Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Deepening the impact of Open Knowledge projects for sustainable Knowledge practices across Indian language communities steered by Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society

Follow-up questions on your grant application

Hello CIS-A2K team,

Thank you for putting in a general support application. Congratulations for leading and successfully securing the award for Wiki Conference India 2025.

Thank you for also hosting a reports page on CIS-A2K Meta page. We also found the 2024 events page useful in getting a brief of the team's efforts and encourage you to continue posting to keep it updated.

Observations/ Recommendations / Notes

Below, you will find the consolidated feedback and observations from the review team (i.e. SA regional funds committee and programme officer). Do take time to read and respond (i.e. provide more details) to the sharing(s) as necessary. Note: The review team may not have the same lived experience or understanding of the local context as you/your team. Hence, providing further insights will be very helpful in building on our collective wisdom and shared learnings.

• 1) We found the additional information that you provided at Question 22 really helpful in understanding the scope of the work that you are proposing. Are you also able to provide us with the following information: a) organisational chart b) Assigning names to the proposed projects (where possible) c) Sharing public access to -> List of all indicative projects - https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1XphIxUILYp5c2OxdpAXHKMiDmWWLV2-Y97V9ral2BgE/edit

• 2) Based on your 2025 work plan, and protected time for reviews and iterations, could you share how you envision that process/ approach for learning and reflection to be like and what are the key factors you'll take into account to continue a project or pivot? How do you plan to take in feedback from the community?

• 3) Related to metrics section: We noted that you have outlined the metrics by project in your 2025 annual plan also in responses to questions 14 and 15. Given the scope of your work, we'll like to second the recommendation recommendation you gathered about designing a dashboard or presenting the information in a way that helps the open community in India (perhaps starting with the Wikimedia community) stay abreast of latest development, initiatives or collaborations that you are leading. The dashboard could also be a useful project management tool, while meeting community's needs of understanding the value of the work you do.

Note to applicant: During the review process, the SA Funds Committee meets 3-4 times (2-2.5 hours/ session) during the review cycle to discuss the grant applications submitted for the cycle. Thereafter additional time is dedicated for individual review (i.e. one review form is submitted for each application - estimated time spend can be about 1 hour/application/person). We would like to highlight that the review team spends a significant amount of time on each application reviewing and providing their perspectives. We hope you will also participate fully in the process by setting aside dedicated time and mind space to provide thoughtful responses to the feedback. During the discussion rounds, we have also captured the verbatim feedback below. Some of which may be on a similar topic. If you notice the trend, it would mean that the question/ observation was raised by several members of the review team and we encourage you to dig deeper to provide more information. If you require support in understanding the context to the feedback and/or in crafting a response. Please know that you can reach out the programme officer for support.

• 4) I cannot seem to find any community discussion / feedback on their Discussion page? Perhaps these have taken place elsewhere? In that case, can we get access to it?

• 5) I have an observation specifically for the LivingGLAM project - I feel for the activities planned and listed, the budget doesn't seem to be comprehensive enough. I also didn't seem to find any budget for the promotion, outreach and communication of these projects. - I miss a nuanced understanding of GLAM priorities and challenges. For this, my suggestion is to incorporate capacity building and learning oriented programs for staff instead of researching gaps and already proposing activities.

• 6) Unrealistic Targets for Proposed Funding: The proposed targets for article creation are disproportionately low compared to the funding requested. For example, the Tamil Wikipedia community, with just over 20 active editors, produces around 1,000 articles per month at zero cost. In contrast, CIS-A2K, with a proposed budget of nearly 2.5 crore INR, aims to produce only 500 articles annually. This is unacceptable and needs to be revised. The ambitious plans and activities of CIS-A2K should align with similarly ambitious outcomes.

• 7) Metrics Focus on Arbitrary Outputs: Some of the newly proposed metrics focus on measuring arbitrary outputs rather than meaningful outcomes. The impact of the proposed initiatives should be more visible on-wiki, especially given CIS-A2K’s decade-long presence in the Indian Wikimedia community and the lessons they should have learned by now.

• 8) Budget Allocation Concerns: A significant portion of the proposed budget is allocated to administrative and personnel costs, leaving only about one-third for direct community support and activities. This is insufficient to achieve effective outcomes. More funding should be directed to: Budget Line 2.1: General Community Support Budget Line 2.3: GLAM and Partnership Activities Previous documentation highlights that GLAM activities often fail due to the non-competitive salaries for Wikimedians in Residence (WiR). To rectify this, more resources should be allocated to GLAM activities

• 9) Focus and Prioritization: While the CIS-A2K plan is ambitious, it requires focus. Certain newly proposed initiatives could be postponed or dropped until the following year to concentrate efforts on high-impact areas.

• 10) Movement Advocacy and Goal Clarity: The advocacy activities and goals outlined are vague and lack specificity. Practical plans or examples should be provided to illustrate how these goals will be achieved.

• 11) Technology Domain and Resource Allocation: The technology domain for Indic languages is already crowded with various players, such as:

• • Wikimedia Technology Summit (WTS 2024) Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group, which CIS-A2K collaborates with but has produced limited outcomes despite significant opportunities and requirements.

• • Many South Asian communities actively contribute to projects like Wiktionary and Wikisource, yet these platforms lack mobile apps. Given that most new contributors in these languages primarily use mobile devices, developing mobile apps for these projects would benefit the wider movement. Although the Wikimedia Foundation has not shown interest in these areas, successful precedents exist (e.g., Wikidata’s development by mature chapters). It is recommended that CIS-A2K seek additional funding to undertake substantial technical projects, avoiding small, niche tools with limited applicability.

• 12) Excessive Focus on Research: The Wikimedia movement already has a wealth of research, strategy, and planning. What it lacks is concrete action. CIS-A2K, with its research and policy-focused nature, should reduce or entirely eliminate this type of work in favor of initiatives that produce tangible on-wiki results.

• 13) Strategic Partnerships: The partnerships listed in the proposal appear to be formed based on convenience or existing contacts rather than following a strategic pattern. To create a larger impact, partnerships should be pan-Indian or at a meta level (e.g., collaborations with government agencies). CIS-A2K must be strategic, knowing when to decline activities or partnerships that do not align with broader goals.

• 14) Addressing GLAM Bottlenecks: GLAM is a primary focus area, yet the proposal does not address past issues, such as the difficulty in recruiting qualified candidates willing to work in rural areas for low pay. The budget should be adjusted to include enough WiR fellowships with competitive salaries to attract suitable candidates. Additionally, CIS-A2K should prioritize working with major GLAM organizations in larger cities, targeting “low-hanging fruit” for more immediate and impactful results.

• 15) Strength of the proposal: Ambition of the plan matching the size of the community is a welcome change.

Thank you and we look forward to speaking on the 19 November and reading your responses by 24 November. Please let us know if you require more time. We can adapt accordingly.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of South Asia Regional Funds Committee

JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:43, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Response from CIS-A2K

Thank you JChen (WMF) for sharing the feedback and observations. Our response to these are as follows:

Response to the feedback

The A2K work plan for 2025 is designed to address three core objectives that guide our initiatives moving forward.

• First, we aim to continue and enhance ongoing projects that have already shown significant impact in the Wikimedia community. These include key areas such as Community Collaborations, Leadership Development, and Gender Gap Bridging, which will be strengthened through targeted support and additional resources.
• Second, we are committed to exploring new areas of focus that have emerged as priorities within the broader community. Notably, these include the development of technology tailored for Indic language communities and the expansion of our Living GLAM initiative, both of which will require additional resources and dedicated efforts to achieve lasting impact.
• Third, we recognize the need to address emerging challenges within the Wikimedia ecosystem, such as building a stronger open knowledge network in India and enhancing community awareness of the work we do. Research and strategic networking play a crucial role in reaching these goals, and we will continue to improve our understanding of the open knowledge movement. Combining these efforts with building strategic partnerships, our work can make a long-lasting impact.

We recognize the importance of capacity-building and learning programs for staff to ensure the success of the Living GLAM initiative. These programs will help our team address the unique challenges of GLAM institutions and foster effective collaborations. We also plan to incorporate feedback to refine our GLAM approach, integrating professional development to support the sustainability and impact of these initiatives. We would also include a separate line item for Salaries to pay WiR, as per the recommendation of the Regional Funds Committee. As the South Asia Regional Grants Committee has noted, We acknowledge that the proposed budget is conservative compared to the scale and capacity of our plan. We are open to revisiting the budget and scaling up projects if the committee is willing to support us with additional resources.

To strengthen our learning and evaluation process, CIS-A2K has put in place mechanisms for gathering and incorporating community feedback. We regularly organize feedback sessions and strategy discussions during key events like Tewiki Pandaga, Wikimedia India Summit 2024, and Indic Wikimedia Hackathon 2023. These forums provide valuable insights into community needs, which we use to improve our activities. Additionally, we are committed to independent evaluations of long-term, resource-intensive projects. For example, we will be conducting an independent analysis of the Train-the-Trainer (TTT) program (2013-24) to assess its impact and refine the program for future iterations. This ongoing feedback loop will allow us to continuously improve our approach and ensure that we are meeting the needs of the communities we serve.

We recognize the need for improved metrics to track clear outcomes in areas like networking, strategic partnerships, and research. Moving forward, we will fine-tune our metrics. On the other hand, some of the current metrics evolved from long-term work by CIS-A2K, for example, when monitoring the participation of women and non-binary individuals in our events, we will reference our Gender Gap Bridging Initiatives data, which has evolved to address the gender gap (further details can be found here). Apart from this, we would like to highlight, that CIS-A2K now reports the number of collaborations and community members we collaborated with instead of content metrics, incorporating our long-term feedback from the community. A detailed list of these collaborations is shared for the committee's reference.

We are strategically building partnerships to address crucial areas, explore untapped spaces, and establish sustainable collaborations. For example, the Mula Mutha Nadi Darsan initiative focuses on key ecological concerns, while projects like Rewatch and initiatives in Northeast India target underrepresented regions and themes. Long-term partnerships, such as those with Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir and Vigyan Ashram, ensure continuity and lasting impact.

To scale and deepen our work, we tried out diverse approaches to support more communities across India. These include organizing events, roundtables, and workshops to foster ongoing dialogue on Open Knowledge and Open Source, creating opportunities for collaboration. Notable examples include the Future of Commons initiative and the Santali Wikipedia Anniversary. Additionally, we are employing a strategy with mature user groups to explore and support partnerships in their focus areas. For instance, the Senior Program Officer (Partnerships)’s mission to West Bengal has led to promising new collaborations under the initiative Facilitating User Group's Partnerships in West Bengal.

Concerning technology, our plans and current work are in line with the committee's comments. Our proposal includes hiring a dedicated Tech Developer not only to maintain essential tools for Wikisource but also to build concrete technology (including mobile apps) for Indic Wikimedia communities. Kindly refer to our List of Indicative Projects for further details on our projects and this blog for more information about our vision in this area. However, recognizing that technology development is resource-intensive, our current strategy focuses on creating a few high-impact tools while actively pursuing additional resources for future expansion.

Changes made and documents provided

• CIS-A2K's Organisational chart can be found here and Projects & Leads mapping here. Shared the document - List of all indicative projects public.
• CIS-A2K will adopt the recommendation to design a dashboard that will help the Wikimedia community, stay updated on the latest developments, initiatives, and collaborations A2K is leading. This would eventually be expanded to represent other groups’ and communities’ activities in India (first Wikimedia Community and then Open knowledge communities) whoever is willing to be part of it.
• We reconsidered and restructured our budget. After the revisions, we allocated ₹1,600,000 to the GLAM and Partnerships budget line, in which ₹960,000 earmarked for two Wikimedians in Residence. Additionally, we will ensure the A2K team receives proper training for Living GLAM. Currently, no changes have been made to the budget as it is still under review; changes can be made if permitted.
• A2K will refine our metrics to align with the ambition, resources, and objectives proposed, in consultation with experts, and will reconnect with the review committee during the first quarter for further discussion and adoption.

Summery of feedback and observations provided by review team

Note: This section serves as an annexure that organizes the feedback into separate sections and provides a concise summary of the observations for better understanding. This contains segregation of the verbatim feedback points into various sections and then provides a quick summary.

Metrics + Learning & Evaluation

2) Based on your 2025 work plan, and protected time for reviews and iterations, could you share how you envision that process/ approach for learning and reflection to be like and what are the key factors you'll take into account to continue a project or pivot? How do you plan to take in feedback from the community?

3) Related to metrics section: We noted that you have outlined the metrics by project in your 2025 annual plan also in responses to questions 14 and 15. Given the scope of your work, we'll like to second the recommendation recommendation you gathered about designing a dashboard or presenting the information in a way that helps the open community in India (perhaps starting with the Wikimedia community) stay abreast of the latest developments, initiatives or collaborations that you are leading. The dashboard could also be a useful project management tool, while meeting community's needs of understanding the value of the work you do.

4) I cannot seem to find any community discussion / feedback on their Discussion page? Perhaps these have taken place elsewhere? In that case, can we get access to it?

6) Unrealistic Targets for Proposed Funding: The proposed targets for article creation are disproportionately low compared to the funding requested. For example, the Tamil Wikipedia community, with just over 20 active editors, produces around 1,000 articles per month at zero cost. In contrast, CIS-A2K, with a proposed budget of nearly 2.5 crore INR, aims to produce only 500 articles annually. This is unacceptable and needs to be revised. The ambitious plans and activities of CIS-A2K should align with similarly ambitious outcomes.

7) Metrics Focus on Arbitrary Outputs: Some of the newly proposed metrics focus on measuring arbitrary outputs rather than meaningful outcomes. The impact of the proposed initiatives should be more visible on-wiki, especially given CIS-A2K’s decade-long presence in the Indian Wikimedia community and the lessons they should have learned by now.

Summary:

• The review team recommended that CIS-A2K establish a clear learning and reflection process, incorporating metrics that reflect on-wiki. A dashboard is recommended to improve transparency, project tracking, and community engagement in understanding their work and its impact. The review team requested clarification about CIS-A2K’s community feedback process.
• The review team suggested higher content creation targets. They recommended revising these targets and focusing on measurable, impactful outcomes that reflect their decade-long presence and aligning a number of metrics with the scale of their ambitious plans.

Budget

5) I have an observation specifically for the LivingGLAM project - I feel for the activities planned and listed, the budget doesn't seem to be comprehensive enough. I also didn't seem to find any budget for the promotion, outreach and communication of these projects. - I miss a nuanced understanding of GLAM priorities and challenges. For this, my suggestion is to incorporate capacity building and learning oriented programs for staff instead of researching gaps and already proposing activities.

8) Budget Allocation Concerns: A significant portion of the proposed budget is allocated to administrative and personnel costs, leaving only about one-third for direct community support and activities. This is insufficient to achieve effective outcomes. More funding should be directed to: Budget Line 2.1: General Community Support Budget Line 2.3: GLAM and Partnership Activities Previous documentation highlights that GLAM activities often fail due to the non-competitive salaries for Wikimedians in Residence (WiR). To rectify this, more resources should be allocated to GLAM activities

Summary:

• The review team suggested allocating more budget to direct community support and GLAM activities while effectively incorporating staff capacity-building programs to address GLAM priorities. This includes competitive salaries for Wikimedians in Residence (WiR) and sufficient resources for outreach, promotion, and communication.

Specific Areas of Work

9) Focus and Prioritization: While the CIS-A2K plan is ambitious, it requires focus. Certain newly proposed initiatives could be postponed or dropped until the following year to concentrate efforts on high-impact areas.

10) Movement Advocacy and Goal Clarity: The advocacy activities and goals outlined are vague and lack specificity. Practical plans or examples should be provided to illustrate how these goals will be achieved.

11) Technology Domain and Resource Allocation: The technology domain for Indic languages is already crowded with various players, such as:

• Wikimedia Technology Summit (WTS 2024) Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group, which CIS-A2K collaborates with but has produced limited outcomes despite significant opportunities and requirements.
• Many South Asian communities actively contribute to projects like Wiktionary and Wikisource, yet these platforms lack mobile apps. Given that most new contributors in these languages primarily use mobile devices, developing mobile apps for these projects would benefit the wider movement. Although the Wikimedia Foundation has not shown interest in these areas, successful precedents exist (e.g., Wikidata’s development by mature chapters). It is recommended that CIS-A2K seek additional funding to undertake substantial technical projects, avoiding small, niche tools with limited applicability.

12) Excessive Focus on Research: The Wikimedia movement already has a wealth of research, strategy, and planning. What it lacks is concrete action. CIS-A2K, with its research and policy-focused nature, should reduce or entirely eliminate this type of work in favor of initiatives that produce tangible on-wiki results.

13) Strategic Partnerships: The partnerships listed in the proposal appear to be formed based on convenience or existing contacts rather than following a strategic pattern. To create a larger impact, partnerships should be pan-Indian or at a meta level (e.g., collaborations with government agencies). CIS-A2K must be strategic, knowing when to decline activities or partnerships that do not align with broader goals.

14) Addressing GLAM Bottlenecks: GLAM is a primary focus area, yet the proposal does not address past issues, such as the difficulty in recruiting qualified candidates willing to work in rural areas for low pay. The budget should be adjusted to include enough WiR fellowships with competitive salaries to attract suitable candidates. Additionally, CIS-A2K should prioritize working with major GLAM organizations in larger cities, targeting “low-hanging fruit” for more immediate and impactful results.

Summary:

• The review team recommended specifying advocacy goals and aligning partnerships strategically to ensure pan-Indian or meta-level impact. Activities or collaborations that do not support broader objectives should be reconsidered.
• The review team suggested CIS-A2K shift focus from research to producing tangible on-wiki results and prioritize impactful technical projects like mobile apps for Indic Wiktionary and Wikisource. They revisited the need for additional funding and competitive salaries for WiR fellowships to address GLAM challenges effectively.

--Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 19:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Your grant application has been approved

Hello CIS-A2K,

Thank you for your responses to the follow-ups questions.

Congratulations! Your multi-year base funding for 3 years grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 75,466,800 from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2027. For year 1 the approved amount is INR 25,155,600. You can find out more details about year on year adjustments here. Please reach out to the Programme Officer as needed.

Here are some comments from the review team that were captured from the final deliberation round

• 16) I wonder if CIS would consider working on meta-level partnerships and deep work in selected domains that would move the needle in that particular domain at least. The proposed spread of activities (in the current plan) across different domains may not yield usable results. Let’s wait and see.
• 17) I appreciate them making budget changes to accommodate competitive salaries for two Wikimedian in Residence positions. I am of the view that they should drop the research vertical and associated expenses. While I acknowledge the need to work off-wiki to build the open knowledge ecosystem in India, it should also be funded by more (or other) agencies to match their spread of activities off-wiki.
• 18) With the research work, it is also not immediately clear from the reader of the application and supporting documents how your research portfolio directly informs the on-wiki/off-wiki scope of programmes and work. The link needs to be more tangible. Perhaps it may be clear to the team, but it is not clear from an external perspective.
• 19) There needs to be better organisation of information (including demonstration of impact) and accessibility of information by the community so that we can all understand the depth and breadth of CIS’s work/ efforts.

Recommendations

• On this talkpage, we would like to flag questions/ responses for (2) and (3) for inclusion into your implementation plan and take into consideration the comments from the review team (6), (7), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13),  (16 - 19). We also suggest that you provide regular updates on this talkpage when you have made progress in these areas with links to other relevant pages for further details.

Do note that for any budget increase request in year 2, we will take into account your requested top-up AND progress that you have made in the areas of the recommendations captured on this talkpage. Hence we would encourage you to be proactive in sharing key updates here on a regular basis. If there are recommendations that you have considered and have assessed that it is not the right fit for now, please also provide an update to share your learnings/thought process as well.

Change in implementation plan

We know even the best thought through plans may change.

In the event that there are changes to your implementation schedule, you can reach out to request for a grant extension (i.e. extend end date). Similarly, if there is a surplus budget or changes to your planned budget, you can reach out to me about reallocation (via email and on this talkpage). There is also the option to have the unspent funds deducted against a future grant. More details here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Return_unused_funds_to_WMF

Additional resources which may be useful

• The reporting requirements and templates for the grant can be found here. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.
• Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or on Fluxx.
• Instructions for post award: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Processing/Grantee_Portal/Post_award
• Documenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses

We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on the implementation phase. Good luck!

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of SA Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 16:03, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello @JChen (WMF) and SA Regional Funds Committee,

Thank you for reviewing and accepting our grant application. Your invaluable support enables us to advance our efforts to foster community growth and enhance the engagement of cultural and educational institutions with Wikimedia projects.

We are committed to making meaningful contributions, and we believe your feedback will help to refine our strategies. Regarding points (2) and (3), we will adjust our work plan per our response. We will also make changes to the budget allocation for our GLAM initiatives in our revised budget and collaborate with our Program Officer to enhance the learning and evaluation framework.

I sincerely appreciate your thorough review, constructive feedback, and the time you've dedicated to understanding our context. We will keep you updated on the recommendations we are incorporating and will provide our context and thought process for any that we might not be able to incorporate right away.

Finally, ​​We acknowledge the need to improve organising information about our work and its impact to allow the community to understand our context better. We will work on this and provide better updates and information about our work going forward.

Thank you once again for your support and contributions. Pavan (CIS-A2K) (talk) 10:02, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Pavan (CIS-A2K), Thank you for taking a moment to acknowledge and respond. Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:37, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Updates on Budget Utilisation

Hello CIS-A2K team,

Thank you for your email response on project budget updates. This is to confirm that ~USD 60,121.88 has been wired and remains unutilised to date (as at March 2025). Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:22, 20 March 2025 (UTC)