This document is intended as a guide on how MakerDAO community members can organize, find funding for, and host a Community Meetup. It covers four major steps: Planning and Organizing, Requesting Funds, Hosting the Meetup, and the Post-Event Process(for those who've received a grant).
Requesting funds from the Community Development Initiative is optional, feel free to use this as a general resource.
What are we trying to accomplish with Community Led Meetups?
- Give the Maker community the resources they need to organize successful meetups.
- Encourage grassroots initiatives designed to grow the Maker ecosystem.
We believe that community members, like you, are incredibly important to the success of MakerDAO and play an invaluable role in building a stronger ecosystem. The Community Development Group wants to provide you with resources you need to increase Dai adoption and help us bring stability and financial inclusion to the underbanked. To do this, an optional pool of funds is being made available to help community members interested in hosting meetups.
There are several things to keep in mind when planning to host a community meetup. Firstly, these meetups are not about speculating on the price of the tokens or general hype. The core goal of hosting meetups is educating people about MakerDAO and the overarching narrative of decentralized finance. When talking about the MKR token, the goal should be to educate the attendees on the purpose and utility of the token. Presentations should focus on the big picture, specific aspects of the MakerDAO ecosystem, how MakerDAO and Dai interact with open finance, decentralized governance, or other relevant topics.
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
MakerDAO is a decentralized organization dedicated to bringing stability to the crypto economy. Maker is unlocking the power of decentralized finance for everyone by creating an inclusive platform for economic empowerment—allowing everyone equal access to the global financial marketplace. Maker is a credit facility that issues Dai(⬙), the world's first decentralized stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. Dai eliminates volatility through a system of autonomous smart contracts and incentives, specifically designed to respond to market dynamics. As a governance token, MKR is used by MKR holders to vote for the risk management and business logic of the Maker system. A good starting point for more info: Our website & Awesome-MakerDAO repository.
The Community includes Dai and Maker holders and users, active participants in the wider ecosystem, engaged observers (critical or otherwise), Foundation employees, Governance voters, Keepers, Arbitrageurs, etc., and people who simply find the model interesting and are willing to engage. Whilst the wider community is generally called Maker, we refer to the most engaged community members as the core community (i.e. you).
Our community is very widespread, there are several Official Communication Channels which are used for public discussions and networking.
Part of the core culture of MakerDAO is building up our community and helping it to drive education, participation, and change by providing resources like these documents. This section is an overview of how MakerDAO community members can organize, find funding, and host Community Meetups.
There are four major steps to the process: Planning and Organizing, Requesting Funds, Hosting the Meetup, and the Post-Event Process.
Creating a community meetup requires quite a bit of planning and organizing. We've been at it for quite some time here at Maker, below you will find several points you need to consider before you set the date and start spreading the word about your local meetup.
Some fundamental steps in organizing an event:
- Putting together a clearly outlined agenda for the meeting
- Creating a Budget
- Securing a location and time for the event
- Preparing a plan for promoting your event
- Preparing a plan for recording and sharing presentations from the meetup
Below we've linked to several guides that we put together to help you with planning and organizing the event. In addition, looking over the questions included in the Community Meetup Form may also help you understand what you need in order to fully plan and organize your event.
Submitting a completed Community Meetup Form is equivalent to applying for a micro-grant. Upon submitting this form, we will reach out to you through the associated email address that you used. The volume of submissions may be high, please allow up to a week of processing time before you attempt to follow up on a submission.
The Community Development Group has allocated these funds to help members of our community host their own local meetups. If you're a community member who is passionate about MakerDAO and Defi, this form is for you.
If you are an event organizer seeking funding for a large event, this form is not for you. Please reach out to events@makerdao.com instead. We are not funding alcohol/bar tabs or simple airdrops of Dai or xDai.
If your Community Meetup Form is accepted, the following are required:
- Please send us an invoice through the Request Network Invoicing App. Payer Address: 0xF563f100df419CCDe59BFBE0692fc4c5bFe01706. You will be able to provide a link to your invoice in the Community Meetup Form.
- We strongly prefer the events to be free to attend, but if you are planning to charge at the door please disclose the amount you anticipate collecting in the "additional notes" section of the Grand Request Checklist. Please write the actual amount collected in the Feedback form.
- After your event, please fill out and submit a Feedback form. Grantees who do not fill out this form will not be eligible for future funding.
Once you have your meetup plan ready, speakers confirmed, the venue set, and the event promoted, it's time for the execution.
- Send communications to all the essential parties early on in the day.
- It's also advisable to repeat the promotional messaging across all your channels the day of the event.
- Read through the Feedback Form beforehand, so you are familiar with the various details you need to keep track of.
- Judging by the context, arriving at your venue a few hours beforehand in order to prepare and test everything is always an advisable thing to do. Remember to set time aside to ensure that the tech components (microphones, projectors, slide formats, cameras, livestream, etc. ) are all set-up and tested.
- If you are recording the event, set-up the camera location and all details associated with this process.
- Please make sure to introduce the program, the speakers, and state the key takeaways that the participants can expect from the event.
- Be welcoming and informative.
- Enjoy the event, meet people, and bond over the common interests we all share.
- At the end, it's always positive and respectful to mention and thank the sponsors, hosts, speakers and the attendees for making the meetup a success.
As part of the requirements for getting funding approved, we require hosts to provide information about their event after-the-fact in a Feedback Form. This step exists in order for us to better understand the impact of these events and what we can do to help guide them to be better.
As mentioned in point #3, it is advisable for hosts to read through the full Feedback Form before the event begins so they can be prepared to answer the questions after the event concludes.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of suggestions for the different types of Maker Meetup building blocks that a community member could utilize(hybrids of these event types are also welcome):
- Academic (Educational/light) This format focuses on the promotion of ideas, debates, Q&A, the big picture, philosophy, and general economics of our project. The event needs to have a clear theme or thesis and formats that support this. 1. Presentations
- Best suited for 1 speaker, e.g. Give a presentation called "Ethereum, Commerce and the future of Stable Cryptocurrency"
- Debates, Panels, Interviews, or Fireside Chats
- Presentations best suited for more than 1 expert, can range from formalized panels to more informal conversations amongst a group.
- Workshops
- Good for adding some color to dry or very technical presentations
- Find examples in Demos & Hands-on sessions below
- Best suited for 1 speaker, e.g. Give a presentation called "Ethereum, Commerce and the future of Stable Cryptocurrency"
- Development (Technical/heavy) This format focuses on business applications and/or implementation of real use cases so it may be more technical in nature. It can also focus on the software side, and act more like a developer meetup where the more technical aspects of MakerDAO can be explored. 1. Developer-centric 1. Presentations 1. Workshops
- Integrations (e.g. demoing the Dai hack you have created, testing and improving it together)
- Dai.js (library documentation here)
- How the smart contracts work
- Business-centric
- Presentations
- Integrations (e.g. how did we solve our dapp's issues with Dai; or Paralelni Polis: our strategies with using crypto only)
- Can be combined with Socials format (great for networking) or Demo format (helps adoption and understanding).
- Socials (we strongly suggest this format be used in combination with other formats) This format focuses on bringing together community members for the purpose of networking and providing a venue to meet in-person. 1. Dai Dappy Hour (should be combined with some learning event) - see these past Dai Dappy Hours (1, 2, 3) & how to get set-up (contact Lenka) 1. Maker Fan Meetups - possible inspiration here - Games, Raffles, Dai auctions)
- Demos & Hands-on sessions (great for emerging markets) This format focuses on educating people on the ways they can actually use Dai and interact with the MakerDAO system. This type of format might put special emphasis on teaching people how to use basic web3 tools like wallets, exchanges, and dapps. It's recommended to do along with other formats. 1. Complex Demos
- Playing with CDPs (example)
- Playing with DeFi dapps (list)
- Short and Leveraged tokens (dYdX)
- Interest Rates (Compound Finance)
- Accounting and Settlement (Request Network)
- Dai.js
- Simple Demos
- How do I get it (browse here)
- What do I do with it (holding here, spending here)
- Why is it good (why answered here, inspirations: use cases, charitable donations 1, 2, 3)
- Other Ideas
- Games
- Raffles
- Dai Auctions
- Donation Matching Initiative
As soon as you have a chosen venue and secured date, make sure to register and promote the meetup as soon as possible so that others will be aware of it. Share the newly created meetup with your network as well as the MakerDAO Community.
There are several scheduling resources to choose from:
- Meetup.com is a fantastic resource for promoting your meetup.
- Facebook Events is also a decent format to host an event page.
- Eventbrite.com has a free ticketing system that can be used for your meetup.
- Kickback.events addresses the no-show factor in hosting these events. This is a service that lets attendees stake a small amount of crypto when registering for a meetup. This amount is returned to them if they attend the event. Any no-shows lose their stake which can then be split amongst the attendees.
Crypto-Friendly Social Networks you may want to promote on:
- Peepeth: Think of it as a blockchain twitter.
- Telegram: Many public crypto meetup chat rooms, find the one right for you.
- Wechat: Many public crypto meetup chat rooms, find the one right for you.
- Facebook: Sharing events with friends is a powerful tool to spread awareness.
- Twitter: Crypto twitter is far-reaching.
- Craigslist: Posting in Groups & Events in the community section of your local craigslist site may attract more people to your event.
Local places to promote your event:
- Libraries
- Community Centers
- College campuses
- Coworking spaces
- Coffee shops
In order to make people aware of your event, you will need to create an event page. An Event page has a few fundamental elements.
- The name of the Event
- You can name your event anything you'd like. A good name can capture the theme, main topic, or general ethos of the talk.
- The time and location
- Description
- This is a good place to go into detail about the purpose for your event, the agenda, who is speaking, who is a sponsor, etc…
- Additional details (such as "How to find us")
- These will vary depending on the event. Simply put, add any additional information unique to your event that a potential attendee would find helpful.
- Always update your events page with any changes that might occur.
- We recommend that you reach out to attendees with reminders, updates, or teasers.
- In addition to the platform you are using for hosting the main event page, we recommend broad use of social media to promote your event and attract even more participants (see the MakerDAO socials above)—don't forget to link the URL from your main event page!
- Incentivise members to bring their friends along. Give prizes and create competitions for attendees to share on Facebook, Tweet, etc..
- Collaborate with other Meetup organizers and run events together. Groups must be complementary.
Meetup.com's Guide to Promoting your meetup
This is a guide on how to manage the financial side of hosting a meetup. Before you get going, we want community members to have a specific mentality when it comes to costs—It's important to always aim to achieve the most value for the money you are spending. If you are being given an honorarium to cover expenses for this event, it will be based on the Community Meetup Form you submit to us beforehand. Here are some guidelines for how you should budget for your event.
The type of event you are hosting determines the requirements of the space. If possible, always try to get free space or one that might be offered as part of a secondary sponsorship. An example of this would be your local university giving you a conference room for free, as a part of a deal you might have negotiated with them. There are various strategies for how to best go about securing a space.
However, if the type of event requires equipment or a specific location it may be worthwhile to pay a rental fee.
The first thing to ask yourself is what kind of equipment do you need? Most meetups involve some type of presentation. If this is the case for your event, please make sure to find out if the space has the equipment available to facilitate this (ie: a computer, projector, and screen). If the event is relatively small you can probably get through it without a microphone. Otherwise, it is usually always a good idea to have some form of voice amplification. If the venue has a microphone, they will likely have the speakers and system to use it with as well.
Ideally, you want to find a location that has all of these things included so you do not have to buy them yourself. If the venue does not have some of this equipment, the next possible step is to reach out to people attending your meetup. Posting in the event page, or reaching out to a few individuals you're familiar with might prompt someone to volunteer their own equipment to help out.
Beyond that, it is up to your own judgement to decide what you need to purchase. If you intend to do meetups at the same location in the future, then it might be a good idea to try to come to an agreement where the venue can hold on to any equipment you may have bought yourself. You can use this to negotiate cheaper rent prices, or simply to establish a good relationship with the venue.
The cost of food and beverages largely depends on the number of people at the event, how long the event will go on for, and the types of food and beverages. Since this may vary widely between different meetups, the best advice to give here is for individuals to use their best judgement.
The longer a meetup, the more reasonable it might be to provide some light food rather than snacks. Coffee or tea is generally always a good idea.
Don't forget to check if the venue allows for food and drinks!
Generally, we do not cover funding for banners and printed materials. Digital media and communications are widespread enough that paper has become significantly more burdensome to use. Digital agendas and other fliers are far more efficient. Save the trees!
Fill out and submit the Community Meetup Form if you are interested in requesting funds
- What is your name?
- What is your e-mail or other contact information?
- What is the name of your event?
- What region are you hosting your meetup in?
- Please provide a description of your meetup in three to five sentences.
- What are your goals for the event?
- How does the meetup align with MakerDAO principles?
- What type of meetup is this?
- Are there any plans to monetize the event? I.e. Through ticket sales, raffles, contests, etc. If so, please provide details and expected revenue.
- What are your goals for the event?
- What is the agenda for this meetup?
- Please list the names of the speaker(s) that will be presenting at the event.
- How long is this the meetup?
- Where is this meetup? Please provide details about the location, capacity.
- Please provide an anticipated breakdown of costs associated with the event:
- Does the location have its own equipment (ie: microphones, speakers, projector, projector screen, chairs, tables, etc..)? If not, what are your plans to source them?
- Approximately how many people do you expect to attend this meetup? (±10)
- How do you plan to collect signups?
- What is your plan for recording and sharing the meetup?
- What is your plan for promoting and advertising the meetup?
- Are you providing food or drinks at this meetup? If so, what is your budget?
- Are there any other sponsors for this meetup?
- How much of an honorarium would you require to cover your own time and effort?
- Please provide links to any previous events you have held. Videos, announcements, blog posts, social media engagements, etc.
- Please submit your Request Network Invoice Link here:
Fill out and submit the Feedback Form after your event if you've received a micro-grant.
- What is your name and contact information?
- What was the name of your event?
- What was the date of your event?
- How many people attended the Event
- How many people did you expect to attend the event?
- How many Presentations occurred?
- Was the audience particularly engaged or receptive to any particular presentations or activities?
- How much time or team resources did it cost you?
- What was the total financial cost of this event?
- What was the feedback from the audience members after the event?
- Please provide links to social media mentions of the event. Your posts and those of the attendees
- Please provide links to online videos of the presentation and any relevant slides
- Was the space large enough?
- Would you consider using this space again in the future?
- Did anything not go as planned?
- What would you have done differently if you could redo the event?
- Are you considering hosting a meetup again in the future?