Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Africa 2025 Libya And Morocco (ID: 22892701)

Feedback regarding your rapid grant application

Dear Ali Alaswad,

Thank you very much for applying for a rapid grant to organize Wiki Loves Africa competition in Libya and Morocco. We appreciate that there are new organizers from the region seeking leadership roles in organizing such competitions. After a thorough review of your proposal, the WMF Community Resources team has a couple of follow up questions and points before reaching a final decision:

• Collaborating with Wikimedia Libya and Wikimedia MA. Considering that there are already existing user groups in both of the countries that you will be organizing activities in, how can you ensure that you are not duplicating any efforts? Have you already aligned with them on how you and Mounir plan on collaborating with them?

• Outreach strategies to new audiences. The project is ambitious and plans on reaching a diverse target audience, as you state that you want to reach out to students and academics studying agriculture, history, and cultural studies. May you clarify what are your outreach strategies and engagement methods that will ensure these audiences are represented in your activities? How do you plan on ensuring participation from these new audiences who are not a part of the Wikimedia movement? And how do you plan on retaining them as active contributors within the movement following the competition?

• Partnerships to expand outreach. It is great to see cross-country teamwork, however, have you considered specific partners or networks to support the promotion of these sessions that can enhance the project’s outreach and impact?
• Breakdown of administrative fees. Thank you very much for sharing the team roles and responsibilities in your proposal. May you share exactly who will be volunteers and who will be paid roles and make this clear within your budget, breaking the paid contributions by individual and not by task?

• Prize allocations. While the competitions are a great way to engage participants, the proposed prize money ($650 per competition) is excessive. We recommend reducing the allocation to $900 (from $1,300)
• Naming the jury. Kindly name who you will be inviting as jury for the competitions
• Budget considerations. We see the cost of t-shirts to be too high, and we recommend either removing this expense entirely or capping the cost of t-shirts at $10 each. We advise to amend the staff compensation fee as it is high relative to the scope of the project. We suggest reducing it to $500 to maintain alignment with typical rapid grant allocations

May you please review the above recommendations and adjust your budget and proposal accordingly? Thank you very much and wishing you a wonderful start to the 2025.

On behalf of the WMF Community Resources team, FElgueretly-WMF (talk) 09:33, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello FElgueretly-WMF (talk · contribs),

Thank you for your feedback on the proposed project. We have carefully reviewed your suggestions and provided detailed responses to address each point. These adjustments and clarifications aim to enhance the project's alignment with expectations, optimize resource allocation, and ensure its success and impact.

• Collaborating with Wikimedia Libya and Wikimedia MA. Considering that there are already existing user groups in both of the countries that you will be organizing activities in, how can you ensure that you are not duplicating any efforts? Have you already aligned with them on how you and Mounir plan on collaborating with them?
  • Mounir has already established communication with Wikimedia MA to coordinate efforts and avoid duplication. Wikimedia MA has expressed no objection to organizing Wiki Loves Africa within the scope of this proposal. As for Wikimedia Libya, the planned activities are not overlapping with their current focus areas, and they have expressed no concerns regarding the collaboration.

• Outreach strategies to new audiences. The project is ambitious and plans on reaching a diverse target audience, as you state that you want to reach out to students and academics studying agriculture, history, and cultural studies. May you clarify what are your outreach strategies and engagement methods that will ensure these audiences are represented in your activities? How do you plan on ensuring participation from these new audiences who are not a part of the Wikimedia movement? And how do you plan on retaining them as active contributors within the movement following the competition?
  • Our outreach strategies include leveraging sponsored advertisements (budget sheet updated accordingly to include this item) and collaborating with local agricultural organizations and associations interested in culture and heritage to engage with target audiences. We plan a series of sessions, each with its own advocacy focus, supported by tailored advertisements to attract specific audiences. Having the grant will make communication more efficient by providing resources to enhance outreach efforts and foster partnerships. We will utilize WhatsApp groups for direct communication and establish a list of potential organizations, such as universities and cultural institutions, to broaden our reach. Post-event follow-up will be conducted to maintain engagement, and participants will be encouraged to join ongoing Wikimedia initiatives, ensuring sustained contribution to the movement.

• Partnerships to expand outreach. It is great to see cross-country teamwork, however, have you considered specific partners or networks to support the promotion of these sessions that can enhance the project’s outreach and impact?
  • We plan to leverage the connections established through Wiki Loves Monuments in Libya. We have contacted Benghazi Photography Society and they will support the promotion of Wiki Loves Africa. Additionally, Morocco offers a wide range of organizations that can enhance outreach, particularly those with an interest in cultural documentation.

• Breakdown of administrative fees. Thank you very much for sharing the team roles and responsibilities in your proposal. May you share exactly who will be volunteers and who will be paid roles and make this clear within your budget, breaking the paid contributions by individual and not by task?
  • Volunteers: NANöR (talk · contribs) and Sondsft (talk · contribs).
  • Paid roles: Ali Alaswad (talk · contribs), Mounir Neddi (talk · contribs), and Nada.FA (talk · contribs)

These roles will be reflected in the budget, the tasks will be performed jointly and same tasks will be done in two places.

• Prize allocations. While the competitions are a great way to engage participants, the proposed prize money ($650 per competition) is excessive. We recommend reducing the allocation to $900 (from $1,300)
  • The proposed prize money is intended to incentivize high-quality photo submissions and align with the standards of similar competitions. We removed $100 from the prize budget. It is important to maintain consistency across grants and avoid offering lower prizes compared to other competitions, especially considering the target audience is among the Arab community

• Naming the jury. Kindly name who you will be inviting as jury for the competitions
  • The jury will consist of expert photographers alongside experienced Wikimedians, similar to the approach used in Wiki Loves Monuments in Libya 2024. This ensures a balanced evaluation of submissions, combining technical expertise with Wikimedia project alignment. Regarding Morocco, we will call on the jury people with experience in photography and Wikimedia Commons. We will share with the jury guidelines for judging, in coordination with the international competition team. We have adjusted the jury incentives to align with other proposals, setting the gifts at $100 per judge.

• Budget considerations. We see the cost of t-shirts to be too high, and we recommend either removing this expense entirely or capping the cost of t-shirts at $10 each. We advise to amend the staff compensation fee as it is high relative to the scope of the project. We suggest reducing it to $500 to maintain alignment with typical rapid grant allocations
  • We have adjusted the t-shirt budget to align with the recommended cap of $10 each. However, regarding organizers compensation, our team consists of three organizers who will collaboratively share the responsibilities to ensure smooth coordination and effective implementation of the grant activities. Over the 15-week project period, we plan to execute four (4) key activities: Advocacy sessions, educational lectures, a competition in Morocco, and another in Libya. Additionally, we will conduct a photo walk, which, while not requiring specific expenses and excluded from the budget, still demands significant organizers effort in planning and execution. Also, among all the submitted photos, we will select those eligible to be featured images, quality images, or valued images and nominate them accordingly.
  • Each organizer will dedicate 20 hours to the project, collectively totaling 60 hours of compensated work. However, it is important to note that the actual workload significantly exceeds this, as many tasks such as planning, follow-up, community engagement, and analysing require extensive effort. Organizers will work with an hourly rate of $10. This rate is significantly lower than the $25 per hour or $500 per organizer requested in other grant proposals with similar activities and organizers responsibilities. Despite the comparable nature of tasks, including coordination, planning, and implementation, our proposed compensation reflects the voluntary approach in the movement while still acknowledging the time, effort, and resources necessary to achieve successful outcomes. A unified compensation structure would further ensure equity and support.
  • Given this context, the proposed compensation is not only reasonable but also essential to ensure the project’s success. We are committed to managing the budget responsibly to deliver high-quality results, and we believe this rate is fair and equitable within the framework of the project.Ali Alaswad (talk) 12:57, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Funded

Hello Ali Alaswad, thank you for submitting your Rapid Fund request. We appreciate your willingness to contribute to the Wiki Loves Africa campaign. We have completed the review of your application and have decided to fund it in the amount of 2,805 USD. This decision was made with the following recommendations:

• The application raised some questions among the review team, with concerns regarding its focus being heavily skewed toward Libya and a lack of clarity in the proposed activities. We encourage the group to provide more detailed and balanced plans in future applications to ensure alignment with the campaign's broader objectives.
• The collaborative aspects of the proposal were considered interesting and valuable, and we encourage continued efforts in fostering such partnerships.
• Given that all organizers are part of Wikimedia User Groups Morocco and Libya, both of which receive General Support Funds from the Wikimedia Foundation, we recommend leveraging those existing resources to cover certain costs outlined in this application. For example, we suggest reaching out to Wikimedia User Group Morocco to explore covering the costs of gifts for winners, as their existing budget may support this expense.

On behalf of the Wiki Loves Africa review team.

Anthere (talk) 12:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello, @Anthere and thank you for your valuable efforts.

Regarding Morocco, I have successfully organized two editions of the program in 2023 and 2024. Additionally, I received positive feedback from the organizing team. Therefore, I’m unsure about your concerns regarding the part related to Morocco. Could you please provide further clarification?

As for the support of user groups for the awards, have you reviewed the grant requests submitted by the two groups? These groups did not allocate awards for this competition in their annual budgets, so it would be unreasonable to expect them to do so now.

I look forward to your review of this request. Thank you, and best regards. Mounir Neddi (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello Mounir. First worth noting that the feedback above is a compilation of the opinions of the review committee members + WMF, not necessarily my individual feedback. I was the carrier of news.

Whilst I have indeed no concerns regarding the organization part in Morocco, I think the dual proposition was a bit disturbing to others perhaps ? So I do not think you should take it at all as a criticism as how you organized the contest in the past.

Second, please note that we gave the jury members some criterias and guidelines for certain costs lines. For example, we had a guideline maximum when it came to global tee-shirts costs, for prizes amount per country, and for gifts (or stipend) given to jury members. In your cases, these 3 lines were above the guidelines so amounts were decreased. To give you some specifics... we had given a max amount of awards per country at 500 USD whilst your initial request was at 650 USD per country. We had given a max amount of about 100 USD for all jury members (so in your case, that would be a max of 200 USD for two countries, whilst your initial budget was 600 USD). Etc. So the budget approved was lower, not based on « one line » but rather decreased for several of the lines.

Third, I reached out to Wikimedia Morocco during the examination, and one outcome of the conversation was that "Wikimedia UG Morroco invites the group to apply for the costs of gifts to winners for example as they have a budget to support that expense". My understanding is that there may not be a specific line dedicated to WLA in WMUGMA budget, but that there is a line for awards that could be used over there.

Last, I realize a point has been missed in the final report... the fiscal sponsorship fee... was removed... because it is not directly a cost of the program but it will be covered on top of the amount approved.

I hope it helps ! Anthere (talk) Anthere (talk) 06:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello @Anthere

Thank you for the clarifications, which answer all our questions. I am in contact with the Wikimedia Morocco user group to confirm their support for the prizes.

I understand that the response concerns the jury. Thank you for delivering and clarifying this news. I apologize if my message was unintentionally more direct than necessary.

Best regards Mounir Neddi (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

You are welcome. You were absolutely right asking for clarification. That was a good thing. Anthere (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello again @Anthere,

unfortunately, the Wikimedia Morocco user group has refused to support the local prizes for the WLA. Nevertheless, I will try to organize a campaign in Morocco without local prizes as usual.

Thank you.

Best regards Mounir Neddi (talk) 09:50, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

This is very uncool :(((( I am sorry Mounir. Anthere (talk) Anthere (talk) 19:17, 28 January 2025 (UTC)