SIP-25: Establishing The Sandbox DAO Grants Program (SDGP)

TL;DR

What

The Sandbox DAO Grants Program (SDGP) offers a quick way to fund small, impactful projects in The Sandbox ecosystem. Instead of going through a long approval process, SDGP gets funding directly to creators, developers, and community projects faster. This trial phase tests how well 1,2M SAND in funding is managed by specific leaders, called Domain Allocators (DAs), preparing for a bigger, community-run grant system. The funding for this phase will be distributed across the same four budget categories as in 2025: Season Rewards & Game Creation, Education, Onboarding & Technology, Community Engagement & Charity, and the Web 3 ecosystem. These categories ensure that the allocation of resources is focused and aligned with The Sandbox DAO’s strategic goals for the year.

Why

The usual funding process can be slow and complicated, making it hard to start small projects quickly. SDGP makes it easier and faster to get projects going, by letting expert leaders in specific areas decide on funding.

How

SDGP uses a system where leaders, called Domain Allocators (DA), manage funding in their areas of expertise.. If this trial is proven successful, a community vote will be held to elect the next DAs. The program is structured to ensure transparency and accountability, with each funding decision rooted in predefined criteria and public reporting.

When

March 19th : Nomination for DA starts
April 2nd: * New SIP to elect DA will be put to vote
April 16th: Onboarding starts for the DAs.
April 30th : SDGP Starts; Grant Hub Website launch and announced on the forum.
August 30th : SDGP trial phase ends.
If successful, a new SIP will be put forward to scale the program.

Who?

The DAO Admin team designed this proposal, and the SDGP trial phase team includes selected Domain Allocators. They bring expertise in Web3, gaming, community engagement, and growing the ecosystem.

Council Recommendation:

TBC


Problem Description

The Sandbox DAO currently uses the SIP process for governance, which is structured and works well for big projects. However, this single funding route might not meet the diverse needs of creators, developers, and community members as the ecosystem grows. The SIP process can be complex and slow, which might discourage smaller projects with great ideas from participating due to the lengthy and demanding approval process.

Without a more flexible and area-specific approach, the DAO might miss out on opportunities to drive innovation, engage the community more deeply, and speed up adoption within The Sandbox metaverse.

Solution Proposed

The Sandbox DAO Grants Program (SDGP) offers a new approach with a domain-driven, community-led funding model. Domain Allocators (DAs) will manage grant distribution in specific areas, enabling quicker and more focused decision-making.

SDGP will start as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test and refine this model, aiming for a scalable and more decentralized grant system in future phases. This program will have a reduced budget, a 4-months duration and DAs candidates will be vetted by the admin team (similar to the delegate recruitment) and then will be voted by the community in a subsequent SIP.

The grantees will be able to submit their projects on the Grant Hub , a quick and efficient tool for creating and managing simple grants.

Comparison

Key Elements SDGP SIP - Community Vote
Project Approval Timeline Aim for 15 days 45-60 days in general
Approval Process Domain Allocator Community Voting
Project sizing Small project Big project
Payment unlock Milestones based Milestones based
Budget range (indicative) 0-50k SAND in general Up to 200K SAND

How SDGP Works

The SDGP is built on clear roles, structured funding mechanisms, and transparent community oversight to ensure efficient and accountable grant distribution.

Domain Allocators (DAs)

  • Lead and promote their domain
  • Approve or reject proposals based on on predefined criteria such as feasibility, impact, and alignment with The Sandbox’s vision
  • Oversee & validate milestone tracking
  • Provide transparency by posting updates at least once a month in the Sandbox DAO Forum.

Program Manager (PM): operational backbone of SDGP.

  • Supports and liaises with the DAs in structuring funding rounds, tracking performance, and reporting.
  • Ensures program integrity, keeping DAs proactive and accountable.
  • This role will be done by the Admin team

Admin Team

  • Processes payments upon DA milestone approval
  • Oversees program execution, resolving governance issues if needed.
  • Assess DA applicants (MVP) to ensure they meet the required expertise for their domain.

The Sandbox DAO Community

:one: Grant Submission: Applicants submit their projects on the Grant Hub, outlining their project scope, milestones, and funding needs.
:two: DA Review & Approval: DAs evaluate the project based on criteria, engage with applicants. Once accepted, the grant is visible for community transparency.
:three: Project Execution & Tracking: Grantees submit milestone updates on Grant Hub, where DAs review progress and validate milestones
:four: Fund Disbursement: Admin Team processes payments based on milestone achievements.
:five: Community Transparency: DAs publish updates every month on the Forum, in the SDGP category.

Benefits to The Sandbox DAO

By introducing SDGP as an experimental funding model, The Sandbox DAO gains several key advantages:

  • Faster review: smaller initiatives will be reviewed and approved quicker than the 4 weeks delay of the SIP process (discussion + voting)
  • More participation: less barriers to entry for creators and community members to contribute
  • Budget more flexible: instead of all budget being allocated through a single track, SDGP allows for categories
  • Stronger decentralization: Domain Allocators introduce a layer of distributed decision-making, bringing The Sandbox DAO closer to its progressive decentralization vision.
  • MVP Approach: the DAO can refine the model, and make informed decisions about how to better scale the grant program in the future.

This Program does not replace the existing SIP process.

Risk Analysis

Risk Severity Likelihood Impact Mitigation Strategy
Misallocation of funds High Low Wasted resources, reduced trust in the program Implement milestone-based funding with clear deliverables before additional funds are released. Progress reporting on the Grant Hub.
Low community participation High Low Few grant submissions DAs actively promote their domain, engage creators, and raise awareness through forum discussions and community calls. The PM supports outreach efforts.
Domain Allocators become inactive or unresponsive High Low Bottlenecks in grant reviews and approvals Regular updates. The PM ensures accountability.
Favoritism/ conflicts of interest in approvals High Low Perception of unfair funding (e.g bribery, funding friends.) Require DAs to disclose conflicts of interest, enforce community oversight, and enable appeal mechanisms for rejected proposals.
Regulatory or compliance issues with fund distribution High Low Potential legal complications in treasury management Admin team will remain the custodian of assets and consult legal advisors if needed.
Operational inefficiencies in the MVP phase Medium Medium Delays in execution,fundings, making evaluation of the program harder Regularly assess bottlenecks and modify workflows based on community feedback to treat the MVP as an iterative process.
Lack of transparency in DA decisions Medium Low Erosion of community trust and governance concerns DAs should publicly justify approvals/rejections and must post regular updates in the Sandbox DAO Forum. The PM ensures compliance.
Low-quality grant applications Low High Increased workload for DAs, slowing down evaluations Quality thresholds, clear proposal guidelines

Budget Requested (4 Months)

Item Amount (USD) Amount (SAND) Purpose
Web 3 Ecosystem Integration $145,700 470,000 Funds for approved projects, representing 10% of the total 2025 budget category (without donation)
Season Rewards & Game Creation $89,900 290,000 Funds for approved projects, representing 10% of the total 2025 budget category (without donation)
Education, Onboarding & Technology $15,500 50,000 Funds for approved projects, representing 10% of the total 2025 budget category (without donation)
Community Engagement & Charity $62,000 200,000 Funds for approved projects, representing 10% of the total 2025 budget category (without donation)
Operational Costs $18,000 58,065 Covers platform fees (e.g., Questbook). Administrative overhead, will be covered by the Operations budget
4 Domain Allocators ** $29,760 96,000 6000 SAND/ mo/ DA to oversee proposal reviews, milestone tracking, and community reporting within their respective domains. Each category will cover the cost of their DA..
Total $360,860 1,164,065
  • The Domain Allocators budget will vary based on service duration
  • These figures can be scaled up or down once the MVP is evaluated and the program moves toward a full-scale implementation.

Implementation Plan

Milestone Deliverables Expected Completion Date Payment unlocked
#1 DA candidates election SIP-26 “DA election for SDGP” put to vote to elect DAs April 2nd N/A
#2 SDGP Planning - Set up Grant Hub Website - Forum category creation and guidelines - Onboarding DA - Creation of evaluation criteria for the projects with PM support April 16th, 2025 US $3,000 one off fee + $2,500 monthly fee
#3 Grant Program Starts - Grant Hub Website Launch - Grantees can start submitting their project April 30, 2025 6,000 SAND for each Domain Allocator
#4 Monitoring & Improvement DA give update and reports on the forum once a month - Project accepted Every month of the program DA service fee will be settled on a monthly basis
#5 Grant Program Ends - Final report assessing SDGP performance.(budget spend etc) by the PM August 30th, 2025 Final DA payments issued for completion.
#6 Community voting on program scaling. - Create a SIP for the community to discuss and vote on scaling the program . From September

Key Metrics of Success

  • Proposal Lifecycle Efficiency: average time from proposal submission to DAO approval should not exceed 15 days
  • Project Diversity: at least 20 distinct projects should be approved within the 4-month phase
  • Community Engagement: number of submissions for each of the 4 pool will be tracked to measure the level of community interest and participation.
  • Project Completion Rate: total number of projects completed or in progress after the 4-month period

Team/Author Background

The proposal is developed by the Admin team, but the SDGP team will consist of elected Domain Allocators and a Program Manager, ensuring both technical and operational expertise in Web3, gaming, community engagement, and ecosystem growth.

The Sandbox DAO community is invited to approve the SDGP framework and grant allocator selection process.

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Hi, so this is kind of like a 4 month budget allocation of the 2025 budget allocation? :thinking:

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Hi @rocksymiguel,

Thanks for your question. The SDGP is a structured grant allocation process rather than just a smaller portion of the annual budget. It complements the SIP process by providing an alternative track to fund smaller projects that might be deterred by the structure or implications of SIP (see the comparison table for a quick side-by-side breakdown). We hope this will incentivize more people to become authors and bring more projects to life within the ecosystem

Additionally, budget allocations will be governed by Domain Allocators, who are chosen by the community to oversee different domains and help the DAO achieve its goals for the year.

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Hmm…I’m aligned with @rocksymiguel 's thinking. This seems like a mini-budget set aside within the larger budget similar to ApeCoin DAO’s Banana Bill.

So the SDGP is for projects below 50K SAND, and people submit their project to https://www.questbook.xyz/ where a group of elected DAs vote on whether to accept the project. If accepted, the project is funded from the 1M $SAND pool, the DAs are paid 6K SAND per month to steward the process under the Program Manager. The PM is part of the DAO Admin Team.

If successful, we should see a stream of small projects that provide value to TSB Ecosystem that could also scale into larger SIPs…

how’d I do

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That sounds like a decent summary.

Was it, @Juampi?

Hey @Lanzer,

Thanks for the question. After looking into the Banana Bill I believe there are definitely some interesting parallels between it and the SDGP, as both aim to fund ecosystem growth in a structured way, but I believe there are key structural differences that make SDGP more decentralized, faster, and scalable in its approach. For me, there are some notable differences in governance, execution, and decentralization, which makes each program different in the way they operate.

A side-by-side comparison

Feature Banana Bill **SDGP
Main Goal Drive adoption and growth of ApeChain through partnerships & incentives. Provide fast, decentralized funding to support projects in The Sandbox ecosystem.
Funding Model Two structured initiatives: Commercial Agreements (73M APE) & User Incentives (23M APE). Delegated Domain Allocation – funding is managed by elected Domain Allocators (DAs).
Governance & Oversight Advisory Committee (industry experts like Yuga Labs, Animoca, Special Council). Community-elected Domain Allocators with expertise in specific funding areas.
Efficiency & Speed Requires commercial agreements & structured negotiations (longer execution times). Bypasses lengthy DAO-wide votes for quick, direct funding to creators.
Decentralization Decisions made by a centralized advisory board. More decentralized, as funding power is distributed across elected community members.
Scalability A fixed 2-year program, future expansion TBD. Designed to be progressively decentralized & scalable over time.

What Makes SDGP different?

  • More Decentralized: Instead of decisions being made by a small advisory board, SDGP distributes funding power to elected Domain Allocators who specialize in different areas of the ecosystem.
  • Faster Execution: The removal of the need to go through a SIP curation process which is long and public allows funding to reach creators and developers much faster.
  • Built for Scalability: SDGP was designed to evolve over time, expanding the domain-based approach as The Sandbox DAO grows.

Final Thoughts

Both programs serve important roles in their respective ecosystems, but they take different approaches to funding allocation. the Banana Bill focuses on structured commercial partnerships, while SDGP prioritizes decentralized, rapid funding for community-driven projects.

4 Likes

Nice comparison, Juampi! Big fan of how you responded there, that was easy to understand, thank you.

Is it correct to say that there are no agreement requirements for SDGP? As in, if someone were to be a recipient of those projects, does the current wording of SIP-25 require us to sign anything beyond adhering to milestones as normal SIP authors would?

Also, I don’t see anywhere about eligibility for DAs to submit projects. Are they allowed to (assuming they recuse themselves from voting on their own project)?

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Thank you, @Lanzer. Appreciate your thoughtful questions. Here’s how these aspects would be handled in SDGP:

  1. Agreement Requirements for SDGP Recipients

    • Yes, recipients will likely need to sign a formal document with the Foundation, as The Sandbox DAO operates as a wrapped DAO (as you covered ;)) to ensure accountability and milestone adherence, similar in spirit to SIP projects. However, we have standardised templates to ensure this is mostly a formality and doesn’t cause delays in the funding process.
  2. Can Domain Allocators (DAs) Submit Projects?

    Domain Allocators (DAs) should not submit proposals themselves, even if the proposal is outside their specific domain. Although a DA from Domain 1 does not formally influence the approval of projects in Domain 2, allowing DAs to submit proposals could create perceived conflicts of interest or undue influence, compromising community trust.

    DAs are responsible for the overall success of their domains within the program and, thus, having a crucial role in shaping the ecosystem by openly sharing their expert insights and ideas. The ideal scenario would be for DAs to publicly share potential project ideas, enabling community members to independently pick up these concepts, formalize them into structured proposals, and submit them for funding within SDGP. This approach aims to leverage the DAs’ expertise effectively, while maintaining transparency and the integrity of the decentralized decision-making process.

    However, DAs can still submit SIPs outside the SDGP process.

Curious to hear your thoughts!

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Hmmmm. I’m generally opposed to this now that I have seen the way it has been executed in ApeCoin DAO. Why is it insufficient to use the agreed milestones and stop payment if milestones are not met? If it’s not necessary for full blown SIP authors to have separate agreements, I don’t see why the Foundation should create a separate agreement. The intentions may be good, but there are many ways this can work against our community.

Am I understanding correctly that there isn’t anything written in this SIP right now that would prohibit a DA from submitting a project?

I agree that DAs should not be allowed to author or coauthor projects. In the same way delegates cannot author SIPs, I think the same logic applies to DAs and SDGP.

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Hi @Juampi

I have just two brief questions. Thank you for your time.

How will the SDGP ensure equitable distribution of funds across the four budget categories, and what prevents over-allocation to one category at the expense of others?

What specific metrics or outcomes will determine the “success” of the SDGP trial phase by August 30th, and how will these be communicated to the community for the subsequent scaling decision?

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Hi @Lanzer the SIP-26 will cover the rules of the DA election and its mechanics.
SIP-25, on the other hand, focuses on the program itself and the vote on whether it will benefit the DAO.

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Hey admin team,
Thank you for the proposal. While I see the need at some point to have such a mechanism for lower amounts proposals besides the standard SIPs, I am not sure about the timing of this proposal like I was not super excited by the timing of the community council SIP idea. Main reason is that people would like to see SIPs that are really focusing on the game and those more adminstrative SIPs are not very well received.
Another reason why I am not super convinced is that we need to find domain allocator and while we struggle to find people engaged in the forum or the community council I am not sure that offering 6 kSand a month to some people will bring us genuine people that cares about TSB.
I am reserved on that one.

3 Likes

Uhhh, hmm. So we’re splitting this into two different SIPs? That wasn’t clear to me when reading SIP-25… I thought this SIP authorized the elections to happen via discussion thread on the forum? It’s under the “When” category

March 19th :

  • SIP-25 (this SIP) will be put for voting
  • SIP-26: “DA election for SDGP” to elect the DAs will be put to discussion on the forum. This is where candidate DA can apply. The admin team will review candidates

April 2nd:

  • SIP-25: vote ends
  • SIP-26: “DA election for SDGP” will be put to vote where the community can spread their Voting Power among the different candidates

Maybe the “spread their Voting Power” inherently implied a SIP? If so, whoops, I missed interpreting that as a SIP. @Juampi can you clarify the intent please?

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True, only point I would differ with you on @KCL is that it’s clear from the CC SIP that not offering any kind of compensation results in very little participation. So at this point I think we should try compensating people for their effort, and then look at who the candidates are.

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Juampi will be joining me on Spaces this Friday at 4pm PST.

At that time, he can address these questions in detail.

He is currently taking some time off, so his responses in the forum may be delayed a bit, but you can absolutely count on his responsiveness.

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Join Spaces to discuss all of this further w Juampi, this Friday at 4pm PST

https://x.com/TheSandboxDAO/status/1899511214516175049…

We will record it, so the same link will lead to the recording afterwards:

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My initial thought is, I like this concept. I think it provides an immediate solution to funding small creators (streamers, podcasters, devs , etc.), which is really needed right now to attract players and boost engagement. We have a lot of great small UGC in our ecosystem and with the volatility of the market right now, this could be a the lifeline that many need right now!
Since it’s a test phase with a small budget of 1.2m, I think it’s a no brainer to try it out. I see it in BC3 right now, we need players, we need engagement … So anything that helps with that works for me at this point!

I’m assuming that since this involves “money” then some sort of legal document would be required. How do you think this could potentially work against the community?

I see this as a concern as well!
I’m also considering that many good and honest people would want to submit their projects, but if they can’t due to conflict of interest, the pool of good choices might end up being too small.

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I’ve seen legal documents between Foundation Companies and authors turn into weapons. The more agreements, stipulations, “shall” and “shall not” statements that a person is held to, jurisdictional preference, decision delay due to legal review, or chilled action due to “airing on the side of caution.”

And at the end of the day. SIPs involve way, way more money than the scope of SDGP. The DAO Admin Team wisely took the approach of “if you don’t meet a milestone you’re not getting paid”. It negated the need for legal agreements. Why would SDGP need agreements when SIPs don’t?

No agreement SDGP keeps us going at the speed of relevance.

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I just spoke with @Juampi, the primary author of SIP-25, on Spaces: https://x.com/TheSandboxDAO/status/1899511214516175049

We discussed the details of “Sandbox DAO Grant Program” in a one-hour chat addressing all of the issues raised above (and more).

Voting open for this SIP on March 19 at 9am CET. I may have misspoke on the recording and said that is when voting closes. Woops!

Juampi will be addressing questions directly here on the forum over the next few days as well.

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Notes from X Space for SIP-25

  • Juampi is one of the main authors of this SIP, the other members of the DAO Admin Team.
  • Juampi is a contractor to the Sandbox Foundation
  • Juampi: The Budget for SGDP will come from taking 10% from the new categories established in SIP-23
  • Juampi: Not every SGDP may require an agreement, and neither the DAO Admin Team or Foundation Director are looking to weaponize the contract agreements.

@Juampi , did I hear correctly that you were looking to bring in Domain Allocators that were outside of the Sandbox? Could you tell me more about that?

TwitterSpaceGPT link with transcription: https://www.twitterspacegpt.com/results/1ynJOlngOqVxR

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