### I. Goal of Project
#TL,DR
h/t aims to create not a “tipping” culture, but a “gratitude” culture within Forefront.
h/t aims to strengthen authentic relatedness, vs one-dimensional financialization of relationships.
h/t aims to deeply seed the values of collaboration, solidarity, and attentiveness to all the small and not-so-small ways that we (can) contribute to the whole.
# Community first
We announced Season One with the mantra, “Community will always be the center of everything we do at Forefront.”
Culture is the force of coherence within any community.
When someone new joins our community, what do they see or know about Forefront’s culture or values? They read words, for instance, on our Notion homepage.
But mere words have limited efficacy. They can only go so far in influencing the living adoption of an ethos.
In fact, in our experience of the trad world of work, company culture is often a case of “Easier said than done.”
Or how’s this for another cliche: Actions speak louder than words!
Because this is the simple truth, it is vital that we take action in signaling to the community what the Forefront ethos is about.
The h/t Project proposes gifting community members a seasonal/monthly stipend to seed this Gratitude Culture within Forefront, forming in essence a mini-economy in which members h/t one another for valuable contributions - in the richest possible sense of that phrase.
h/t empowers and encourages us to attend to those often “soft and small” acts that do the most to create bonds of relatedness and trust, whether it be:
a “job well done,”
a touching word of encouragement,
a gutsy show of initiative,
a thoughtful post,
a daring or vulnerable question raised at Tea Time, or
a meme that made us laugh out loud.
With h/t, new joiners will now have a pathway to not just see the words that express our values, but actually see the actions that call out and strengthen Forefront’s ethos.
Uncertainty is transformed to empowerment, opening the door to engagement and authentic alignment with values.
A final word: trust! We trust that the h/t gift will be used authentically and fruitfully by community members. We lead with and lean into that trust.
### II. Overview
Sponsor: SpaceXponential
Date of proposal: 10/13/21
Brief description of project: h/t , a mini-economy built around Forefront’s Gratitude culture.
Start date (one-off or ongoing series?): Season 2, ongoing
Experimental run: ?
### III. Budget
To see budget, click here.
### IV. Description
A. Overview/ format
We will introduce the h/t initiative during the Off Season, in close proximity with reflections on the Forefront North Star and community values and ethos.
Other than this frame and the language set out above in “Goals of h/t Project,” there are no “rules” or “shoulds” for how someone may expend their h/t stipend. (Trust!)
All Guild members receive a monthly/seasonal h/t stipend.
All Community Mods receive an additional monthly/seasonal h/t stipend.
All Projects receive a base h/t allocation that is distributed by the Project Steward for contributions and roles that fall outside predetermined, budgeted roles.
(This is to enhance fluidity of participation. Contributors need not wait until mid or end of season to be rewarded in Coordinape gifting. They can now receive h/t gifting as and when contributions are done.)
- What a member does not expend of a period’s stipend will be rolled over into the next period, reducing the next period’s stipend accordingly.
B. Success Looks Like
Members authentically expend every bit of their stipends, joyfully spreading gratitude to one another, whether in the context of formal Guild work or informal relationship-building.
Community mods seed FF ethos and gratitude culture from Day 1 in all the vital touchpoints/channels for new joiners.
FF ethos becomes a living reality that guides and coheres the community, vs mere words.
C. Questions
Trust is key, but we will also need to monitor the success and efficacy of the project.
How do we achieve this monitoring? What are the dimensions that should be monitored?
For instance, how do we monitor that the stipends are being gifted to others vs retained by the member?
Can the initial means of h/t’ing be a non-fungible/unique id badge/NFT that, at the end of the month, is converted into FF?
This way, we could track that the NFTs were indeed being spent by the community member, vs retained for own benefit.
