Why does GCC introduce the “Voting Committee Individual Grant Allowance”?
Over the past period, we have repeatedly discussed one question inside the Voting Committee.
When the support amount is small, the timing is sensitive, and the decision depends heavily on personal judgment, is it necessary for every support decision to go through the full Voting Committee process?
In practice, this situation appears quite often. Individual developers, researchers, translators, community events, and open source experiments are common examples. These initiatives are usually small in scale, but they are highly sensitive to timing. Valuable judgment often comes from the long term observation, participation, and trust accumulated by individual Voting Committee members.
If all such support must go through the full process, several outcomes may appear that we do not expect:
- Voting Committee members may spend large amounts of time on low risk and small amount decisions
- The motivation to proactively discover, support, and accompany projects may decrease
- Resources may miss the best and most needed time window for support
Based on these practical experiences, we decided to introduce a careful and limited adjustment to the current mechanism, while keeping clear boundaries and responsibilities.
01 What is the “Voting Committee Individual Grant Allowance”
In simple terms, this is an annual discretionary grant allowance for each Voting Committee member.
Under the condition that the support aligns with GCC’s mission and values, and does not violate the prohibited boundaries, Voting Committee members may use this allowance to quickly support individuals, projects, or community actions they believe in.
🔍 Explanation of the allowance and usage
Annual allowance: each Voting Committee member receives 10,000 U per calendar year Total scale: the trial annual budget is 90,000 U, with 9,000 U allocated per Voting Committee member
Single grant and cumulative limits
- The cumulative support to one person or one project cannot exceed 2,000 U
- Multiple Voting Committee members may support the same recipient together
- If more than three Voting Committee members participate together, it is recommended to convert the case into a regular Voting Committee proposal
Grant form and pacing
Each discretionary grant is distributed as a one time grant. No milestone based payment structure is required.
If a Voting Committee member wishes to observe progress before further support, the planned total amount can be split into several independent grant submissions. The system will display the cumulative support received by the same recipient.
Example:
A project planned to receive 2,000 U → First submission 1,000 U → After observing progress, a second submission of another 1,000 U can be made.
Once the allowance is used, it stops. It does not carry over to the next year.
02 Support Boundaries
What can be supported? What cannot be supported?
All discretionary grants must align with the mission and values of GCC 🌱
Areas that GCC focuses on and supports over the long term include, but are not limited to:
• Privacy protection and decentralization related technologies • Open source projects and public infrastructure • Talent development, research, translation, and knowledge dissemination • New governance mechanisms and experiments related to public goods
⛔️ A prohibited list also exists, including but not limited to:
• Projects with clear fraud behavior, or teams with members involved in fraud • Projects that may create risks to the survival, brand, or safety of GCC members • Projects with core components that remain closed source for a long period without a reasonable public interest explanation • Projects that have no meaningful connection with the Chinese speaking community • Projects that already have abundant funding and clearly do not require support
Allowed scenarios include, but are not limited to:
• Individual developers, scholars, translators, and researchers • Community events, educational workshops, and hackathons • Open source projects
Whether a specific case is suitable for support still requires judgment by the Voting Committee member.
03 Application Process and Information Disclosure
📝 Step 1 | Applicant submits the grant request form
Individuals, organizations, or projects that wish to apply for the allowance may start the process in two ways.
Method One | Submit the grant request form and enter the application pool
Applicants complete a short form to explain the basic information and the intended use of the requested grant. After submission, the application enters the allowance application pool. The pool will later be organized and presented to Voting Committee members for reference and selection.
Basic information:
-
Applicant name. This can be an individual, organization, or project Brief background introduction Verifiable links such as website, GitHub, or social media if available
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Requested grant amount and payment method
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Purpose and reason:
The specific activity the grant intends to support and the reason for the request
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Connection and contribution to the Chinese speaking community
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Expected signals that can be observed later:
For example milestones, public outputs, or other signals that allow future follow up
- One sentence summary:
For example
“Because of … we apply for this grant allowance and hope to …”
Method Two | Contact a Voting Committee member directly
Applicants may also directly contact a Voting Committee member to express interest in support.
If the Voting Committee member decides to support the request after communication, the grant process may be initiated directly.
📣Step 2 | Application pool organization and Voting Committee selection
Application pool organization:
After submission, applications are collected into the pool. They are periodically summarized as a short list such as project cards or brief summaries for Voting Committee members to review.
Voting Committee selection:
During an agreed time window such as monthly or quarterly cycles, GCC will inform Voting Committee members about current applicants requesting support from the allowance.
Voting Committee members may then decide to:
• Select applications they are interested in • Initiate further conversations • Clearly indicate support or non support
All decisions will be recorded in Notion as part of the internal decision record.
🚀Step 3 | Confirmation of support and grant distribution
Confirmation of support:
When a Voting Committee member confirms support, the request enters the support process and necessary confirmation communication will follow. Relevant information will be synchronized on Notion, the GCC website, and social media. The Voting Committee member should provide a short one sentence description that will appear in the public record.
Distribution and announcement:
Funds will be distributed within one week after the public announcement on social media.
📊Step 4 | Follow up and annual evaluation
Regular follow up:
The system will remind the Voting Committee member to conduct follow up at D+3 months, D+6 months, and D+12 months.
Annual evaluation:
During the first trial year, the evaluation will mainly be qualitative. The focus will include:
- Whether the mechanism helps Voting Committee members better identify meaningful support directions
- Whether useful judgment experience and governance knowledge can be accumulated
04 Exceptional Cases and Safety Mechanism
In rare situations, if a discretionary grant proposal falls into one of the following cases:
- Voting Committee clearly opposes the proposal with at least five out of nine votes（>=5/9）
- or the OP and core organizing team unanimously oppose it with five out of five votes（5/5）
The proposal will be paused, or it will be asked to collect further opinions and revise before resubmission.
This mechanism is intended only for extreme cases. For example, when serious dishonesty is discovered during due diligence. Under normal circumstances, this mechanism will not be triggered.
“This is not an answer, but an attempt”
We do not consider any governance mechanism to be a final answer. Especially in fields such as public goods, trust, and governance, mechanisms can only improve through real practice.
The Voting Committee Individual Grant Allowance is an attempt to test how trust, responsibility, and efficiency can work together in practice.
The mechanism will continue to evolve with experience. Feedback, questions, and criticism from the community are always welcome.
If you discover individuals, projects, or actions in the community that deserve support, or if you have different views about the boundaries, rhythm, or execution of this mechanism, these observations and discussions are themselves part of how the mechanism grows.
We hope transparency will create accumulated experience rather than extra burden.
We hope autonomy will represent responsibility rather than unchecked power.
Welcome to join GCC, and let public goods grow together 🌱
About GCC
💡 GCC (Global Chinese Community of Universal Digital Commons) supports people and projects that reshape public goods in future oriented ways.
We are rooted in the Chinese speaking community and connected to the world. Our goal is a future that is free, open, and sustainable.
During the past two years, GCC has directly supported more than 45 public goods projects and more than 100 builders, with a total donation amount exceeding 1.3 million USD.
GCC is interested in many forms of digital public goods. Our main focus areas include censorship resistance and cryptographic privacy connected to the global Chinese community, global public talent networks, free and open source software, governance research, and governance experiments. We hope our support can positively transform the quality and quantity of public goods around the world.
Website: https://gccofficial.org
Written and formatted by Lux
