Decomposed — not submitted standalone. Its 7 bundled mechanisms read as a rewrite rather than a specific amendment, and each is fully separable. Each is now its own standalone proposal: foundation-pool-tranching, foundation-coi-dao-ratification, foundation-board-resize-safeguard, foundation-seat-remit-disclosure, foundation-open-election, foundation-community-input-channel, foundation-reaffirmation-vote. Kept here as the original combined reference.
An amendment to "Temp Check: Next Era of ENS DAO — Empowering the ENS Foundation"
Empowering the Foundation has broad support, and this amendment doesn't contest that direction — the delegate fatigue and slow grant cycles behind it are real and undisputed. The temp check already routes the initial board through DAO ratification and preserves full DAO removal authority; what's still open is how much real choice that ratification represents, who signs off on the board's own conflict-of-interest policy, and whether the full treasury moves on day one. This amendment answers those concretely: give the Foundation a dedicated Foundation Pool sized to its actual operational run-rate instead of the full treasury in one transfer, have the DAO ratify the actual COI policy text instead of the board approving its own policy, replace single-slate ratification with an open DAO election for independent seats, and put a scheduled reaffirmation vote on the calendar so the mandate renews on evidence rather than running indefinitely by default.
Delegate fatigue and slow grant-cycle turnaround are real and evidenced — MetaGov's own retro findings back this up, and nobody in the thread disputes it. That's the actual failure mode the Foundation is meant to fix, and this amendment keeps that fix intact. What's underspecified is choice and process, not existence: the temp check already routes the initial board through DAO ratification and preserves full DAO removal authority, so this amendment isn't inventing an appointment or removal mechanism from scratch — it's tightening two specific gaps and scoping the treasury transfer.
The conflict-of-interest policy is approved by the board, not the DAO. The temp check has the incoming Executive Director draft a detailed COI policy within the first 90 days, for the Board's own approval — not for a DAO vote on the actual text. If the Foundation is meant to be ENS's voice at ICANN, the floor for its own governance should be ICANN's, and the DAO — not the board itself — should be the one ratifying it.
DAO ratification is a yes/no on one slate, not a choice among candidates. The initial directors are assembled through a search led by the existing Foundation Board with input from ENS Labs leadership, and the DAO then ratifies that single slate. That's a real check, but it's an up-or-down vote on a pre-selected list, not an election. There's also a concrete numeric safeguard in the temp check — a 4-of-5 director vote required before ENS Labs can receive funding above a set threshold — that has no stated equivalent once the board is resized, a gap several replies in the thread are already pressing on.
1. A dedicated Foundation Pool, not a full treasury transfer. Instead of moving the full DAO treasury under Foundation control on day one — estimates in the thread range from ~$143M (Endowment plus liquid treasury, per 5pence.eth) to ~$250M once other DAO-held ENS is counted, per James — the DAO ratifies a Foundation Pool sized to actual Foundation-relative activity: grant/ops run-rate, released in quarterly tranches. Each tranche renews automatically unless the DAO votes to pause it, so the default is "renew on evidence" rather than "trust indefinitely." Treasury not tied to Foundation-relative activity stays under existing DAO control until a separate vote says otherwise.
2. DAO ratifies the actual COI policy text, not just the timeline for writing it. The temp check already has the incoming Executive Director draft a detailed COI policy within the first 90 days — this amendment changes who signs off on that text once drafted: the DAO, by vote on the actual language, rather than the Board approving its own policy. Same drafting schedule the temp check already proposes; different approval body.
3. Size the board 7 or 9, not 5 — and carry the Labs-funding safeguard forward. A 5-seat board is a high-surface-area target for deadlock or capture in either direction; 7 or 9 seats gives room for genuine builder/community representation without diluting the operational seats the proposal is built around. The temp check's 4-of-5 director vote required for above-threshold ENS Labs funding needs an explicit equivalent at the new size — proportionally, 5-of-7 or 6-of-9 — so resizing the board doesn't quietly weaken the one numeric safeguard already in the text.
4. Split operational and oversight roles explicitly, per seat. Publish, per director, whether that seat is hands-on operational or board-level oversight, and what each is accountable for. Ambiguity here just reproduces the same problem the Working Groups have today — nobody quite sure what anyone's actual remit is.
5. Open DAO election in place of single-slate ratification. Independent board seats are filled through an open, DAO-run election instead of a yes/no vote on one board-and-Labs-assembled slate: candidates self-nominate with a published platform, the DAO votes directly among them, and the election runs on the same cadence as the reaffirmation vote below. This doesn't remove the existing removal authority — it widens the appointment side from "ratify this one list" to "choose among alternatives."
6. A standing community-input channel, not just removal authority. A lightweight advisory or comment mechanism — adjacent to the board, not inside it — so tokenholders have a way to register concerns between votes instead of waiting for something to go wrong enough to justify pulling the emergency lever.
7. Mandatory reaffirmation vote at 12–18 months. The Foundation's mandate isn't permanent by default. A scheduled DAO vote either renews it, adjusts its scope, or lets it lapse — on the DAO's terms, on a known schedule, not as a crisis response.
The status quo — full token-vote governance over every operational decision — is the thing generating the delegate fatigue and slow grant cycles in the first place. Nobody serious argues for keeping it unchanged, and this amendment doesn't ask for that.
What it changes is who approves specific decisions and how much treasury moves up front, not the overall direction. Founder-led board seats aren't inherently the issue here — plenty of legitimate organizations are founder-led, and being a director accountable to a board is not automatically a conflict. The issue is that "accountable to the board" only means something if the board isn't also the body approving its own constraints. Having the DAO — not the board — ratify the actual COI text, and scoping the initial transfer to a Foundation Pool, gets the DAO the same operational speedup without asking it to answer the treasury-scope and board-composition questions by default.
- Treasury access is tranche-gated, not lump-sum — the single biggest lever for reversibility.
- COI policy is DAO-ratified text, not board-authored discretion.
- Independent board seats are elected by the DAO, not appointed by the outgoing board or by Labs — appointment power sits with the same body that holds removal power.
- A reaffirmation vote is on the calendar from day one — this isn't a "figure out an exit later" situation.
- Protocol-level control (smart contract upgrades, fee structure, constitutional amendments) stays with tokenholders, unchanged from the original temp check — this proposal doesn't touch that boundary, only the operational-treasury boundary.
- Should the DAO hand the whole treasury and Endowment to the Foundation? Not on day one. Scope the initial transfer to a Foundation Pool sized to Foundation-relative activity; leave the Endowment and unrelated treasury under existing DAO control pending a separate vote.
- How should the board be chosen, and by whom? Size it 7 or 9 seats rather than 5 (carrying the existing 4-of-5 Labs-funding safeguard forward proportionally), publish per-seat operational-vs-oversight remit, have the DAO ratify the actual COI policy text once drafted rather than the board approving its own, and fill independent seats through an open DAO election instead of ratifying a single board-and-Labs-assembled slate.
- What alternative paths forward exist if this needs correcting? A mandatory reaffirmation vote at 12–18 months, a standing community-input channel, and a recurring election cycle for independent seats, so the mandate is renewed or adjusted — and the board itself reconstituted — on a known schedule rather than relying solely on the existing petition-and-removal process to change course.
Remaining open for the DAO to size with its own data: exact tranche cadence and amount (needs real grant/ops spend data), whether 12 or 18 months is the right reaffirmation interval, and whether Labs-aligned operational seats should also go through open election or remain a Labs appointment subject to DAO ratification.
This is submitted as an amendment to the Foundation temp check, not a competing proposal — it assumes the Foundation moves forward and specifies scope, board process, and a reaffirmation schedule for that transition. The ask is for these terms (Foundation Pool sizing, DAO-ratified COI policy, board composition, reaffirmation vote) to be folded into the temp check's operative text before it goes to a binding vote.