I wanted to discuss offering a health coverage reimbursement program that is used to help pay for medical coverage and medical expenses for those employed by ApeCoin DAO (SC, Facilitators, Secretary, Stewards, etc.).
Because we employee globally with different health coverages, I want to be equitable to all relevant parties. I’m suggesting a % of pay that is used to reimburse for medical coverage (singular or family) for those who have to pay for their own medical insurance, and a % up to X amount towards medical expenses for those who don’t pay for medical coverage (so those who have universal healthcare).
Those who are currently employed have this as their full time job and are responsible for budgeting their own health care into their salary. I believe that if we want to continue operating and attracting/maintaining our talent we need to be better at offering them a reasonable package to work for us other than pay.
General idea:
Reimbursement of 75% up to $750 USD per month towards your monthly medical coverage
or
Reimbursement of $10,000 USD per year towards general medical expenses
I assumed monthly medical expense of $1000 USD per month for better than average coverage for a family of 4. I am happy to change these numbers based on feedback, but want to have this discussion.
The health and well-being of our community are indeed important, and discussions around how we can support each other are always valued.
However, it’s important to clarify that as a DAO, we operate under a different model than traditional corporations. Our contributors are engaged as freelancers or independent contractors, not employees. This distinction is crucial because it fundamentally shapes our relationship with them, including the legal and financial frameworks within which we operate.
Given this structure, and considering that the compensation for our service providers typically ranges between $8,000 to $10,000 a month—a figure well above the average pay in many jurisdictions—it’s expected that individuals would manage their own health coverage and medical expenses within their compensation packages.
While I understand the intention behind your proposal, implementing a health coverage reimbursement program would challenge our operational and regulatory boundaries as a DAO. Instead, let’s just encourage our contributors to leverage their generous compensation to secure the necessary health insurance and medical care according to their personal or family needs.
You raised excellent issues with what I was initially suggesting and now I’m rethinking the general implementation.
Maybe a reimbursement program isn’t the proper way to go about this given our current structure. What about a general bonus to all of them that is with the intent that it is used towards health and medical related expenses. Yes, im aware we would have no control over how they use it, but I’m hopeful that it will be and will actually improve someones current circumstances.
Working Groups are AIP recipients.
So far no working group has included medical in the expenses of their budgets.
There is nothing stopping them putting this in for the Stewards. However, Stewards live in different jurisdictions, some with decent healthcare from the state, some with limited free options and only private coverage. Also Stewards could be directors, contractor’s or employees of the entity that receives the AIP (each Working Group makes their choices on this). Their relationship to the entity will impact if health care provision is even a viable option. Also the Working Groups have initiatives and third party contractors.
Also if an AIP recipient is a for profit entity they can be inventivised by growing their company, which they have equity in and also may get dividends from the profit. The GWG is setup as a Non Profit, so Stewards do not have that benefit. They also cannot receive dividends.
Direct contractors are for example, the Special Council who are also not employees of the Foundation, they are listed on the website as a “Board”.
I have worked in providing consulting services for both small and large firms. Generally employees cost at least 2 times their salary to a company (all the overheads: unemployment benefits; taxes; healthcare; operational overhead etc). Usually their billable rates that are charged to clients at 3 to 5 times the Labour take home of the employee (before personal income tax deductions). This is to cover for downtime when they aren’t billed, profits, IP value, items listed above, etc.
Hence, as @ssp1111 said DAOs are a new organisational model.
Part of what makes being part of the DAO so exciting is being instrumental in creating these new structures and paradigms.
It’s a good and noble idea but somethings I find very wrong: #1 DAO roles and responsibilities are limited; 6-12 months and in some cases 3 months. #2 DAO pays way over the top in salaries, not even competitive salary, it’s a well known fact.
I have some bias here, and also was a part of the community-led team which helped to established the beginning of the Working Group structure. Sharing my personal opinion…
We’re talking about no more than $50/hr for these working group roles, pre-tax. (This is if we assume folks are just doing 6hr days, realistically the days are more like 10 hours. And there are global considerations which result in regular odd-hour meetings, among other challenges.)
No benefits, no incentive structure, regulatory risk-ON. In addition to extreme token volatility, to the point where you may lose 5-10% of your compensation for a given period, due to any lapse in time between a grant allocation being sent and the receiver realizing that the grant was issued.
There are no “weekends” or “holidays”.
There are not enough people on “staff” for “shifts”.
No HR.
Minimal unilateral decision making abilities for anyone, none that are not bound by DAO-approved guidelines.
Based on a 7-day work week these are beyond “Full Time” roles. While the DAO is neither a start-up, nor a fully fledged corporate entity with all the fixin’s, we do have enormous Brand value in ApeCoin. We also have one of the most active communities in the DAO space, with among the highest expectations anywhere. Our retention needs work, we see it every election season - in more than one way.
How many SC members have run for re-election? One. Out of 4 Governance Working Group Stewards, how many have completed a full term? One.
Given the community’s expectations and level of commitment required to meet even the minimum bar for “success”, we should be talking about incentives and how to retain sharp, capable, contributors moving forward. Particularly as these new Working Groups, and the Governance Working Group, are moving forward with their budgets.
Should have been more clear, but my previous comment was related to the working group structure and not any sort of a complaint or request. Just sharing information. There is some carry over for the SC though. No HR, no weekends, no benefits, community’s level of expectations, poor retention, etc.
My bad for not making it more clear though. good call.
Checking FORBES the average salary in the US is approx $60K. You all enjoy double that approximately for part time hours most days.
Also, if we had any mechanisms in place to promote or give advantage to “top talent” or “qualified people” then maybe you’d have an argument, but we don’t, it’s merely a popularity contest + shady arrangements in the background.
So we give you health insurance, next we give you company cars, followed by full family cover and then……
Are we really being serious here? You get over $100K and others over $125K a year. This ofc fluctuates if you do your jobs and make apecoin DAO great.
Nobody with a role in the DAO is on a salaried income.
The things that @LiveFast9986 wants to discuss here are not even necessarily a mechanism to retain or attract anyone, and generally not something on the table to non-employees outside of ability to opt in to a company plan. Again, just giving some perspective since I have it.
Maybe this is something that could do with addressing. Afaik we work on a monthly average of $APE price to determine the grants. Would it help to change this to USDC or similar? (For stewards/SC etc.)
Perhaps we could also, in light of the hours recently being more like full-time and no longer part-time, apply to get this recognised, as when people hear $100k/$125K and PT they are not impressed.
Finally, I’m not against incentives to retain or attract talent, just that we need to have a way to recognise that it is such in the first place.
I’m not totally sure when or for how long this was being done. But, the conversion rate is determined when a grant is disbursed now in my personal experience.
The problem is that there is a whole process for finally distributing any grant funds even after all agreements have been signed, which results in general uncertainty for exactly when the grant will be distributed. And the token can move quick in that +/- 5%ish range, even 1% for this is a considerable shift, especially for large or reoccurring grants.
The most recent doc from SC did indicate more than a PT expectation, and PT was never expected for WG roles since their purpose is more oriented toward project management, although it could all be more visible. Personally, no problem with deliberate redundancies when it comes to availability of certain information.
The community feedback period for your proposal would be ending in roughly 24 hours.
If you’re content with the feedback received, your next steps are to finalize your proposal using the AIP Draft Template.
A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft. Upon receipt of the final Draft, we will review and provide instructions on the next steps.
Are you ready to proceed to the next phase or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?
@LiveFast9986 has requested to extend the community discussion period for this AIP idea. This topic will automatically close a further 8 days from now. We encourage the community to continue to engage in thoughtful discussions through constructive criticism, honest feedback, and helpful suggestions.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
The community feedback period for your proposal would be ending in less than 24 hours.
If you’re content with the feedback received, your next steps are to finalize your proposal using the AIP Draft Template.
A moderator will reach out to the author to finalize the AIP Draft. Upon receipt of the final Draft, we will review and provide instructions on the next steps.
Are you ready to proceed to the next phase or do you wish to extend community discussion for another 7 days?
@LiveFast9986 has requested to extend the community discussion period for this AIP idea. This topic will automatically close a further 7 days from now. We encourage the community to continue to engage in thoughtful discussions through constructive criticism, honest feedback, and helpful suggestions.
Follow this Topic as further updates will be posted here in the comments.
