Using Your DAO's Budget

Part of the DAO Funding Guide. This guideline covers what your DAO's budget is for, how to allocate it, and how to propose a cost — so spending stays fast, fair, and focused on deliverables. The mechanics (Budget Plan, Pay-Per-Task Scheme, Cashbook) live in the DAO Workbook.

Your DAO receives a $3,000 seed — capital to scale impact. How it's spent is the DAO's to decide and own; this guideline is the framework that helps you decide well.

1. What the budget is for

Principles

• The seed is starting capital to scale impact — not a sum to be earned back, and not a sum to be shared out.
• Spend follows deliverables, not activity or time. Fund outputs that have a clear Definition of Done — not open-ended inputs (for example, gathering material indefinitely with nothing shipped).
• There are only two kinds of legitimate spend: contributor payouts (paid tasks in the Pay-Per-Task Scheme) and operating costs (things a deliverable genuinely needs).
• Every cost is receipted, transparent, and visible to all members.

What the budget is not for

• Personal infrastructure or equipment — home Wi-Fi, personal mobile data, a personal laptop — are not DAO costs. Like your own time, they're the cost of taking part.
• Shared tools or subscriptions (a design tool, a hosting plan, materials) can be an operating cost only if a specific deliverable needs them and the DAO approves them in advance.
• Dividing leftover funds among members, or spending them on personal items, is not a use of the budget (see §5).

2. How to allocate it

• Plan the whole seed up front, in your Master Plan (the Budget Plan tab), split into the two parts: contributor payouts by lane, and operating costs — against the $3,000.
• Set the Pay-Per-Task Scheme up front too: each paid task, its Definition of Done, its rate, and how many are planned. This is what keeps "more activity" from meaning "more budget" — and it means the payment rules are agreed once, not re-argued every week.
• Keep a small contingency if useful, but don't leave large sums unplanned.
• The plan — including the Pay-Per-Task Scheme — changes only by a proposal and a DAO vote.

3. Planning the $3,000 — a worked approach

Budgeting is a skill. Here's a reliable way to turn the seed into a plan, and a sense of what a healthy split looks like.

Build it backwards from deliverables

1. List your paid tasks. From your lanes and goals, write out the deliverables you'll pay for — this becomes your Pay-Per-Task Scheme.
2. Price each one. Set a fair pilot rate per task, and how many are planned. Rate × planned = that task's budget. Add them up → your contributor-payouts total.
3. Add only the operating costs a deliverable needs. A tool subscription, materials, a venue — each tied to a specific deliverable, not "nice to have."
4. Add a small contingency for the unplanned-but-necessary.
5. Check it fits $3,000, and check the shape (below). Adjust rates, counts, or scope until it does.

A healthy shape — a starting point, not a rule

The point of the shape: most of the seed should reach the people producing the deliverables. If operating costs or outside services are eating the majority, that's the warning sign earlier cohorts hit — money going to inputs, not outcomes. (For a real, filled example, see Example (Participant-Proposed): Heritage Kitchen — its Pay-Per-Task Scheme budgets ~1,841 USDT of the seed to contributor payouts.)

Setting rates — the skill part

• Keep rates modest and consistent across the DAO — the same kind of task earns the same rate.
• Price the deliverable, not the hours: pay attaches to a qualified task, not to time spent.
• Treat rates as pilot rates, and say so — never inflate them or imply future income.
• Factor in local context if helpful, but keep it fair and explainable to the whole DAO.

Phase it across the cohort. Split the plan by month so spending tracks delivery (the Budget Plan's monthly phasing), rather than front-loading early or rushing at the end.

A quick sanity check before you lock it in: does every dollar trace to a deliverable? Is the payout share the majority? Is anything here really a personal cost in disguise? Does the monthly phasing match when the work actually happens?

4. SOP: proposing a cost

1. Contributor payouts are already covered by the approved Pay-Per-Task Scheme. A member completes a task, it's verified (lane owner → DAO Lead → a DAO Facilitator), and it's paid at the cycle's settlement — no new proposal per task. Changing a rate or adding a paid task needs a proposal and vote.
2. Operating costs are anything that isn't a paid task — a tool, a venue, materials. Before spending:

1. Check the Budget Plan. If the cost was planned and is under your DAO's threshold, the DAO Lead or treasurer can release it — then log it in the Cashbook with a receipt.
2. If it's unplanned or above the threshold, submit a short cost proposal: what it is, why (which deliverable it serves), how much, and which budget line it comes from.
3. The DAO decides — an XDAO vote, or the DAO's agreed quick-decision method for small amounts.
4. Spend, keep the receipt, log it in the Cashbook. No receipt, no reimbursement.

Approval comes first. Never spend DAO funds on an unapproved cost and ask for forgiveness afterward.

Set your own threshold in the Master Plan — for example, costs under [X] USDT via a 48-hour Discord poll; above [X] via an XDAO vote.

5. Underspend and leftover funds

If your DAO hasn't used its full seed by the end of the cohort, decide together — by proposal, before the cohort closes:

• First choice: put it toward the DAO's impact — more qualified deliverables, or a lane that can do more with it.
• It can also be returned to Kambria, or directed to something meaningful by a DAO vote.
• It is not divided among members or spent on personal items.

6. Why this matters

Earlier cohorts showed what happens without a clear budget policy: funds flowing to open-ended inputs with no deliverable, time lost arguing over who gets paid what, personal expenses charged without approval, and leftover money with no plan. Deciding up front what the budget is for, allocating the whole seed in the Master Plan, and following one simple cost SOP keeps the focus on deliverables — and keeps trust intact.