Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2012-2013 round2/Wikimedia Czech Republic/Staff proposal assessment

Please, see comments/questions to the FDC staff raised by user:Okino on other discussion page. Best regards --Chmee2 (talk) 11:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Chmee2, I have responded to user:Okino's comment directly below it. Thanks for flagging it here. Best, KLove (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Internal conflicts

I wonder how the commission come up to the conclusion, the Chapter is in internal conflicts? I would like to ask also, whether is it normal to base a conslusion on anonymous slanderous information? I am talking about user Apate. Noone know him, he/she registered the day he left the comment.--Juandev (talk) 15:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Juandev, as with Chmee2's request, please see my response in the place where Okino's comment was written, on the Talk page of the WMCZ proposal. Note, too, that this was in the FDC staff assessment (which is different from the assessment of the FDC itself). Best regards, KLove (WMF) (talk) 20:00, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Is underspending really that bad?

One thing that kind of confuses me is that the assesment seems to understand not spending lots of money as a negative thing, specifically regarding Mediagrant. The whole idea of this grant back in 2010 was being able to use funds in the best way possible, without having to worry about hitting some pre-set budget or time limit. Whether the assigned amount was the best choice is surely questionable, but that has very little to do with current governance of WMCZ grants or the chapter as a whole. We are doing our best to use the WMF grant money efficiently and avoid expenses that are unnecessary or inefficient. While I understand that being able to create predictable budgets is important for the Foundation, I am not fully convinced that fulfilling expense quotas is the best way to gauge governance or project success. Especially in case where the project in question did not have any such criterion set in the first place. --che 08:52, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi che, I appreciate this question. You're right: underspending in itself is definitely not always a bad thing. And I agree that spending money effectively and efficiently are of the utmost importance. Spending money just to spend money and increase the grant's "burn rate" is not good practice and is not encouraged. However, it is important for entities to budget realistically at the beginning of a project and then spend as planned. Long-term underspending suggests that the program was not properly planned, and this grant remains significantly underspent. This could be because of external forces which inhibited spending, too limited volunteer time or number of volunteers, lack of skills required to execute appropriately, or maybe just lack of knowledge on the costs of such a program. The FDC staff assessment considered how entities were managing and spending their WMF grants as one indicator of capacity to spend additional funding. We are all learning from the WMF approval of this grant in 2010. Internally, at WMF, we have been working to create strong and coherent grant review and approval processes in order to encourage proper budgeting, planning, and strong financial management. Thanks again for this question! Cheers, KLove (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 21 May 2013 (UTC)