Events Bounty Top Up Proposal | AUG 2025

Governance
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Dear Community,

The current iteration of the Events Bounty has begun with a dramatic crescendo during the months of May/June in 2024. After more than a year of funding various initiatives, it is time for a top up.

The current curator set of 6 will be requesting 500,000 DOT for 6 months, as we are waiting for the release of the new assets pallet. This is half of the previously requested amount.

You can find our budget sheet here: [PUBLIC] EB Burn rate

Full proposal: [PUBLIC] Events Bounty Top Up Proposal
(Detailed assessment of impact based on the initial proposal is in the second tab of the doc).

All proposals and reports can be found on the EB site: https://dotevents.xyz/

Got questions about the proposal? Join our office hours on Wednesdays at 3PM CEST (1PM UTC)

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So what did the Events Bounty do?

  • Established an agile process through a new application system, with a turnover of max 2 weeks

  • Designed community expansions through the Roots experimental initiative

  • Created an RFP calendar with tiered events

  • Funded various sponsorships and side events at Key Industry Events

  • Set up an application process for BD & Speaker Mandates

  • Commented on OpenGov proposals

The EB in numbers + impact

Total Proposals

  • Total Submissions: 286

  • Total Approved: 146

  • Total Withdrawn/Rejected: 135

Proposal Types

  • Meetups/Roots: 111

  • Extraordinary Events: 111

  • Key Industry Events: 48

  • Speaker/BD support: 9

Approved Proposals

  • Meetups: 25

  • Extraordinary Events: 48

  • Key Industry Events: 21

  • BD/Speaker Report: 9

  • Polkadot Roots: 39

Overall Financial Impact

Remaining Funds

  • 208,894 DOT – Bounty (15/08/25)

  • 1,397 USDT – Multi

Savings

  • $950,000 of Treasury funding saved through negotiation on approved proposals

  • 85,572 DOT (~$336,000) returned to the bounty through meticulous reporting processes.

RFP stats

RFPs met 2024 form June:

Tier 1: 5/10

Tier 2: 2/5

Tier 3: 1/7

RFPs met 2025 til August:

Tier 1: 9/16

Tier 2: 5/15

Tier 3: 1/13

Please note that the EB focuses on facilitating most tier 1 events and tier 2 & 3 are nice to haves.

What’s next?

  1. Making the Roots initiative a shared initiative between MUB & EB
    Gamify the process, create local sub-daos, improve community building and strengthen ecosystem participation.

  2. Curator number will go from 7 to 6, thus decreasing operational costs
    The curator setup was originally designed for 7 members, but 2 curators stepped down from the same role, meaning the full 7-member structure was never fully utilised. Going forward, the team will operate with 6 curators, aligning with actual needs while streamlining operations and reducing costs.

  3. Adjusting curator compensation to EUR instead of USD and increasing per hour rate to 70 EUR
    Setting the average curator fee at 70 EUR/hour (~81 USD/hour) - closer to the average compensation on other prominent bounties (87–116 USD/hour). This adjustment sets curator compensation at 4,550 EUR per month.

  4. Improved RFP approach
    Providing more detailed RFP requests for specific event formats.

  5. Creating and maintaining a resource centre
    Having docs, and tips on how to organise events, as well as custom graphics for roots and meetups.

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As per the Roles and responsibilities of every curator section from the docs, work includes reviewing proposals, signing transactions, getting on calls, isn’t this too much? given there are so many curators and sub-curators?

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Thanks for pointing this out, Muddlebee - it’s a fair question and worth clarifying. You’re right that curators review proposals, sign transactions, and join calls, but in reality the role is much broader and more hands-on.

Our work involves carefully checking budgets, verifying reports, and reviewing invoices, often investigating unclear items to ensure treasury funds are spent properly. The process of funding events isn’t just a one-time “approve or deny”, it’s a continuous loop of communication with organizers, guiding them through revisions, negotiating costs, supporting deliverables, and helping them run impactful events without overspending.

Curators also create and refine the processes that keep this system functioning, from reporting templates and compliance checks to documentation and community guidance, while ensuring Polkadot has strong representation at Key Industry events. Thanks to this oversight, curators have already saved the ecosystem close to $1M through negotiations and returned 85,572 DOT (~$336k) to the treasury, showing that the role is much more than administration. In addition to duties applicable to curators, each curator seat has a dedicated role; design, ops, treasury management, BD, marketing & event guidance, advisory.

On the sub-curator side, the proposal includes a predicted budget for Roots and technical support, but to be clear, not all seats are filled. At the time of this top-up discussion, only 2 sub-curators are active, and any additional roles will only be engaged if workload justifies it. This gives the bounty flexibility to scale when needed without committing unnecessary funds. Please note that each sub curator role also trials for 3 months and it may be discontinued after the period has ended.

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