comparatively, Aave receives more than 50 proposals per month, and Nouns receives over 100 proposals per month across different funding formats. Without investing in resourcing and scaling high quality proposals, we believe that the ApeCoin DAO risks falling behind and losing its competitive edge. In Vitalik’s own words:
Using Delegated Domain Capital Allocation model, each domain allocator will be required to spend significant time reviewing as well as sourcing proposals to drive top of the mind awareness and retain the mindshare of key contributors. Giving domain allocators the capital and decision-making powers will increase the efficiency of the grants program, without compromising on accountability, which may not be feasible for a single individual. Specifically, Delegated Domain Capital Allocation model focuses on:
- Individual’s expertise for each domain
- Distributed load instead of individual/community backlogs
To add on cost.
US Dept of Education caps administrative costs at 2% of grants.
For non-profits, the total admin cost and fundraising costs are considered to be a red flag if they exceed 25%, as you want the vast majority of money to go to grant recipients. Note that here, we neither have to fundraise (already done) nor actually execute the grants (as a non-profit must). So with these two major sinks removed, it’s reasonable to aim for 2-5% max. In your proposal, it’s 15% minimum, but 25%-35% most likely.
Hence my questions.
Thank you for sharing the statistics . You are correct in highlighting that US Department of Education has capped administrative costs at 2% for grants. However, given the unique scope, high volatile markets, and competitive landscape of ecosystems within Web 3.0, we feel that it is more appropriate to compare the proposed ApeCoin DAO’s grants program with other well-run grants programs within Web3 such as those run by Aave, Compound, and Uniswap.
Sourcing, reviewing, funding, marketing, tracking and nurturing proposals for each domain demands significant expertise and time commitment. It is crucial for ApeCoin DAO to attract top talent for the role of domain allocator to ensure that exceptional projects are funded. Competitive compensation and operational overhead, as seen in the best-run grant programs, reflect the importance of these tasks and incentivize reviewers and domain allocators to source and fund the best proposals while being accountable to the community and proposers. Below are the operational spending details that have been approved by the community for each of these reputed ecosystems:
- Uniswap Foundation : 18.9% of the total proposed budget
- Compound Grants Program : 20% of the total proposed budget
- Aave Grants Program : 13.1% of the total proposed budget
We also acknowledge the importance of working within the budgets of the ApeCoin DAO and are willing to reassessing our pricing structure to ensure that it aligns with the DAO’s budget and the spending proportions of the best run grants program while upholding our dedication to delivering maximum value to the ApeCoin DAO and its tokenholders.