User talk:Wolliff (WMF)/Sandbox/Simple annual plan grants

Comments

Tony1

Winifred, thanks for this. I've made a few surface copy-edits.

1. I'm often nervous about making English more prone to ambiguity and befuddlement for second-language speakers: "lightweight" is pejorative in English, and many non-natives won't pick that up (but the natives will, and I don't think you intend it). In particular, "lightweight" reports are just what we need to discourage (do you mean "shorter"?). I changed that to "shorter", but left "lightweight self-assessment" further down for want of knowing what the intended meaning is. The word is still there in a few places. "A lightweight version of the staff proposal assessment used for full process APGs" –> "A shorter/briefer/slimmed-down? version of the staff proposal assessment used for full process APGs"

   Perhaps: Provide a more straightforward, inclusive process for groups and organizations to get annual grants."

   "shapes and sizes" is metaphorical, and won't be understood (at least the "shapes" bit) by many second-language speakers. Perhaps: "Provide better support to groups and organizations of all types."

2. "Ask for complicated financial information in spreadsheet form"—this suggests it's fine to complicate financial information, whereas the tilt should be on making it as simple as possible (for the applicant's community and colleagues, and for reviewers and WMF staff). Perhaps "detailed" instead? (I changed that to detailed pending your approval.)
3. "A % breakdown of how staff time will be spent on different programs and activities, a job description for staff, a link to your staffing policy, other information about staff. This is only required for organizations with staff." Suggest you add FTE fraction and hourly rate, and estimated on-costs including employment-related taxes (in some jurisdictions, these are hefty).
4. Good feel to write "volunteer committee"? (If it will comprise volunteers entirely.) – "this rubric will be used by the committee rather than by staff"
5. "There will be a midpoint progress report, focusing on metrics and a link to one story of program impact and one learning pattern. We might consider taking this form offwiki, since it's not critical that it be public."—why, for privacy reasons? It's a pity. Can't actors/agents within be anonymised?
6. "we don't think convening the committee in person is going to be an option"—excellent. EIG functions well, and WP has been so successful partly because site editors collaborate in complex ways to make decisions and learn from each other.
7. FDC–committee membership mutually exclusive, yes. There could be exceptions, but your reasoning is sound.
8. "Online workshops on a variety of topics will be offered regularly throughout the year, depending on interest."—great idea. It will be challenging to develop materials and processes, but that's a challenge the movement should be embracing. Aside from the huge cost–benefit advantage over face-to-face carbon-intensive meetups, there's the compelling need to reach much further into communities than those who are in a position to be subsidised to travel to a meeting point, especially if international. Increasing diversity is a factor here, too, I suspect.
9. Language and translation in the support system isn't mentioned. I suppose we've come to accept that English is it, as a practicality, and that relying on volunteer translation is a failure. I can't see how the language issue could be (partly) addressed without paid translation, and a precursor to that would be a log of translations of our many in-house terms and the gradual recruitment of wiki-knowledgeable translation corps (casual employment).
10. "Grant applications will not be funded after the start of the grant term"—long overdue. But will second-language speakers understand the wording ("grant term")? Please check my suggested change on the doc.
11. "The WMF will include financial data as spreadsheets to make it easier for applicants and reviewers."—unsure what this means. Whose financial data?
12. Could the matter of significant fluctuations in currency conversion be mentioned somewhere in the finalised rules?
13. "After one year of the pilot, we will introduce a process for easy renewals for organizations that don't want to grow their grant request."—mention exceptions for currency fluctations and inflation?

Tony (talk) 05:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony. I think these are great suggestions around language, and I'll work on some of the more ambiguous phrases you've pointed out.

Note that we are planning to accept applications in any language, as we do now for PEG. I will add notes about language support to make it more clear that this is available. I am hoping we can include at least one later in the pilot to see how it goes, but that will depend on who is interested in applying. I think the best we can do for now is get the basic materials translated by volunteers once they're finalized, and handle requests in other languages as they arise.

Great points around currency conversions. That's something we've dealt with a lot as part of the FDC process, and you're right that it requires planning and clarity from the start.

I'm glad you like the idea for online workshops. Given the results of the consultation, I think we may shift more of our attention to developing online resources since they were highly prioritized by participants. I still want to experiment with the workshops too, as I think it would be nice to have a way for applicants to interact more as part of a learning group. We have sometimes had problems with attendance in the past, but if it turns out that they're well-attended and rated as useful by applicants, then I'd want to keep them going. I think workshops can be a good way to introduce and improve new materials as we're creating them together, so it might be a nice complement to improving online resources.

Thanks again for engaging. I really appreciate your eyes on this! Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Polimerek

The idea is great - this what we wanted to have to fill the gap between project's grants and FDC. I have just one practical concern, As I understand (section benefits: "Simpler and easier eligibility requirements that don't require an organization to be legally incorporated.") - even groups of users which are not legal entity can apply. Such groups usually have no bank account or any formal accounting system so it means that money is about to be transfer to someone's private account and that person may have complete control over the money for a year. I don't know WMF current accounting regulations - but sending up to 100 000 USD to a single person's account sounds dangerous.

The other issue is the language - especially acronyms which I think should be linked or described to make this text more readible for non-native-english speakers (SMART ect..) as well as newcomers (IEG, APG etc..).

Polimerek (talk) 16:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey, Polimerek. Thanks for bringing up these points. We talked a little by Email, but I also want to respond here in case anyone else is interested. Great point about simplifying language and avoiding acronyms. About risk, there are a few important things to keep in mind. For one thing, we already require certain financial controls for informal groups receiving grants. They are similar to the controls we require for incorporated entities. We never send grant funds that are for a group to an account where only one person has access. Also, we don't expect most requests to be near the $100,000 limit. I hope that mitigates the concern a little bit. We think informal groups have a lot to bring to the movement too, and so we're eager to include them in this new funding model and see how it goes! Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:24, 24 September 2015 (UTC)