Interesting discussion, I like elephants 
. Wanted to add a couple of things, opinions are my own, my filters are turned off, here we go:
1
In case you missed it, I referenced this thread in Tuesday’s governance meeting: https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin-pm/blob/master/notes/20200324-meeting-governance.md#66-teams:
I just wanted to point out that suggestions and ideas like these are welcomed. There’s a dormant @grincoin.teams.community. If people have ideas for a fund or ambassador program, put it in an RFC, write a budget and a funding request, and let’s discuss in detail. Your chances for funding being approved will improve if you are not completely new around here and if you have some kind of positive track record of contributions to the project.
If you’re new and still want to propose something, you might also want to start making contributions and get to know others here. That’s how it worked for all of us.
2
Generally speaking, any proposal that’s well argued, shows reason, follows logic, is full circled and is argued in good faith, seeking to discover some constructive improvement rather than trying to be right for the sake of being right or for the sake of inflating your own ego, I think will be at least considered. Even if people may not agree or draw the same conclusions as you. So if you have something to propose, nobody is stopping you. And there’s no shame in trying and failing!
3
The general fund being detached from Grin price fluctuation I think is a feature, not a bug. Especially given the emission rate the first years of mainnet, it would have been very difficult to fight the tide of the percentual increases to the supply. 
Look around at other projects, living and dying with the price of their coin. You end up being very short sighted, doing what you can right now to move the price, rather than focusing on stuff that makes sense in the longer term.
4
If you think devs are being “insanely” overpaid, get involved when they ask for money. Make a convincing case for why they are asking for too much. Deduct operating costs, taxes, health insurance, pension contributions, etc and present your case for what a fair rate is instead. Keep in mind that each individual submits their own request. In fact, there was one funding request that launched today, so here’s your chance! Request for funding / Antioch / Apr-Jun 2020
5
So far, people who’ve been funded are Ignotus, Yeastplume, Jasper, and myself. They were all contributing without compensation for a long time (years) before asking for money (not sure about yeastplume). Antioch who’s now asking for money (see previous point) submitted their first PR to Grin in 2017. And me, I’m not sure but I think I was contributing 9-10 months before making my initial request. I’m sorry to disappoint but - none of us joined the project in order to get rich quick.
6
In fact, we never expected to receive such a windfall in the fund in the first place. We set up a mu-sig wallet, and we received very generous donations to it. It was unexpected, but it was most certainly welcomed. The large donor(s) understood who had control of the funds. “Keep doing what you’re doing” was the message. I for one intend to do just that, advocating for spending in the way I think best helps the protocol over the long term.
7
At some point though, the funding will run out, and donations will dry up. It’s okay. The project was literally broke and launched one of the most anticipated blockchains with $0 spent on protocol development. (Aside from three or so yeast funding rounds that he managed himself.) Unlike other projects, I think Grin will do just fine without any funding, we never even expected to have funding in the first place. This makes us resilient. I can think of many reasons why I would decide to leave the project, but running out of money is not one of those.
8
Even if you’re not a dev, and don’t have a brilliant idea you want to ask for money for, we can still use your help. We’re looking for community managers / moderators, testers, technical writers, wiki wizards, and individuals with good vibes in general that are excited about the tech and the promise of Grin. Hit me up if you want to toss ideas, my DMs are open.
9
If you’re not a dev, don’t have idea for how to spend money, don’t want to contribute, and don’t have any good vibes to offer either… Bummer. Make sure you stick around in any case, you might get inspired at some point in the future!
10
But! If you find that this is all quite the bullshit, that the “true spirit of grin” has been hijacked by some centralized, virtue-signalling assholes that are buying themselves golden slippers and diamond rings (it’s all about that bling bling baby 
) and you feel something ought to be done about this… then please do so! What is the core team anyways?
It’s some people with:
- commit rights to the github repo
- mu-sig access to a bitcoin wallet
- admin rights on a discourse forum
- admin rights on a keybase group
- (We don’t own the domain grin.mw, it’s been kindly lent to us from 0xb100d)
Really, how hard is that to replicate? Grab a few likeminded buddies, fork the repo, setup your own forum and keybase group, and there you go! Throw in a donation btc/grin wallet for good measure and you’re off to the races. Call yourselves Grin PRO, Grin X or whatever you like. If you follow the consensus rules, your node will be treated just like any node on the network. And we’d be happy to have you. The more the merrier. You’ll be running your own show, king of your castle, master of your domain, and can do whatever you like.
Note that this is NOT me telling you to “fork off”, on the contrary I’d like you to stay. This is me telling you that you DO NOT have to accept our governance model if you don’t want to. Participation is voluntary.
11
Finally, I just want to close with saying that we never expected to find ourselves a few months after mainnet having launched without Igno. Core team members were all looking to Igno for leadership, and he disappeared way too early. We’re definitely not perfect, and none of us are close to having the leadership qualities that Igno had. We’re doing our best, trying to learn from mistakes, and are hoping to improve over time.
Thanks for reading all the way, keep on keeping on in these times! 