Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific 2024 Plan

Proposal Feedback and Invite for Response

Thank you for submitting your application. After the review process please find the feedback - comments and questions below for your response;

• We are keen on learning more about the vision / bigger picture of the project. We see your name is Asia Pacific - and keen to know more about your work and plan of working in the larger Asia Pacific region.
• We see the risk of duplication of efforts with other groups in the county and region - how do you plan to mitigate this? With this, would you speak to the possibilit and obstacle you are experiencing working with other groups.
• We find the scope proposed here to be significant and uncerstain whether a group of your experience and capacity can execute.
• Would you speak to your capacity to implement the proposed activities.
• Would you confirm on your status of organization  registration locally.

The overall strengths of the proposal	Recommendations and general feedback and questions	Responses by Applicant to the feedback and questions
The law office and others let them use the spaces, it's an unparalleled strength. And a member may be a lawyer! Congratulations! (YS) The proposal is comprehensive, covering a number of different potential tasks and activities that support free knowledge.(TB) Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific outreach to a new area in the Philippines which is Local Law.(GS)	The proposal is very ambitious in its scale and the number of events. There is little information about past experience of the provenance of this NGO, so it is hard to judge the feasibility. However, the organization is laid out in some detail, so rather than looking closely at events what would be helpful is a better understanding of personnel capacity, and of monitoring and evaluation. (TB) For first-timer GSF, it's hard to know their previous work with only 2 rapid grants. Could share more about the background of all staff? What do they do in real life outside the Wikimedia Movement? (GS) There are a few partnership mapping activities in the projects. Have you considered adding a metric for this activity, such as the number of new partnerships from discussion/mapping activities? What is the bigger picture or idea behind Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific? Currently, the project is specific for Philippines - what is the short term or long term project to promote the wider Asia Pacific?  (KSH)	1.Prior to formally organizing as a non profit, members of Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific ( SKAP) are already volunteer leaders of two major tech organizations- Google in 2012 and Wikimedia since 2014. Trustees of SKAP have been community organizers and builders leading Google Business Group ( GBG) in Pangasinan, Dagupan, Isabela and Cagayan in Northern Philippines being the ones who established, built and capacitated its members in various states in Northern Luzon Philippines. One of its GBG Chapters, GBG Pangasinan has been recognized by Google Developer relations as one of the Top 8 Chapters globally and leads got invited to Google I/O in the USA three times over. Another trustee led Google Student Ambassador ( GSA ) in Pangasinan and has also been invited by Google in various capacity-development activities. She eventually led the Womenwill community, a community of women entrepreneurs and women leaders inside the Google Business Group communities teaching technology, upskilling and mentoring women members. The SKAP trustees are community builders, and have very strong strategic partnership capacities such that in all of Google related activities and events and even those Wikimedia related events, they all worked and developed their own partners in the public sector as well as private sectors. Trustees are bloggers, influencers since 2011, doing remarkable digital footprints in their communities, organizing events, doing consultations with government officers and advisory projects with agencies and departments. As Wikimedians, we organize edit a-thons since 2014 ( although not continuously and regularly since Wikimedia Philippines was dissolved ), we build communities and right now we are focused on tapping our networks not only in our community but also in Northern Philippines and across Asia Pacific where small communities in need of missionary assistance, capacity development, sharing of best practices such as policy development, capacity development, membership management, strategy development and building strategic alliances are needed. 2. Thank you for asking about the background of our staff. Vanj Padilla, the founding chair, has been a Wikimedian since 2014. Elected as Board of Trustees Member and Vice Chairman of the defunct Wikimedia Philippines. She is both a Wikimedian and a Google volunteer for 11 years now and she was recognized globally for her efforts in community development, active leadership and expanding the group into 5 provinces or territories in the Philippines. She graduated Doctor of Laws. She is known as a strategic partner builder working with governments, local and national, with private partners such as academe, business sector, international partners such as ASEAN communities being a mentor, facilitator,community media publisher, trainer and coordinator. She has been an events designer and strategist since 2011 and has been a consultant to the government on digital strategy, digital marketing and online information management for 11 years. As a Wikimedian, Vanj is not much of an editor but a community builder, an event organizer, a strategist and is a solid partnership builder . She was a member of Wikimania COT in 2021 and 2023 co-organizing the Wikiwomen Summit @ Wikimania with WMF BOT Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight. She has been benchmarking successful Wikimedia Communities in the ESEAP region since 2015 such as Wikimedia Indonesia, Wikimedia Taiwan, and Wikimedia Korea with Butch Bustria. Other SKAP trustees are from various industries such as Information Technology, Media, Finance, Digital Marketing and Training, Business Process Outsourcing, Real Estate, Academe, Legal Profession. Jasverenne is an entrepreneur, StartUp Weekend organizer and Womenwill community leader in Pangasinan. She is a programmer and soon a software developer. Romeo is a seasoned media practitioner and a former call center agent. He leads senior citizens in outreach programs such as language preservations, knowledge sharing and group discussions. Wisdom is a finance officer. He is a bookkeeper and finished business management. Kim is an academic researcher. She currently works as a researcher at the Department of Education. MJ is a digital marketing training specialist and an ASEAN trainer for women business owners. Tony is a real estate business manager and a legal officer and consultant to many organizations in the Philippines. Christian is also a real estate digital communications strategist and is from Sagada Mountain Province. He loves living heritage and cultural preservation. Leslie Ann is a teacher. She teaches literature and culture. Efraim is a programmer and software developer.He works at an IT company south of Manila. Inan is a scriptwriter and a media consultant working freelance jobs in Dagupan City. Kenneth is a psychology student and is well versed in graphics and video editing. Kim A is a senior law student and a government employee. JR is government employee, nurse, soon to be lawyer and a population officer dealing with various communities. Avel is blogger and an influencer in Mindanao. Jimrey is a blogger, broadcaster and community leader in Cebu. We also look up to Butch Bustria as our advisor regarding our plans and strategic direction. SKAP's volunteer staff are already experienced community builders and leaders having been trained by its founder for almost a decade now and getting advanced training from various agencies of the government. We are no longer amateurs, we are experienced, we know what we are doing and we know how to get there. It is true that our plans and projects are AMBITIOUS and will require a lot of work and personnel. But we are expanding, opening communities and Wikiclubs in Northern Luzon. It won't take long before we can achieve what we proposed if we will be given the resources and your trust to do so. We know that we are capable of doing it. Our networks (within or outside of Wikimedia) from around the Philippines, in Asia and in the West will not hesitate to help us achieve those projects. As an organization with high integrity and credibility long built even before incorporating as a non-profit organization, we will never propose such projects that would tarnish our reputation as individuals and as an organization. If it seems ambitious to others, we will prove to them that it can be done. Back when we were just starting volunteering for Google, we were recognized globally and thus rewarded. Now that we have years of experience in community leadership and strategy, we will prove it once again. Just give us time, resources and the opportunity to do it and we will not fail you. 3. For partnerships, we have included academic partners, national government partners such as the National Commission on Indigenous People ( NCIP) , Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Local and Interior Government (DILG), Department of Information and Communications Technology ( DICT), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), various state universities, various private academic institutions, research institutions, non profit education and research organizations, various embassies and consulate offices of various countries located in the Philippines, other foundations and entities which are possible knowledge sources. We may add a metric as suggested like number of new partners enrolled, number and type of project approved with each partner, and number of years for each partnership and number of participants or beneficiaries for each partnership project. 4. The bigger picture for SKAP is to scale significant projects in other territories within Asia Pacific which we believe to have high impact. For example, our Digitization of Local Laws project is scalable in other countries or communities outside of the Philippines because not all municipal and local laws in each town, city and country can be found on the internet. Where Wikisource, Commons and other Wikipedia products can be accessed, and the laws are not uploaded by local governments, but people need to access their municipal laws, then SKAP will share the project and collaborate with others on how to do it. For Wikivoyage, it is a scalable project and we are willing to share how we did it to others too. Wikiseniors is also a scalable project that transcends borders and territories. The campus journalism project is also scalable as well as the Wikiwomen microsummit. These are projects and strategies that we firmly believe that we can share and collaborate with smaller communities For our short term goals, we wish to increase the number of significant projects for next year that will complement and not overlap other Philippine- based user groups. Increase content for Wikipedia projects on avenues such as Culture and Living Heritage, Municipal Laws on Wikisource and Wikicommons, Soundbites in WikiCommons, Wiktionaries for Disappearing Indigenous Languages, Folklore, Heirloom Recipes on Wikibooks, Work with the government in finding unconventional sources of knowledge, working with various consulates and embassies in sharing their local knowledge to others, capacitating campus journalists, women and information officers about the Wikimedia Movement and the Movement Strategy 2030 and actively participating in public policy and advocacy programs of the Wikimedia Foundation. For the Senior Citizen project, we will execute it next year and share the best practices to other communities in other countries that indeed senior citizens are rich bodies of knowledge waiting to be tapped. For the WikiDataGov project, we will share how the Philippines can access relevant public information and organize it and upload wherever it is necessary for easy access by the citizen. For the trainings of campus journalists, we will showcase tools that increase credibility to news articles within the scope of Wikipedia and decrease disinformation by always citing sources, using licenses such as Creative Commons and lecturing about plagiarism and copyrights in the age of artificial intelligence. Our medium term goal is to be the testing ground for scalable projects that can be collaborated upon by various communities in Asia Pacific, to maximize impact and minimize risks and failure. As a long-term goal, we wanted to help activate and capacitate communities in Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Fiji, Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, New Caledonia if need be. The objective is to help build stronger co-communities and share whatever success we experience in order for them to overcome their startup challenges. In return, we will also share notes on what works with them that we can apply in our communities and continue to innovate as active and productive members of the global village. Butch has done some outreach in Myanmar before and we think we need to support other communities in capacity development and sharing of best practices We also plan to work with affiliate organizations such as Creative Commons and Open Knowledge Foundation . We declare that we will NOT, or NEVER overlap the ESEAP Hub or its services to its constituent communities but rather help build other small communities and cut short their birth pains while collaborating on scalable, good and beneficial projects for our own local communities. This is who we are, this is how we will roll. Past events and projects reports: Philippine Digitization of Local Laws and Ordinances [WIkivoyage Project] Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon in Pangasinan [Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon in Pangasinan] Cook + Edit Fest Pangasinan Edition

Expert Review - education

Reviewer 1:

• Item (2): The applicant is new to the project, and the proposal does not provide sufficient evidence of an established volunteer community that can support the project, nor does it outline a clear strategy for recruiting and engaging volunteers.
• Item (3): The grantee must provide a comprehensive plan for how the project will enhance community health and safety, as well as promote inclusivity within the community.
• Item (4): No feedback has been provided for this item. Additional information or clarification is needed.
• Item (5): The grantee needs to articulate a clear plan for facilitating volunteer participation in events, such as edit-a-thons. This plan should outline how volunteers will be engaged and supported during these activities.
• Item (6): Please provide details or context for Item 6 to receive specific feedback or improvement.
• Item (7): The grantee has not demonstrated a clear intention to establish partnerships, both within and outside the movement, which could be beneficial for the program. Consider collaborating with organizations such as educational institutions for Wiki Club and language documentation institutions (e.g., linguists or archivists) to enhance the project's impact.
• Theoretically, the grant proposal displays careful consideration. However, from a practical standpoint, the grantee's ambitions appear overly ambitious for the following reasons:

  1.  The Grantee is relatively inexperienced in executing Wikimedia movement grants.

  2.  The absence of an existing volunteer base poses a challenge for project support.

   3. The team seems to operate in isolation, lacking any evident intent to collaborate with partners, whether from within or outside the movement.

   4. (a) The proposed project timeline assumes rapid initiation, necessitating the presence of an established volunteer community comprising a minimum of 50 members to provide essential support. For instance, these members would be responsible for organizing events or facilitating Wikimedia activities.

   (b) Ideally, discussions with potential partners should have been finalized, with clear commitment from partners established prior to grant submission. Failing to do so may lead to significant delays and could impede the project's execution phase considerably."

Reviewer 2:

• It's hard to make any assessment on this proposal's education work; there is some reference to creating partnerships with educational institutions and a project to work with journalism students to teach them about Wikimedia projects, but it does not seem to have the traditional "edit Wikipedia in schools" that I am comfortable assessing on.
• Checking unclear just because the education program stuff isn't strong in this proposal (despite their checkbox); their other plans look great though!

Expert Reviewer - culture & heritage

This looks amazing on paper. I don’t have much information about the actual capacities. From the budget, it looks like that there is 1 project coordinator to support this work. I am wondering if it would be worth it to suggest to them to not try and do everything.

Also, I would like to learn more about what local languages they are planning to target and what is their current state on Wikimedia projects, if any.

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you, and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the ESEAP Regional Committee and Staff - VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:41, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund Approved at 1,090,000 PHP

Dear Shared Knowledge Asia Pacific,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The ESEAP Regional Committee and Staff have thoroughly reviewed, discussed, and deliberated upon your application and decided to fund you at 1,090,000 PHP for the grant period from 1st January 2024 to 31st December 2024.

Here are a few points to note that we already discussed in recent conversations;

• We see an opportunity to focus on quality and less on the volume/quantity of projects and activities. We see this being very important, especially after the review of your past Wikisource project that would have benefitted from elements such as proofreading, which is a critical component of a Wikisource project.
• We see value in you focusing on only two of the ongoing projects: (1) The Digitization of Local Laws and Ordinances Project and (2) the Pangasinan WIkivoyage Project in about 2-3 cities.
• We see a need to review the approach you take with the projects - we see the current approach being very marketing / promotional oriented and find this not to be aligned with how Wikimedia projects are implemented. We recognize you have since updated your annual plan and budget, taking into account this initial feedback.
• We invite you to think about the sustainability of the projects and how to engage volunteers to sustain the work beyond your intervention, also thinking about follow-up beyond the event.
• We would like to see a dashboard that helps track the progress of the projects you implement and recommend using the events dashboard as well.

We hope to continue having regular conversations throughout your grant implementation. Do set up a regular schedule to connect with your ESEAP Programme Officer based on your needs. The reporting requirements for the grant will shared in your grant agreement and on Fluxx. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.

Once again, Congratulations! We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on a new year of project implementation.

Regards, on behalf of ESEAP Funds Committee, GhoziSeptiandri (talk) 12:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)