Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round2/Wikimedia ZA/Proposal form

Please make a few minor improvements to your proposal form

Thank you for submitting your proposal on time.

1. The proposal form has not been signed. Would you please sign it now, using four tildes?
2. We saw that you mentioned in your proposal that you did not budget for reserves and were not sure about how much you could carry over. The reserves policy is here. You won't be able to carry any unused funds over into your reserves unless you budget for them now, in your proposal. Please let us know right away if you need to change your budget to include funding for reserves.
3. You seem to have used an out of date version of the proposal form, and we ask that you update your proposal to the new form so that all of the proposals in this round are comparable. You can find a copy of the preload here. We can set up a call to walk you through the differences in the forms if that would help.

Please let us know if you have questions about these requests. We realize that using the forms can be especially challenging for organizations applying for an APG for the first time, so we will work with you to make sure these few minor issues are resolved in the next few days. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Improvements as Requested

Dear Winifred,

Thank for you for the opportunity to address these issues.

1. I have signed the form as requested.
2. We have made provision for Project Contingencies and Reserves in the amount of ZAR 40,000.00 / USD 3,414.40 in our Annual Budget to be used for project and community outreach. I have also included information in the proposal. We will not need to add any additional reserves.
3. I have updated our proposal form to the preloaded version supplied. Many thanks for this. I trust that I have completed all the necessary information.

Kindest Regards --Humetheresa (talk) 09:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Humetheresa, thank you for these speedy improvements. We realize changing the forms was a lot of work, but we appreciate that the new version you've created helps us all get on the same page in terms of the information and financial data we are reading! We would like to note here, that the extensive changes you made to the form after the proposal deadline in order to switch to the new version are approved.

We do still have some questions about your reserves, however. I see where you've included the ZAR 40,000 as Contingencies & Reserves in your budget.

1. If, at the end of the year, you do not spend these contingency funds / reserves as planned, do you plan to carry them over as reserves into the next year, or to return them to the WMF as unspent funds? According to the reserves policy, you are able to plan to retain some funding in your reserves, but we want to make sure we are understanding your intent clearly from the beginning.
2. If this is the case (and you will keep these as reserves), we ask that you remove the amount in reserves from your programs budget (Table 7), and add the amount to your total budget as reserves in Table 8.

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer), we have opted to keep these reserves so I have removed the amount from the programs budget and added it to the total budget as requested. I have also updated our Annual Strategic Budget Plan accordingly. Many thanks --Humetheresa (talk) 09:06, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

This is clear to us now, Theresa. The changes are approved. Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 16:21, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Note that we have removed the section on multi-year funding from this form, since it should not be included in the current version of the form. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

We changed the number format to allow for easier analysis. In future forms, please stick to the requested format. Thank you, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 19:37, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Request for Amendment

In light of the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, only one South African has received a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City, we would like to request an amendment in our FDC proposal to accommodate for users from South Africa to attend these international gatherings.

We have based our calculation on the 3 people attending Wikimania in Italy. The current amounts allocated are greatly underestimated to support these scholarships.

We would therefore like to request the following amendments :

Core Administration Budget

Item Nr	Description	Amount Requested (ZAR)	Amount Requested (USD)	Revised Amount Requested (ZAR)	Revised Amount Requested (USD)
1.8	Travel & Accom Allowance - Staff	20,000.00	1,707,20	27,000.00	2,304.72

Project & Activity Budget

Item Nr	Description	Amount Requested (ZAR)	Amount Requested (USD)	Revised Amount Requested (ZAR)	Revised Amount Requested (USD)
2.8	Community Support	50,000.00	4,268.00	90,000.00	7,682.40

This will increase the amount of funding requested from the FDC to ZAR 1,162,000.00 or USD 99,188.32.

--Humetheresa (talk) 11:19, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Questions from FDC staff

Dear colleagues at WMZA: Thank you for the work you put into creating this proposal and the accompanying annual plan. We have included a detailed list of questions below, because we have found that some critical information is not included in this proposal. We think the answers to the questions be very useful to us, the FDC, and the community at large as we try to understand your work. We realize that answering these questions will take significant effort on your part, but we want to make sure you have the opportunity to explain your work in a bit more detail. If any of the questions are unclear, or you need more information, please let us know and we’d be happy to explain what we’re hoping to get from you. Best regards, KLove (WMF) (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear FDC Team, I respond to your questions in blue under each section. Many thanks --Humetheresa (talk) 07:12, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Corrections to your financials

We would like to request a few corrections to the financial information in this proposal. Please make these changes using strikethrough to show that a change has been made. These changes are approved in advance by FDC staff.

• In order to more accurately understand each organization’s annual expenses, we are excluding international events and funding received from WMF for these events (normally funded through the PEG process for APG organizations) from total expenses and revenues for each year. While this will not affect your upcoming year’s financials, it will affect the “Amount of funding received from WMF for last year's annual plan”. We ask that you deduct the amount received for Wiki Indaba from this total, and from the totals listed in Table 3. This is an approach we are taking across all APG proposals, as we'd like to be consistent.

Wiki Indaba has been removed as requested

• There appears to be an error in Table 1 in the amounts listed in US dollars. Please make sure the amounts in this table are consistent with 1 ZAR = 0.08536 USD.

Corrected

• In Table 5, please list your requested APG funding along with your other revenue sources.

Done

• We noticed that while you do not list anything in Table 6, you do plan to add 40,000 ZAR to your reserves. Please update Table 6 to show this.

Corrected

• While staff costs in Table 4 are listed as ZAR 364,000, they are listed as ZAR 64,000 in Table 8. Please check this table.

Corrected

• The total amount listed in Table 8 is 1,155,000, but that does not equal the sum of the rows in Table 8. Please check this table.

Corrected

Your detailed budget does not include any details about what your program spending consists of. If you have more detailed budget planning documents, please share them here or send them to FDC staff. Thank you! KLove (WMF) (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I have included detailed project budgets here

• Please specify the amount of funding, if any, you are designating for buying and installing QR plaques here.

See 1.13 here

• Please specify the amount of funding, if any, you are designating for aerial photography projects here.

No amount included in project budget for aerial photography projects

• Please specify the amount of funding, if any, you are designating to support Wikimedians in Residence. Please specify what amount of funding, if any, is going to pay for the salary of any Wikimedians in Residence.

Please refer to 1.17 here

Focus on different Wikimedia projects

• Focus on different language Wikipedias: You note that you will be focusing on Zulu Wikipedia, Xhosa Wikipedia, Sotho Wikipedia, Xitsonga Wikipedia, Setswana Wikipedia, and Afrikaans Wikipedia, in addition to English Wikipedia. We are interested in learning more about your specific plans for targeting each of these different language communities.

Please refer to the section on Small Language Wikipedia's here

• Focus on different projects, other than Wikipedia and Commons: You mention that in addition to your work on many wikipedias and Commons, you will focus on Wikidata, Wikiversity, and Wikinews, but we did not find information about your work with these communities in this proposal. Would you explain your work with these projects a bit more?

Please refer to the section on Project Diversification here

• Finally, we note that you are working with many projects altogether, with limited staff and volunteer resources. We would like to know more about how you plan to sustain this work, given the limited resources you have.

Please refer to the section on Staff Compliment here

Programs, goals, objectives, metrics, targets

• We appreciate that you included the global metrics in many of your targets. What do you mean by “# of active editors”, listed for several of your activities? Does this refer to “# of active editors involved” (as in the global metrics) or is this a different metric describing something else?

Apologies for not clarifying this, this refers to the number of active editors involved

• In your annual plan and in this proposal, you frequently mention quality. Do you have plans to measure the quality or use of any of the media generated through your programs (e.g. online contests), and would you provide targets for this?

Please refer to the section on Contributions to Wikimedia Projects here

• Some of your targets for activities seem very low. For example, 7 articles added for International Collaboration; 1 new user for International Outreach; 10 new articles for Community Outreach. We would like more context about why you set these targets so low, and how you understand these programs to be impactful despite these low targets.

Please refer to the section on Achievable Targets here

Content-focused programs

• In general, we would be interested to know if you have done any assessments that indicate that your programs are addressing identified content gaps. We understand that you have an important role to play in this area, and we are interested in any work you have done so far in identifying these gaps to show how needed your work is.

Please refer to the section on Content Focused Programs here

• Please tell us more about your focus on aerial photography/Wiki from Above. How have you determined that this program is addressing an identified content gap? How will you know if this program is achieving the impact you expect?

Please refer to additional comments added in Wiki from Above here

• Despite the focus on content, which is a high potential area, many programs list only outcomes related to participation and do not include specific targets for content (e.g. Wiki Takes Town, edit-a-thons, upload marathons). Can you kindly offer some more context about the goals of these activities, if they are not focused on building content?

Please refer to the section added under each project budget - Content Generation

• More context is needed for your QR work. Given the low targets you have set, and the high costs of installing QR plaques, we need more context to understand why you are budgeting for their installation.

Please refer to the section on QR Codes here

• You are requesting a very significant increase in the Joburgpedia budget, at almost double the proposed cost of last year’s project, despite the fact that the WMF and the GAC asked you to significantly reduce the budget for this year’s program. Please tell us more about why you are planning to expand this project so significantly, and what impact you expect to achieve to justify this cost.

Please read more information here and here

Partnerships

• We would like to know more about your specific partnerships. We see you provided a list of potential partners in your annual plan, and that you have also mentioned that the government is interested in partnering with you on several projects. We would like to know more about the status of these various partnerships, and what these partnerships will entail. If this information is sensitive, you are welcome to email it to us instead of posting it here.

Please refer to the section on Partnerships here

• Please explain the Wikipedian in Residence work you are planning, and particularly the role of WMZA in providing support and funding for this work. We could not find information about this in your proposal or your complementary documents.

Please refer to the section on Wikipedian in Residence

• Can you please provide more information about the the role of the chapter in Wikipedia Zero?

A schools outreach project with the aim of targeting a school in a local township and support and train on Wikipedia as part of the curriculum (based on the success of Sinenjongo High), teaching them the importance of referencing, grammer and improving their writing skills in general

• Please describe in more detail what your work in Kiwix rollouts will involve, and what the distinct roles of WMZA and WMCH are in this project.

Please refer to the section on Kiwix

Volunteer base

We know you have been working to expand your volunteer base, and we are interested in knowing more about what you have achieved in that area so far because expanding your volunteer base will be critical to supporting increased program activity. Have you been successful in growing your volunteer base, and to what extent will they support the many projects included in this proposal? Please share some of your strategies for building your volunteer base and deepening volunteer engagement in your work.

Please refer to the section on Expansion of Volunteer Base

Thank you

Thank you again for the time and thought it will take to respond to these questions. We hope these questions will help us to work together to clarify your proposal. Warm regards, KLove (WMF) (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the opportunity to address these questions. I hope that I have been able to provide clarity. Many thanks --Humetheresa (talk) 08:09, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Corrections to Table 3

Hello again, Wikimedia ZA colleagues:

While delving a little deeper into your financial information, we also discovered that your projected expenses for the current period listed in Table 3 are actually lower than your year-to-date expenses. Your projected total spending would need to be equal to or greater than your year-to-date spending, so it seems like there is an error in this table. Would you please take another look at Table 3, and make any corrections as necessary? The amount of projected expenses should be the total you believe you will spend by the end of the current funding period (1 July - 30 June). Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I have revised the figures to reflect only the period 1 July 2014 - 30 June 2015. --Humetheresa (talk) 09:15, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the revisions, Humetheresa. However, your projected expenses and revenues are still lower than your year-to-date expenses and revenues, which is not possible. Can you please check this table again and ensure that your year-to-date expenses and revenues are your expenses and revenues as of 1 March and your projected expenses and revenues are the expenses and revenues you believe you will have made or received by 30 June. (Please see the instructions above the table for more details.) Thank you, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Please also add a note to Table 3, explaining what portion of your revenues and expenses for planned, year-to-date, and projected are a result of Wiki Indaba. Thanks again! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:47, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Amendments made as requested. Kind Regards--Humetheresa (talk) 11:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Discrepancy between Table 8 and Table 1

Hello again, Wikimedia ZA colleagues:

We noticed that the amount of total expenses listed in table 8 (1,155,000) is equal to the amount of APG funding requested in Table 1 (1,155,000), but less than the amount of total expenses listed in Table 1 (1,325,298). The amount in Table 8 should be the total expenses of your organization (irrespective of funding source).

Would you please correct Table 8 to include your organization's total expenses (the sum of the rows in this table should equal 1,325,298 if that is your organization's total budget in the upcoming funding period).

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Corrected, many thanks --Humetheresa (talk) 09:26, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Humetheresa. We're sorry, but now that you've corrected Table 8, the amount of program expenses listed in Table 7 (561,000.00) and the amount of program expenses listed in Table 8 (731,298.00) are different. These amounts should be the same. Would you please correct Table 7, and / or Table 8 / Table 1 so these amounts add up. Thank you!Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:10, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Corrected, thank you. --Humetheresa (talk) 11:45, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

A question.

Is this going to help further the Afrikaans Wikimedia projects? Tharthan (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for this very good question. Yes, we believe that our efforts to further the Afrikaans Wikimedia projects is very important as the second largest language Wikipedia in South Africa.

We have very active editors on board already and since February we have been reaching out to editors and contributors through their various talk pages and social media. We have several Afrikaans Institutions interested in supporting our efforts to promote our efforts so we are very excited about this.

Please find more information on Wiki Loves Afrikaans here and Small Language Wikipedias here. Many thanks --Humetheresa (talk) 09:39, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks much. I have a basic knowledge of Afrikaans (and, also, a deep love for the language for various reasons) and would like to help in improving expanding the Afrikaans Wikimedia projects. Should I just go over to the Afrikaans Wikipedia and start, or is there more I can do/other things I might be interested in doign? Tharthan (talk) 19:59, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Please do feel free to visit the Afrikaans Wikipedia. I started by translating already existing English articles. I would like to invite you to please subscribe to our mailing list and join our group on Facebook. All the information and links can be found on our website under the Connect section.

Please also join discussions on the Afrikaans Talk page. A good starting point will also be to visit the section on 'Gesoekte Bladsye' to see a list of articles that have been searched on the Afrikaans Wiki but either don't exist, or are only stubs. You are welcome to contact me at any time for assistance or questions. I am looking forward to seeing your contributions on this Wiki! Kindest Regards --Humetheresa (talk) 07:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Notice of withdrawal of application

Hello everyone, the Wikimedia ZA board has voted to withdraw this bid. As such, as the current president of WMZA, I would like to officially withdraw this bid on behalf of WMZA.--Discott (talk) 10:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)