Distributed Governance Score Framework: DAO Index

Distributed Governance Score Framework

The Distributed Governance Score Framework (DGSF) is a project for developing a theoretical basis on digital organizations, especially Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), from an organization science/design perspective, and developing analytical tools to assess various aspects of digital organizations.

DAO Index

The DAO Index is an analytical tool that builds on the theoretical background to assess how a DAO is implementing a set of core organizing principles (8 as of version 0.8 of the questionnaire) into their governance and ethical practices, based on publicly available information.

The DAO Index is comprised of three parts:

1. a self-assessment questionnaire ("questionnaire"),
2. an open ratings database, and
3. a certification.

First, the questionnaire (i.e., social auditing tool) is the primary analytical tool for assessing a DAO's governance and ethical practices. Anyone can use the questionnaire to assess a DAO, but I recommend taking the background knowledge quiz beforehand. The quiz is for providing background knowledge on organization science/design, governance, and other key aspects of the DAO Index. The questionnaire takes an outside-in view of a DAO, and relies on publicly available information. The questionnaire consists of yes/no questions, with positive answers indicating good practices, while negative answers indicate bad practices, and at the end of the assessment, a score is produced that corresponds to a rating (the scoring and rating scale are a work-in-progress). For guidance on using the questionnaire, please refer to the User Guide and the Walkthrough video.

Second, the open ratings database contains past assessments and a ratings table that shows how DAOs compare on the DAO Index. Past assessments on dOrg, BanklessDAO, Nexus Mutual, and Raid Guild can be found in the database.

Lastly, the certification is still a work-in-progress, but it is meant to recognize and validate a DAO that performs exceptionally well on the questionnaire.

Some past visualizations of the assessments on BanklessDAO, Nexus Mutual, and Raid Guild can be found here.

Goals

The goals of the DAO Index are to:

1. provide a voluntary information disclosure standard for DAOs;
2. inspire DAOs to improve their the governance and ethical practices;
3. provide an analytical tool for researchers, the general public, and DAOists to assess and conduct research on a DAO’s governance and ethical practices; and
4. provide a means to compare DAO governance and ethical practices.

Vision

A DAO ecosystem oriented towards the social good, that can self-regulate their governance and ethical practices.

Get Involved

Talk

Come join the Discord to talk about DAO governance and ways to contribute to the project.

Audit

By Yourself

Take the questionnaire for a spin and audit your first DAO. For assistance, please send a message to Charles Adjovu.

With Assistance

Alternatively, you can ask Charles Adjovu to administer an audit for your DAO.

Learn

Take the background knowledge quiz to learn more about the DAO Index and how organization science/design, algorithmic governance, self-management, and more play a role in DAOs.

If you complete the quiz and an audit, then you can officially become an auditor and help conduct certifications and approve improvements to the DAO Index.

Write

Write about the DAO Index or use the research from the DGSF project in your own writings.

Advise

Become an advisor to the project and help steer the DAO Index’s development to continually improve DAO governance and ethical practices.

Research

Use the DAO Index in your research on DAOs!

Donate

Make a tax-deductible donation to support the development of the DAO Index on Gitcoin or Every (either one takes cryptocurrency).