Grants talk:Simple/Applications/WikiInAfrica 2020

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Simple APG Committee recommendation[edit]

We recommend that Wiki in Africa receive a grant of $71,985 for one year. We appreciate the detailed proposal and effort to provide very useful context on your experience running continental projects in Africa. We understand the rationale for requesting paid staff, especially as it relates to organizing complex projects such as Wiki Loves Africa.

Overall, we are very supportive of Wiki Loves Women and hope you can continue to work with individuals and groups across Africa that need mentorship, networking, or toolkit support. Howver, we have concerns about the microgrant program and while WMF will not be funding it this year, we know you are still looking for other ways to resource this. Before we would feel comfortable supporting this, we we would need more details regarding the review process, committee selection, and efforts to combat review bias.


For the committee, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 14:31, 28 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki in Africa’s grant is approved in the amount of 60,000 USD for 12 months[edit]

While the committee has recommended 71,985 USD in funding, we are approving this grant in the amount of 60,000 USD for 12 months. Though we believe in the value of your programs and the rationale presented for your budget, our budget prevents us from funding all requests fully, even if they have a sound strategy with impactful projects. It is our responsibility to look across the entire portfolio of proposals and make difficult decisions regarding prioritization. In order to move towards a more equitable funding model across the movement, we need to balance distribution of funds across the region and also support the relatively large number of affiliates new to the simple annual plan grant program this round.

You have played a major role in supporting the development of leaders and growth in organized groups across Africa and we appreciate the scope of your efforts.

We want to understand how the reduction in overall budget will impact your proposed programs and staffing. We realize that you will will need to do some prioritization and cut some of your activities. Since the budget is 70% staffing and administration, and the staff are already part-time, we are unclear what impact this will have. We see the real strength in your experience and expertise as filling a capacity and leadership gap at the continental level -- able to provide mentorship and tools to new or developing individuals and groups in the movement. It seems you are best placed to serve that role through Wiki Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women. However, your education and tools work are also valuable and we understand a lot of these programs are interrelated. You are best placed to propose the most appropriate prioritization. In order to move forward with the grant we will need to have an updated plan, budget, and metrics.

We hope that this grant provides more stability for the year ahead and look forward to working with you.

Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Alex Wang (WMF),

Thank you for your support, it means a lot to us. So, Isla and I had a brief talk this morning. Here is an outline of what we plan doing.

  1. No change to WLA proposition, except some rework on budget
  2. We will remove the OKC part of the proposition. Does not mean we give it up entirely, but it will not be in the proposition.
  3. We acknowledge that our proposition of micro-funding program for Wiki Loves Women is being an issue to WMF and to the committee, as mentioned here and discussed with you offline. We consequently drop that proposition entirely (with regrets).
  4. However, we note that we want to continue the Wiki Loves Women Programme and that you seem to agree we should. However, due to the lesser budget, we do not think we can revert to similar activities we had during the first 3 years of operation of Wiki Loves Women. So we would like to propose an idea we had in the past and did not implemented yet. We believe you will not see any risk in it so should feel confortable adopting. We will update our APG proposition and budget accordingly in the next few days.
  5. Last, with regards to tools and WikiChallenge, those are programmatic activities which were mostly mentioned but budget asked was quite limited; and those activities will proceed anyway. So we will be sticking to them as is, with a budget cut.
  6. The open question for us is the travel budget, and in particular whether we would still be eligible to scholarship funding. If we cut this expenses and scholarship is no more an option, we will not be able to attend Wikimania :(

Anthere (talk)

Midpoint Report Accepted[edit]

Hello Anthere and Islahaddow, thanks for submitting your midpoint report. We have reviewed the metrics, budget, and report and marked them as accepted. Thank you for your work for the Wikimedia Movement! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 14:01, 17 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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