Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Annual Plan Grant for Wikimedia UG Georgia, 2022

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Questions from CEE/CA Regional Committee[edit]

Hello WM UG Georgia team! Thank you for submitting your proposal. We are glad that you are making efforts to promote Wikimedia's mission in your country. We have a few questions we would like to ask:

  1. Why the staffing budget is increasing if the overall staff time is going down?
  2. Which organizations the cooperation is specifically planned?
  3. The committee would be interested in knowing who is currently able to represent the organization at wiki events and what is the criteria you have to select who represents the organization?
  4. Can you describe the goals and purpose of ads on social media? What outcomes are you expecting from this activity? Would it be possible to achieve these same outcomes using banners on-wiki?

Thank you in advance for your time to respond. --MikyM (talk) 18:19, 3 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Thank you for your questions and for your work as a volunteer committee in reviewing grant applications. I will try to answer your questions specifically and in detail.
  1. In reality, the situation is not as you described, but specifically:
1.1. the changes didn't affect the position of the Project and Outreach Manager (one position), his duties, time and pay remained the same, but he no longer has the responsibility to monitor the coordination of the WikiClubs (management, coordination, trainings and meetings and other related responsibilities).
1.2. A new position was created - WikiClubs coordinator. Coordinator is a person responsible for supervising, monitoring, holding contests, trainings and workshops for all Wikimedia UG Georgia WikiClubs. Last year, there were only two WikiClub in two different regions of Georgia, and one person could control (with the help of other volunteers) the work of these clubs, but today the network of clubs has grown and now has 5 WikiClub in 5 regions of Georgia (Surami WikiClub, Marneuli WikiClub, Arali WikiClub, Baghdati WikiClub, Kaspi WikiClub). One paid person in the UG cannot handle all the responsibilities, so we want to hire a new employee for this position, who will work 20 hours per week and pay 350 dollars (including Tax) per month.
1.3. The third paid position is also not new, it already existed but the payment was shown in the "Administrative expenses" section. This is the position of an UG accountant. Since Wikimedia UG Georgia legally obliged to provide the Revenue Service of Georgia with reports and additional materials, otherwise, Wikimedia UG Georgia will be fined and our registration as a legal entity might even be canceled. The complexity of these reports urges us to hire a specific person familiar with the rules and regulations of Georgia’s revenue service – since there is no professional expert on finances or tax law within Wikimedia UG Georgia, we are hire a professional who will take care for these obligations, otherwise, operation and development of Wikimedia UG Georgia will be simply impossible due to technical issues. Such a person has already been working with us for a year and has a salary of $ 1,500.00 per year (including Tax).
2. We already cooperate with many organizations, both NGO and government agencies. For example, we cooperate with the Ministry of Education of Georgia and jointly with them held three contests (Kartvelology in Wikipedia mes.gov.ge, Georgian Science in Wikipedia mes.gov.ge, Georgian Science in English Wikipedia mes.gov.ge), the prizes and funding of which were taken over and fully financed by the Ministry. We also cooperate with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Georgia, with the Association of Georgian Gourmets, with the Palace of Culture of Georgia. Soon (from January 2022), we will begin cooperation with the administration of the President of Georgia to develop a legislative act to ensure FoP in Georgia, as well as to simplify the provision of access to the central archives of Georgia for Wikipedians. We will also work on the development of Wikipedia in the Abkhaz and Megrelian languages together with the administration of the president of Georgia. We are also planning to start cooperation with the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia and with existing universities in Georgia.
3. The entire procedure for making decisions and managing the UG is described in the Bylaws of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, which is accepted and approved by UG members and registered in the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. At the moment, the Chairman of the UG is the representative of the Wikimedia UG Georgia at all levels (including at all international and domestic wiki events).
4. We have been successfully using the opportunity of social networks for 4 years to attract new users to Wikimedia projects. it's already a proven way to attract the attention of the audience in Georgia for participating in contests, trainings, workshops and other Wikimedia projects, which is conducted by our UG. The Georgian audience is mostly active on such social networks as Facebook and Instagram, so we use these platforms for advertising. Our page of "Georgian Wikipedia" has over 90k Facebook followers, and the Wikimedia UG Georgia Facebook page has more than 5k subscribers. The difference between the use of social networks and banners is that Wiki-banner is seen by those people who visit and read Georgian Wikipedia and it's limited by audience, while in social networks are all active and the audience is much larger.

I hope I was able to address all your questions. If you have any other questions or recommendations, we will be happy to listen and answer them. Kindly, --Mehman (WMGE) (talk) 00:22, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 101,526 GEL[edit]

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 101,526 GEL (~32,460 USD) with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 December 2022.

The committee recognizes the impact of Wikimedia User Group Georgia’s in several areas– it supports a multilingual community, it maintains an impressive set of local partnerships with NGOs and government agencies, and it is well-connected and engaged in larger movement activities in the CEE region and the movement as a whole. Coordination of these activities is challenging, and so we also recognize the need for greater capacity to both maintain this work and your internal operations.

The full amount of funding could not be supported because the Foundation is currently not supporting international travel as a part of its funding activities due to COVID-19-related risks globally, so these expenses were deducted from the requested budget. Any other international travel needs can be reallocated to other needs at your discretion. Should this policy change, your program officer is happy to discuss supporting you with international travel needs. Importantly, there are no specific restrictions on local travel, as long as these activities do not conflict with your local laws and restrictions.

The committee also remarked on a few areas that the user group could improve in its organizational work. For example, it was not clear what work Wikimedia UG Georgia to involve members of its community in the preparation or review of the current proposal. In its next application, we would like to learn more about how the user group engages and involves its community around its annual planning. While the committee also notes that the user group’s activities are likely to have a positive impact on content development and improvement, it is not immediately clear how your activities will increase the number of active participants in your community. We would be happy to work together with you to consider approaches to develop activities with this goal in mind.

We look forward to working together with you in the next year to support communities in Georgia. On behalf of the committee, MikyM (talk) 17:43, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Thanks for your work. We will take into account all the recommendations and notes of the Committee and will try to correct all the nuances. Kindly, --Mehman 97 18:44, 15 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]