Upcoming Changes with the Nxt Foundation







Addressing Funding

Structural Update and Stipend

Marketing

Support of MyNxt

Last Note and Adel

Hello everyone,There’s been a lot of significant news and changes with Nxt and Ardor over the past few months, with the release of the Ardor testnet being the most prominent, in addition to the announcement and creation of the 3rd party projects Janus and Adel . In addition to these, there are also other changes going on behind-the-scenes with both the Nxt Foundation and Jelurida . One of these is Bas Wisselink's (Damelon) announcement about leaving Jelurida to focus on Blockchain Workspace as well as changing his role to a more advisory one with the Nxt Foundation.The rest of the Foundation would like to thank Bas for his contributions thus far, especially with how he has dealt with simultaneously being the Managing Director of Jelurida and a Board Member of the Nxt Foundation. While we would’ve liked him to stay on in both roles, we fully respect his decision and wish him luck with his own project. We are, however, looking forward to continuing to work with him in the Nxt Foundation.In addition to these, the Foundation is also implementing a few other changes. Some of these are brought on by external factors and some we feel are necessary changes to improve the Foundation's performance moving forward.As most of the community know, the Nxt Foundation has never had access to the large amount of funding that some other crypto foundations have, mainly because Nxt was not launched with an ICO that generated a large pool of funding. Since the inception of Nxt, the Community Funds have been used as the main source of internal project funding. However, this was only 10 million NXT, and much of this has been spent. For the last couple of years, the Community Fund has been set aside to pay for developer salaries. In order to both support and professionalise the marketing and business development of Nxt, the Foundation set up the Tennessee project fundraiser in September 2015 and raised 10 million additional NXT to cover these costs.The Tennessee Fund was intended to provide finances for one year of operation, but due to the distribution of ARDR, increases in the price of NXT, and a lot of voluntary efforts, both internally and externally, a portion of the Tennessee funds still remain to be used. We have therefore managed to extend the runtime of Tennessee to almost 18 months.However, we do not have an infinite amount of funds left and they will run out eventually. To address this, the Foundation will do the following:1)– While the Foundation is committed to providing information about Nxt, Ardor, and blockchain technology as a whole with no charges to interested businesses or organizations, we are occasionally sought out for additional consulting services and have sometimes been doing them free-of-charge due to a lack of a formal structure. Starting this week, a page on the Foundation website will list some of these services as well as internally establish a structure and clear boundaries between helping 3rd parties use Nxt and Ardor and providing extra business consulting services. However, providing these services should not interfere with the other tasks the Foundation needs to do and will thus be counted separately from the commitment that Board Members need to do for the Foundation.2)– In a similar manner as the Linux Foundation, the Nxt Foundation will start formally accepting donations from users, businesses, and organizations, together with proper recognition to these donors, as well as other benefits on a yearly basis to avoid the issue of having a finite amount of funds. It is important to note, however, that being a recognized donor will not count as a Foundation endorsement. In addition, the Foundation will reserve the right to not list donors or to revoke their recognition, such as when the recognition is abused. It is also important to note that donors are not able to gain influence on the developments of the technology as it is Jelurida that develops the technology and retains the licenses. However, they will be able to suggest these changes through the public forum or by contacting Jelurida directly like everyone else in the community.More details about this program will be released this week. Things planned include a dedicated page of annual donors by tiers while having a low nominal amount for the basic annual tier. There will also be a permanent section on the page dedicated to those who participated in the Tennessee Fundraising.3)- Since the end of 2016, Jelurida has largely taken reponsibility for the payment of salaries to the core dev team. This frees up the remainder of the Community Funds (as administered by the CFC: https://nxtforum.org/community-funding-committee-(cfc)/ ) to be used for other purposes, We'd like to propose that the Community Funds be administered from this point forward by the Nxt Foundation and be used to support the Foundation’s core marketing and business development activities.4)– We will continue to explore other options to get further funding. However, we will make sure that acquiring these funds will not violate the mission and vision of the Foundation.While there are five current Board Members, only Dave and Travin are actively working on Foundation-related tasks on a day-to-day, full-time basis. In order to differentiate the roles among the existing Foundation members, Dirk, Alex, and Bas will be categorized as Advisory Board Members while Dave and Travin will remain categorized as Board Members moving forward. However, all five will still have the same voting rights when significant decisions are being made. It’s also important to note that the Advisory Board Members will still be providing an essential service to the Foundation.Additionally, as Dave and Travin are working for the Foundation on a full-time basis (sometimes more), they both need to be compensated for their time and efforts. Given the current funds available, they will be paid EUR 1500 (usually in NXT and/or ARDR) for a commitment of 20 hours per week, even if the amount of hours worked go beyond the commitment time. Additionally, funds from some of the formalized services of the Foundation, such as escrow, consulting services with regards to marketing and business planning, will also be split between the Board Members performing the work and the Foundation.Though the Foundation was initially created to serve as a contact point for businesses and organizations interested in using Nxt technology, it has since taken on numerous other responsibilities. One of them is being responsible for much of the promotion of Nxt and Ardor. Since the Foundation is only partially responsible for this role, we have decided to publicly release our marketing strategy document for 2017 so others interested in helping can promote Nxt and Ardor while staying in sync with the strategy of the Foundation. Please note that the following document is not a mandate on how to promote both platforms but is meant to serve as a guide.Since late last year, we have been working with VanBreuk to solve the issues that MyNxt has experienced, largely due to the lead developer of the project leaving in the past few months. The situation had become too problematic and the Foundation needed to step in. However, while we are able to help to some extent, the lack of having a PHP developer has hindered the project. Thankfully, the issue is now being addressed with the help of Lobos, a PHP developer from Janus . The Janus team has generously agreed to loan Lobos out to us to fix the current issues as part of their donation to the Foundation. Further changes and improvements to MyNxt will be planned now that MyNxt once again has access to a developer.The changes noted above, especially with regards to the marketing strategy, will require some extra commitment from all Foundation members. With this in mind, Travin has resigned his position as Marketing Manager for Adel , though will remain as an Advisor for the company. This has not been an easy decision on his part, but we wish Adel the best of luck and commend them for their efforts of attempting to have one of the first KYC/CTF-compliant ICOs.Thank you for taking the time to read through this. If you have any questions, please let us know.Dave “EvilDave” Pearce and Travin Keith