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Community Communications Guide

As an organization, we want everyone to be aligned with our values and principles. We want to ensure respect, cohesiveness, and wild innovation. We want to foster a healthy, diverse and human-centered working ecosystem. We highly value different opinions, perspectives, and personalities. In order to progress to ever-changing landscapes, we need to have a solid foundation of shared practices and values.

Here in this Giveth Community Communication Guide, we share our communication agreements and outline some best practices for participating in our various channels that help us to guide our energies toward Building the Future of Giving.

We adhere to these communication agreements:​

Honor Self​

If you have a need, meet it.

If you have a boundary, state it.

If you have an opinion, voice it.

We are all encouraged to respect ourselves by tending to our self-care and using our voice to express when we want and need to.

Honor Others​

In a similar coin, recognize others as reflections of yourself and hold a high level of integrity when dealing with them.

We follow the golden rule: treat others as you wish to be treated.

If someone states a boundary, please respect it or at least kindly express why you are unable to from your perspective.

If someone does great work and leaves an impression on you, acknowledge them for this by giving !praise and sharing about your positive experience with them in our community call. It feels good to recognize and be recognized.

Listen Fully​

The first step to any effective communication is listening fully and being completely present in the moment. Listen to information objectively, without judgment. Listen to the details. So many miscommunications and problems can be completely avoided by actively listening.

Be Honest and Transparent​

As a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Giveth values transparency. We record all of our meetings and share our tools and processes openly with the public. Rather than reinvent the wheel, we utilize wisdom and resources shared from others and adapt them to our unique organization. We believe it is wise to steward common goods collectively.

Along these lines, in our communication with one another, we encourage honesty, authenticity and transparency. If you have a tension, it’s important to use our Giveth Forum to express it openly or to use our DAO to create proposals that resolve tensions and to vote ‘yes’ and ‘no’ when you feel so inspired. The variety of perspectives, skills and experiences helps us to grow and transform.

Disagree & Commit​

Everything in our organization can be questioned and changed. We encourage curiosity and understand change is constant. Disagree & Commit is a management principle where individuals are allowed to disagree while a decision is being made, but that once a decision has been made, everybody must commit to it. Ongoing dissent and resentment are toxic to the execution of the decision. We must give our best effort and 100% support.

Nothing is perfect. No process is perfect. No decision is perfect. We try our best to find the solution that works for all situations and circumstances. Many times we must commit the best option and just go with it. This is a process of experimentation, not perfectionism.

Ask Questions​

It’s better to ask a question than make a mistake. We want to foster a supportive learning environment, so ask as many questions as you want!

Say “Sorry”​

If you make a mistake, apologize as soon as possible. Saying sorry is a sign of strength. Oftentimes, the people who do the most work, make the most mistakes. When we share our mistakes, others can learn and the mistake is less likely to be repeated. It takes courage to apologize, and you can do it!

Say “No”​

If we can’t trust your “No,” how can we trust your “Yes?” The ability to say “No” will improve your quality of work and happiness. We encourage strong work boundaries and don’t expect you to do everything. Sometimes, saying “No” to a larger workload is an indicator that our organization has grown and we need to hire more people or distribute the workload.

Keep Commitments​

Follow through on what you say you will do. Simple. Ensure your talk and walk are the same. Integrity.

Have Fun​

Once a Unicorn, always a Unicorn…

Here at Giveth and in navigating the blockchain for good cryptosphere, we like to have fun. We do this by welcoming a culture of kindness, praising one another, co-creating together, keeping the vibes high and, of course, creating spicy memes.

**Here are best practices when participating in our channels: **

We encourage…​

  • New ideas. Thoughtful, engaging conversations that move us forward.
  • Feedback. Listen to feedback and be open to change.
  • Expression. Expressing tensions with clear requests and/or solutions.
  • Collaboration. We opt to minimize the duplication of efforts whenever possible.
  • Quality over quantity! We invite Givers, Makers and Donors to collaboratively Build the Future of Giving. That means we want people who actively contribute and engage in our platform and channels rather than a bunch of empty followers who are not committed to our vision and mission.
  • Trust. Trusting your team, Trusting your community and Trusting your system.
  • Emojis. Using emojis to show emotional response to others’ posts when we don’t have more to say that would continue the conversation forward or fork it in a new direction.
  • Memes. Creating memes with the Giveth logo watermarked to encapsulate big ideas, trending topics and promote upcoming releases and events.
  • Gamification. Create a great user experience. Make donating a fun thing to do.

It’s best to avoid…​

  • 1-word posts that do not bring new perspectives to conversations but rather clutter our channel threads, requiring readers to scroll through unnecessary posts to get to the meat. For example, simply posting ‘thanks’ or ‘yeah’ does not suffice.
  • Competition. We look at other organizations as ‘partners’ and ‘allies’ rather than ‘competitors’. We’re here to altruistically make the world a better place, and we believe we can more readily do that when we pool our resources together.
  • Sharing personal information. We never post wallet addresses or other personal details. We value security and protection of private information.

This is how we transform conflict:​

  • Conflict. Is a golden opportunity to gain clarity and connection. Many times some of the best ideas, strategies, and solutions arise from conflict. Don’t shy away from voicing your ideas and opinions. However, communicate in a manner that still values the personhood and ideas of others.
  • Compromise. Be flexible and open to the ideas of other people. Sometimes we have to make concessions. Remember to have humility. Some of the most innovative solutions are born from compromise.
  • Open to Criticism. Accepting constructive feedback often streamlines improvement to processes and products. Don't defend a point to win an argument or double-down on a mistake. Remember, it’s not personal!
  • Feedback. Focus on giving feedback about the work, not the person. Give examples of the work. No personal attacks, and consider if the person is going through a difficult time in their life in their personal life.