.png)
The DeFi Education Fund (DEF) intends to provide a monthly update on its expenditures and advance notice of significant withdrawals from the DEF’s multisig.
Expenditure Updates
As a tax exempt organization, the DEF is required to file IRS Form 990 annually, which will serve as the basis of our monthly expenditure updates. Form 990 provides information about non-profit organizations’ programs, activities, relationships, transactions, and governance, in addition to revenues, expenses and assets. Certain expenditures are broken out on the 990 in greater detail, including grants, payments to highly compensated independent contractors, and payments to key employees and directors. It is designed to ensure exempt organizations are fulfilling their missions and merit continued tax-exempt status. The 990 is filed with the IRS and will be publicly available on the IRS website and on our website. Our first 990 will be due on November 15, 2022.
The DEF’s expenditures will fall into three categories: grants, internal expenses and operations (employee and grants committee member compensation, rent, insurance, etc.), and external expenses (independent contractors like legal counsel, web development, etc.).
To date, no committee member has received compensation. In the future, some committee members may receive compensation for services rendered, which will be based on time spent. As stipulated in the governance proposal, total compensation across the committee will be less than $150,000 annually, and any committee member compensation will be disclosed. The DEF’s only current employee, Policy Director Miller Whitehouse-Levine, will receive a yearly salary of $160,000 and, through December 31, 2021, 177 $UNI per month.
As we get up and running, expenditures will be volatile. For example, we do not yet have payroll set up, while upstart web development and legal fees will not be ongoing expenses. Once we reach something closer to “steady state” operations, we’ll publish a budget projection for the next 12 months, which we anticipate doing by October 4, 2021. To date, the DEF’s expenditures incurred are: $195,500 in grants, $28,966 and 177 $UNI in internal expenses, and $46,768 and 0.48 $ETH in external expenses.
Multisig Withdrawal Notices
Going forward, the DEF will announce on this blog major withdrawals from the multisig before executing the transactions. To fund our first grants and operational expenditures, the committee will withdraw 400,000 $USDC and 1,000 $UNI from the multisig. After completing this withdrawal, the DEF’s assets held in the multisig will be 9,783,780 $USDC and 499,000 $UNI.