Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Advocates Philippines User Group Community Fund 2023

Follow-up questions on your application

Dear Wiki Advocates Philippines,

Thank you for providing your written responses to additional questions. See PDF document for more details. Thank you also for joining us on the call with the Committee on 13 May 2023. Your presence and participation was very well appreciated. Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 09:59, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of PHP 3,786,000 for 2023 to 2024

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of PHP 3,786,000 with a grant term starting 1 July 2023 and ending 30 June 2024. Of the approved amount, 10% will need to be set aside for fiscal sponsorship fee to KIWIX.

Opportunities that we see:

• We are optimistic about your potential growth and development and in particular on organisational capacity. As a formal affiliate and with resourcing, we believe you will be able to gradually nurture and build a portfolio of institutional partnerships. For example, this could be in the form of setting up more structured partnership opportunities to designing more structured collaterals for outreach etc. We are also sharing some resources which may be useful.  
  • Resource: Partnership building course on Wikilearn; Partnership opportunities developed by Wikimedia Australia
• While it is not a requirement for User Groups to be registered as a local organisation within their local jurisdictions, we understand you may have plans to formally register with the Securities Exchange Commission in the Philippines. If this is your intention, we recommend getting acquitted with the regulatory, reporting and registration requirements early.
  • Resource: WUANZ has been on this journey recently and could provide valuable practical tips. More details here

Recommendations:

• We would  recommend taking a phased approach to increasing full-time staff within your User Group. We suggest getting acquainted and abiding by local labour laws, identifying best practices that you hope to develop (in the next 12 months) or already have in place to enable a conducive environment to work in. For example, these could range from putting together an employee handbook, type of team culture to recruitment policy etc. It would be useful to also think about a) reporting structure of the paid staff (example) b) How do you decide on/benchmark the hourly rates of your paid staff within the local market? Or adjusting remuneration to commensurate with level of experience? c) Mapping the type of people management experience that the core team possesses and additional skills needed. To be clear, we are also of the view that members of the Board/ advisors should not be paid staff/ employees of the User Group.
  • Suggestion: Once you have a more detailed staffing plan, please share this with your programme officer for a follow-up discussion.
• As a first time recipient of the General Support Fund and to support you in managing the grant, we have been in touch with Kiwix to act as your fiscal sponsor for the grant. They are happy to collaborate with you on this. We will connect you with Kiwix in due course.
  • Suggestion: As 10% of your budget request has been directed towards fiscal sponsorship, please also connect with your Programme Officer to make the necessary adjustments to your budget before the start of your grant.

Snippets from the ESEAP Funds Committee::

• (YS) I appreciate that they replied to each question in detail on both the table and the budget sheet.
• (GS) The preparation and proposal are good, there's no reason to make them wait longer
• (NF) The applicants write the proposal in detail, including how they will recruit the staff and Wikimania scholars. They seem optimistic about recruiting volunteers, but they really need to make the wiki events great. This proposal also wants to improve any other wiki projects but it seems not many contributors in it such as Wikiquote. Hope this proposal will make the wiki content diverse.
• (NF)They intend to build partnerships with 3 universities/educational institutions. I suggest that they also consider partnering with youth-led  communities. I also noted they have not stated how they plan to retain volunteers.
• (NF) While the metrics are clear in this proposal, I am of the view that the applicant can set higher goals with this amount of money and the biggest money will contribute to the leader's salary.

Snippets from WMF Staff (thematic focused)

• (SP) Previously, we had a strong partnership presence in the Philippines. We have made several contacts with prominents institutions in the country that include Ministry of Education, Globe Telecom, Teach for Philippines, and Edokasyon.ph. Nevertheless, there is no action plan made further due to the unavailability of recognized local affiliates as well as the partnerships program prioritisation in the region. I am more than happy to re-open the collaboration with these institutions to the Wiki Advocates Philippines. Apart from that, I would suggest WAP to create an appropriate annual plan and to prioritise their work based on the community interest (e.g technology, GLAM, education, etc.) and we can collaborate together to set a collaboration plan with external partners to create a campaign/project/events.

Next steps

• Let’s continue having regular conversations over the course of 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 can be found here and templates are available here. Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or 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, Jacqueline on behalf of ESEAP Funds Committee

JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2023 (UTC)