Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wikimedia Engagement and Community Development in Northern Cyprus Through University Clubs (ID: 23553028)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hello Biologg and thanks for your proposal. I am approving your proposed activities in Cyprus with the following comments:

• We appreciate your work setting up and leading the AÖA Wiki Club in Cyprus earlier this year, and that your programmatic work will involve both this club as well as the mentioned METU NCC Wikipedia Society. I agree that given how new the club is, some time spent on university and online outreach to attract programmatic and potential club participants is important to ensure your club has a reliable set of potential participants across your programmatic offerings.
• Thanks for your engagement with the Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey in preparing this proposal as well as in the earlier stage of setting up the club. The planned list of activities involves a promising number of areas to support community engagement on Wikisource, as well as on gender gap-related topics.
• I have increased funding amount in USD based on our Finance team's declared currency exchange rates between TRY and USD, which should bring your award amount close to your estimated budget for these activities.
• In a previous proposal of yours, we asked what engagement you had with the Wikimedia Community User Group Cyprus regarding that proposal. We were not able to fund your earlier proposal because engagement with the user group on the proposal was minimal, and we normally expect individual applicants to notify and coordinate local affiliates of events they are running with local affiliates. For this proposal, I learned that you did not contact the user group at all. Normally, this would have also made this proposal not eligible for funding, but after communicating with the user group, they were open to supporting your proposal provided that the activities were not tied to the User Group given there was no coordination. While I understand there are ongoing, important sociopolitical circumstances in Cyprus that make some kinds of collaboration challenging, we expect that in future funding proposals that you will communicate with Wikimedia Community User Group Cyprus to coordinate on future events that involve Cypriot communities before submitting Rapid Fund proposals. You may, of course, continue to collaborate with Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey and other User Groups as relevant to your activities.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, and we look forward to your activities next year. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 00:46, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Delay notice and request

Hello @I JethroBT (WMF) The proposed end date was June 15, 2026; however, we were unable to complete all planned activities by that date. Therefore, we would like to request a one month extension. Additionally, we would like to invite two local NGOs to participate in our Women in Red workshop: the Association of Women Entrepreneurs and the Digital Culture Association. Would it be possible for these organizations to officially join the workshop as participating partners? Biologg (talk) 20:56, 4 July 2026 (UTC)

@Biologg: Thanks for reaching out regarding this request and opportunity to invite more partners into the workshop. While I am willing to grant this extension to July 15, please be sure that in future to request extensions before the end date of your grant. As for the partners who want to participate in the workshop, this sounds great! In general, decisions about your potential partners doesn't require any special permission from us and can be determined through your own discretion, but do feel free to reach out if you have questions about whether or not to involve particular partners in your programmatic work. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, @I JethroBT (WMF), and I apologize for the late notice.

After coordinating with the invited organizations and two student clubs, we agreed to hold the event on 4 August. If this arrangement is acceptable, I can submit the final report tomorrow and then proceed with the workshop afterward. Alternatively, I can submit the final report after the workshop has been completed, no later than 6 August. Biologg (talk) 12:41, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

@Biologg: Thanks for this request. My preference in this case would be to complete the final workshop as proposed, and then to prepare the report for 6 August. This will help us understand the totality of the programmatic work, impact, and funding usage. With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:23, 16 July 2026 (UTC)