SIP | Donating commission from the Madonna x Beeple Mother of Creation auction to non-profit organizations

Governance Proposals Implemented
1
  • Author: Maaria Bajwa
  • Status: Sponsored | Consensus Passed
  • Type: Governance
  • Implementer: SuperRare DAO
  • Sponsor(s): John Crain
  • Link to Temperature Check Poll: TBD
  • Created Date: 05/11/2022

Summary
The SuperRare DAO should donate the 55.638Ξ ETH earned as a commission from the auction of the 3 NFTs in Mother of Creation triptych to three nonprofits: The Voices of Children, The City of Joy, and Black Mama’s Bail Out.

Abstract
Mother of Nature is an NFT collaboration between Madonna and Beeple, two of the most influential creators of all time. The triptych centers around the idea of creation and motherhood, and each of the three works in the collection represents a different form of birth in contemporary life. The 3 NFTs in the collection were offered for sale in a 48-hour auction on SuperRare starting Wednesday, May 11th.

Proceeds from the sale will benefit three nonprofit organizations picked by Madonna and Beeple to further their missions of supporting mothers across the globe:

  1. The Voices of Children - supports women and children affected by the war in Ukraine with psychological and urgent care.
  2. The City of Joy - a community that helps survivors of sexual and physical violence heal and rebuild their lives with new skills. Based in Democratic Republic of Congo, the organization has seen 1,734 women graduate their program since opening its doors in 2011.
  3. Black Mama’s Bail Out - provides bail and support for black caregivers who are disproportionately incarcerated while awaiting trial. These caregivers have not been convicted of crimes and have children, families, and communities that rely on them.

The artists are donating all primary and secondary proceeds from the Mother of Creation collection to these three charities. In total, the 3 pieces sold for 309.1Ξ total.

The SuperRare DAO earned 55.638Ξ from the auction – 15% commission + the 3% marketplace fee from the initial sale.

This proposal asks that the DAO donate 55.638Ξ earned from the initial sale to the 3 charities listed above via Madonna’s Ray of Light Foundation, which will oversee the operational distribution of funds to the underlying charities. Donations will be made in cryptocurrency when possible.

A breakdown of the commission sent to the SuperRare DAO Treasury from the sales is below:

This proposal looks to donate 55.638Ξ from the SuperRare DAO treasury to the three charities listed above via Madonna’s Ray of Light Foundation, which will oversee the operational distribution of funds to the underlying charities. Donations will be made in cryptocurrency when possible.

Motivation
After a year-long creative journey to birth these pieces of art, two of the most influential artists of all-time have chosen SuperRare as their launch partner. This is an opportunity for SuperRare DAO to show its support for artists and creators by aligning with their missions.

Specification
Transfer 55.638Ξ to the Ray of Light Foundation at (0x90a72ED643889DE34B86976ce492f4b2dA712563). The Ray of Light Foundation will manage the logistics of distributing the funds to the three organizations. Each of the non-profits agrees to highlight SuperRare DAO as a donor, and will provide a way for SuperRare DAO members to stay up to date on their efforts via email or text updates. At this time, it would be too operationally cumbersome for the non-profits to provide detailed information on the use-of-proceeds for SuperRare DAO’s specific donation.

Use the links below to sign up for updated from the nonprofits:

Benefits
The long-term benefits to donating the primary and secondary commissions to charity outweigh the short-term financial impact to the DAO treasury, regardless of the auction results. This includes:

• Ensuring that high-profile drops that drive visibility to SuperRare continue to occur on the platform.
• Clearly aligning SuperRare DAO with artists and creators who want to use their art and creativity to do good.
• The SuperRare DAO is currently the only party taking a commission from the sale. All other parties, including the artists, creators, and technology partners have agreed to waive their fees in order to maximize the amount given to the non-profit organizations. It is technically too cumbersome for SuperRare DAO to donate marketplace fees, however, I strongly encourage SuperRare DAO to consider figuring out how to do this for the future. If SuperRare DAO is the only participant to take a commission, other artists may consider releasing their NFTs on other platforms that are more aligned with their missions.

Drawbacks
The SuperRare DAO community treasury will need to use the 18% commission earned from the auction.

Outcomes
This proposal hopes to align SuperRare DAO with artists and creators who are using their art to make a positive impact, especially those who have broad reach.

Vote
Yes - Donate 55.638Ξ to the 3 charities mentioned above.
No - Do not donate.

AUTHOR UPDATE:
[I have updated the proposal to remove references to the SuperRare DAO donating proceeds from secondary sales to charity, as this does not seem like a viable option at this time. Instead the proposal has been updated to reference the 55.638Ξ the SuperRare DAO treasury received from the initial sale.]

2 Likes
2

@maaria Thank you for taking the time to create and post this SIP. We’d love to invite you to our next town hall 5/25 on Discord. It would be great to have you on Discord so you can advocate and share this with the community. We’ll take the steps to put it up for a temperature check!

3

Agree with the donation of the 15% commission - but all subsequent 3% marketplace fee should not be part of the equation. The current way it is written, it means that any subsequent secondary sale - the DAO would have to donate the 3% fee, and then use it’s own treasury to pay for collector royalties of these artworks. And since we can’t mandate collectors to donate their collector royalties, it doesn’t make sense for the DAO to donate the 3% fee.

1 Like
4

Yes, would be happy to join! Is it 5/25 at 11am PST / 2pm EST?

5

Agreed with @thomahawk69 that this becomes a procedural nightmare to track down 3% for all subsequent sales. A cleaner cut would be to only invoke the primary sale.

6

@thomahawk69

Good point, we can’t require collectors to donate their royalties. However, is it possible for the Treasury to donate the difference between the 3% marketplace fee and the collector royalty (i.e. Treasury receives 3% and pays 1% for collector royalties so it donates 2% to the charities)?

Or is this what would be the procedural nightmare @elo referred to?

7

It very well may be “possible” but it would require routine maintenance and ongoing operations that apparently would exist in perpetuity, cutting into very important and limited DAO administration resources. If anything like this were permitted, the onus should fall on the donation recipient/author to monitor the marketplace and request payment from the DAO on a routine basis since this automation doesn’t exist yet.

8

I appreciate that. Open to other ideas if people have them, but this feels like a good solution.

So the proposal would be that the SuperRare Treasury donate the commission earned from primary sales. The Treasury will also commit to donating the portion of the 3% marketplace fee that is not allocated to collectors, but it is up to the recipients/author to calculate and request the payment from the DAO on a routine basis.

If approved, would every request for payment require a separate AIP? That also seems operationally cumbersome. Any thoughts on what the best approach is?

Appreciate the quick feedback btw!

9

@maaria It would be great to have you there! That is correct. :slight_smile:

10

I think the best solution is for the DAO to donate the primary 15% commission + the 3% marketplace fee from the initial sale. Totally 18% - which translates to 103% of the original sale price - meaning the charities are getting more.

And any subsequent sales, the DAO only receives the 3% marketplace fee - and that should remain in the DAO to support its operations.

11

I’d like propose some discussion of the criteria behind what kind of charities/donations the SR DAO should be supporting.

For example, I’d be in support of forwarding these fees if the donation was in support of an arts organization, artists, art-technology, crypto/blockchain, or members of the community.

Not that these proposed non-profits aren’t worthy causes– we just aren’t able to support everything and so we have to be selective– and maybe it would be best if there was some obvious alignment between the mission and vision of SR and the charity.

12

While I appreciate the sentiment, I don’t think this is a good approach. Artists want to work with SuperRare because of the brand and reputation the platform has built over the last few years. The competitive landscape is growing though, so it’s not guaranteed that SuperRare will always be the preferred partner.

Specifically in the case of charitable drops, artists want to maximize the amount being donated. Will they continue to use SuperRare if only 85% of proceeds are being donated to their charities, or would they rather launch on an alternative platform that allows them to donate 100% to their causes.

By agreeing to donate its primary commission to charity, SuperRare will hopefully continue to be the platform of choice for these types of drops. But limiting those donations to a select group of charities adds unnecessary friction into the system. If a creator cares deeply about their cause, they’ll want 100% of donations to go to their cause instead of 85%.

I think this makes sense as an option to the creators, but shouldn’t be a requirement.

13

AUTHOR UPDATE:
[I have updated the proposal to remove references to the SuperRare DAO donating proceeds from secondary sales to charity, as this does not seem like a viable option at this time. Instead the proposal has been updated to reference the 55.638Ξ the SuperRare DAO treasury received from the initial sale.]

2 Likes
14

I Don’t normally have strong opinions, but am strongly against this.

The reason is that SR should remain NEUTRAL on any and all charitable / political donations.

The easiest way to do this is simply have a policy that DAO does not have different fees or procedures when artists donate to a non-profit.

Otherwise we wade into controversy when we support some non-profits while not supporting others.

4 Likes
15

Awesome, I think this makes sense since there’s not an automated way to do this and would formally like to sponsor this proposal.

1 Like
16

I can see both arguments, on one hand supporting charitable donations is a noble cause and something artists like to do. However I agree it can be distracting if we’re spending time choosing individual initiatives to support.

In this case the whole ethos of the drop was to support the charity. Since we didn’t have a framework or policy in place at the time I propose we put this up for vote and work on a formal policy moving forward.

1 Like
17

Considering that the DAO Council had no express policy against donations through SIP procedures when this proposal originally went up in the Forum, the Council has agreed that this proposal can go up for a snapshot vote to put it in the hands of the community. However, moving forward the Council by majority agreement has adopted a new policy that it will not sponsor individual SIP donation requests in an effort to remain focused.

2 Likes