How to Join and Contribute to a DAO
DAO stands for “decentralized autonomous organization.” You can think of a DAO like an internet-native cooperative that is organized around a common goal and jointly owned by its members.
November 19, 2021
What is a DAO?
DAOs align around a core mission and use shared resources to achieve that mission. Breaking it down by the definition of each word can provide additional clarity:
- Decentralized — (adjective) / controlled by multiple agents, often equally
- Autonomous — (adjective) / having the freedom to govern oneself or control one’s affairs
- Organization — (noun) / a group of people with a particular purpose
The booming DAO ecosystem has played a significant role in coordinating the recent rise of DeFi and NFTs. But with so much innovation taking place across Web3 right now, nearly all DAOs are growing and in need of talent.
Compared to traditional companies, they are a new paradigm for work and capital coordination. In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can join a DAO and make become a DAO contributor.
Source: Aragon
Seven Types of DAO
While it’s still early days for DAOs, their popularity is undeniable with hundreds now in existence. The early DAOs were generally finance-related, but the landscape has broadened to cover a wide range of sectors with many different purposes. Here are seven examples of the different types of DAO currently operating:
- Grant DAOs: allocate donated funds to various contributors and projects
- Protocol DAOs: develop an underlying network/project that is owned and operated by its community
- Investment DAOs: enable members to pool capital and invest in early projects with low barriers to entry
- Service DAOs: create decentralized working groups for individuals to work for the open internet - essentially acting as crypto-native talent agencies
- Social DAOs: focus on social capital, culture, and what it means to be a digitally-native community
- Collector DAOs: collect and curate NFTs, art, and all things internet meme/lore worthy
- Media DAOs: create and share content with the community to spread awareness and news
Source: Cooper Turley & Carlos Gomes
Why join a DAO?
The DAO landscape is in hyper-growth mode, so it’s fair to say there is something for everyone in the ecosystem. Contributing is a great avenue to invest your time and effort with a like-minded community and even get rewarded for doing so! Whether you’re looking to pitch in a few hours here and there or are considering going-full time, DAOs offer a low barrier to entry with near 24/7, remote collaboration opportunities. These young internet communities need all kinds of specialists and have significant treasuries at their disposal to compensate you for your contributions.
How can I join and contribute?
Once you’ve found a DAO of interest, there are a few different ways to get involved. Most DAOs have a discord where the majority of the day-to-day activity and coordination takes place so that’s a great place to start. Many DAOs also have a forum or governance platform where more in-depth discussions and formal proposals take place. Take time to browse these platforms to get familiar with how the DAO is organized and operates. Also be sure to jump at the chance to participate in any onboarding or new joiner activities that the DAO might offer.
Once you get your bearings, test the waters and see what group/pod/division within the DAO might be a match for your skills and spark your interest. There’s a home for everyone: developers, marketers, designers, accountants, product owners, community managers, governance operators, and the list goes on. The most important advice for a new joiner is it comes down to your own initiative. You choose how and when you want to be involved.
What is the Index Coop and how can I learn more?
Index Coop is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that powers structured decentralized finance (DeFi) products and strategy tokens using smart contracts on the blockchain. We offer a suite of sector structured products, leverage and inverse products, and yield-generating products. We aim to create products that are simple to use, accessible to everyone and secure. Our products are built on Set Protocol, a twice-audited, self-custodial DeFi tool that allows for the creation and management of Ethereum-based (or ERC-20) tokens. Among users, partner protocols, and our composable products, Index Coop maintains one of the largest partnership networks in the DeFi ecosystem.
If our mission resonates with you, check out the official Index Coop website and consider joining the community on Discord.
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. You should not take, or refrain from taking, any action based on any information contained herein, or any other information that we make available at any time, including blog posts, data, articles, links to third-party content, discord content, news feeds, tutorials, tweets, and videos. Before you make any financial, legal, technical, or other decisions, you should seek independent professional advice from a licensed and qualified individual in the area for which such advice would be appropriate. This information is not intended to be comprehensive or address all aspects of Index or its products. There is additional documentation on Index’s website about the functioning of Index Coop, and its ecosystem and community.
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