Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wiki In Africa 2021

APG approved in the amount of 99,550 USD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 99,550 USD, with a grant term starting 1 January 2021 and ending 31 December 2021.

In this Annual Plan, Wiki in Africa is proposing to work in four programs: Gender-Equity: Wiki Loves Women 2021, Diversity + GLAM: Wiki Loves Africa 2021, Offline and Technology support: Wiki Fundi & ISA Tool 2021, and Education: WikiChallenge African Schools + Open Knowledge Curriculum 2021. These programs are built upon five programmatic areas which in their turn, are developed on the basis of their Strategic Priorities. We especially highlight Wiki in Africa's elaborate Strategic Plan which is closely aligned with the Movement Strategy recommendations and UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We appreciate Wiki in Africa’s role in supporting emerging communities in Africa, leadership development, and the formation of organized Wikimedia groups in Africa. With their current Annual Plan and programmatic activities, they plan to continue this work. The main strategic focus for the current Annual Plan is capacity building and partnership. With the help of multiple initiatives, Wiki Loves Women seeks to bridge the gender gap focusing specifically on diversity, participation, and content creation. Wiki Loves Africa is an established project of this organization that aims to encourage communities to collect photos and document the African continent. The technical support is centered around Wiki Fundi and ISA Tool 2021; with these tools, Wiki in Africa plans to assist community members and outcomes. Wiki In Africa’s education initiatives supports schools and teachers in educating students on how to edit articles for Wikipedia. This program potentially supports training in several skills, such as researching, analyzing outcomes, and collaborating.

The committee has requested that Wiki In Africa carefully consider the long-term goals of its organization for its next application. When Wiki In Africa was founded in 2016, there were relatively few highly active movement affiliates in the continent. Programming and support from Wiki In Africa, especially through its Wiki Loves Africa campaign, have been beneficial for several affiliates to reduce knowledge gaps about their communities, establish training practices around contribution, and support community engagement practices around a prominent movement campaign. However, that landscape is very different now, with several organizations having now established good practices in areas of organizational capacity, community engagement, and event planning. We agree with this assessment. Furthermore, [recommendations from Movement Strategy] suggest that grantmaking and funds distribution will transition towards decision-making models and initiatives that more directly represent those local communities. Based on these factors, it is unlikely we will be able to grow the organization’s work while also supporting overlapping needs and goals of local affiliates more directly. Based on these factors, it will be important for Wiki In Africa to prepare to address following questions in its next application in its programmatic and strategic planning:

How is Wiki In Africa enabling the affiliates it is supporting to become self-sustainable, with a plan to reduce its direct support once these goals are met? How is the organization supporting participatory decision-making around its activities involving African communities where there is an articulated need for external support? What is the organization’s fundraising strategy to support its work in the future years beyond the Simple APG program?

For 2021, Wiki in Africa requests expenses for 2 staff members — Coordinator and Communication Manager — with 1.0 FTE in total. We understand their need in having more capacity, to support African communities better, and to ensure the organization’s sustainability. We appreciate that they seek to address this capacity gap also with the help of an intern. We commend their efforts in putting the emphasis on raising their capacity for fundraising.

We approve this grant request in the amount of 99,550 USD with the following breakdown:

• Administrative expenses: 7,650 USD (fully funded)
• Staff expenses: 81,900 USD, 1.0 FTE, grant writer, and intern (fully funded an increase in 100%)
• Programmatic expenses: 10,000 USD (partially funded, budget kept the same as last year)

We believe in the value of Wiki in Africa’s programs and the rationale presented for growth. However, in working with a limited budget we cannot fund all requests fully even in case of an impactful strategy and projects. While we are prioritizing support for emerging communities, including the African communities, to support organizational stability with annual plan funding, we are not able to meet the full funding requests of all applicants at this time.

We look forward to working together and seeing your work unfold in the upcoming year.

Best regards, on behalf of SAPG Committee and Staff, --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 10:46, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Veronica and the grant team !

I wanted to provide some elements of answers to your earlier questions. This is by no means a complete answer, but it is already quite long. So I am starting with this piece ;)

How is Wiki In Africa enabling the affiliates it is supporting to become self-sustainable, with a plan to reduce its direct support once these goals are met?

We were a bit confused with this question. It seems to imply that Wiki in Africa is financially supporting the other affiliates, has a responsibility toward them, and that there might somehow be a hierarchical relationship between WiA and other affiliates. Said differently, the question felt as if we were considered to be a “hub”.

This is not the case. We are not a “hub”. We are simply a group of individuals (organized into an association) that conceives projects and runs them. In exactly the same way as dozens of other usergroups are doing across the wikisphere. We initiate projects and invite affiliates (and when there are not yet affiliates, we invite individuals) to be a part of them. They are free to accept, or to refuse - it is entirely up to them.

Many of our projects have an underlying goal to transfer knowledge, share experiences, help others improve their skills, and facilitate those involved through stronger introductions to the international network. This is the reason why we often help the least experienced volunteer communities on the path towards getting funding from WMF, but ultimately, they are completely autonomous and responsible for their own selves. We have served (and will continue to serve) as fiscal sponsors for some of the volunteer communities who are based in more challenging countries, but it is merely to facilitate money transfer, and almost always when the Wikimedia Foundation cannot due to political limitations with their countries. However, this does not imply any relationship of authority over them. We are simply happy to see the new groups grow in size, in strength, and in competencies whilst we work with them on shared initiatives.

Once our shared activity is over, we can simply part ways and share good memories, or we can further continue collaborating on other projects. In many cases, collaboration continues. In some of these cases, Wiki in Africa is the lead on a shared activity, whilst in other cases, the other usergroup is the lead. For example, Wikimedia Nigeria participates in our photographic contest Wiki Loves Africa, then WIA is lead, whilst when we participate in the WPWP contest, Wikimedia Nigeria is the lead. No hierarchy, just logical partnership.

What may create the confusion is that, since inception, we run international activities that were intentionally designed to be inclusive and allow multiple layers of engagement. As such, we always try to create bonds between organizations by involving many partners and aligned organizations. This is not a bug, this is a feature. We believe that to be effective, the community has to break down silos, to apply local solutions to global issues (and the other way around), and work together, regardless of geographical and other barriers.

Asking us how we plan to help other affiliates to become self-sustainable is the same as asking Art+Feminism how they plan to help all those affiliates involved in art+feminism activities to become self-sustainable, or Wiki Loves Monuments, Whose Knowledge? or ....

We hope every organisation will become sustainable, but this is neither our role, nor our responsibility - that is entirely up to them.

How is the organization supporting participatory decision-making around its activities involving African communities where there is an articulated need for external support?

The answer to your second question is “it depends”. Let me pick up three examples :

• In the case of Wiki Loves Women, we have decided to create an advisory committee back in 2020. We contact the members from time-to-time, collectively or individually. We are planning to consult both the advisory committee and the wider Wiki Loves Women community this month, and ask for their nominations (per email and form) for our brand new Podcast project. The #inspiringopenwomen podcast will feature a minimum of 12 female leaders in the open movement. It is a project supported by the Goethe Institute.
• In the case of Wiki Loves Africa, we run two surveys per year to collect experiences and feedback from local organizers and participants, we provide organisers meetings, and webinars, and we discuss (sometimes daily) challenges and success on an open telegram channel, dedicated to organisers (there is another one for participants). There is a lot to discuss, but we typically poll the community about possible themes and dates for each year of the contest.
• In the case of the WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique project, the partners include over 15 organizations of various types. All representatives are French speaking, but some are from quite traditional organizations, so discussions take place through rather traditional means - such as email and regular online meetings, and decision making is done through consensus during those discussions. The WikiChallenge Ecoles d’Afrique is fully funded by Fondation Orange, but I had four wikimedia affiliates involved in the last iterations and the Vikidia community. The Vikidia community is not “forced” into following this project, the members are particularly loud and clear about what they think on the wiki talk pages.

In short, participatory decision-making practices differ depending on the projects and which partners are involved, but they all happen.

What is the organization’s fundraising strategy to support its work in the future years beyond the Simple APG program?

With regards to your last question, I’d like to point out that Isla and I have run WikiAfrica activities since 2013. Wikimedia Foundation has not been our unique sponsor over the years, though it is, without question, our most precious one. Fondation Orange has supported several of our projects since 2013 and is still a partner every single year. The Goethe-Institut supported the first iteration of Wiki Loves Women in 2016-2017 and has decided to support us again on the podcast series this year. Over the years, we also got support from Wikimedia CH on the offline projects (such as WikiFundi/2021 this year), a small grant from Moleskine Foundation in 2017, from Creative Commons in 2020 [1]... I may forget a few others.

In other cases, we’ve run projects with partners whom we wrote the grant request with, but they’ve managed the funds. This is currently the case with the c:Commons:Nos Jardins project, run with Ynternet.org who is the principal, and the recipient of a grant from Movetia.

Over the last 5 years, we have submitted numerous grant requests (small and medium size), which unfortunately were not approved. It has been a very difficult and dishearteninng experience. In several cases where we could get feedback, funders rejected our proposals on the basis that they considered the Wikimedia Foundation should be supporting us (had funding to). Getting core (organisational) funding is the most challenging part of the experience, and even though we have succeeded in getting some support from other orgs, we would not have been able to get where we currently are without the support of the sAPG.

There are naturally other limiting factors that can explain why positive responses were limited : lot's of competition, too much jargon in our propositions, unsufficient clarity in our general offer, weak alignement with funders, youth of our organization, wrong geographical space or funders willing to find local rather than regional etc etc etc. At the moment, we are actively working with a consultant to improve our strategy on the matter, better understand what we can improve, less but better focused and aligned grant requests etc. This is unfortunately taking time but we hope it will help us in the long run. Anthere (talk) 14:01, 8 September 2021 (UTC)