Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Grow Wikimedia language diversity by 5%

Regional Committee feedback and questions

Hello bogreudell, and thanks for your General Support Fund proposal from Wikitongues. The Regional Committee has completed an initial review of the proposal, and has the following feedback, questions, and comments to help support their review:

• As communicated earlier in conversations with the Regional Program Officer, the overall regional budget available for the Regional Committee to fund increases or new proposals is about 7% higher than last year (see more information here). In general, the Regional Fund Committee uses overall regional growth as a means to set year-over-year growth changes for all grantees. The committee is generally willing to support increases that are slightly higher than the overall regional rate, provided that the requested increases are not excessive.
• For its Year 1 proposed budget (203,785 USD), the current multiyear proposal is more than a 250% budgetary increase from the previous proposal from Wikitongues (58,000 USD). The Regional Fund Committee agrees this kind increase is not possible to support. Importantly, the committee cannot meaningfully review the proposal until the budget is revised, which is likely to cause the overall proposal to change significantly. Furthermore, it is not possible for us to increase the overall regional budget based on requests that would cause us to overspend on it.
• Consequently, the Regional Fund Committee invites WikiTongues to revise its budget and annual plan on Fluxx, and that any budgetary increases should not exceed 25% of its previous budget (which would mean a budget of up to 72,500 USD). This is not a guarantee that WikiTongues will receive a particular increase up to 25%, but that this is a range that is more realistic for the committee to support this year.
  • Importantly, while 25% is proportionally much higher than the overall regional increase from last year (7%), WikiTongues' budget is smaller relative to the region, meaning that the absolute increase is more financially viable.
• To support the Regional Committee's review, please complete these revisions to the budget and proposal by Thursday, November 21st.
• In the future, we ask that WikiTongues carefully attend to the actual budget that the General Support Fund operates under in order to prepare a proposal that can be meaningfully reviewed by the Regional Committee. This information is available on Meta-wiki, and it is likely the Community Resources team will routinely e-mail current grantees about updates to this funding budget, as was done for this round.
• While understanding that WikiTongues seeks to be supported in a manner that is similar to peer organizations in the region who also operate in a thematic, international way, it is important to understand that 1) while budgetary growth for general funding needs in the region used to be somewhat higher, this growth been less than 10% each year in more recent years, and 2) the manner in which funding was grown for other organizations in the region was gradual, and that we have generally never been able to support affiliate budgetary growth at the magnitude of the current request. Importantly, because of these constraints, Wikitongues will need to rely on other funding sources and fundraising opportunities to achieve the kind of growth it is seeking in the current proposal.

Please let us know if you have any questions or needs for clarity around the committee's feedback. As was noted above, to support the Regional Committee's review, please respond to committee feedback by Thursday, November 21st. On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)