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Create Your First Proposal

A proposal is how anything happens in a DAO Ships ship: paying a contributor, adding a member, changing a rule. This guide walks you through creating a funding proposal — sending QUAI from the treasury to someone — and then taking it all the way through sponsorship, voting, and execution. Once you've done one, you've done them all.

Before you start

Make sure your wallet is connected to the app and you're viewing a DAO you're a member of. You'll need a little QUAI for gas, plus the proposal offering if your DAO requires one.

The eight proposal types

Every proposal is one of eight types, each encoded as an on-chain action:

  • Funding — transfer QUAI or tokens from the treasury.
  • Membership — mint Shares or Loot to new or existing members.
  • Guild Tokens — add or remove ragequit-eligible tokens.
  • Governance Config — change voting rules like quorum or voting period.
  • Navigators — grant, revoke, or pause a Navigator.
  • Profile Update — change the DAO's name, description, or avatar.
  • Announcement — post an official message to members.
  • Custom Action — an arbitrary contract call for advanced needs.

We'll use Funding as the example, but the flow is the same for all of them.

Step 1: Open the proposal form

  1. Navigate to your DAO and open the Proposals tab.
  2. Click New Proposal.
  3. Select the Funding type.

Step 2: Fill in the details

Every proposal carries human-readable context so voters know what they're approving.

  1. Title — a short, clear summary, like Pay June contributor invoice.
  2. Description — the full reasoning. Be specific about amounts and recipients.
  3. Discussion link — an optional URL to a forum thread or doc where the proposal was debated.

Write for the voter

Voters skim. A precise title and a description that states exactly what moves where earns yes votes faster than vague enthusiasm.

Step 3: Set the funding action

For a funding proposal, define what the treasury sends.

  1. Enter the recipient address (Cyprus-1, starts with 0x00).
  2. Choose the asset — native QUAI or a treasury-held token.
  3. Enter the amount.

The app encodes this into the on-chain action that executes if the proposal passes.

Step 4: Pay the offering and submit

Some DAOs require a small proposal offering — a deposit that discourages spam.

  1. Review the offering amount shown in the form (it may be 0).
  2. Click Submit Proposal.
  3. Approve the transaction in your wallet.

Your proposal is now submitted but not yet on the ballot. It needs a sponsor.

Step 5: Get it sponsored

A proposal must be sponsored by a member who holds at least the sponsorThreshold in Shares before voting can begin.

  1. If you hold enough Shares, you can self-sponsor in one step.
  2. Otherwise, share your proposal with a member who can sponsor it.

Sponsorship snapshots voting power and opens the voting window. From here, the proposal moves through its lifecycle: voting, then a grace period, then ready to process.

Step 6: Vote and process

  1. Members cast votes during the voting period.
  2. After voting closes, a grace period lets dissenters ragequit before execution.
  3. Once grace ends and the proposal has passed quorum, anyone can click Process to execute it.

Processing is final

Processing executes the action and consumes the proposal — even if the action itself fails. Make sure a member processes important proposals with enough gas. Anyone can process; it's permissionless.

When you process a passing funding proposal, the treasury sends the funds. That's your first proposal, start to finish.

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