# Governance Process

## Summary

This page outlines the Balancer Governance Process from Request for Comment \[RFC] through executing a result. 

**tl;dr:**

1. Post a Request for Comment to the forum ([template](/balancer-v2/ecosystem/governance/governance-process/rfc-proposal-forum-post-template.md))
2. Facilitate preliminary discussion
3. Update and refine RFC to become a Proposal
4. Snapshot vote
5. Execute result

## Outline

### Step 1: **Request For Comment (RFC)**

Start a new conversation on the [Governance section of the forum](https://forum.balancer.fi/c/governance/7) with the \[RFC] tag. The message should contain the following sections. Click [here](/balancer-v2/ecosystem/governance/governance-process/rfc-proposal-forum-post-template.md) for a forum post template.

* **Background**
  * *What is the current state or what you're addressing? Is there any relevant information that the common reader might not know?*
* **Core Proposal(s)**
  * *What is your idea on how to improve the state of the art?*
* **Dependencies**
  * *What is needed to introduce the change?*
* **Risk assessment**
  * *What can go wrong? What is the impact of your proposal on the rest of the community, ecosystem, protocol?*
* **Open Questions**
  * *Any obvious discussions or things you are still considering?*

### **Step 2: Discussion**

* Monitor the discussion and gather feedback
* Message #brainstorming-and-ideas channel on Discord to draw peoples' attention to the RFC
* Encourage interested parties on Discord to gather their thoughts in a forum post

### **Step 3: Proposal**

* After about two weeks, it's time to move to the proposal phase, assuming there has been some discussion and some preliminary consensus.
* In the same topic thread as your RFC, share your updated proposal.
  * The proposal should be a refined RFC that includes all the suggestions from the discussion.
* Change the tag from \[RFC] to \[Proposal].
* Collecting final feedback and get advice for changes. 
* Wait for at least 7 days and make sure you have a general consensus among the others before moving to Snapshot.

### **Step 4: Snapshot**

Now that we have a proposal, we can move into a [Snapshot](https://vote.balancer.fi) vote. If you are unable to post your Proposal to Snapshot, ask for help in the Discord #governance channel. 

### Step 5: Results

If the vote succeeds or a result has been chosen, follow through to make sure that it is properly executed. Depending on what the vote is about, it may require an action by the [Multisig](/balancer-v2/ecosystem/governance/multisig.md).


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