GIP-78: Community Management Cohort – 2-Year Mandate (April 2025 – April 2027)

Proposals
1

Authors: @RP2743

Summary
This proposal outlines the continuation of the Goldfinch Community Management team with a renewed mandate and updated structure. It requests funding from the community treasury to support community operations for the next 2 years, building on the foundation established in GIP-66: New Community Management.

Motivation
Goldfinch is entering a new and important phase. With the launch of Goldfinch Prime, the protocol is evolving beyond its original form, offering institutional-grade private credit exposure onchain. As this new product gains traction, it requires dedicated community coverage—education, messaging, and proactive engagement—to ensure users understand the opportunity and how it fits within the broader DeFi and RWA landscape.

At the same time, legacy loans are being actively restructured by the CRO, and it’s critical to maintain clear, timely, and trusted communication within the community.

The Community Management team plays a key role in supporting these priorities by:

  • Facilitating transparent discussions
  • Escalating important issues
  • Coordinating governance processes
  • Promoting new developments (like Goldfinch Prime) within the community

To ensure continued impact and allow for long-term planning, this proposal requests a 2-year budget allocation, along with a modest 10% compensation increase to reflect the expanded scope of responsibilities and the fact that rates have not been adjusted for several years.

Term & Start Date
The new Community Management mandate is proposed to begin on April 5, 2025, and will continue until April 5, 2027. This two-year scope allows for greater stability, accountability, and long-term planning.

Background & Funding Context
Until now, the Goldfinch Foundation has been covering the cost of community management after the GIP-66 mandate ended. However, due to shifting priorities and limited resources, the Foundation will no longer be able to support these ongoing expenses.

As such, this proposal includes two funding components:

  1. Future funding — 168,960 USDC to cover community management operations for the full two-year mandate
  2. Reimbursement — 10,560 USDC to the Foundation for the final community management payment it made under the previous agreement.

This ensures a clean transition of responsibility to the community and compensates the Foundation for its most recent support.

Team Composition & Responsibilities

We propose to continue with the current experienced team, with differentiated roles and compensation based on responsibilities, experience, and time commitment:

@RP2743 (Community Manager | Strategic Lead)

  • Quarterly Rate: $8,910
  • Role: Strategic lead and primary point of contact among stakeholders. RP is a highly experienced contributor with an MBA and a strong background in finance, legal, and general management. He plays a dual role: strategic planning and community engagement, while also coordinating moderation, governance, and escalation processes. As the most fluent English speaker on the team, he serves as the key communication bridge between all the stakeholders involved in the protocol.

@parallacs (Community Manager | Governance Support & Back-up Lead)

  • Quarterly Rate: $4,290
  • Role: Longtime contributor with deep protocol knowledge, paralleling RP’s responsibilities with a focus on support and continuity. He steps in when RP is unavailable (due to illness, vacation, or personal matters) and provides governance support, community insight, and moderation. His familiarity with the protocol makes him a strong second lead, especially during high-volume governance activity.

@Eloquent (Community Moderator)

  • Quarterly Rate: $3,960
  • Role: Focused on technical moderation, governance proposal support, and helping with daily community operations. Eloquent ensures timely answers to user queries, enforces community guidelines, and translates protocol updates to non-English language channels where applicable.

@mcegor13 (Community Moderator)

  • Quarterly Rate: $3,960
  • Role: Works closely with Eloquent to provide consistent and responsive coverage across channels. He contributes to moderation, helps surface user feedback, and supports proposal discussion and tracking. Both moderators serve as first-line responders and technical facilitators within the community.

Key Responsibilities

  1. Stakeholder Communication & Escalation
  • Serve as the primary bridge between the community and protocol contributors
  • Escalate key issues for decision-making
  • Support and explain complex topics such as CRO loan restructuring and Goldfinch Prime
  1. Governance Operations
  • Manage discussions in Discord and the Forum
  • Help proposal authors with drafting, editing, and promotion
  • Keep the community informed about the status of proposals (Snapshot, governance tracker, etc.)
  1. Community Engagement
  • Provide fast, reliable responses in Discord and Telegram (within 30–60 min during working hours)
  • Welcome new members and guide them through protocol resources
  • Maintain a safe, respectful, and collaborative environment
  1. Product & Ecosystem Support
  • Promote and explain Goldfinch Prime and other major initiatives
  • Translate messaging and support community understanding of technical concepts
  • Update #announcements channel with timely information

Payment Structure & Accountability

  • Payments are made quarterly, in two parts:
    • 50% in the first month of each quarter
    • 50% in the third month, based on completion of responsibilities

Budget Summary

Role Quarterly Rate Total for 8 Quarters
RP $8,910 $71,280
Parallacs $4,290 $34,320
Eloquent $3,960 $31,680
Mcegor $3,960 $31,680
Total – $168,960

Additionally, the community is requested to reimburse the Foundation for a previous payment of 10,560 USDC made to the current team, bringing the total requested transfer to 179,520 USDC.

Benefits

  • Supports the successful rollout and community adoption of Goldfinch Prime
  • Maintains transparency during the legacy loan restructuring process
  • Ensures continuity, responsiveness, and structure in community operations
  • Rewards experienced contributors while preserving cost efficiency
  • Enables long-term planning by securing a 2-year funding runway
  • Transitions community management from Foundation-funded to fully community-governed

Risks & Consideration

  • As the protocol becomes more complex and community needs grow, funding consistent and experienced support becomes increasingly important
  • This budget represents a modest and transparent allocation relative to protocol needs and the value community operations provide
  • The split-payment model provides a built-in rhythm for accountability and review

Voting
YES – Approve the 2-year community management mandate, including 168,960 USDC for future operations and 10,560 USDC to reimburse the Foundation
NO – Do not approve the mandate or funding request

6 Likes
2

I love how this team keeps things running smoothly! This proposal looks solid and I will support and cast my “Yes” vote

1 Like
3

And what is the job of the community management team, just answering stupid questions on discord once a week? I don’t think it’s worth emptying the treasury, and there is no community left.
You can’t even do regular checks on Zealy.

1 Like
4

Hey, I understand your concern, and I appreciate you sharing your honest feedback.

Just to clarify — community management at Goldfinch goes far beyond answering questions on Discord. The team acts as a bridge between stakeholders, especially during critical moments like the restructuring of legacy loans and the rollout of Goldfinch Prime. We handle governance coordination, flag and escalate technical issues, keep community members informed, and help proposal authors navigate the governance process.

The proposal reflects modest compensation, especially considering the team hasn’t received any rate increases in years. As for the treasury, the requested budget is for 2 years of support, not a short-term spend, and it’s aimed at keeping things running smoothly in a critical phase of protocol development.

Regarding Zealy — it was originally used as a short-term tool to boost awareness about the protocol and engage users around core mechanics. We ran several reward campaigns through it and distributed prizes accordingly. However, once that initial purpose was fulfilled, we intentionally stepped back from it, as it wasn’t designed to be a long-term engagement strategy for our community.

Always happy to discuss this more if you’ve got suggestions or ideas — we’re here to make things better.

3 Likes
5

I support this proposal. The community team plays a key role in coordination and driving initiatives, and extending the mandate will help ensure protocol stability.
My vote “YES”

1 Like
6

I want to show my support too. We can’t speed up how things unfold with Alma and Cauris, and personally I trust CRO to handle it. But people tend to overreact, and having these guys here really helps keep the vibes up and stops the server from turning into nonstop FUD. They break things down clearly and help keep the communication going, which is super important right now

2 Likes
7

I support as well. The protocol is worthless without the team. Keep grinding!

8

It was a pleasant surprise that the Community Management Team (CMT) is still functioning. At least formally.

After the lack of regular (every 3 months) relevant proposals, I assumed that the CMT was no longer there.

First, I generally agree with @obscar’s opinion: there is no coordinated community and the number of active members is extremely small. It can be considered that there is no community as such.

Regarding the checks of quest completion on the Zealy platform, I already wrote in the comments to GIP-51.
The team’s response boiled down to the fact that checks will now be done every week. Indeed, checks were carried out regularly for a certain period of time.

But at the moment, quests have not been checked for 9 months.

Screenshot

9_months_ago_review
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Well, if quest checks on Zealy are no longer provided, then the quests themselves are no longer needed. And therefore, they could be removed. This was not done. As long as quests are present, they remain working and require regular checks.

For information purposes, I will show data on the number of voters and the number of comments in the latest proposals.

  • Proposal No. Start date Votes Comments
  • GIP-66 02.07.2024 12 4
  • GIP-67 12.07.2024 16 26
  • GIP-68/69/70/71/72 18.07.2024 10/9/10/12/11 11
  • GIP-73 24.09.2024 5 6
  • GIP-73 16.10.2024 12 6
  • GIP-74 31.10.2024 12 17
  • GIP-75 26.11.2024 10 6
  • GIP-76 18.12.2024 6 6

Total: 125 votes, 82 comments.
125 + 82 = 207 quests in Zealy (the number is approximate, may differ from the real one in both directions) in 9 months.
Probably, checking such a number of quests causes difficulties for CMT. Or, perhaps, additional payment is required?

Unfortunately, ordinary members of the community (like me, for example) cannot see and evaluate this work, if it is being done.
Personally, I can only evaluate the work of CMT on platforms like Zealy, Discord, Goldfinch Governance Forum. CMT’s lack of attention to some tasks (like Zealy) gives the impression that no work is being done at all.
This is exactly the impression I have at the moment.
In my opinion, CMT activity should be visible in all directions.

Checking quests every few months and the subsequent appearance of the corresponding proposal is similar to “begging” for another portion of funding.

Some people earn less in their full-time jobs. So “modest” is a relative term here.

Here I am rather against. If CMT did not request the required funds in advance, it means they did not need them. I am used to the fact that people who work intensively usually decide on their payment in advance.

I am against it. It is unclear how CMT members are responsible for the work they have done. It is unclear how the community can influence the amount of pay for a CMT member who does not fulfill their responsibilities.

As a result, I am against this proposal in its current form.
But I am not against the team continuing to work. And in general, I’m not against people making money.

In my opinion, when the community does not see the results of CMT’s work, a proposal for pay for 1 month should be made. And then, based on the results of the CMT work (the results that will be visible to community members), we can move on to proposals every 3 months, as was the case before.

Let me clarify that this is my opinion at the moment. Like any opinion, it can change over time, and quite quickly )

9

I support your opinion and also think that CMT members are using the moment when there is no stable community to extract as many bucks as possible from the treasury. Otherwise, their activities would be more transparent.

1 Like
10

If u think community mods don’t matter, try running a Discord without them :rofl: Place turns into Telegram in like 2 hours lmao. They’ve proven they can handle the heat, server clean af lately. And Prime is on the way! Gonna be a whole new wave of questions, noobs, and probably more bots. Lockin this squad in is a W

11

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts — I really appreciate the detailed feedback.

A few quick clarifications:

  1. The CMT is active — we supported GIP-77 (Feb 21), and just two days ago, also supported GIP-79 (Add two new market makers) and GIP-80 (Update Governance Council). We’ve continued to announce proposals in Discord, ensure they move to Snapshot, and help keep governance running smoothly.
  2. Regarding Zealy — it was a short-term initiative we used over two years ago to boost awareness. Rewards were distributed, and since it no longer serves a strategic purpose, I’ve now fully removed it to avoid confusion.
  3. On visibility — our focus today is on supporting the protocol during a critical transition: legacy loan restructuring and Goldfinch Prime. These aren’t flashy community contests, but they are high-impact areas that require coordination, messaging, and governance support.
  4. On compensation — the proposed rates reflect a 10% increase after years of no changes and are split quarterly with accountability baked in. The Foundation reimbursement is simply to cover a payment it made temporarily on behalf of the community.

Lastly, we believe a 2-year scope is appropriate for long-term planning and continuity. We understand some may prefer shorter terms, but this structure is intentional and reflects the evolving needs of the protocol.

Happy to keep discussing — and always open to constructive feedback.

1 Like
12

I support this proposal. It keeps the community organized and creates a space where newcomers can feel confident participating in this growing community and evolving project.

13

Did I write somewhere that moderators are not needed at all?
With a half-dead Discord and checking quests on Zealy once every 9 months, one moderator can successfully cope :wink:

14

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Removing Goldfinch from Zealy is a logical step (it is consistent with your first comment), but it will make it even more difficult to assess CMT activity.

Moreover, if CMT is really interested in the growth and development of the community, they should not only keep Goldfinch in Zealy, but, on the contrary, they should preferably add new and varied quests and check them regularly (daily (!), and not once every few months). There should be some movement, activity. In this case, a CMT staff of 4 people would really be appropriate.

To summarize my previous comment, the size of the CMT team and the pay are not commensurate with the amount of work (in my subjective opinion). And have not been for several years, since the end of Goldfinch Flight Academy.

Let me repeat that it is difficult for us (ordinary members of the community) to evaluate the specific work carried out by CMT. There must be some specific goals and specific results.

Question: how exactly does CMT help restructure old loans?
As I understand it, financial issues are handled by a specially hired person/organization.

15

I haven’t been very active in discussions on the server or this forum, even though I’ve been following Goldfinch since 2021. I participated in the Flight Academy and still have a significant portion of funds in the Senior Pool.

I find the current concerns around Zealy a bit puzzling. That initiative began a very long time ago, and since then, both the market landscape and Goldfinch’s priorities have evolved. In my view, what has always mattered most is the team’s ongoing support. Over the years, they’ve consistently been approachable and knowledgeable — which stands out compared to many other protocols, where basic or repetitive questions often go unanswered.

Right now, it seems the most critical focus is helping the community navigate two major transitions:

  • The restructuring of legacy loans, which is complex and requires constant coordination between the CRO, contributors, and the community.
  • The rollout of Goldfinch Prime, which brings a new layer of institutional credit exposure onchain and introduces a new product class that many community members are still getting familiar with.

At this stage, keeping the community informed feels more important than ever. And honestly, I struggle to imagine a better group for that than the current team — they’ve been working together for years and understand the protocol inside and out. Their professionalism and willingness to engage with all kinds of questions is something you don’t often see elsewhere in the space.