Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Ukraine/2019

Initial review and request for revisions

Hello, WMUA colleagues! We are working right now to do an initial review of all of the Simple Annual Plan Grant applications for this round, to make sure we have enough information to conduct our detailed review over the next few weeks.

First, I wanted to let you know how impressed I was with your application this year. Your budget manages to show the high level, and it also provides sufficient details for us to understand your costs. I very much appreciate your explanation about why you are doing each program, and also the activity list you include where you make it clear what activities you will do to work toward your goals for each program. There is a lot of very helpful context provided around your work. Furthermore, I find that your program structure is logical and clear. This no longer reads as a long list of activities, but as a coherent plan. Great work!

One thing that I still think needs improvement is your program objectives, very few of which are specific enough to be measurable. For each of your objectives, please ask yourselves, "How will we know if we have achieved this?" If you can't answer that question, your objective is not specific or measurable enough.

(I am aware that Delphine and you have been discussing your proposed staffing plan separately, so I will put that topic aside for the moment.)

We ask that you complete these revisions by 9 November, so that we may proceed with review. If you cannot complete them by this date, please let us know so that we can set a date by which you can have them done. As always, please contact us with any questions.

спасибі Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:22, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred and thank you very much for your feedback.

Our approach was giving rather high-level programme objectives (what are the goals want to achieve with this?) in the proposal, and giving targets per programme and sub-programme on each metrics (what is the expected result of this?) in the Google spreadsheet. Thus our objectives are rather general, but we found that we know how to measure almost all of them, with possibly Community Support and Development ones somewhat hard to measure. If they are the issue, we can rewrite them.

If you think that a majority of our objectives should be improved, could you please specify how? Should we provide specific measures or do you want us to introduce additional metrics? Taking our first objective as an example (to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics that were identified by the community), should we add a specific measure (e.g. to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics that were identified by the community (measures: number of articles created and improved)) or should we add additional metrics and targets (to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics that were identified by the community (target: 3000 articles created and improved))?

Thanks! — WMUA Treasurer NickK (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, NickK. Good that you have this information on hand. Yes, include the metrics and targets so that it is clear how you will know if each of your objectives has been met or not. Please do so by 12 November, if that is possible for you. Which are the objectives under community support that you think would be too difficult to measure? Perhaps we can think them through together. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 21:17, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred and thank you for this clarification. We will add metrics and targets then. Regarding Community Support and Development, we will probably slightly clarify objectives to have an exact measure next to each objective, but there will be no major change or discussion needed. We will be able to do it by 12 November — NickK (talk) 21:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred,

As discussed, we have added targets next to each objective. We have merged two objectives in Community Support and Development into one (to increase the community participation and skill level and to empower users with the techniques and skills that needed for Wikimedia projects) because we have only one measure for the two.

Is the new presentation of objectives clear for you? Thanks — NickK (talk) 22:04, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for these revisions, NickK. Two suggestions:

1. None of your objectives are yet timebound. If all of your objectives are for a period of 12 months, I suggest that you just add that statement before your list of objectives. As in "Over 12 months..." so that you don't have to spend time specifying this for each objective. If your objectives have different time periods, then you will need to add them for each objective.
2. Make sure each of your targets is relevant. For example, when you say "to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics that were identified by the community (target: 3000 Wikipedia articles created or improved)" Do you mean that your target is "3000 Wikipedia articles about specific topics that were identified by the community are created or improved"? If so, please specify this to show how your target is relevant. This can be applied to a number of your targets associated with your objectives (though some are already relevant).

Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 08:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred and thank you for your feedback.

1. All our targets are for 12 months, but they would not be implemented at the equal pace. For example, Wikimarathon is planned for the end of January / early February. The associated target is thus technically for 12 months but should be reached by early February. We specified activity plans for activities that are not covering all 12 months.
2. Our targets are also provided in the context of the related objectives. For instance, we indeed mean that 3000 Wikipedia articles about specific topics that were identified by the community should be created or improved.

We can expand our targets for full clarity, but I think that instead of making better this will make our targets hard to read. Something like:

• to encourage regulatory and legislative changes that will benefit the Wikimedia projects, affirming freedom of panorama in Ukraine (target: over 12 months at least 1 press conference, 1 video and 5 round tables or meetings with partners are to be organised to encourage regulatory and legislative changes that will benefit the Wikimedia projects, affirming freedom of panorama in Ukraine)

Could you please thus give us either an example of how we should present these targets (if we should rewrite all targets — please take any target as an example) or targets we should clarify (if only some targets are concerned)? Thanks — NickK (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't find that hard to read; I find it specific, relevant, and measurable. So I think you are on the right track. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:38, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for clarification Winifred. I have paraphrased all our targets according to the format provided above. Please tell us if you need any additional details on these targets. Thanks — NickK (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! I have only had time to skim them so far, but they look good. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:03, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikimedia Ukraine's grant is approved in the amount of 108,400 US dollars for 12 months

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 108,400 US dollars for 12 months including a 10% contingency fee of $9,900, although some changes to your plan and budget are still required. We would like you to implement our recommendations around staffing as follows. You may replace your existing project coordinator, but should not hire additional staff. Before implementing further changes (including an executive position), we would like you to engage in a longer term planning process related to staffing, and one which will address the real challenges you have in defining and managing roles and responsibilities among your staff and board. The hiring of a contractor with external expertise in the area of advocacy will also be permitted, as long as you follow the guidelines recommended by your program officer in defining this position's scope.

We advise you to stay in close touch with your program officers as these discussions develop, so you can be sure your plans are in line with expectations around funding. This will avoid us needing to engage in extensive revisions or dialogue during the next application cycle.

We realize that you may need to make changes to some of your program plans, and to your budget, as a result changing your staffing model, and also that you may need to allocate some funds toward supporting these discussions. We will be supporting these changes and working with you to make sure that they happen smoothly and in line with a coherent development for the year ahead.

We continue to admire Wikimedia Ukraine’s ongoing support of your communities, and your ability to function in a challenging operating environment. We admire the amount and quality of content produced, and the amount of participants engaged, through your many program activities. We also admire the geographic scope of your organization, which touches many regions throughout Ukraine. We see that you have done a great deal of work this year to make a more cohesive program plan, and to prioritize your activities. We appreciate the context you have provided about your work in the proposal, so that we have a good understanding about why you are planning to do this work.

Some highlights include:

• Your growing interest in advocacy. (We understand this is something you may need to put on hold in order to implement our suggested staffing changes, but we hope it may be revived in the future when your organization has the capacity to do it.)
• Your goal of engaging every region in Ukraine through your Wikimarathon project.
• Capacity buildling for communtiy members that is focused on specific skills, including skills like conflict resolution that may contribute to community health.
• Leveraging WMUA’s expertise with contests to develop contests on projects other than Wikipedia.

We also continue to appreciate that WMUA maintains such close ties with the communities it serves. We wish you all the best in 2019, and look forward to supporting you during this transition year.

Please submit a revised program plan, budget, and staffing plan by Wednesday of next week (19 December), so that we may approve your revised plans before the start of your new grant period.

Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 03:37, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred and thank you for approving our grant and for your feedback.

We have made these changes yesterday. After internal discussions we expect that we will be able to meet our initial programme plans, although this change in staffing will need more efforts from the volunteers with somewhat less staff support.

Specifically, we amended our Staffing plan and our 2019 budget and staffing breakdown the changes we made include:

• Removing Project Coordinator position, switching one of the project manager positions from 0.75 FTE to full-time. We will discuss this with you in more detail: it might not be effective immediately, but we really needed to budget it. Please note that in light of project manager change the distribution of projects between two project managers is not finalised, while hours normally are.
• Added Advocacy contractor line. We will switch advocacy from support by project manager(s) to support by a specialised contractor. In brief, next year we have UKWIKI 15 and also elections. This represents significant opportunities for advocacy, and we want to use them.
• Added Strategy facilitation line. Good strategic discussions need qualified facilitators. We are planning two strategic sessions for the next year, and we will need facilitation for those (we initially planned Project Coordinator will be able to fulfil this role).
• Added offline jury meetings for all three national photo contests. Our staff will be able to allocate less resources to supporting the contest juries. To compensate that, we are planning to organise offline jury meetings as we have done them a few years ago: this is an alternative way to support jury work with less staff involvement.
• Added additional budget to the Education Programme. Our initial model based on multiple contractor project managers allowed us to have an education manager with specific expertise. In light of the change of the model, we expect that we will need a higher budget to cover travel by volunteers working in education and probably an additional event for discussions between volunteers and professional educators.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you want to discuss any point. We also wish you happy holidays and all the best in 2019 — NickK (talk) 08:23, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank youUser talk:NickK and WMUA team for documenting these changes. These all make sense in light of what we requested and discussed. These changes to your budget are approved. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:18, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Midpoint report

Hi Delphine & Winifred,
Wikimedia Ukraine' sAPG midpoint report is ready for review. Please, let us know if we missed someting. -- ViraMotorko (WMUA) ^(talk) 10:19, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ViraMotorko (WMUA)! I'll reach out through email to find a time to review it together. Cheers, Delphine (WMF) (talk)

Reallocation request

Hi @Delphine (WMF):!

We would like to request reallocation of grant funds for our coming Wikiconference in Kharkiv which will also include a final round of strategic discussions and an Extraordinary General Meeting to approve the strategy.

Our strategic process happened to be more costly than we anticipated, particularly because more people were participating than expected, meaning more expenses on travel, accommodation and catering, bigger rooms needed etc. This is not necessarily bad but this would make us exceed our budget.

Thus we are requesting reallocation in the following way:

• +5 000 USD on 3.1.1 Event organisation (WikiConference, General Meeting, Strategic Session etc.), per above.
• -1 000 USD on 3.3 Scholarships. As CEE Meeting happens to be at the same time as our Wikiconference (planned months ahead, we have chosen these dates because of three-day weekend in Ukraine), only one scholarship was used, with other chapter members going to Kharkiv instead
• -4 000 USD on 3.4 Microgrants. While microgrants programme was more active, we did not fully push it yet pending outcomes of the strategy discussions, thus it will be significantly less used than expected.

Thanks! — WMUA Treasurer NickK (talk) 21:02, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

This reallocation is approved. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 08:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Reallocation request 2

Hi @Delphine (WMF):!

Following our discussions in August, we would like to ask for the reallocation of grant funds for the Wiki Science article contest.

This year, we run both the Women in STEM article contest and the Wiki Science article contest. As we have already discussed before, back in late 2018 we were not sure we would hold both contests, so we included only one in our budget. However, we ended up having enough capacity and volunteer involvement to organise both of them.

At the same time, we decided not to hold an offline jury meeting for the Science Photo Competition. The number of photos uploaded was lower than in previous years, and thus the organising team managed to efficiently work with the jury without an offline meeting. As a result, 700 USD allocated for the meeting in our budget have not been used.

Thus we are requesting reallocation in the following way:

• +700 USD on 1.1.3 Wiki Science article contest / Women in Red (STEM) article contest
• -700 USD on 1.2.2.3 Science Photo Competition in Ukraine (1.2.2.3.8 Offline jury meeting)

Thanks! — WMUA Treasurer NickK (talk) 01:30, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Request approved! Delphine (WMF) (talk) 09:15, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Reporting deadline extension

Hi @Delphine (WMF):!

As discussed by email, we would like to formally request reporting deadline extension.

The reason is that this year we had too little time between the end of Christmas holidays (12 January, Christmas being on 7 January in Ukraine) and the beginning of our traditional Wikimarathon (26 January to 2 February, we cannot choose the date of Ukrainian Wikipedia birthday), thus our staff and volunteers were very busy preparing Wikimarathon.

Being able to finish the report after the end of the Wikimarathon would be thus very helpful for us and would allow us to avoid burnout. Can you please thus allow us to extend the reporting deadline till 9 February (end of the Wikimarathon + 1 week)?

Thanks! — WMUA Treasurer NickK (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Extension granted! Delphine (WMF) (talk)

Final report accepted

Hello NickK, AntonProtsiuk (WMUA), and Wikimedia Ukraine colleagues. We have reviewed your final report and marked it as accepted. Your grant is now complete. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 08:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)