Pact DAO
Season One: Tending the Garden
Today marks the beginning of a new chapter for our collective: Season One. For many, the number one symbolizes the start of something new, but for us and mathematicians alike, it represents the addition of positive value. Though we have accomplished much since our inception in 2020, we see this as a turning point where we will move beyond short-term solutions and pave a long-term, sustainable path towards liberation.
What have we launched?
Pact’s Public Library
Our community is rich with knowledge at the intersection of activism, collective healing, and technology. Moving forward, we’re getting it all down on paper. We see value in true public goods (definition: a commodity or service that is made available to all members of a society), so we’ve created an online surface where our ideas, inspiration, events, internal governance, and more can be universally accessed.
As the saying goes, "knowledge is power." This season, we have begun amassing a collection of resources and knowledge that we believe will be of great benefit to our comrades. We are often asked similar questions - "how did we end up in the current exploitative capitalist system?", "what solutions can web3 technology offer?", "isn't web3 full of scams?", and "what exactly is a multi-sig?".
While we are happy to continue answering these questions, we also want to provide a wider range of perspectives and responses that have informed our own answers. Our library will feature curated content from individuals and groups we admire, as well as our own original work and commissioned pieces from organizers and comrades, allowing them to share their wisdom through articles, essays, and helpful guides.
Our ultimate goal is to educate both sides, introducing tech enthusiasts to the world of intersectional activism and activists to the power and potential of organizing with decentralized tools.
Governance
In our online release, you will also have access to our living governance documents - our bylaws and our compensation guidelines. This year, we officially incorporated as a 501c3 nonprofit organization, under the name of Pact Donation Collective, Inc. This means that our bylaws act as the foundation and legally binding principles of our organization. We chose to incorporate as a nonprofit, as it allows us to redirect funds away from US tax collectors and incentivizes growth without the need to monetize our efforts, which is often a way that capitalism co-opts good intentions.
Bylaws
For most nonprofits, bylaws are typically structured to give a majority of power to their Board of Advisors and some prominent Officers (the leaders of the working team), and nearly none to its supporter base. Naturally, we saw the need to completely reimagine this framework and instead codify our cooperative values into our bylaws’ legal governance.
After some careful thought, we appointed a board of advisors that represents some of the most impactful luminaries working in the Web3 and/or community organizing spaces today.
- Anuva Kalawar. Anuva is the Co-Founder of Mutual Love, the NFT marketplace and web3 ecosystem centering and celebrating trans and queer creators and culture-makers while also participating in mutual aid. Anuva also has an extensive background in organizing and tech for liberating queer and trans communities.
- Jade Freely. Jade is the Co-Founder of The Night We Met, an event series showcasing black and brown queer/trans talent in NYC. Jade is also one of the original Pact team members who brought co-operative principles to our internal team structure.
- The Blockchain SocialistTBS is Founder of the Breadchain Cooperative, a network of post-capitalist projects (of which Pact is a part) united by solidarity and supported by circulation of the $BREAD stablecoin. TBS also creates content on web3 and politics via his podcast, blog, and an upcoming documentary and book (both releasing in 2023).
We have carefully selected our team members based on several key criteria, including the quality of their character, alignment with our values, thoughtfulness in movement-making as demonstrated by their actions, diversity in representation and perspectives, and the care they have already shown for our efforts.
Our bylaws were crafted with the guidance of our pro-bono leftist lawyer, to help us navigate the complex legal language and continuously strive for democratization. It is our hope that our bylaws not only clearly articulate our values and provide legal representation for every member of PactDAO, but also serve as a model for democratizing nonprofit organizations everywhere.
Local events and activism: Community Calendar
Trust, relationship, and solidarity grow with time spent. To continue showing up for each other and for our city, we’re going to be releasing a public calendar of all of our online and IRL events so everyone who’s interested can plan to attend.
What are we focusing on?
One of the things we have learned is that a strong community is a breeding ground for opportunities. One of our strengths as a DAO lies in our location-specific focus (shoutout to New York). This season, we will be further emphasizing our geographical proximity to prioritize tangible impact, in-person events, and community building with our local community. Through these efforts, our goal is to develop tools, frameworks, and systems that can be replicated anywhere with minimal to no cost.
Educational workshops
In Season One, we’re going to continue one of our most impactful initiatives from our Season Zero - our collaborative workshop series. Through these workshops we've been able to cultivate meaningful discussions, expand our network of organizers, introduce web3 tools in a practical context, and support local community organizations along the way.
These events have historically been panel discussions hosting like-minded organizers, both inside and out the realm of web3. We’ll be t experimenting with the format (brainstorms, active planning, etc.) to further inspire cross-organizational partnerships and action. We’re currently planning events and discussions around food justice, rent relief, abolition, and trans representation.
Resistance building
In addition to hosting events and discussions on these topics, we will also be further integrating our efforts with other local organizations to build coalitions and collective resistance. This includes co-hosting events, supporting and funding their work, and seeking their partnership to co-create sustainable programs. By bringing together our talents, resources, and input from other local groups and individuals, we can work towards solutions together.
Our calendar will also include local protests to attend and various volunteering opportunities for our member community. We have found in the past that posting these types of events on Discord alone has been only moderately successful in getting people to participate, unless there is already an established group planning to attend. By including these activations on our calendar and having deeper involvement in co-organizing, we believe we will see greater impact from our team and member community, as well as the community of other organizations we work with.
Our longer term goal in these efforts is to build a true federation of grassroots organizations across New York. Nurturing these relationships and organizing across groups will be the key to building dual power. We see a tremendous opportunity to use decentralized tools and funding mechanisms to work alongside groups to build a hub of tools, knowledge, people power, and funding support.
Collective healing
When it comes to liberation, it is common to consider the material needs (meeting basic necessities) and the idealistic aspects (having the right ideologies or spiritual practices) as separate entities. On one hand, some argue that addressing people's fundamental needs such as food, water, and shelter will lead to transformative change, while others argue that the power of positive thinking and spiritual wellness can overcome any obstacle. While there are valid points to be made on both sides, we believe that all individuals deserve access to both.
Taking the time to heal our minds, reduce shame, and foster community and connection will accelerate our progress towards creating the world we want to live in. Even if capitalism were to suddenly collapse and we were given the opportunity to start fresh, without addressing the harm and mistakes of the past, we may still replicate them.
Activities like our book club have led to many healing discussions among our members and as we have grown closer, healing each other has become a natural aspect of our work. We will continue to hold an intimate book club once a month for members and also provide additional opportunities for collective healing and play.
Join the movement
Join our community to be a part of a group of New Yorkers who are working to combat capitalism, build resilient movements, heal themselves and their neighbors, and have fun along the way.
There are so many ways to join. You can subscribe for a low monthly USD cost (starting at just $3/mo), collect one of our NFTs, or support us via Endaoment or Giveth. Additionally, if you are a member of a local and/or like-minded organization you can join free of cost. All members get voting rights, free access to events, and input on our programming and areas of focus. Come be a partner in progress - see you on Discord.