Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Staff proposal assessment

General Introduction

As decided at the end of last fiscal year (2017-2018), we have implemented a lightweight approach for Round 2 2018-2019 of Annual Plan Grants - General support. This will enable all participants to direct resources toward better alignment with the Wikimedia Strategic Direction. Applicants and staff have worked together between January to May. Staff offered feedback on past reports and plans, and worked with applicants to develop their upcoming annual plans. Organizations submitted lightweight summaries of their annual plans which are the basis for these funding recommendations. These recommendations are informed by the decision not to increase funding from last year's FDC recommendations. There is an exception for emerging communities outside of Europe. In this round, Wikimedia Indonesia and CIS were eligible for increased funding, and only Wikimedia Indonesia has requested a grant increase.

Working with organizations in a more systematic way to develop their annual plans has allowed:

• better alignment with the movement strategy direction, achieved by working closely with organization to develop their annual plans;
• funding capped at last year's level has prompted organizations to review and rethink some of their priorities, or to focus on securing external funding opportunities, and;
• a more thoughtful approach to grants metrics (focused on participation and content) and their use, including more qualitative metrics.

This lightweight approach has been adapted from the previous round. This round includes five annual plan summaries for the next grant period. Recommendations and remarks made by the FDC and staff in previous years have been taken into account by the organizations.

Text for approval - The Centre for Internet and Society

• The Centre for Internet and Society: requesting approval for 15,167,040 INR (~ 214,000 USD). Roughly the same amount as recommended by the FDC last year. The Centre for Internet and Society (Access to Knowledge Team: A2K) is an important actor in an under-resourced region, and their work is focused on strengthening communities through skill building and leadership development, cultivating connections within the larger open knowledge and civil society ecosystems, and increasing the amount and quality of content available in the languages of India. CIS-A2K has a thoughtful approach that is strategic and responsive. They have analyzed and addressed challenges in their environment. Their work puts volunteers at the center, and they continue to intentionally involve community members in decisions about their programs and priorities at every stage. With this strategic and responsive approach, they continue to achieve impressive results in terms of content contributions and people involved, year after year, while working toward their longer term goal of supporting open knowledge. CIS-A2K has built solid expertise in collaborating with and supporting many different language communities. This will continue to be important as we develop the concept of knowledge equity in the context of the emerging movement strategy. WMF’s thriving partnership with CIS is an example of how Wikimedia work may be integrated and amplified within an organization that is focused on the larger free knowledge ecosystem. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Approved by the Executive Director 22 May 2019