---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'MIP13c3: Declaration of Intent for Governance Communications'
tags: [MIPs]

---

---
tags: MIPs
---

# MIP13c3: Declaration of Intent for Governance Communications 

## Preamble
```
MIP13c3-SP#: #
Author(s): Tim Black, David Utrobin
Contributors: Seth Goldfarb, Jerry Goldfarb, Scott Herren, Anna Kryukova
Status: 
Date Proposed: <yyyy-mm-dd>
Date Ratified: <yyyy-mm-dd>
---
Declaration Statement: This declares our intention to formalize the mandate of the Governance Communications (GovComms) team.
Declaration to Replace: n/a
```
## Specification

### Context and Motivation

The Community Development team has grown quite a bit over the last few months. For this purpose, we have been re-examining the process’ and expectations set.

MakerDAO needs a system for communication between the DAO, Maker ecosystem, DeFi community, and greater crypto ecosystem.

Anything that the community doesn't take responsibility for falls on the Foundation. Governance Facilitators only have so much time in a day to moderate discussions and keep the MIPs cycle on track and new users constantly get lost in the deluge of information generated by the community.


Questions the team aims to answer include:

- In what circumstances should we make statements on behalf of the DAO?
  - When do we communicate sentiments from the public, from the forums, etc.?
  - How can we provide thorough coverage of events/procedures/news?

- How should teams and individuals go about making statements on behalf of the DAO?
  - How do we communicate sentiments from the public, from the forums, etc.?
  - How can we be scientific in communicating?

- How can a group within a DAO improve the initiatives and working groups within it?

### Declaration Detail

GovComms is an independent team responsible for communicating information between members of the DAO, from the DAO to the public, and from the public to the DAO.

The types of information include:

- Objective: Governance votes/polls, state of monetary policy, historical information about MakerDAO, etc..
- Subjective: Quotes from community members, responses to media inquires, etc..

Our slogan is: **Aggregate and Simplify**

We aim to preserve journalistic integrity, presenting information ‘as-is’ with any bias clearly indicated or polled from the community. 

Some of our principles include: objectivity, simplicity, integrity, brevity.

- As clear a description as possible of the intent that Maker Governance wishes to declare.
- How flexible is this intent in terms of implementation?

### Strategy/Tactics

- Create an understanding for why this team is useful and what the actual purpose is. 
- Create some formal framework for the specific tasks and responsibilities the team would like to handle. 
- Create an accessible guideline of expectations for the projects and tasks that are relevant for the teams responsibilities.
- Create documentation (may live in the ‘Learn’ section on the portal, perhaps this should belong more in our archival docs) that allows the reader to understand what the expectations are surrounding cadence, formatting, and who to talk to about further questions; when it comes to messaging and communications. 
    - This would be written by the Gov-Comms team, and proposed to the general community for comments/questions/clarification and eventually (hopefully) approval. 


### Relevant Links

- [MIP13c3-SP1: Defining Roles of Gov Comms as a subgroup of Comm Devs](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kNc3980i8iWHd2p_74HmkawQmbv3qN11qB9nBJ0L7TA/edit?usp=sharing)
    - [Gov-Comms Roles & Expectations Proposal](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kNc3980i8iWHd2p_74HmkawQmbv3qN11qB9nBJ0L7TA/edit?usp=sharing)
- [Gov-Comms Story (Slide Presentation)](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12LJeUZnNNVSUFxB6vKL8eezsxc2k2ZqNobTnEpvJtnM/edit#slide=id.g8b4e9a4a8c_0_1)
- [Gov-Comms Mandate (Doc)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yhxyswTjxoSEGVLR_bU3WDRpb3EUvV98kGfY5_pKx_Q/edit#)
- [Canonical Project Planning (Doc)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/139DjnPeYzOi4hMIszEGytFbRVrJl-DpHGfIK5tAHhsk/edit)
- [DAO Communication Scope / Responsibilities (Doc)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1alOVfDvXorpcHN2s04epeG0uE0KlVVYtWmAVe5bDbcs/edit)
- [Gov-Comms Workflow (Figma)](https://www.figma.com/file/rHDzOzbqIUIFcNGBfZC9jy/Gov-Comm-SOP-Workflow?node-id=0%3A1)
    - [Workflow (Doc)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jJHo0YuLtivZ0UqXB8iykKKm8EJEu2yW8LtedJDq0cA/edit)
- [Community Driven Gov Messaging (Forum post)](https://forum.makerdao.com/t/community-driven-governance-messaging-project-plan-placeholder-name/1875)
- [Gov-Comms HackMD, including Relay and Snippets (HackMD)](https://hackmd.io/team/GovComms?nav=overview)
- [Reuters: Handbook of Journalism; Freedom From Bias (Relevant Article)](http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=Freedom_from_bias&oldid=7959)
 