Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Suomi/2016-2017

Eligibility

Hello, Wikimedia Suomi colleagues:

Thank you for submitting your eligibility form on 15 February. After reviewing your past grants we've determined that you are eligible to apply for a Simple Annual Plan Grant.

We appreciate your efforts to continue your work with GLAM institutions and your partnership with the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland. We look forward to your efforts to learn more about your community and engage new and existing contributors and volunteers in your work. We appreciate your engagement during the process of developing your current proposal, and we are looking forward to reviewing your application for a Simple Annual Plan Grant.

Wikimedia Suomi received one small grant in 2011-12 to translate materials about Wikimedia into Finnish. After several years of relative inactivity and insufficient reporting, Wikimedia Suomi began to increase its program activity significantly in 2013, when work on Wikimaps also began. Wikimedia Suomi increased its budget significantly with first annual plan grant in 2014, bringing on a part-time project manager and several contractors, and including a 0.7 FTE project manager and 0.15 assistant in the first half of 2015.

During this period of expansion, Wikimaps was the organization’s main area of focus. WMFI’s work in the first half of 2015 was funded by a grant for the first 6 months of 2015. At the time of the grant’s approval, clear expectations were set regarding progress on volunteer engagement and concerns were expressed regarding the chapter’s rapid growth and the size of their staff in light of this lack of engagement. During 2015, Wikimedia Suomi has been growing its relationships and activities with GLAM institutions in Finland, including edit-a-thons and photo events targeting specific content. They have also been working on uploading sets of content and data to Commons and Wikidata, resulting in 253 images used in articles uploaded during the first six months of 2015. Despite these results in terms of content and partnerships, Wikimedia Suomi has had limited success attracting new contributors and volunteers to its work. In light of this, Wikimedia Suomi withdrew its application for 2015 H2, transitioned back to being an all volunteer organization, and began planning how to refocus its community work after agreeing that Wikimaps should be funded independently of the chapter. Work on the Wikimaps warper is currently funded through an Individual Engagement Grant, independent of the chapter, and no funding for Wikimaps is requested as part of this grant. Wikimedia Finland's dedicated former employee, Susanna Ånäs, has continued to work with the chapter in a volunteer capacity.

In addition to significant WMF funding in past years, WMFI also received funding from outside the movement to support some of its program work. In the current year, WMFI will be receiving at least 14,000 EUR in grants from the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland.

WMFI is not applying for staff, but has expressed interest in applying for an annual plan grant that includes operational expenses as well as program expenses. In order to remain eligible, WMFI will need to formally withdraw all draft or pending PEG requests. We encourage WMFI to take a focused approach to program planning in order to refine approaches to engaging contributors and volunteers, and to keep new initiatives on a small scale until new approaches can be tested.

Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:02, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Application discussion

From the Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee

FloNight

Hello, thank you for the time and work that your put into your application. I enjoyed reading about your plans. I have a few question:

You refer to having a community consultation in your proposal. Can you give more details about the community education consultation? Where will the discussion take place? Is it done on a Wikipedia village pump or another venue?

I appreciate that you are working to make content more diverse by working on a project with four-language (Estonian, English, Finnish and Russian). As a whole, the wikimedia movement has more men volunteering than women. Do you know the diversity of Wikimedia Suomi (gender, age, etc?) And if there is an imbalance, do you have projects and event planned this year to address the gender gap in content and participation.

Again, thank you for you interesting programs. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 01:40, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion of community education consultation will take place in project pages. Yes, clear minority of our editors and writers are women, but according to my observation more than 50 percent of participants in our glam-related events are participated by women. This is one of the things we expect to study further in our survey or study, in order to do strategic planning. We had a Wikipedia editing event in March 8th 2016 in which 120 person participated in writing more than hundred articles about women. We plan to organize a similar editing event as in March 2016 for women in International Women´s Day 2017.--Kulttuurinavigaattori (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

antanana

I have a few comments:

• there are See below notes in section Events breakdown by event. is it supposed to be See above?
• 1.5.1 International travel has four trips included to Wikimania, CEE and Nordic/Baltic meetings, but your application mentions two people attending Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. And you plan to have two people to attend CEEM 2016.
• 1.6.1 Research & Finnish Wikipedia 15 seminar Does this line include researcher's fee?
• 1.6.2 OKM wikidata costs Could you please explain to me what is included here?
• 2.2.1 Accounting services I am not sure it is okay to backdate.
• 2.3.9 Printing Do you have banners printed already? Or some other stuff like that? If there are a lot of people, you need to be visible (t-shirts, banners ect).
• 2.3.9 Printing What exactly do you plan to print for Partnerships (GLAM & Education & OKM)?

thank you! --アンタナナ 18:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction! We plan to send people to Wikimania and Nordic/Baltic meetings. The participants are listed into WMCON, but no grants are applied, because they are financed by the organizer. Yes, all expenses are included in this sum, including researcher's fee. "OKM wikidata" costs are for a project coordinator, a specialist and a wikidata coordinator and two workshops. According to WMF Winifred Ollif, backdating of accounting services are possible. We are planning printed matter for the October Helsinki book fair. We are making a printed booklet with information on basic copyrights, licenses and using images.--Kulttuurinavigaattori (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Ido (Alleycat80)

Thanks for submitting the request. It turned out to highlight a lot of your possibilities, and they seem abundant - which is great! My two main points that require clarification are:

• Research: your budget document contains a 5,000 euro expense for research. Does that coincide with your plans to do a study of your current community? If so, would you elaborate what does the expense include? It seems quite a large sum for getting a survey up and running, and analysing its results, when there is an abundance of tools for dong it for almost free (and the Foundation sometimes helps by providing its own Qualitrics solution and some expert guidance). So, I'd like to understand a bit more here.

• Recruiting editors in GLAM partnerships VS. getting more members in your outreach program: you mention recruiting 5 new editors for each event, out of 20 people (a very aggressive target, that might be hard to achieve btw), in 5 events this year. Later, you mention the need to get 6-10 persons into your community of volunteers. Why not combine the two goals?

Thanks again for submitting, some of your planned programs (including ones that are early and non-programmatic) are truly exciting. Let me know if I can help in any way. Alleycat80 (talk) 05:28, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the research is about the study of our community, by which we mean Finnish language Wikipedia readers, editors and writers. The expense includes hiring an outside, independent maker of survey and/or interview, publishing and organizing a one-day seminar about this issue. The "community of volunteers" means new active members of the association that may include recruited new editors.--Kulttuurinavigaattori (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, Kulttuurinavigaattori. Alleycat80 (talk) 10:25, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

AddisWang

Hi, the proposal overlly look nice, but I have a few comment that wish to be answered:

1. Can you provide more details about travel expense, like why 642 Euros per trip and how does the selection will be made?
2. Can you tell us what may include in "office supplies", "Running Cost"?
3. Can you explain a little more on what is the bookfair and why you would like to have it?

I don't really see any problem for this expense, but I would like to have more details to know and learn your plan. Thanks!--AddisWang (talk) 13:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

These trips happen in Europe, they are based on same average, estimated cost of travel, boarding and participation costs of the events. The board of the association elects the willing participants, usually by discussing and if needed by voting. Former experience, needs of experience and activity in the association and Wikipedia community are considered. "Office supplies" are more permanent items and "running costs" are items that more or less "wear out" in use. A stapler is an "office supply" and staples for it are "running costs". In 2015 Helsinki Book Fair gathered 80 000 visitors. They include all kinds of actors that have something to do with books and publishing. We wish to gain more visibility and spread more general information about Wikipedia and Wikimedia by participating in the book fair.--Kulttuurinavigaattori (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for all your comments, I hope I managed to answer everything. And please ask more if anything remained unclear!--Kulttuurinavigaattori (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Committee recommendations and decision

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: The Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee recommends that Wikimedia Suomi receive a grant of €22,554 (corresponding to 100% of the funding requested) for their 2016 annual plan. We appreciate Wikimedia Suomi’s emphasis on understanding and building connections with its communities, since this is an important area of development for the chapter right now. Progress in community growth and engagement will be critical in the next year, as Wikimedia Suomi implements its plan. The committee also expects that Wikimedia Suomi will become more engaged with the international movement, including fellow chapters in the CEE or Nordic regional groups, by learning from others and sharing about its work and experiences more broadly and collaborating.

Strengths identified by the committee: Organizational effectiveness: Wikimedia Suomi has a dedicated board, including expertise in GLAM, education, and finance. Wikimedia Suomi has presented an achievable plan, and is exploring new approaches, such as the education program, as pilots rather than large new initiatives. Wikimedia Suomi is receiving significant external funding to support relevant Wikimedia projects, thus growing a more diverse funding base and bringing additional funds into the movement. The committee encourages Wikimedia Suomi to sustain this funding (and perhaps other sources of funding that can be secured through partnerships) in the future. Wikimedia Suomi’s plan emphasizes research to better understand the needs of their communities, as well as plans to incentivize more involvement in Wikimedia Suomi’s work and volunteer ownership of projects. Program effectiveness: Wikimedia Suomi has developed strong partnerships and is gaining momentum in its GLAM work. Through its aspirations for working with the Fenno-Ugric language communities in Finland and beyond, Wikimedia Suomi is addressing language diversity.

Concerns identified by the committee: Organizational effectiveness: While the plan presented could be achievable, Wikimedia Suomi may be overestimating its capacity to manage several complex programs at one time, particularly in the areas of research and international work where they have not yet shown strong expertise. Wikimedia Suomi’s track record is concerning, as past grants have not met expectations in terms of impact achieved for the amounts spent. Wikimedia Suomi may not yet have good organizational practices in place. While this is not an immediate concern, it should be considered if the chapter intends to grow. While Wikimedia Suomi is attempting to better understand the needs of their communities and increase its connections to their communities, they have not yet been successful in this area, and it is not clear that these efforts will lead to fruitful results. Program effectiveness: It’s clear from the proposal that the main goal for this grant period is to extend Wikimedia Suomi’s volunteer community and reach additional people to participate in future programs. We advise Wikimedia Suomi to prioritize parts of the programs that may lead to recruitment of new volunteers above other programs, as reaching more people would allow better capacity and future performance. Many programs are not yet fully developed and lack clear goals or ways of measuring impact. The link between program activity and online impact is not clear. It is difficult to understand how expenses in the budget (e.g. travel expenses) will lead to impact.

On behalf of the Simple Annual Plan Grant Committee, Alleycat80 (talk) 08:52, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Decision from WMF

Funding decision: Many thanks to Wikimedia Suomi for your work during the application process, and many thanks to the committee for this recommendation. WMF will fund this grant as recommended, in the amount of 22,554 Euro for twelve months. No budget adjustments are necessary. Congratulations! Janice and I will be in touch this week to move forward with your grant agreement, and we will set up a schedule for our regular check ins. We can talk more about how to implement some of the committee's recommendations as you move forward in your work. All the best in 2016-2017. Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 21:10, 5 May 2016 (UTC)