Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Haylad/Funding for Meetups in Rain Semester 2018/2019 Session, Wikimedia Fan Club, University of Ilorin

Request moved to drafts

Hello, Haylad; thank you for your work on this grant request and for your interest in promoting Wikimedia at the University of Ilorin. In the last weeks, the movement strategy discussions have advanced and it is very likely that support for meetups will have a different set of requirements in the new fiscal year that will begin before the meetups in your proposal are completed. Given that you are applying for funding for several meetups, we decided it is best to temporarily move it back to drafts; you will be able to revisit your application and resubmit once the new strategy and guidelines are in place in the next few weeks. Please keep an eye on the Rapid Grants guidelines page to resubmit in July. Regards, MMontes (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Application received

Acknowledging that we have received this request. MMontes (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments from WMF

Hello, Haylad; as you are aware, we cannot make funding decisions on this grant request before we close out the grants the Club has previously received. I am leaving comments now in the spirit of giving you time to address them before we have to close the fiscal year and roll your application onto the next one in July.

I looked at the expenses you propose for your meetup, and we see many items that we are not looking to fund for initiatives like this: photographer's time (we don't pay for the work that could be done by volunteers, and cellphone photographs will suffice for your reports), roll up banner and certificates (they are meetups, not an official course offered through the university), notebooks (given that you are providing food already -- we need to be wary about the ways we incentivize activity).

Moreover, groups located in universities around the world use the university infrastructure to avoid having to rent venues. We would expect you to do the same.

With this, your current grant would be less than 500 USD, which would make it ineligible for Rapid Grants. I therefore suggest you take one of the following possible paths if you are interested in moving forward:

- To do three meetups, rather than two (we can extend the grant to cover up to August and you can do a meetup per month), with food and internet access. We could also cover the contingency cost, with the understanding that you will still need to provide receipts for that. - To do three-four meetups, rather than two, with a more modest investment in food and allocating some funds to modest gifts like notebooks or backpack pins if you think this can help incentivize more people. - If you need funds for a venue, you can stick to the three meetups and reduce the amount in food.

In any of those two cases, we are talking about a limit of around 550 USD for three or four informal meetup activities in a university. We cannot justify the current amount as is proposed. Also I want to note that we may have to reduce this support even further going forward, and that we cannot assure you that future meetups will be funded. In terms of managing the expectations of participants in your activities, you might want to rethink the amount of funds you use to provide incentives; investing too much now without the assurance of being able to sustain it may end up affecting your initiative.

Regards, MMontes (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Grant request not funded

Hello, Haylad; thank you again for your work for the Wiki movement. We are marking this grant request as not funded given that we have closed our approvals for this fiscal year and we did not receive the report for the Club's last grant, nor did we receive an updated request. Please ensure the Club submits a report for the last grant and keep an eye on the new funding guidelines that will inform our decisions in the coming fiscal year. Regards, MMontes (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 22 June 2019 (UTC)