Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Loves Monuments 2022-23 International Coordination and Prizes/Midpoint Report

Financial stuff: how to go about WLM grants for the next years

Hi everyone,

As some of you may know, organizational tasks of the team (grant application, writing of midterm and final report...) can take much time and work, and the WLM-i team is looking into options on how to simplify these and to lower the workload.

We spoke to Wikimedia Austria, our current fiscal sponsor, about the possibility for WM Austria to absorb the WLM grant in their multi-year grant. They are in different cadans as the WLM-i grant request is (they are in round 1, we are in round 2), and there are steps we would need to take to align the rounds before this can happen. There are a few options here:
a) our next request (due March 24th) for a grant would be for 1,5 years, July 1st 2023 - Dec 31st 2024
b) have a 'normal' year grant for July 2023-June 2024. Then request a new grant for half a year only, July 2024-Dec. 2024. The new grant for WMAT will be requested in Sept 2024 and is scheduled to start Jan 1st 2025, so they can take it from there.
c) Request for our budget to be absorbed into the WMAT multi-year grant mid grant, so for instance from July 1st this year (2023).

Before we go forward with this idea, I think it is important to make this decision with input from the national organizers, because there might be some consequences to this decision. A positive one for having our grant absorbed in the WMAT plan and grant request is that most (if not all) of the reporting requirements will be done by WMAT. No more midterm and final reporting, no more grant requests that we as a team have to do.
On the other hand: changing our cycle is not trivial. We currently have a cycle July-June which sort of aligns with our own process for the competition. The bottle neck really is that we need to know before the competition starts that the prize funds are available, and then we need enough time to actually spend these funds - which often takes until March at least, but often as until May. Wikimedia Austria already responded this should not be a problem with their multi-year budget and they should be able to accommodate. Also, they offer to draw up a written agreement between WM Austria and the WLM-i team with provisions for both sides if there was a reason one of the parties decides it is time to go our own ways again.

Other than the international prizes, our spending are mostly minigrants (which have a much more rapid cycle) and off-cycle expenses (development, meetings etc) which could happen in any cycle timeline.

The international team would be very much interested in hearing your thoughts and considerations on the topic!

Best, Ciell (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

I have no objections to the proposal. The issues are technical/bureaucratical. If WM-AT is willing to cover this within their multiyear budget under some agreement, I am fine with it. I trust WLM-i and WM-AT to find the best way to align the financial rounds with WM-AT (or other willing sponsor, perhaps). Platonides (talk) 01:09, 8 February 2023 (UTC)