Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2012-2013 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Progress report form/Q1

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Link to staff summary[edit]

We have published a staff summary of all 2012-2013 Round 1 Q1 reports here: FDC portal/Proposals/2012-2013 round1/Staff summary/Progress report form/Q1. We ask each entity to also review our general comments there. All the best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 23:56, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciation[edit]

Thank you for taking the time to prepare this detailed report. Congratulations on your progress on the Landtagsprojekt. Congratulations also on your fundraising certification; this seems like an important step for WMAT.

Best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 23:56, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We would like to learn more[edit]

Would you kindly share with us the total spent in the first quarter on staff and the amount budgeted for the year? This will help us to better understand WMAT’s progress. In future reports, please also include this information.  Thank you, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 23:56, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the first quarter 2013 we spent 9443,35 EUR on staff. The actual costs are somewhat higher, as the contractors haven't handed in their fee notes when the Q1 report was completed. The budgeted amount for staff expenses in 2013 is approx 16 000 EUR higher than outlined in our FDC proposal, as we upgraded the intern position into a fulltime staff member in May. --CDG (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for future reports[edit]

WMAT is on the right track, but here are a few suggestions for improving future reports. Note that we’re not asking you to revise the Q1 report, but rather to take these points into account when creating future reports.

  • Growth: It seems there is some confusion about the question in the progress report on growth. This question does not refer only to organizational growth but also to indicators of the growth of the communities WMAT is supporting that may give us more insight into your progress. For example, an indicator could be the number of articles or content added to one of your on-wiki areas of focus as a result of your programs.
  • Understanding spending by program area: We would like to better understand spending against planned programs. We notice you still report on programs using the structure in your FDC proposal, and so we hope this would merely be a matter of tagging specific budget items according to program and creating a list of totals.
  • Spending on staff salaries: As requested above, we ask that you share with us the totals spent on staff salaries as other entities have done for this quarter in future reports.
  • Metrics: In future reports, we ask that you include metrics to help us to understand WMAT’s activities. Consider making general statements more specific. Rather than simply writing, “WMAT supported several authors by providing necessary literature resources,” qualify this with “WMAT supported XX authors by providing necessary literature resources in the form of XX books and periodicals valued at XX EUR over the course of XX months.”
  • Qualitative measures: In the area of community support, we agree that qualitative measures are sometimes helpful. As your programs grow, you might also consider finding ways to measure the qualitative results of programs. This can be a challenge, but you might consider surveying participants to measure their increased engagement over time.

We appreciate the amount of time you have taken to prepare this report and we thank you for taking the time to improve future reports. We have noted that your organization has been experiencing challenges with finding time both to meet reporting requirements and to execute successful program activities. Like you, we hope that this balance improves as your processes develop. We look forward to learning more about your continued progress. All the best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 23:56, 10 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, but we think there's room for improvement concerning the processes on both sides :-). The fact the the Q&A session is much leaner than in the grant making process is a first step into the right direction. --CDG (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]