Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Shared Knowledge/2018/H1

Eligibility

Shared Knowledge User Group is eligible to apply for a 12-month grant starting 1 January 2018, for a grant up to 40,000 Euro, and with up to 1.0 FTE staff. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:28, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Simple Annual Plan Grant Committee Recommendation

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: We recommend that Shared Knowledge receive the same amount of funding as last year, or an amount of 29,000 Euro + a 10% contingency fee, or 31,900 Euro total. We recommend that Shared Knowledge consider the following changes, to achieve this reduction: End the Chief Program Manager position, after a 6-month transition period. Limit WikiCamp expenses to one camp per year. Do not do the Wikipedian in Residence program in the upcoming year. We are concerned with activities that seem to overlap with the work that the other active User Group in Macedonia is doing, without adequate coordination between the two groups. Before the next application cycle (for 2019 funding), both groups will need to agree on the scopes of their funded activities, as a condition for their eligibility for the Annual Plan Grants process. Any scholarships funded through this grant should be open to all Wikimedia volunteers in Macedonia, and not only members of the Shared Knowledge User Group. Any scholarship selection process should include a wide representation from the community in Macedonia in the decision-making process about who is awarded scholarships, and should be fair to all applicants, regardless of group membership. This is to avoid having to fund a duplicate process for allocating additional scholarships in Macedonia, which does not make sense in such a small region. We are providing the following rationale: This is already a large amount of funding and staff devoted to a relatively small community of contributors and volunteers, and impact is locally focused; therefore, we would not like to see the total amount of the grant increase in 2018. Past results seem not to have been dependent on having a functional Chief Program Manager in place, and there seem to be ongoing problems with managing and hiring for this position.

Comments on the next year's plan: This will be Shared Knowledge’s third application in Simple Annual Plan Grants, and they also have several years of experience making annual plans through Project Grants. In the 2018 plan, there is a growing focus on community work that is needed to sustain the organization in the long term. For example, Shared Knowledge is continuing their good practice of measuring volunteer hours as a grantee-defined metric. The education program is a coherent program area, while the other two programs still consist of a list of subprograms that are grouped thematically and do not necessarily share a common way of working toward the same goals. We appreciate that interesting programs take into account learning from past work. Examples include the very successful integration of Wikidata into expeditionary work, and this year’s plan describes their increasing emphasis on reaching out to new editors and adding content to less covered areas. Despite this, many of their most successful approaches (such as photo expeditions) can not be expanded beyond a small group of contributors, and are costly when considering the number of participants involved. Some programs in this plan seem to overlap with what the other user group in Macedonia is planning (WikiCamp, Wikipedian in Residence), yet these two groups are not collaborating around these activities.

Comments on the current year's focus and achievements: Shared Knowledge focused on program results in 2017, leading to improved outcomes in some areas, such as the number of participants involved in their work overall. They are on track to meet or surpass their 2016 achievements in terms of content pages and participants, but not in terms of newly registered editors. This group consistently achieves very good rates of images used per images uploaded, which is one of the grantee-defined metrics that they track, and is achieving great coverage in their geographic area of focus. They are on track to exceed their 2017 target for number of volunteer hours, but do not appear to be on track to meet their other targets for 2017 (results in the second half of the year may change this, however). Beyond these quantitative achievements, Shared Knowledge has described their achievements in the area of quality content. For example, many articles created through the education program meet standards for featured articles on Macedonian Wikipedia, and they are also aiming to create locally relevant content that does not exist on any other Wikimedia project. Shared Knowledge has a major challenge in activating and revitalizing their Macedonian language communities, both online and offline. They have started to address this by shifting to a an approach in 2017 that emphasizes their longer term goals in this area, and they will continue to develop this approach in 2018. Interestingly, Shared Knowledge has had some success in reactivating contributors that are experienced but were formerly inactive, through their community activities. They are hopeful that activities developed in 2017, such as the Wikicamp, will help them in their efforts to engage and revitalize their communities. Despite turnover on staff (and the WikiCamp house literally catching on fire!), they maintained program activity in 2017 with limited interruptions. This speaks to the dedication of the volunteers that are involved with the organization’s work, and have been for many years. Shared Knowledge is learning from other groups and collaborating, for example through the photo exposition project in coordination with Wiki Education Brazil User Group. It was great to see this happening more in 2017! In the past, Shared Knowledge has made changes to their Simple Annual Plan Grant budget without seeking prior approval through the appropriate channels. In 2017, we worked to correct this, and the organization has been doing an exemplary job managing budget changes.

Other considerations: Shared Knowledge User Group first received funding for an annual plan through the Project Grants process in 2014, which included their first staff. This put them on a path which may be out of pace with what they can be expected to achieve given their capacity, their local opportunities, and the size of the contributor communities they work with. This is a large amount of money (and staff) invested in a small contributor community, a small number of volunteers, and in a small geographic area. Despite years of investment and sustained efforts on the part of group members, it has been a challenge to extend activity beyond a small group of prolific core volunteers, and increase the numbers of new editors involved in their work. It is good to see this team’s activities resulting in more content in the areas they are targeting, but it is still being generated by a relatively small number of people. It is unclear how the program staff person is made accountable for their work, or how they are bringing value to the organization. After several failed attempts at making the position of Chief Program Manager work, we think it is time to discontinue this role. It seems that administrative staff work effectively to keep the organization on track in areas like finance and complying with complex local requirements and regulations. Budgets are exceptionally thorough and clear for an organization of this size, and this organization engages in frequent and transparent financial reporting. This organization is reliant on a few active board members, and there is some history of conflict on the board in past years.

Comments on the next year's focus: Shared Knowledge will face a challenge in stabilizing their staffing situation in 2018, and adjusting their program plans and priorities accordingly. Shared Knowledge can continue to work toward their long term goals to increase participation in their region, and to continue to address local content needs. We hope that a more focused and strategic approach, rather than an emphasis on activity-based planning, may help with this in the long term. Both groups in Macedonia will need to clarify their scopes if they are to operate effectively in the same region.

On behalf of the Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee. --Kai (talk) 12:48, 2 December 2017 (Pacific)

Opinion by the Executive Board of Shared Knowledge

Dear members of the Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee,

The Executive Board of Shared Knowledge accepts the recommendations regarding the annual plan request and it is currently working on making the necessary organisational and programmatic adjustments in order to reach a level of activities that can be supported with the recommended budget. Nevertheless, we are very concerned about the independence of the committee's recommendations and the factual accuracy of the statements the recommendations rely on because of the following reasons:

• There was no communication between board members of our organisation and committee members in the review process. This is something that we complained about last year, when there was, at least, a video conversation with a committee member and some input from the committee before the recommendations were published, with expectations that the things might improve this year. Instead, the things have even worsened and there was no direct communication in the review process at all. We are aware that the this might have been partially compensated with the reports that the WMF staff sent out to the committee following our video conversations but this way of working, by any definition, cannot be considered independent in shaping the recommendations for our grant request.
• There is a confusing conclusion on the scholarship selection process most likely based on inaccurate and unchecked information, which could have been clarified with ease had we had more direct communication in the review process. Please note that our organisation has been awarding grants to any interested individuals or groups based on public discussion with delegated decision-making power to the community through the Photohunts project for two years and we plan to continue this project for the third consecutive year. Moreover, the organisation reports the execution of its programmes in a very transparent way and information with more details can be found in its published reports.

The Executive Board of Shared Knowledge appreciates the three recommendations that the committee has made towards reaching the reduced budget and plans to accept two and reject one.

• The recommendation to end the Chief Programme Manager position is well supported with the organisation's difficulty to suitably fill the vacancy in the past. However, considering the nature of the programmes included in our annual plan and the strategic goals of our organisation, the Chief Programme Manager position is of crucial importance and its discontinuation will substantially impede the organisational work. Therefore, we find this recommendation as unacceptable. In support to this conclusion, we identify the following reasons:
  • Organisational and programmatic nature. Many activities included in the annual plan with the potential to result in positive outcomes that will also address some of the concerns raised by the committee are very time-consuming and efortful so that they cannot be achieved on a voluntary basis or by the Administrative and Community Manager.
  • Organisational and programmatic convergence. Following the staffing change in the middle of 2017 due to underperformance in achieving the mid-term goals, we have observed positive changes and convergence towards achieving the annual targets by the new Chief Programme Manager. The re-scheduled Wikicamp, the photographic exhibition, the Wiki Loves Food contest, the Brazil and Psychology edit-a-thons are all activities that could have not been implemented had there been no involvement by the new Chief Programme Manager and resulted in outcomes that converge towards achieving the annual goals, especially in terms of the newly registered users.
  • Volunteer business and unavailability. Volunteers are people who commit themselves to spending their free time on doing movement-related activities and we do not think that imposing additional burden would help in better organisation and increased outcomes.
  • Administrative and Community Manager potential overload. Administrative and Community Manager position is tied with responsibilities that are distinct and cannot be complemented with those of the Chief Programme Manager. These responsibilities also require aditional competences and can easily lead to work overload, loss of focus and decrease in efficiency.
  • External relations impediment. External partnerships and external financing possibilities are important for the long-run sustainability of our organisation. The discontinuation of the Chief Programme Manager position will impede these possibilities, which will disable the oganisation of reaching a certain level of independence from the WMF funding.

• The recommendation to limit the Wikicamp expenses to one camp per year is acceptable.
• The recommendation to not do the Wikipedian-in-residence programme for the upcoming year is acceptable.

The Executive Board of Shared Knowledge regrets that a former member decided to break away from the organisation and start up a new one to run similar activities in the same geographic area independently. We also note that we have delivered support to this organisation in the past and our members have voiced their concerns about the scope of activities that this organisation was intended to run in multiple occasions. However, instead of seeking a solution to the potential problem, the WMF staff were 'deaf' to our concerns and decided to facilitate the growth of that group which has eventually led to the overlap in scope of the two organisations. Hence, we are disappointed by the ignorance by the WMF staff regarding our concerns and the reluctance to overtake preventive measures, and we are therefore not happy to see that we are put in a position to seek solution for something that could have been resolved earlier. Yet, we are open and ready to collaborate with the new organisation at any time, which we have already demonstrated with our positive stance and readiness to deliver support in the past.

The Executive Board of Shared Knowledge agrees that it operates in a relatively small geographic area with a small community and limited potential for institutional partnerships but we would like to note that any link to the total amount requested can be made only after making a commensurate comparison with the other applicants at the same time. This does not mean that we stress out that there are applicants serving smaller communities that receive more funds or that there is injustice in the grants distribution but that the statement lacks in substance.

Finally, we hope that the WMF staff will take into consideration this opinion and will not circumvent it by posting automatic approval of the committee's recommendations.

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 17:36, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Decision from WMF

Funding decision: Thanks to the committee for this recommendation and to the Shared Knowledge team for this application and your response. We approve your grant in the amount of 18,150 or 16,500 Euro for your approved 6-month budget with a 10% contingency fee for unforeseen expenses to be used only with the approval of WMF. This amount of 16,500 Euro is equal to the annualized amount recommended by the committee with an additional 3800 Euro in staffing expenses, divided by two to accommodate the shorter grant term. We ask that you submit a revised budget for the 12-month period based on the annual amount of 32,800 Euro (which includes the cuts recommended by the committee as well as funding for both staff positions for the 12-month period). We request that you submit your revised budget before the start of the grant term so that we can approve it. If you find you have some expenses that need to be weighted in the first half of 2018, we can accommodate that by increasing the grant amount for the first 6-month grant and reducing the amount for the next 6 months accordingly. We can approve any such requests along with your revised budget. The grant term will begin on 1 January 2018, and will end on 30 June 2018. A midpoint report covering the first 3 months of the grant term should be submitted by 15 April 2018, and a final report covering the entire 6 months should be submitted by 30 July 2018. You should reapply for the second half of 2018 by 1 May 2018 in order to secure funding by 1 July 2018. You can reapply through a simple renewal process that will not require you to make a new application. This 6-month grant term is to allow the committee to reevaluate your staffing plan following your interim report, and make a decision about your staffing plan for the last 6 months of 2018 then. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 02:54, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Revised budget for 2018 is approved

Hello, all! Thanks to our Shared Knowledge colleagues for submitting a revised budget that takes the committee's recommendations into account. The revised budget is hereby approved, in time to start the new grant on 1 January. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 20:56, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Please confirm total spending on 2018 H1 grant

We see here 5881 EUR reported for Q1 and 6130 EUR for Q2, or 12011 EUR total for H1, leaving an under spend of 6139 EUR to be returned. Can you please confirm that is correct? Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 19:05, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Winifred, we spent 5910.00 EUR and 6129.54 EUR, or a total of 12039.54 EUR, from the first and second quarter. We have one annual plan, and with the rest funds or under spend in this case from H1, and the funds from H2, we realize it. (Иван Ж (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC))

Thanks! For administrative purposes, we are approving a reallocation of 6111 EUR9360 EUR to be applied to your H2 grant. 1900 EUR will be added to your H2 contingency fee, and the remainder should be applied to the corresponding line items in your H2 budget. Then we can resolve the total underspend at the end of your H2 grant. Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 02:22, 21 November 2018 (UTC)