Grants talk:IEG/Art+Feminism Editathon training materials and network building/Renewal/Final

Report accepted

Dear Theredproject, Failedprojects and Siankevans,

Thanks to all three of you for submitting this lovely report. I'm accepting it now, with the following comments (which are extensive, I know, and may be considered a fond farewell as you transition toward Simple APG):

• As you know, the results of this round of Art+Feminism are tremendous. Your rate of growth is breathtaking. Congratulations on these numbers: 2500 participants at more than 175 events around the world, resulting in the creation of 2000 new pages and improvements to 1500 articles on Wikipedia. One of our Learning & Evaluation staff noted that your numbers are so far outside the norms that you break our metrics collection tools. That's an awesome problem to create.  :-)
• I really appreciate that, in spite of your model's self-evident success, you have pushed yourselves to find out where your blindspots are. The Diversity Review and UX/UI Review are such valuable outputs of this round of funding, and as you note, not just for Art+Feminism but for the Wikimedia movement.
• The UX and UI review seems incredibly useful for making your materials more discoverable and navigable. There is a lot of resonance with the Diversity Review, in terms of avoiding jargon or academic language that might alienate non-initiates, and providing more upfront information that defines your broad purpose and values.
• When I reviewed this Final Report, I was surprised to read that you had already incorporated this feedback into a new website. I'd been assuming that this wasn't done yet. The reason is that I was still searching for "art plus feminism" and coming up with this URL: http://art.plusfeminism.org/ In light of this, I'm curious if you plan to use a redirect or shut down the old website?
• That said, the new website looks really beautiful. The re-worked language, images and empty space are really appealing and I can instantly visually connect the changes to the site with both reports. I love the small-islands-with-bridges effect. I've studied your materials at length on multiple occasions, but I immediately felt like I had a better orientation than I've had before after spending a few minutes with this site. Great work! I think there is a lot here to learn for our movement (including for our grantmaking pages!).
  • I will say that, to my ear, it is a bit confusing that you've stated your purpose under "Get involved" as "Our main purpose is to contribute and amend meaningful content to the Wikipedia information network." Despite the fact that you've specified "about women" in the previous, larger text, for whatever reason I read the smaller text first the first time, and I didn't understand why the emphasis was on "meaningful" rather than art and feminism with respect to the content changes you are seeking to make. In both cases (the initial, large text and your purpose statement), there's no hint that you have a content focus on art, and not just women. I'm curious about this choice.
• The growth modeling is really interesting. I wonder about your own expectations for the 2017 event. Do you anticipate that you'll continue to grow exponentially in your event and article counts? If so, how will you plan for this? I'm glad you are thinking about sustainability (via a Project Manager or other strategies) looking forward, and encourage you to work closely with Winifred Olliff to think about this as you progress through the Simple APG process.
• The fact that your participants are becoming more productive is also interesting, and I'm wondering if it is true that you can only speculate about the reasons. If there is any feasible way to inquire into this further, at least next year, it would be very valuable. This might be something it would be worth talking to Amanda Bittaker about.
• This Commons category is extremely delightful to browse.  :-)
• Link is missing: "You can review our updated organizer's kit here." I'd add this directly, but I'm not positive if you intend to direct people to your new webpage or somewhere else.
• Just want to acknowledge all of the work you've done to collect your metrics--and that some of that work was a result of our tools not being up to snuff for the demands of your project. We really appreciate what your quantitative reporting does for our ability to demonstrate impact as grantmakers, and hope that you will find plenty of opportunities to leverage it for your own sakes, as well. I was heartened to see that there were comments in both your Diversity Review and your UX/UI Review requesting for more prominent featuring of outcomes on your website. Wondering if you'll add any of your impressive numbers there? (Or maybe you have and I missed it?)
• Thank you _so_much_ for all of the learning patterns. I appreciate that you provided a link to all five of them. They are useful and clear and I especially appreciate the one on inclusivity. Given the comment from Alice Backer that "Afrocrowd invitees reported some degree of disorientation," I wonder if it is worth expanding your recommendation to ask partner organizations to do outreach with you to include not just outreach but also opportunities to take "ownership of the process of how their group is represented at your event," as she recommends.
• I love that you are thinking about writing up recommendations for childcare. I think this would be a very useful output.

And just when you think I'm wrapping up, some additional comments on the Diversity Review specifically, which I really enjoyed reading:

• As hinted at previously, I found Alice Backer's feedback on event structure very useful. I appreciated both the feedback that: "Afrocrowd tried to carve a niche for our target audience this year by helping out in outreach but that did not necessarily translate into a well organized presence of our subgroup. Afrocrowd invitees reported some degree of disorientation." And also the associated recommendation: "Consider giving gender subgroups and diverse subgroups in your target audience who voice complaints ownership of the process of how their group is represented at your event. You will relinquish some control but likely find that this approach pays off. While it is impossible to avoid complaints, empowering discontented participants to take charge may make for a better experience in coming years." I'd love to see some of her insights about specific ways to do this added to the learning pattern.
• Sheetal Prajapati's remarks on defining feminism and A+F's values were also very interesting. In regard to this quote: "Art + Feminism has an opportunity to help shape the concept of feminism, not as a static definition, but rather as an ongoing process of reflection and action. Through the work of wikipedia-thons, Art + Feminism is not only adding content and diversifying contributors but actually providing a platform for a more expansive dialog around what feminism is and can be. This is an important responsibility and there are number of ways the collective can start to build this kind of framework with allies in practice." I was struck by the way she is framing Art+Feminism as an open source platform for emergent knowledge about what feminism is. I am very interested in your thoughts about this! I am also curious about her idea of a blog, or some other platform, for bringing in voices from around the world. Also, noting her recommendation that A+F events include dialog. After reading her section, I found myself thinking about the ways that your events are repositories of knowledge in and of themselves, providing a space for discursively sharing knowledge about the gender gap, much of which may not be eligible for inclusion on Wikipedia. Again, I'm interested in your thoughts about this.
• I also appreciated this comment: "There is a great list of partners, allies, and organizers on the homepage but given the values around this work, a list of those who provided labor and organizing in various places would be appropriate."
• Noting this typo in Marin Watts' section, since the intended meaning is lost without what I assume is a missing adjective: "Art museums and libraries are generally visited by older people or people." But that said, I appreciated the reference to the Pew research in this section.
• In terms of the problems A+F editors have faced with overcoming notability objections, I'm curious about having specialists on call to participate in discussion when articles are nominated for deletion. This seems like it might be a scalable way to add support around this problem, especially if events are designed around discussion of specific issues, since subject experts are likely to be sought out anyway.
• Really appreciated the discussion of how alienating academic language might be for some readers. This gets at some very fundamental questions about what "knowledge" is (and who gets to decide what it is). In relation to this discussion, pointing you to the work Siko Bouterse and Anasuya Senupta are now doing: http://whoseknowledge.org/
• In some places, feedback from reviewers could be further drawn out for clarity. Some examples:
  • The recommendation to "mention that the organization is aware that the prevailing notability and credibility of sources requirements do nothing to help bridge the multicultural and gender gaps on Wikipedia and that A+F is committed to help refine the formulation of these requirements" would be more useful if it provided a discussion of desirable reformulations. (And ideally, it would have been great to have some recommended best practices that work under the requirements currently in place, since A+F editors may continue to have to wrestle with them for a while.)
  • In that same section: "beginner A+F participants are finding the Wikipedia interface and lingo somewhat off-putting and disorienting." Specificity here would be extremely valuable, since old hands tend to lose their sensitivity to the foreignness of insider lingo.
  • "The visibility will need to also be coupled with a sense of ownership or self-determination, as activist Reina Gossett explained during an A+F 2016 panel at MoMA in NYC." A footnote explaining this reference would add clarity.

So, friends, wrapping up at last, I want to return the thank you from your grantee reflection. Both this project and this team have been a joy to work with. I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with you and am very much looking forward to watching what happens next as your model evolves through Simple APG.

As soon as our Grants Administrator confirms all is well on the administrative side, this will close out your IEG.

Hi all, Just chiming in here...once the documentation of expenditures and confirmation that there are no unspent grant funds are received from your fiscal sponsor, Wikimedia DC, we'll be all set to close your IEG. Receipts can be sent to <grantsadmin@wikimedia.org>. -- Thank you, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 01:16, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Heartiest congratulations on all you've accomplished to date.

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 00:39, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Return of unspent funds received

Hello everyone, Just wanted to close the loop on the conversation here surrounding the funds remaining on your grant. Thank you for updating your Finance tab to reflect the final unspent amount of US$135.01. Our finance team has also confirmed receipt of the check your fiscal sponsor, Wikimedia DC, sent back to us. We will now mark your grant completed. Thank you! -- Best, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 22:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)