Since OP is fairly vague, I will try to provide some clarity from the knowledge I have.
The current iteration of the Ambassador Program (v3) is based on two referenda:
How it started
More on the historical context of the initiation of v3 of the program in this thread.
The basic idea was to separate the social institution (1267) from the funding mechanism (1287) and to isolate out the poisoning effects of money from the social aspects.
The Polkadot Ambassador Fellowship (PAF) itself is an unpaid on-chain collective of multiple ranks that are ideally purely based on merit.
The Phragmen Initiative Funding (PIF) on the other hand was intended to incentivize more intensive work by letting bidders compete for up to 20 pots of 30k USD each.
PAF = Social Institution
PIF = Monetary Incentives
How it went
Now for PAF the idea was to install a small coordination team that coordinates the process around application, execution, admin. @Lucy and @DonDiegoSanchez made up the leadership team. Above them was an advisory board of senior Polkadot community members. Below them was an ops team.
There was a phase of applications and ~a dozen or more projects were selected for execution.
I only know part of the context and it seems that OP is referring to different issues, but what became apparent after a few weeks is that the two leaders had very different expectations of how and where to lead the program. The advisory board spent countless hours to mediate and find solutions, but eventually, it did not work out.
I think the overall understanding was to conclude Phase 1 of PIF to at least let the agents that work on things deliver their successes. Which they did for the most part. (I dropped out and returned the money for my project because I was overworked on other fronts)
From what I observe, Lucy staid to bring PIF Phase 1 to a proper conclusion. DDS moved on to lead the 1533 Esports Metaproposal.
What is next
I think the most valuable thing about the previous phase of the Ambassador Program has been PIF and the over a dozen teams of agents that have been working for Polkadot success. This is a good that we should keep developing.
It has been an incredible miss that the on-chain collective was not properly developed in the meantime. I think this is a collective miss, since I and I think almost every other ambassador did not step forward and lead the process.
It’s hard to find leaders for the Ambassador Program because everyone who touched it in the recent year burned their fingers and by now it has become a hard thing to recover and many are afraid to risk their reputation for it.
Next steps:
- Initiate phase 2 of PIF (I think this is the absolute minimum we should get done)
- Find Ambassadors who are willing to lead; even when the financial compensation is not (yet) there
- Push to bring the Ambassador Fellowship as agreed on-chain