Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Yoruba Wikimedians User Group - Annual Activities 2022

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal[edit]

Hello Agbalagba and the team at Yoruba Wikimedians User Group,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your proposal. We are pleased to have reviewed it and have the following comments and questions;

We found your proposal understandable in terms of proposed strategies and objectives to be achieved. We are excited about the innovative programming on knowledge creation and documentation including the use of audiovisual, radio shows, comedy and street walks. We are pleased to see the user group growing to support newcomers and engage existing ones on a variety of valuable and exciting free knowledge projects.

Thanks for your support. Agbalagba^T★C 16:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We recommend that you review your activity plan/timetable to align with the funding period indicating the planned start and end dates of the activities in this proposal. The plan will support us in assessing the feasibility of proposed activities vs the capacity of the team.

This has been done per your recommendation. Agbalagba^T★C 16:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We noticed that the proposed project team includes 2 consultants to be paid amongst other volunteers. We would like to learn what informed the decision for hiring the two roles and not one or none for instance. What is the difference between the one in charge of technical advice and the one in charge of professional advice? How will you manage the dynamics of volunteers and paid staff and especially seeing that this will be the first time you will have paid roles.

We did not propose to hire 2 consultants in our proposal. We do not have a paid role for either “technical adviser” or “professional adviser” in our proposal. However, we are proposing compensation for an accountant and a program director who will play a lead role in planning, executing, monitoring, and managing documentation and reports, among other tasks. The indigenous vocational works audio-visual recordings productions are outsourced to a professional documentary maker. Volunteers are our greatest resources and the bedrock of our community and its activities. We understand that the volunteer-staff relationship is critical. And we're taking the following measures to manage the dynamics of our paid staff members and volunteers:

We will recruit a trusted member of our community, a good volunteer manager who has the skill and abilities to work effectively with volunteers and already has a good working relationship with volunteers. Our paid staff would be someone who shared our mission with a good track record of volunteering for our community.
We will periodically collect feedback from our volunteers on their interaction with our paid staff members. This would be helpful in evaluating the staff-volunteers interactions.
We understand that poor communication could result in a conflict between staff and volunteers. We will design an effective communication plan to manage communication.'
We will ensure that power is shared between our staff members and volunteers to meet our set goals. They would also be intimated of our shared mission and objectives.
We will ensure that delegation of power will be inconsistent with the primary aim of achieving our community mission. Power would be delegated based on the need of each project. Agbalagba^T★C 16:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would you share the rationale for allocating more funds for awareness-raising and registrations than those allocated for training and edit-a-thon? Based on our review we thought more resources would need to be allocated to the training efforts and less on outreach and recording activities.

One of the challenges facing the Yoruba language Wikipedia is a lack of awareness of the project among the Yoruba speakers. This is evident in our new experimental project called the "Contribute to Wikipedia in your language project" in which a survey shows that more than 50% of the responders are not aware that Wikipedia exists in the Yorùbà language. This is our reason for allocating more funds for awareness-raising than those allocated for training and edit-a-thon. However, we are willing to adjust our proposal to allocate more funds for training and edit-a-thon per your review.. Agbalagba^T★C 16:06, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would you share with us how you have managed resources before. What financial systems structures and skills have been useful in the past that will be handy in managing this proposed grant?

We have a dedicated person who maintains a simple bookkeeping sheet where we record all inflows from our grants and expenses incurred during execution of our previous grants. . It follows the format in our report here.
We keep a timely record of all projects expenses
We maintain a joint account that requires the authorization of the two signatories to the account.

We adopted the above simple process to manage our resources in the past. But this year, we plan to hire an experienced accountant to manage our finances. Agbalagba^T★C 16:09, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We notice in the budget that 4000 USD are foreseen to cover administrative costs: Would you explain what you mean by administrative costs? What does this amount entail and how would it be helpful in achieving the objectives of this proposal? We would like to have more details on this.

The administrative costs are for supporting local transportation, Internet costs, bank charges, phone calls, costs of shipping of local prizes, etc. for volunteers throughout the year. These expenses are not already covered in our budget. Agbalagba^T★C 16:11, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would you share more on the costs related to the comedy skits. Are there any opportunities for partnerships to support the development of the skits?

We contacted Mr. Macaroni about a month ago and he sent us an invoice for the services(Over a month ago, we requested invoices from some of the prominent professionals in the comedy skits-making industry in Nigeria. The estimated cost mentioned in the budget represents the lowest amount among all the invoices received. Yes, we will hope to explore the opportunity. The costs of comedy skits were budgeted based on that. Yes, there are opportunities for partnership to support the development of the skits. The contents would be developed by the skit makers in collaboration with our community members, and in partnership with the Yoruba language department of the University of Lagos. Agbalagba^T★C 16:19, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the USD 500 micro-financing that you intend to grant to individuals or organisations to support projects that are in line with the vision of the Wikimedia Movement, could you tell us a bit more about it? Also, how will you go about recruiting recipients and on what basis will you do so? Finally, how will the funds be granted and how will the activities of the beneficiaries be monitored and supported.

The micro-grant would be awarded to community members, groups, and mission-aligned organizations with unique projects to support the growth of content, and contributors to the Yoruba Wikipedia. The recipient would be recruited via a transparent, clear, and coordinated process that would include a call for applications from individuals, groups, and mission-aligned organizations. We will use a design like this one to manage the application process. :: In February last year, we partnered with Àtẹ́lẹwọ́, a Yorùbà focused not-for-profit organization. They asked if we could provide small support for them to run a Yorùbà Wikipedia event to continue the effort. We plan to award this grant to organizations, individuals, and groups on the basis of the fact that it would be used to advance the mission of the Yoruba Wikipedia. Agbalagba^T★C 16:19, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Questions from Staff;

We see a significant portion of your resources is on staff and while we understand the purpose of the request we have a few questions to support us in understanding the measures you have put in place to support this transition from volunteers to hiring staff to manage projects;

Have you taken time to review the labour laws and regulations and what policies have you put in place to be complaint

Yes, we have reviewed the Nigerian Labour Laws, and below are the policies (just to mention a few) we have put in place to be compliant with the Nigerian Labour Act:

The wages of our staff would be made payable in the Nigerian legal tender and ensure the applicable tax are observed as well.
The salary of our staff would be paid monthly and would not exceed the 30th of every month
Our staff would work for 5 days a week
Our staff would be entitled to 12 days of sick leave
We will not provide an advance of wages in excess of one month. Agbalagba^T★C 16:27, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Employees' experience in organizations is enabled by organizational culture and in thinking about the experience you hope the proposed staff would have, might you have thought about the organization’s culture and other organizational elements associated with hiring staff.

It's our group's culture to respect one another, value volunteers contributions, maintain civility, and the friendly space policies. We are hiring staff who are already familiar with our culture with a good track record of volunteering for our community. The ideal candidate would have experience in the following areas:

Volunteers recruitment, management, and retention
Partnership, and community building
Project management
Among others, the candidates must be familiar with the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC), and the Wikimedia movement strategy. Agbalagba^T★C 16:27, 25 April 2022 (UTC) [reply]

Additionally, who would the staff be reporting to and getting support from?

The staff would be reporting to the executive members of our group led by the president of the group and getting support from the executive members and our volunteers. He would also be getting support from our advisors who are longtime experienced members of our community. Agbalagba^T★C 16:33, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would you share the basis informing the costs related to the audiovisual recording of vocational works of the Yoruba and especially those related to producer and production.
The Wikimedia User Group Nigeria has done something similar, although with a different focus area. They are focusing on indigenous languages while we are focusing on indigenous vocational works. Their budget for the work in 2021 and 2022 are the basis informing our costs, especially for production, and producer. Agbalagba^T★C 16:33, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing that there will be a compensation element, it would be financially appropriate that the payment is made from a legally recognized organization.
Having mentioned that are you legally registered and if not, what is your intended plan of action. We have commenced the process of registration as a non-profit organisation in Nigeria. We were in touch with the leadership of the Wikimedia User Group Nigeria last week to explore the possibility of a fiscal sponsor and they agreed to be our fiscal sponsor.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee--VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 13:03, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help and support throughout this process. Agbalagba^T★C 16:35, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of $50,000USD[edit]

Hello Agbalagba,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of $50,000USD, with a grant term starting 1 July 2022 and ending 30th June 2023.

We are excited to see Yoruba Wikimedians UG grow and seek to advance that growth with the support of long-term funding and towards achieving your main focus areas of ; Recruitment of volunteer native speakers for Yoruba Wikipedia and Wiktionary, Creating awareness about the Yoruba Wikipedia, Developing partnerships and Developing capacity building initiatives or programs informing your main programs on content generation, capacity building, advocacy and volunteer recruitment.

We affirm your capabiilties and experience in leading and implementing Wikimedia projects and also recognize that you will have opportunities through the grant to develop capacities related to organizational and operational aspects of your user group. We recommend adjusting your programming ; looking into reducing the overall project scope and especially operational undertakings allowing you to learn and put in place financial and operational systems that would support your desired growth. We definitely see an opportunity for you to learn from Wikimedia Nigeria User Group especially based on the indication that they will be the fiscal sponsor ; both for programmatic and operational implementation of the project.

We recommend that you consider holding off on the micro-grant program in this funding round especially seeing that processes and structures useful in informing the program have not been established. There will be an opportunity to include this in the next annual grant after having reviewed the program, the needs it would address and processes that would enable its success.

We recommend that you consider getting a consultant to support you with establishing organizational and operational structures and especially those related to staff. In the meantime, you can explore a stipend or allowance model to support coordinators of the project, as you develop more robust processes to support future growth in the user group and community.

In case you need support in learning more about making adjustments to your programs to fit to the approved grant amount, please reach out to the regional program officer for a conversation.

Overall, we are pleased to learn about your past growth and how it has enable you to have the capacity to implement the proposed projects contributing to future development of your community.

Thank you for your work and all you do for the community and Wikimedia movement.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --Aristidek5maya (talk) 17:10, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Aristidek5maya, thank you for your support. Regards Agbalagba^T★C 11:25, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]