Strategic Realignment for the RCG Q3 2026 Budget and Scope

[2xJDubs]

Context

The following framework is built off a recommendation from an RCG Advisor. These recommendations build on the Q2 proposal and are intended to help shape the Q3 (July – September 2026) plan.

As noted in the Temp Check for Q3 RCG Budget, discussion #257, there will be three material changes for Q3. These are summarized below and detailed in the following sections.

1. Switch the funding source from the RingDAO Treasury to RingEcosystem, capped at $2,500 / month.
2. Introduce an AI Sponsor Plan (capped at $500 / month) and discontinue all RCG line items other than the Community Manager and up to two Ambassadors.
3. Compress the people budget to a combined $2,000 / month and refocus the Q3 mandate on AI learning, AI workflow construction, and Agent-assisted community operations.

Total monthly cap: $2,500. Total Q3 cap: $7,500.

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1. Funding Source

Q3 funding move from the RingDAO Treasury to RingEcosystem (github.com/ringecosystem/collaboration), with the following caps:

Item	Q2 (current)	Q3 (recommended)
Funder	RingDAO Treasury	RingEcosystem
Currency	$RING	USD-equivalent (per RingEcosystem policy)
Monthly cap	(per Q2)	$2,500
Quarterly cap	(per Q2)	$7,500

Under this plan, RingEcosystem becomes the sole sponsor for RCG in Q3, and any line items not listed below would be discontinued for the quarter.

2. Budget Breakdown (per month)

#	Line item	Cap (USD)	Owner	Notes
1	Community Manager	$800	CM	Fixed cap
2	Ambassador Program (up to 2 ambassadors)	$1,200	CM (allocation discretion)	CM decides whether and how to spend, including splitting between the two ambassadors
3	AI Sponsor Plan	$500	CM	Reimbursed against receipts for Claude Code / Codex / similar AI tooling subscriptions only
	Total	$2,500

Suggested quarterly total: $7,500 (3 × $2,500).

Additional points for this budget and scope:

• The Ambassador Program will be a soft cap, not a guaranteed payout. If the CM decides the program does not need the full $1,100 in a given month, the unspent portion will not carry over and will not be re-allocated to other line items.
• The AI Sponsor Plan will cover subscriptions only (e.g. Claude Code, OpenAI Codex). Hardware, one-off purchases, and non-AI SaaS should be out of scope. Reimbursement requests will be made each month to the CM and should include an invoice/receipt for service. Any personally identifying information can be blacked out or removed for privacy needs. Reimbursement to be paid with salaries or per request in the first 2 weeks of the following month.
• No other RCG line items will be funded in Q3. Items such as event sponsorships, swag, content bounties, translation contracts, etc., will be discontinued for the quarter.

3. Q3 Mandate

It was suggested, and the RCG CM agrees, to reframe RCG as an AI-native community ops team for Q3, with the following concrete deliverables.

3.1 AI Learning & Training

• CM and Ambassadors complete a structured ramp on Claude Code / Codex / Agent SDK usage.
• Publish at least one community-facing write-up per month documenting what was learned and how it is being applied.

3.2 AI Workflow Construction

• Build reusable AI workflows for the recurring RCG tasks listed below.
• Workflows and prompts should be versioned in the RingEcosystem collaboration repo so they are owned by the community, not by individuals.

3.3 Agent-Assisted Community Operations

Introduce Agents to improve the following areas:

• Community management — moderation assistance, FAQ triage, onboarding responses.
• Information gathering — daily/weekly ingestion of ecosystem updates, partner activity, on-chain signals.
• Market analysis — lightweight recurring summaries of $RING and ecosystem market conditions for internal decision-making (not investment advice).
• Planning & reporting — Agent-drafted monthly reports, with the CM as editor of record.
• Proposal drafting — Agent-assisted first drafts of forum posts and governance proposals, with human review before publication.

3.4 Monthly Output

The CM will publish a short monthly report covering:

• Workflows built / shipped that month.
• Agents deployed and what they automate.
• Time saved vs. the equivalent manual workflow (rough estimate is acceptable).
• Spend vs. cap for each of the 3 line items.

4. Roles

Role	Headcount	Responsibilities
Community Manager	1	Owns Q3 mandate delivery, allocates Ambassador Program budget, approves AI Sponsor Plan subscriptions, publishes monthly report.
Ambassador	up to 2	Community-facing work as directed by CM; participates in AI workflow construction.

There will be no other paid roles in Q3.

5. Reporting & Accountability

• Monthly: CM posts a public report (workflows shipped, agents deployed, spend vs. cap) to the RingEcosystem collaboration repo along with an overview of what was developed posted to RCG Discussion forum.
• End of Q3: CM posts a Q3 wrap-up summarizing what shipped, what didn't, and a recommendation for Q4 (continue / adjust / wind down).
• Any month with underspend simply returns to RingEcosystem; no carryover.

6. What is Explicitly Out of Scope for Q3

• Any line items beyond CM, Ambassador Program, and AI Sponsor Plan.
• Drawing any funds from the RingDAO Treasury for RCG operations.
• Non-AI tooling subscriptions under the AI Sponsor Plan.
• Carryover of unspent budget between months or into Q4.

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References:

• Q2 proposal: gov.ringdao.com/proposal/0x122a99…cae83
• RingEcosystem collaboration repo: github.com/ringecosystem/collaboration

[2xJDubs]

With Laki's agreement to help I still would like to run the Discord quizzes and will help fund them from my staking rewards going forward. These will not be funded by RCG any longer.

If June is also in agreement to still help, I plan to continue to do the biweekly news and the monthly report on paragraph which can summarize the build progress of RCG's AI initiative.

[boundless-forest]

Thanks for providing such a detailed and clear introduction. 👍