Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Evaluation and Planning for Scaling the Language Revitalization Accelerator
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Questions from regional committee[edit]
Hello @JKodner18 and Wikitongues Team. Thank you for this thoughtful proposal. The US/Canada Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wanted to ask a few questions about your plans:
1. How will user group members be involved in the evaluation portion of the three program areas (Assessing Accelerator pilot and work on strategic plan?) - and more broadly, What methods for community feedback are being considered for moving towards the next strategic plan?
2. What measures are being taken or considered to maintain or improve community health, safety, and inclusivity?
Thanks! On behalf of the committee,
Matthewvetter (talk) 16:13, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hi @Matthewvetter, thank you very much for this thoughtful feedback. @JKodner18 was our point of contact for the Jewish language project, but he will not be directly involved in the activities described in this proposal. Instead, @Tochiprecious and I will be the points of contact going forward.
- 1. How will user group members be involved in the evaluation portion of the three program areas (Assessing Accelerator pilot and work on strategic plan?) - and more broadly, What methods for community feedback are being considered for moving towards the next strategic plan?
- User Group members will be closely involved in evaluating the accelerator pilot and developing our strategic plan:
- Evaluating the Accelerator pilot: User Group members will be invited to participate in surveys/office hours and focus groups to share their feedback on the Accelerator pilot program. This feedback will documented and used to improve the program for future cycles, and to refine its model for scaling.
- Strategic plan development:
- Just like we did for program development in service of our User Group relaunch, we will invite User Group members to participate in meetups and brainstorming sessions to help develop the next chapter of our Strategic Plan. Their insights and ideas will be essential to creating a plan that reflects the needs and priorities of our community.
- After drafting the next chapter of our strategic pl<meta />an, Wikitongues will open the document to community feedback through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and online discussions. User Group members will be encouraged to participate in these activities and share their thoughts and suggestions. In addition to these methods, we will, with the support of Wikitongues advisor @Satdeep Gill, work with other language user groups to develop a more general framework for community feedback. This framework will be designed to ensure that all community members are meaningfully included in the decision-making process.
- 2. What measures are being taken or considered to maintain or improve community health, safety, and inclusivity?
- Wikitongues is committed to creating a safe and inclusive community for all. We believe that everyone should feel welcome and respected, regardless of their background, experience, or level of expertise, and that safe channels of communication should be open between people from different countries, regardless of geopolitics. Wikitongues will take a number of measures to maintain or improve community health, safety, and inclusion:
- Enforcing a clear code of conduct: Wikitongues will adhere to the already well-defined UCOC to outline the expected behavior of all community members. This code of conduct will be used to create a safe and inclusive environment for everyone.
- UCOC training for community members: Wikitongues will train our community members, including volunteers, User Group members, and Accelerator fellows, on conflict resolution, harassment prevention, and online safety. This will help create a positive and supportive environment at Wikitongues events and within Wikitongues-supported projects.
- Monitoring community activity for signs of harassment or abuse: Wikitongues monitors community activity for signs of harassment or abuse. If any instances of harassment or abuse are identified, we take appropriate action, such as removing the offending content or banning the offending user.
- I hope these clarifications are helpful! If you need anything else from us, we're here. Bogreudell (talk) 16:52, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 58,000 USD[edit]
@Bogreudell: Congratulations! Your proposal is approved in the amount of 58,000 USD with a grant term starting 1 January 2024 and ending 31 December 2024.
The committee appreciated how clearly your proposal aligns with several larger goals in the Wikimedia movement, including increasing the sustainability of our movement and innovating in free knowledge. We were impressed with your timely and thorough responses to our follow-up questions. We look forward to funding this project.
In planning for the future, we recommend that you consider qualitative approaches to assess program learning criteria and your learning goals. For example, your theory of change notes the need to create a process that can make language documentation broadly accessible, so you could include qualitative milestones in the development of this process. Similarly, the work around building a responsive funding process could also be assessed as a part of your evaluative work.
Having more explicit information about community engagement and the community’s role in your strategic development work is also of interest to the committee, especially if you plan to seek funding for future projects. It seems like you are already doing quite a lot of community outreach and engagement, as well as having great engagement within your organization, and this may simply be a matter of doing some additional reporting about these activities.
Once again, congratulations. We look forward to learning about your project outcomes.
On behalf of the Regional Committee, Redwidgeon (talk) 02:34, 28 November 2023 (UTC)