Introduction
Season 0 represents the setting-up period of our new born organization: the Polygon Ecosystem DAO (EcoDAO), which aims to decentralize, grow and innovate the Polygon community. Season 1 will have one specific aim: to scale the EcoDAO.
Scaling is not a new expression for Polygon. As we know, Polygon believes in Web3 for all, offering “a decentralized Ethereum scaling platform that enables developers to build scalable user-friendly dApps with low transaction fees without ever sacrificing on security.” Scaling Ethereum requires technological advancements and research, which different teams started to provide to the industry more than one year ago.
But scaling means also enlarging the community, creating a global point of reference where every person willing to build something on the blockchain or work within the industry can find help and feel part of a wider project. This, in sum, is the goal of the EcoDAO in Season 1. The efforts of the EcoDAO will be expressed in different ways and in different areas, which will be briefly presented in this post!
Community First - Become a Member of the EcoDAO!
The EcoDAO does not have to shape a community from scratch. A Polygon community already exists, but it needs to be coordinated in joint efforts and find a place to meet and share information and guidance.
Polygon EcoDAO has therefore established a dedicated Discord server that everyone is invited to join. The EcoDAO now has an organized team of experienced moderators and community managers from all over the world who will be available twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week from Season 1 onwards!
Join our community!
Range of Activities and Areas of Interest - The Inception of SubDAOs
The EcoDAO deals with every possible area of interest connected to Web 3 and blockchain technology. It concerns among others: DeFi, NFTs, gaming, real estate linked to blockchain projects, legal solutions for DAOs and tokenization, technical information, etc. There is no preclusion with respect to the fields that the EcoDAO may cover. The Polygon community is a multiform and diverse galaxy where everyone should feel engaged in proposing new things and pursuing their dreams.
The place to present new proposals and start a well-structured discussion is the EcoDAO Discourse platform.
So that people who share common interests can talk with people with experience in that particular field, the EcoDAO will be organized in SubDAOs: each with a focus on a particular area such as DeFi, gaming or arts.
Working for the Community and Express Talent
The EcoDAO is aware that decentralized organizations have impacted the concept of work. Usually in Web3, long-lasting relationships and 9 to 5 jobs do not exist. People look for engaging opportunities to express their talent and not feel annoyed or obliged to work for a hierarchical superior. In this spirit, the EcoDAO will therefore start a bounty program, where members of the community can grab small tasks and participate in the EcoDAO activity!
The bounty program is live! Check it out here! The EcoDAO program will be managed on dework.xyz, a DAO-specific bounty management platform. You can read more about how the program will work in this post.
For more structured and time-consuming activities the EcoDAO will set up a job board. The job board will not only host EcoDAO job offers, but also offers from projects and protocols which have been built on Polygon. The “common” board will facilitate the search for interesting Web3 work opportunities!
Supporting the Community with Grants
In Season 0 the EcoDAO’s mission was mainly focused on grants. The program has been a great success. More than 70 grants have been awarded to project teams willing to build on Polygon. The range of the activities performed by the grantees is very broad:
- DeFi and NFT projects on Polygon PoS, SDK and Hermez chains; tools for DeFi protocols on Polygon.
- Tools for data analysis on Polygon; educational projects relating to the range of DeFi opportunities present on Polygon.
- Decentralized editorial projects that have an informative and educational function and which relate to DeFi on Polygon.
- Frameworks and development and support tools for DAOs on Polygon; tools for managing and reporting treasury funds from projects and DAOs on Polygon.
In Season 1, the EcoDAO will continue to follow this path; helping and giving visibility to new projects will be an essential component of Season 1. The grants evaluation process has been re-shaped and new contributors have been onboarded in order to assure the best possible experience during the evaluation process!
Moreover, a dedicated team is working on an alumni program and events which should help to retain grantees within the community.
If you are interested in submitting a grant request, please complete this form.
Building Partnerships and Dedicated Grant Lines
Polygon is also made of many projects and protocols already successfully deployed on the different chains. Polygon tries to support and incentivize these projects as much as possible through engaging programs as the Liquidity Mining 2.0 program.
But one of the foundational aspects of a truly decentralized community is the exchange of knowledge and of efforts. In this regard, the EcoDAO is open to the idea of starting partnerships with projects in order to collaborate on governance choices, to ameliorate operations, and to start dedicated grant lines.
An example of this approach is the powerful collaboration and joint grant line with mStable DAO, the decentralized stablecoin ecosystem.
Many more partnerships will follow. The EcoDAO is in discussions with several prominent DeFi protocols looking to build together!
Organizing Events and Educational Programs
Essential to the blockchain industry also are the social events where people can get together and learn about particular developments, collaborations or innovative technologies. The EcoDAO will organize regular AMAs and Twitter Spaces with different communities in order to significantly widen its reach.
Starting from Season 1, the EcoDAO will have a dedicated marketing team which will be in charge of organizing events and spreading the word of the EcoDAO community!
You know what? The EcoDAO is also a place to learn new things. People willing to onboard in the Web3 journey need information about this new world, and a community aiming to scale needs to put a particular focus on onboarding processes to guarantee a welcoming onramp for them to join us. Every kind of talent is accepted! Not only devs, also social and communication skills are an important part of the crypto industry!
To find out more, please follow us on Twitter!
Conclusion
Just some final words: You are strongly invited to join the EcoDAO! Every person is a resource who will contribute to the assurance of a bright future for the Polygon Ecosystem in decentralizing its decision-making process!
And … we are going to have a lot of fun together. The Polygon EcoDAO NFT Monsters Series is at the starting blocks! 
Recap of the Action Items
