Call for Theme Sponsors (CED) – Invitation

About Theme A — Community Self-Governance Skills

Estimated reading: 7 minutes 110 views

Why this theme

Most local communities run on the energy of a few people. Work is handed out as tasks, decisions wait for the same one or two leaders, and new members drift away because no one owns welcoming them. When those leaders tire or step back, the community stalls.

Self-governance is the set of practical skills that fixes this: organizing the work into areas people genuinely own, deciding together in a way the community accepts, coordinating shared resources transparently, keeping a steady rhythm, and turning newcomers into contributors. These are the same skills a decentralized organization needs to function — which is why the program also matters to anyone building tools and ecosystems for decentralized communities.

A pilot, built to be repeated

This is one of CED's first two themed programs, run side by side in DEP 3 with Theme B — Recycled Crafts. Kambria and CED run them together, as a model and an experiment: to learn what works, compare the two, improve them, and turn them into repeatable themed programs. Theme A runs in DEP 3 regardless of Theme B. If the pilot works, CED intends to run further programs in this theme, each with its own Theme Sponsors.

Program shape

About 200 one-to-one sessions for around 30 community leads.
Six core sessions per lead, plus up to two electives chosen by relevance. The core track takes about 180 of the 200 sessions; the rest go to electives where a lead needs them — and when a lead doesn't, the slot goes to another lead.
Live and online. Each session is a one-to-one video conversation. Its length — 20, 30, 40, or 50 minutes — follows the Guide's verified expertise level, and a session counts as completed once both sides reach at least 80% of that length.
Language: English.

Who takes part

Who	Role
Community leads	The learners. Existing or emerging coordinators of local communities, joining as Explorers — free of charge.
Guides	Experienced facilitators and community organizers who run the sessions — sourced by CED, including people from Theme Sponsor organizations. Every Guide is verified.
CED — the Theme A DAO team	The operator. Its members secure the program's sponsors, build the curriculum and ready the Guides, recruit and match the leads, and run and report on the sessions.
Kambria	Organizes DEP 3 and, during this pilot, supports it and its partnerships alongside CED — taking part in outreach and sponsor calls, co-building the base curriculum, and qualifying Guides (for quality) and learners (for fit).
You, the Theme Sponsor	Make the program possible through funding (your people may also apply as Guides), and help shape its focus when the curriculum is finalized.

How the curriculum works

Learn by doing, on your own community. Each lead works on their real community throughout, not a hypothetical case — the one-to-one format makes that possible.
"Completed" means real work, not a test. Every core session ends with the lead producing a practical artifact for their community — a map of who owns what, a real proposal, a budget plan, an onboarding flow.
Built on a working model. The core track follows the same operating cycle that DAOs in DEP 3 run on, so leads learn a documented, tested approach rather than theory.
A required core, plus electives. The core gives depth where it matters; electives widen what each lead can take on.
No jargon barrier. No Web3 experience is needed. The core is about running a community, in plain language; on-chain tools are an elective for leads who want them.

The learning outcome

A lead has completed the program when they can run one full coordination cycle for their community, end to end — organize the work into owned areas, make a decision the community agrees to, coordinate a shared resource transparently, keep a simple rhythm, and bring in and recognize new members — and has produced the core artifacts that show it.

Curriculum outline

The base curriculum is built by Kambria and CED, and finalized with the program's Theme Sponsor(s).

Session	What the lead works on	Artifact
Core 1 — Ownership & structure	Starting from a quick snapshot of where the community is now, organizing its work into a few owned areas, each held by two people, including one for welcoming newcomers	Community snapshot and scope-and-lane map
Core 2 — Roles & decision boundaries	Who connects, who owns what, and what each can decide without asking	Decision-boundary sheet
Core 3 — Decisions & meetings	Deciding together — consent, proposals, voting — and running a short, effective meeting	A real proposal and a meeting plan
Core 4 — Resources & recognition	Coordinating shared money and resources transparently, and recognizing unpaid contribution	Budget and recognition plan
Core 5 — Rhythm & alignment	Keeping the community moving: weekly check-ins, monthly syncs, shared goals	Rhythm calendar and one goal
Core 6 — Onboarding, growth & running a cycle	Turning sign-ups into contributors, measuring honestly, and bringing it together into a plan to run a full coordination cycle	Onboarding flow and cycle plan; completion recorded
Electives (up to two)	Chosen by relevance — see below	Depends on the elective

Electives (chosen by relevance)

on-chain governance tools (proposals, voting, and treasuries on tools such as XDAO, Snapshot, or Aragon)
facilitation mastery
conflict and keeping members engaged
incentives and sustaining a community
storytelling and impact reporting
partnerships and fundraising for your community
onboarding and activation
safety basics for community funds and wallets

Sample session — Core 1: Ownership & Structure

What it’s for

The lead leaves able to organize their community's work into a few areas people own — each held by a pair, including one pair responsible for welcoming newcomers — and able to explain why owning an area works better than being handed tasks.

Format

One 40–50 minute one-to-one session, with a short prompt beforehand: "If you disappeared for a month, what would quietly stop?"

Part	Time	What happens
Check-in	3 min	A quick snapshot of where the community is today, and the lead's goal for the program
The idea, through their community	8 min	Areas people own vs. tasks people are handed — using the lead's own examples, and the three reasons members go quiet
Build the map	12 min	Cluster the community's real work into five to eight continuing areas
Group into directions	8 min	Sort the areas under three or four broad directions
Pairs and onboarding	10 min	Name two owners per area (or "to be found"), and the area that welcomes newcomers
Commit	4 min	One concrete next step before the next session

What the lead leaves with

A first-draft Scope-and-Lane Map for their own community — a real document they keep and refine in the next session.

What makes it work

The Guide teaches through the lead's own community and deliberately doesn't hand over a finished example to copy, because copying is the opposite of ownership. The lead builds the map themselves.

→ Session slides: link · Artifact template: link

How impact is measured and reported

CED measures the program on DEP 3's three impact axes, from platform session records and short field notes.

Axis	What it shows	Program targets
Reach	How many leads and sessions the program reaches	About 200 sessions; about 30 leads
Depth	Whether leads go deep enough to use the skills	At least 80% complete the core track; before/after self-assessment; session feedback
Self-propagation	Whether it carries on without the program	At least 10 leads run their own coordination cycle; at least 5 become Guides; at least 25% take an organic next step within about 3 months of completing the core

What you receive

a mid-program progress note,
an end-of-program impact report with two or three participant stories (shared with consent), and — if Theme B also runs — a short comparison of the two programs,
and a follow-up on leads' next steps about three months after they complete the core track.

How we report

Session and completion figures are reported as measured from platform records.
Skill gains are reported as self-assessed.
Targets are what we aim for, not guarantees — this is a pilot, and we report what actually happens, including what doesn't work.