# What is a DAO

### What is a DAO?

DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is an **online** **community** that pursues common goals and makes decisions by **member voting.** Voting rights normally come with holding certain cryptocurrencies/NFTs but can also be non-token weighted (i.e. one vote per person).

### Casual DAO vs Formal DAO

A DAO may be a daunting idea for someone new but it is actually easier to comprehend than you might have thought: it is **just an online community** with a **purpose** or **common interest**, and **governance** rules. While we can jibber-jabber DAO for days, here at Daoing we wish to make it simple for beginners: explaining and comparing Casual DAOs vs Formal DAOs.

**A Casual DAO** is generally more relaxed in terms of its organizational structure and governance rules. It can be formed by a small or big group of people, and may or may not involve fundraising. Sometimes even a group chat based on a common interest topic can be considered a casual DAO. You don't have to be a programmer or project founder to start such a DAO.

However, a **Formal DAO** involves [fundraising](/developers/launch-your-tokens.md), [coding](/developers/on-chain-governance.md) Smart Contracts, and managing proposals through [voting](/developers/voting.md). Those DAOs typically have specific governance rules and in some way act like a corporation to pursue its targets. Developers are generally needed to code the Smart Contracts behind such DAOs. If you are serious about starting a Formal DAO, you can follow a [step-by-step guide](/web3-tutorial/what-is-a-dao/start-a-dao.md) here.

### Open DAO vs Private DAO

In the context of Daoing app, DAOs are just online communities so some may be open to the public while others are more private or exclusive.

It is easy to join open DAOs as they don't have much entry requirements. But for private or exclusive DAOs, the ownership of crypto assets (sometimes [NFTs](#nft-daos)) are needed, and new member applications may be subject to voting. DAOs that require the ownership of NFTs are generally called [NFT DAOs](/web3-tutorial/what-is-a-dao/nft-dao.md).

### DAO by Its Purpose

DAOs can be categorized by its purpose too. Here are some typical examples:

* A Collector DAO, e.g. [**ConstitutionDAO**](https://www.constitutiondao.com/)
* An Investment DAO, e.g. [**Krause House DAO**](https://www.krausehouse.club/)
* A Protocal DAO, e.g. [**Uniswap**](https://uniswap.org/)
* A Charity DAO, e.g. [**SaveTheChildren**](https://www.savethechildren.org/)
* A Grants DAO, e.g. [**Aave Grants Dao**](https://aavegrants.org/)
* A Media DAO, e.g. [**Decrypt**](https://decrypt.co/)


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