The Stacks Foundation is workshopping an extension of the grants program that would enable individuals (or small groups) to engage in longer term research and development projects supporting the Stacks ecosystem. The basic idea of the program is to provide participants, known as "Residents," with reliable funding on a monthly basis, thus enabling them to ‘go full-time’ on Stacks.
The Residence Program is intended to encourage more longer-term and open-ended research projects, experimentation, and otherwise. Whereas the grants program is ideal for builders creating tools or providing solutions that offer clearly scoped and immediate benefits and insights to the Stacks community, the Residence program caters to those looking to explore broader problems/unanswered questions. The program is suited to serving research needs, more ongoing governance-related projects, sustainable improvements to ecosystem infrastructure, and more.
At this early stage, the Residence Program is open to various projects and arrangements, so long as they aim to benefit the broader Stacks community. An example of a Residence position might look something like a Governance Researcher-in-Residence who explores and experiments with different voting mechanisms with the end goal of improving decision-making across the Stacks community.
Currently, residencies are set up to accommodate 6 month–1 year terms. However, depending on the success of a Resident's work, they may be able to return and renew their term for 2+ additional years.
The Foundation team, in collaboration with the Stacks community, will work closely with Residents to set initial research milestones and outcomes, but will eventually trust Residents to own and lead their own projects. Ultimately, Residents are responsible for delivering value to the community; they are expected to work "in the open" as much as possible and to communicate and update the community on their progress often.
The Foundation team will work closely with each Resident to figure out a compensation package that makes sense for their arrangement. This package will be determined based on a combination of factors, including years of work experience, location, number of hours they'll be dedicating to community support, etc. Depending on their work, some Residents may also get access to a certain amount of additional funding through the Stacks Grants Program.
Considering that this will be the first iteration of the Residence Program, we anticipate there being several areas of the program that will likely require development along the way. These areas include accountability mechanisms, i.e. how we expect Residents to report to the community as well as processes around community engagement, among other things. We welcome and encourage ongoing feedback from the community on these areas. After all, the ultimate objective of the Residence Program is to support contributions that directly benefit members of the Stacks community.
The application and nominations process for the Residence Program is an open and collaborative process between the community and the Stacks Foundation. Community members can nominate Residents, propose specific Resident positions, and of course, apply to be Residents themselves. For any of these proposals, community members are strongly encouraged to engage with the applications/nominations that they support. This support will be taken into account when the Foundation team is evaluating applications and selecting Residence Program finalists.
Those interested in becoming Residents themselves may submit an application by opening an issue here. (Please use the application template provided and take care not to exceed the word limits for each prompt.) You may apply as an individual or in a team. Once you've submitted an application, we encourage you to share your application with other community members to solicit feedback and support.
Selection Process:
Those interested in nominating other individuals or teams to become Residents may do so by opening an issue and filling out the nomination form here. You don't need to know the nominee personally (i.e. it could be a thought leader that you respect) but we do ask that you submit serious and reasonable nominations only.
Have an idea for a Resident position but don't know anyone who could apply for or fill it? You can put out a request for a Resident (essentially a job description), share it with the community, and see if anyone is willing to step up by opening an issue and filling out the proposal form here.