Innovation in Stakeholder Governance Models - Nouns DAO

I've been thinking for a long time about governance systems and the modern corporation (see here, here and here for related posts).  Much of that time, I've been considering the tradeoffs between 'traditional' for-profit business models vs non-profits vs 'stakeholder' governed structures.

And then, blockchains allowed for an entirely new type of organization, the Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO).   There are excellent summaries of DAOs out there already (see here and here for great entry points).  

DAOs represent a business model innovation which fundamentally shifts what is possible in terms of aligning incentives between various stakeholders in a complex organization.  Because trust can be maintained through code based smart contracts, investors, contributors, and customers can all come together with a clear understanding of current and future governance and incentive structures.

Of all the DAO projects, the most interesting to me right now is Nouns.  Nouns launched Aug 8th, so is not yet two months old.  The two best summaries of Nouns as background reading are here and here.  Or, here's the shorter summary:

Nouns is pioneering a new organizational model for value creation and stakeholder governance.  Customers are investors are managers.  All corporate actions are taken by vote and all voters are equal (one noun = one vote).

I believe this is an incredible innovation, and I am excited to see where it goes.  The team has built something truly powerful that could shape organizational governance in the future.  Yet, I think there two important steps are needed.

The Nouns purpose appears unclear.  The protocol proliferates Nouns.  The treasury is growing, but the end goal of the resources accumulated isn't defined. The founders have talked about the promotion of art and and growing culture.  I believe that to be true.  But, I worry that can mean a lot of things to different people and over time the clarity of that message may wane as the community grows.  

When I think of an organization overall, any organization, I like to start with the mission and vision - why does this organization exist, and what change in the world does it want to affect?  That could simply be creating art, or demonstrating new governance systems (discussion of this topic on the Nouns site here), but I believe without a clearer definition of the goal community members will find it difficult to contribute as effectively as possible (see here for an example of a current governance proposal that seem far afield from creating art).

Second, how will Nouns act to benefit non-token holders?  That isn't clear to me either, though one answer may be simply that we all benefit from more art in the world.   Beyond that, does the community see it as a responsibility to support individuals or communities outside of Nouns?  

The traditional 'stakeholder governance' discussion has included not only employees and customers as important constituents in governance, but also external parties.  Sometimes that includes any individuals or groups that are affected by the organization's actions (e.g. local community downstream from a polluting factory) and sometimes that includes an identified population of concern (e.g. sponsoring local civic causes, or focused giving for a community / issue related to the organization's work).

Nouns has not yet defined how it will interact with broader communities, at least publicly.  It is worth noting however that the very first proposal accepted by the DAO was to donate 30 ETH to six charities.  An auspicious first step.

Of course, Nouns may not need answers to these questions right now. True community governance could allow these questions to season over time, as the community builds and changes.

I may be too grounded in the 'old' models of governance to be focused on these right now.  Nouns has an incredibly talented team, with terrific traction already. They may develop these goals over time, as a community.  

For now, I am fascinated by Nouns and cheering the community on. If Nouns can succeed in its purpose, others will follow, and stakeholder governance models will have a powerful new organizational model in DAOs.