Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Community Ireland/2021

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Dear Wikimedia Community Ireland, thank you for submitting your application. We are pleased to learn about the different programs you are proposing for 2021-2022. We have completed the initial review of your Annual Plan and have some questions that we would like you to respond to:

  • We are curious to learn how your annual plan aligns with the Movement Strategy Recommendations?
  • How did you engage the community members in the development of this proposal?
  • We are also curious to learn about governance structures you have put in place to support the realization of this annual plan and your overall strategic plan?

Thank you for all the work you do, and we look forward to your responses. --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 15:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your questions! Here are the answers from our organising groups:
  • We are curious to learn how your annual plan aligns with the Movement Strategy Recommendations?
The large portion of our work falls under the recommendation for identifying topics for impact. Our continuing work with educators and GLAMs focuses on areas, primarily of neglected Irish content but not exclusively, on which students, members of the public, educators and GLAM professionals can work meaningfully to improve, deepen and widen the knowledge and media across Wikimedia projects. From assessing image or media donations for impact, to working with minority groups on their representation on Wikipedia, this continues to be the core of our outreach work.
Aligned with this, our work with under-represented communities is aimed at the innovation in free knowledge recommendation.
Along with our annual plan, our strategic plan focuses on both human and financial sustainability locally in Ireland. We aim to achieve this through a range of activities aimed at diversifying and widening the communities we engage with, and in doing so hoping to create a more resilient group of Wikimedians in Ireland. This will be further supported by new on-Wiki outreach to recognise the work of Wikimedians on Irish topics on EN Wikipedia, while raising awareness of our group more generally with that editorship. We have also started to work with other partners in the EU on an Erasmus+ project which would hopefully allow us to fund work essential to supporting and growing engagement with Vicipéid.
By maintaining strong links with Wikimedia UK and the various stakeholders and participants in the Celtic Knot conference, we ensuring that our work is visible to other Wikimedia groups, but also that we are part of support network with whom we can coordinate our efforts. Aligned with this, our Project Coordinator continues to work with some members of the former Capacity Building group on the development of The Capacity Exchange. These activities allow for skill and leadership sharing, as well as better communication of our internal knowledge, and to gain that insight from others.
Our strategic plan also draws on the recommendation of continuous evaluation, iteration, and adaption in our work to ensure we are serving the local and international Wikimedia communities to the best of our ability.
  • How did you engage the community members in the development of this proposal?
We held monthly open meetings during the drafting of the grant and engaged directly with the core group. We made it available to the wider community for comment.
  • We are also curious to learn about governance structures you have put in place to support the realization of this annual plan and your overall strategic plan?
The core group of WCI members meet monthly to ensure the group and wider community are aware of our current focus, to provide updates, and to allow for those members to raise issues and potential areas of collaboration and work in the coming month. It also allows members to ask for support from the Project Coordinator or fellow community members. The chair and the Project Coordinator meet weekly for smaller adjustments to our work. Developments, meetings, calls for feedback etc are communicated to the wider community through our newsletter which is published 10-11 times a year to the IE mailing list and to our website.
We currently have a board of 3 members (Chair and 2 Co-Chairs). We will put into place several subcommittees (education, Vicipeid, etc.) to oversee those projects.
Thank you again - Rebecca O'Neill on behalf of Wikimedia Community Ireland Smirkybec (talk) 10:34, 20 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Simple APG Committee recommendation[edit]

We recommend that Wikimedia Community Ireland receives grant funding of EUR 42,430.76. We appreciate your efforts and programs focusing on inclusivity and diversity and look forward to learning about the change you realize.

We see your continued focus on working with GLAM, education sectors and Irish Sign Language and hope these programs continue to be strengthened.

We recommend that Wikimedia Ireland seek an advisor to support in the achievement of growth milestones especially towards efforts that will move them towards development and growth of their community [including volunteers] which over the years remains small. We see the potential in the growth of the Ireland community. We believe that with growth Wikimedia Community Ireland is able to achieve the bold and ambitious goals set in its strategic plan. While the current plan supports the strategy it does not fully complement the achievement of the bold goals set.

In addition, we recommend working closely with your program officer to support the development of a growth plan.

Thank you for all the work you do and we look forward to seeing you bring more change to your community.

For the committee, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 16:20, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

APG approved in the amount of EUR 42,430.76[edit]

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of EUR 42,430.76 with a grant term starting 1 July 2021 and ending 30 June 2022.

Wikimedia Community Ireland User Group will work on programs such as education where they will continue working with IIT and universities, programs focusing on Irish Language Wikipedia, Wiki Science, GLAM to better represent Irish GLAM data within Wikidata; Competitions and campaigns; Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Folklore and WLE

In this particular proposal, the community is seeking to make their programs inclusive by working with visually impaired communities and including sign language to cater for the deaf community. We appreciate you taking the initiative to include underrepresented populations that have been left out.

We recognize your need in training for the Project Coordinator and two volunteers in Wikidata, to support the increased interest in the platform; which will support their GLAM projects. We hope you will reach out to the necessary teams to support you in accessing this capacity and advice that you consult with your program officer to facilitate the process where needed.


We would encourage you to be bold in identifying strategies to support you in achieving one of your strategic goals of being a nationally recognised educational support through your education programs. You could seek advisory services to support you.

We also advise that you identify specific strategies of engaging the volunteer community seeing that based on the confrontation mix in the presented strategy, there is a need to increase volunteer capacity.

We continue to appreciate your work with the community and look forward to seeing the change you seek to see.


Best regards from the SAPG Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reallocation of funds request September 2021[edit]

This is a request to reallocate some of the unspent budget for our office space to access training locally.

In recent discussions with Marti, the development and creation of a logic model for our organisation's theory of change was identified as a priority to develop in advance of our next grant in 2022. An organisation Wikimedia Community Ireland is a member of the Irish organisation of The Wheel, which is logic modelling at a reduced rate for members|offering training in logic modelling at a reduced rate for members on 22 September. This is a part one event, and we would intend for me (Rebecca, Project Coordinator) would attend this first training and any follow up session. Currently our office space is still closed due to the pandemic and it is not known when it will reopen. With this in mind, we would like to request the reallocation of €160 from the budget for office rental.

Rebecca O'Neill on behalf of Wikimedia Community Ireland Smirkybec (talk) 09:11, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Smirkybec, thanks for posting your reallocation request. I have approved it, you can reallocate €160 from the budget for office rental. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 12:23, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]