Grants talk:PEG/WM BE/Public facing Activities 2016 S1

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GAC members who support this request[edit]

  1. I wholeheartly support this request. It really shows a great maturity from WM BE. I loved that you identified something to work on and planned events that met this specific target. I'm a little bit concerned with the restrictions given by WMF : especially, I fear that not using advertising on social media will impair the potential impact of this action. Léna (talk) 10:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GAC members who support this request with adjustments[edit]

GAC members who oppose this request[edit]

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment[edit]

  1. --DerekvG (talk) 13:29, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • sorry to see that after the various "integrations" and changes, no resources are left to organise volunteer development ( and that all activities to train volunteers have been removed), that all collaboration with our ducth colleagues is either at their expenses/invitation or scrapped and that despite previous commitments we are referred to TPS while chapter board members we are not eligible for TPS (in other words WMBE can stuff it) --DerekvG (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. MADe (talk) 09:17, 30 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GAC comments[edit]

Community comments[edit]

WMF comments[edit]

Note that we have combined these two requests into a single request.

We very much want to support WMBE in your goals of increasing the number of active volunteers who participate in offline events and who serve on the board, through WikiSaturdays, your General Assembly, your Wikipedia 15 celebration, and the volunteer training event. We will approve up to € 4,500 (this upper limit includes VAT and contingency) for your next six months of activities. During this time, we would like to work with you to help you improve your record of compliance with your grant agreements after the recent issues [documented here], and build a record of successful activities.

  1. There should be a connection between your chapter's goals and the measures of success for the proposed activities. You can use 'if-then' statements to check whether your goals, activities and success measures align. For example, "Our goal is to (change/increase/improve) _______ because we need _____________. We will do ________ activity to help us reach that goal. We will consider the activity a success if _______________ because that will indicate ________________ has (changed/increased/improved)." We do not need you to provide measures of success for your operational costs, but we would like you to articulate your measures of success for your training activity, your general assembly, the WikiSaturdays program, and your Wikipedia 15 celebration. Without clear measures of success for your activities, we are concerned about investing this significant amount in your operational expenses.
  2. Below is a table that includes the budget items that we will approve. You will need to make some adjustments to the budget for some these events and administrative costs to fit within the 4,500 EUR limit. You can lower your budget to €4,526 by eliminating the expenses we have highlighted in the notes section, or by lowering your spending on some of your events.
  3. We will not fund attendance to non-Wikimedia conferences through this grant, but individuals or teams of volunteers can apply for funding through TPS.
  4. We will not fund travel to meetings and events hosted by other chapters, as we have not yet seen evidence in past reports that traveling to these events has had an impact on your chapter’s activities.
  5. PEG requests should not include funds for Wikimania travel scholarships, as scholarships are not a project or an event. WMBE community members can apply for travel scholarships through the general scholarship process, or through scholarship processes by European chapters with APG or SAPG funding.
Description Cost WMF Notes
Wikipedia 15 event € 275.00 Budget should not exceed €10 per participant
Organisation of 5 Wiki Saturdays € 1,075.00
Organisation of general Assembly € 405.00
Website maintenance, hosting costs, email hosting € 725.00
Communication (postal mail, telephone) € 225.00 Consider lowering your spending on phone calls
General Administrative expenses € 400.00
Advertising on social media € 200.00 Consider eliminating this expense by focusing on outreach using your website, or have a volunteer do Twitter outreach.
Organisation of general Assembly € 425.00
WM BE Training Day: for board members and for volunteers € 575.00 Please add details and measures of success for the training day.
Total grant request (excl. VAT and reserve) € 3.880
Contingency (10%) € 388 Consider eliminating the contingency
VAT (21%) € 896
Total grant request (incl. VAT and reserve) € 5,164

For future grant requests (for example, for H2 of 2016) we will need you to work closely with WMF staff during the early phases of planning your request, so that we can improve your request and make adjustments before funding is needed. In general, we are concerned with continuing to invest this large amount in your operational expenses without seeing significant program outcomes. We would like to check in with you in April 2016 to discuss your plans for H2. Thank you for remaining engaged with the PEG process.--KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]


I don't think we'll bother with an 2016-S2 grant request --DerekvG (talk) 02:33, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Funding decision[edit]

Hi MADe and DerekvGWe appreciate all of the hard work you have put into this request and have approved 4,500 EUR to support your chapter's efforts to increase volunteer and board participation in your community. We are pleased to see that this plan includes a clear connection between your goals, activities and measures of success. We are hopeful that focusing on a limited set of activities will help your chapter achieve its goals of increasing the number of active volunteers who attend events, and improve the efficacy of the board. We encourage you to review workshop planning materials available in the Learning and Evaluation portal that may be helpful for planning your volunteer and board training events. You may find materials on storytelling and evaluation are particularly helpful for communicating the outcomes of the programs and events included in this request.

We have approved of the request for funding to send two board members to Wikimania to honor an agreement between WMBE and AWang (WMF), and because it fits with your current goals to improve the capacity of your board through training and participation in movement events. The board should set goals for what the selected attendees will accomplish by attending and later, attendees should report on their experience using the scholarship reporting form. The goals should be published on the talk page of this request prior to Wikimania, and the reports should be included as sub pages of the report for this grant.

Finally, please note that members of the board of WMBE are indeed eligible to apply for TPS funding to participate in non-movement conferences, either individually or in small groups. Using the TPS application process will help ensure transparency and accountability around funding for volunteer participation in non-movement conferences. Thank you again for your hard work and continued engagement in this process. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Overspending Notification / Request for change[edit]

Wikimania will cost a lot more then the 600.00 € foreseen in the budgetː

  • registration 2 attendees ː 1100.00
  • flight Brussels Milan ː 430.00
  • local transport ː 370.00
subtotal 1900.00

--DerekvG (talk) 17:55, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DerekvG, unfortunately we are not able to approve an increase in funding on this grant request, as the total amount funded already exceeds the 4,500 EUR limit that was set during the planning stages of the proposal. Your board may agree to use the 600 EUR to provide partial support for one representative to attend Wikimania, instead of providing 300 EUR each for two members. Remember, the selection criteria for board members attending Wikimania using PEG funds should be posted on this talk page, along with the goals the board has set for the representatives. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 27 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
you do not honour the gentlemans agreement made between WMBE and WMF about wikimania mexico, that is fine with me --DerekvG (talk) 23:06, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extension grant[edit]

Hi! On request of Janice, hereby a formal request to extend the grant WMBE 2016 S1. Background: Not long before Wikimania we noticed and got informed about the issues of our treasurer. This has resulted in the suspension of our treasurer, and we conducted an internal audit to get clarity about the situation and to get the financial situation in order. At the same time a large photo contest is running in July and August, some holidays, another photo contest is coming up in September with all the preparations ongoing. This all has resulted in a delay in handling the progress of this grant. Originally this grant was planned to cover the first six months of 2016, while a second grant was planned to be submitted for the second half of 2016. Further, reporting was planned to be done for this grant with the end of June, but both as result of the issues with our treasurer, the books not being in order, and projects to organise, this was not possible to do. Our apologies for this. As the funds of this grant have not been spent completely, we would like to request an extension for this grant for the rest of 2016.

Further we plan the following:

  • In September we plan to do the reporting for the first six or nine months of 2016.
  • In September/October we plan to write a small strategic plan for 2017, which includes also community input.
  • In October we request a grant for 2017.
  • Partly done, partly ongoing: redesigning reimbursement system to ensure proper spending of funds and having control steps.

If there are any questions, please let us know. Romaine (talk) 06:22, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Romaine. Thank you for this update and we understand the situation. We are happy to approve an extension through December 31, 2016. The report will be due March 1, 2017. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]