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Founding Phase · Private Beta. The Institute is in private beta. Any example content is labelled as such and is never presented as real.

DSI
Worksheet

Milestone Funding Review Sheet

This tool has been retired

It stays online so existing links, version history and any work you already started against it still resolve. It is no longer maintained or reviewed.

Use Post-Award Milestone, Tranche & Closeout Tracker instead
Type
Worksheet
Difficulty
Advanced
Time
45 min
Version
v1.0.0
Updated
7/3/2026
treasurydata

What this helps you do

Staged funding only protects the treasury if each stage has a verifiable exit. This sheet makes weak stages visible before the first tranche moves.

It is a process tool: it produces questions for the proposer, not a verdict.

When to use this

  • A treasury request pays out in tranches tied to milestones.
  • You need to judge whether delivery can be verified by someone other than the proposer.
  • You are checking whether a slipped milestone has a defined consequence.

When NOT to use this

  • On single-payment requests with no milestone structure.
  • To price the work. It tests verifiability, not value for money.

What you'll need

  • The full milestone schedule
  • Tranche amounts and their share of the total
  • Stated acceptance evidence for each milestone
  • Any dependency list

Estimated completion time

45 minutes

Working time for one governance action, assuming the inputs listed here are already to hand.

How to use it

  1. 1Enter one row per milestone.
  2. 2Rewrite each deliverable as an artefact rather than an effort; if you cannot, that is the finding.
  3. 3Record who can verify the acceptance evidence.
  4. 4Note the failure path where a milestone slips.
  5. 5Look at the tranche profile as a whole: how much is paid before anything is verifiable?

The tool

Full worksheet - v1.0.0

Per-milestone columns

  • Deliverable stated as an artefact, not an effort
  • Acceptance evidence and who can verify it
  • Tranche amount and share of total
  • Failure path if the milestone slips
  • Whether the milestone can be verified by a non-expert
Fictional Example

Invented for illustration. It does not describe a real governance action, proposal, or organisation.

Fictional milestone row

  • Deliverable: community engagement. Not an artefact. Rewrite requested.
  • Acceptance evidence: proposer's own summary. Not independently verifiable.
  • Tranche: 40% of total, paid first.
  • Failure path: none stated. Flagged as an open question before voting.

How to interpret the result

  • The sheet shows whether each milestone has a verifiable acceptance test before funds are released.
  • Milestones without evidence attached should be treated as unverified.

Limitations

  • It reviews the funding structure, not the technical quality of delivered work.
  • It cannot tell you whether reported completion actually happened.

Sources and methodology

Learn this method

This tool records the work. The Training Lab teaches how to do it.

  • treasury-and-budget · Reading a Treasury Withdrawal Like an Operator

    Reading a Treasury Withdrawal Like an Operator

    Teaches what makes a milestone verifiable.

    Open lesson

Downloads

  • Markdown export: the complete tool, including metadata, instructions, the template, limitations, sources and version history.

No other file formats are published for this resource. We list a format only when the file exists.

Version and governance

Current version
v1.0.0
Published
8/9/2026
Last updated
7/3/2026
Next scheduled review
1/3/2027
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Editorial status
Not yet externally reviewed

No named reviewer is shown because no external review has been completed. Attribution appears only once a verified reviewer has signed off.

Changelog

  • v1.0.0 (2026-07-03) - Migrated from the static library into the resource register.
  • v1.0.0 (2026-08-10) - Retired. Superseded by Post-Award Milestone, Tranche & Closeout Tracker. Kept for version history and existing member workspaces.
Next in the workflow

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