Partner With Us

Partnering with the DAOs of DEP 3

Partnerships bring outside expertise, resources, reach, and community into a DAO's work. In DEP 3, partnerships are owned by the DAOs themselves — each DAO defines, invites, runs, and manages its own partners. This page explains that change, gives DAOs a guide to doing it well, and invites organizations and communities to explore partnering with a DAO.

Part 1 — What’s changed

In earlier cohorts, Kambria invited and managed partners on behalf of the DAOs. Kambria did the outreach, ran the onboarding calls, confirmed the partnership, and added partners to a shared directory.

In DEP 3, that shifts. Each DAO owns its own partnerships, the same way it owns its lanes, its budget, and its reporting. A DAO decides whether it wants partners, who to approach, what to offer, and how to run the relationship.

Why the change. A partnership works best when it comes from the people actually doing the work. The DAO knows its own mission, needs, and audience far better than a central team does — and owning partnerships is part of owning operations, which is the whole point of the cohort.

What Kambria still does. Kambria organizes the DEP program, provides the shared method and tooling for this work — including the DAO Partner Outreach Playbook and the outreach tools it relies on — and may maintain program-level recognition (such as the Our Collaboration Network directory). Kambria does not broker individual DAO partnerships, and is not a party to them. The one exception in Cohort 3 is CED's first themed program: as a pilot, Kambria supports its partnerships alongside CED (see Call for Theme Sponsors (CED)). Each partnership is between a DAO and its partner. 

Part 2 — A DAO’s guide to partnerships

This part is for DAO members. It walks through deciding on partnerships, choosing your models, building your partner-facing assets, inviting partners, and running the relationship — plus one rule about communication that every DAO must follow.

You don't have to design this from scratch. Kambria has already built, run, and refined a complete partner-outreach campaign and packaged it as the DAO Partner Outreach Playbook (in your DAO's shared Drive, not on the public docs). It is a ready runway — the partnership model, the target-list format, the outreach templates and tools, the qualification rubric and CRM, and a partner knowledge base — with CED as a worked example throughout. Use this page for the principles; use the Playbook to run the work.

2.1 Decide whether — and why — to partner

Start from need, not from the idea of "getting a partner." Partner outreach works toward two DAO goals at once: reach — bringing your DAO to more of the people it serves — and support — securing the funding or people that sustain its work. Ask what your DAO actually needs, set your partnership goals in your Master Plan, and — if partnerships will be an ongoing stream of work — run them as a lane, owned by a pair, like any other work.

2.2 Define your partnership models

Partnerships tend to take one of two broad shapes — but the models and their names are yours to define; the two below are common examples, not fixed categories:

• Reach. An organization or community that introduces your DAO to the people it serves — sharing your call through a referral link, encouraging members to take part, co-hosting activities. No funding changes hands: they lend their relationship with an audience, and their members gain a way to participate. (Some DAOs call these Community Partners.)
• Support. An organization that makes participation accessible to people who would otherwise be excluded — by funding a cohort or session series, and/or contributing its own people as verified contributors — in return for a traceable impact report and recognition. (The Playbook and CED call these Theme Sponsors.)

Define the models your DAO can actually service, name them in your own terms, and describe them the same way everywhere so partners hear one consistent story. The Playbook's Define your models template turns each one into five short lines (name · who it's for · what they do · what they give · what they receive) that become the backbone of your pages, deck, and messages.

Worked example: the Capacity Exchange DAO defines a Theme Sponsor who funds a themed program of 1-1 sessions — see Call for Theme Sponsors (CED).

2.3 Build your partner-facing assets and invite partners

A partner meets your DAO through a small, consistent set of assets — partnership pages, a short exploration form, a pitch deck, and a booking link — all pointing back to one source of truth. The Playbook ships templates for each (the CED set is the worked example).

Reach out in your DAO's name, with an honest, specific pitch. In the early phase, your DAO Facilitators carry the specialist tooling — building and exporting the lead lists (LinkedIn Sales Navigator) and setting up the outreach automation — so your team can launch quickly; ownership of the tooling shifts to the DAO as the campaign matures.

2.4 Communicating about Kambria — important

All partnership communication goes out in the DAO's name, and the DAO is responsible for what it says and commits to.

Kambria may be referenced only as the organizer of the DEP program that your DAO is part of — for context, not as a participant in the partnership. Do not:

• present Kambria as a party to, guarantor of, or signatory to the partnership;
• use Kambria's name, logo, or standing to imply that Kambria is offering, backing, or endorsing the partnership or the partner;
• make commitments on Kambria's behalf.

A safe way to describe your context is: "[DAO name] is a DAO in Kambria's DAO Experimentation Program (DEP 3)."

Two honesty rules run alongside this: say "partnership," not "ownership" — partners join the work, they do not own the DAO; and state the rate, never project income — if your DAO pays contributors, state the pilot rate plainly and label it a pilot, and never describe work-in-progress as finished.

2.5 Qualify, run, and report

Not every interested organization is a fit. The Playbook provides a published, three-layer review — identity, substance, and fit — scored by two reviewers against a rubric, a single CRM that carries each partner from form submission through the discovery call to onboarding, and clear follow-up rules. Once a partnership is live, confirm the scope on a call (subject, coordinator, cohort size, dates), deliver, keep records like any lane work, and issue the impact report on the agreed cadence.

2.6 Manage and conclude

Recognize partners in your DAO's reporting and showcase, and add active ones to your collaboration network. If a partnership drifts out of alignment, prioritize an honest conversation first, and treat concluding it as a last resort — following the Partner Alignment & Conclusion Policy, with the partner always told the reason before any change.

Part 3 — For organizations and communities

If you're an organization, university, company, NGO, community group, or institution, the DAOs in DEP 3 welcome partners.

Each DAO is a real initiative with its own mission — from Kambria's model DAOs to the participant-proposed projects selected for this cohort. Partnering with a DAO is a way to support youth-driven social innovation, engage with talented creators and builders, contribute to real community impact, and reach new communities.

For example, the Capacity Exchange DAO is seeking Theme Sponsors to fund its Community Self-Governance Skills Program — sponsoring free 1-1 sessions that equip community leads to run self-governing communities, or contributing Guides in-kind.

How to explore it:

• Start with the DAO Projects Overview and the individual DAO pages to see the missions on offer (participant-proposed DAO pages are published once the projects are selected).
• Find the DAO whose mission fits your interests and capabilities — you can support one DAO, several, or the program broadly.
• Raise your hand through the DEP 3 DAO Partnership Interest form — choose your DAO in the form, and your interest is routed to that DAO's team to follow up.

One thing to know: in DEP 3 your partnership is with the DAO, not with Kambria. The DAO defines the collaboration, makes the commitments, and is your point of contact. Kambria organizes the DEP program the DAO takes part in.

→ DEP 3 DAO Partnership Interest form

Not sure which DAO fits? Choose "Not sure yet" in the form and we'll help you find the right one.