Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation Inc- Annual Activities 2024

Proposal Feedback and Invite for Response

Thank you for submitting your application. After the review process please find the feedback - comments and questions below for your response;

• As a returning grantee , we continue to see the team as a very experienced one with the capacity to implement the proposed plan. The proposal was clear and shared interesting projects such as the creation of training / audiovisual training materials for their members.

• On the audio-visual training materials, we were keen to learn how you will evaluate the impact of the trainings to asses effectiveness. We find these useful to name and include in the metrics.

The impact of the training to assess effectiveness would be evaluated in stages. At the end of the training programs, the participants who successfully complete the modules will be assigned a task, such as creating an audiovisual work. They would be required to document their learning and how our training had impacted them in creating their works. These individuals may be funded through our microgrant support or the WMF rapid grant programs. We have a dedicated staff member in charge of monitoring, learning, and evaluation programs who will oversee the evaluation programs.

• You talked about the loss of partnerships due to the lack of a physical location and we find this interesting, and would like to learn more as we know partnership development takes more than physical space. Please share more. Additionally, do you have a partnerships development plan? Would you also mention the partners you are hoping to work with.

We have experienced instances where we have encountered the loss of certain partnerships due to our organization's lack of a professional image that aligns with the expectations of potential partners. Office spaces play a significant role in shaping and building a professional appearance. Office space contributes to such a professional image. Many partners wanted a long-term relationship, and our lack of office space did not give them the confidence that we could sustain the partnership.It was also quite challenging to arrange a personal meeting with these partners, as most of them declined to proceed with partnership discussions upon learning that we do not possess a physical office space for meetings. Additionally, it poses challenges for us to ensure accessibility.Now, we have an office space that functions as a designated area for office-related activities, meetings, and training sessions. This space has facilities for hosting various events, including edit-a-thons, training, and general gatherings. This situation has helped to improve our productivity and foster stronger partnerships.We had plan to partner and sustain our relationship with the following organizations: Goethe Institut, National Library of Nigeria, Voice of Nigeria, Nigeria Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Nigeria Ministry of Education, University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Lagos State University, International Centre for Yoruba Arts and Culture, Lagos State Government, Retna, African Women in Media, Nigerian Union of Journalism. Please see a link to our partnership plan: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_User_Group_Nigeria_Partnership_Plan_2024.pdf

• We find the budget shared to be significant for the 8 months and especially when we compare to the last annual plan. Additionally, we find the budget difficult to analyse since not details were provided beyond the main categories. Please review and update.

This budget has been prepared based on the approved fund for the 2022–2023 fiscal year. The approved funding last year was USD 210,000 for 12 months, but the current budget stands at USD 159,313 for 8 months. We, however, added a marginal inflation rate of 10% based on our prediction that inflation may be higher in 2024. This resulted in an increase in budget by USD 19,854. This item has now been removed from our budget. Our new budget is USD 139,450.

• Kindly update your Meta page to include all the programs you are working on and the team leading those efforts.

This will be updated

• While we are aware of your work on clubs and now establishing networks, please share with us the strategy guiding the establishment of clubs and how they are supported.

Annually, we put out a call for applications for the establishment of clubs and networks. The call is accompanied by our guidelines for the establishment of a Wikimedia UG Nigeria Fan Club and Network. This guideline provides the framework for prospective clubs and networks and includes information such as the requirements and the operational framework of these clubs and networks. Once applications are received, they are reviewed against the requirement for the approval of clubs and networks. Once the applicants satisfied the criteria, they are approved and announced to the community.

In our annual budget, 30% of our budget is allocated to support the club and network. This fund is for them to run events and programs. We also provide event support for them by helping them to facilitate their programs and helping them to build capacity through our training initiatives. In addition, we also provide administrative support for them and facilitate their partnership with mission-aligned organizations

• Education program is lacking in the application ->please share more details.

Among other educational programs created by our team last year, we started the pilot edition of the Wiki in School Nigeria program, aimed at building capacity for the undergraduate students of Nigeria's tertiary institutions. Unlike other education programs, we invested resources in teaching academics and lecturers how to engage Wikipedia and then apply this knowledge to their students. See more details here

• A number of the indicated campaigns could overlap with other user group efforts on similar campaigns. How are you planning to coordinate on this and mitigate duplication / overlap of efforts.

Most of these campaigns that may result in duplication of efforts have been harmonized and are coordinated collaboratively with other user groups.

See, for example: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2023_in_Nigeria

• We have raised the question on diversifying representation of leadership in the past and remain unclear on the progress and plan to serve this need. Please share more.

We see diversity in broader sense, and this include gender, geographical and language representation see below:

1. Gender representation: There is at least one female member of the Wikimedia Nigeria Board of Trustees. 35% of our executive members are female; Our Executive Director, Social Media manager, and receptionist are females. More than 80% of the coordinators of our clubs and networks are female as well. We also plan to appoint at least two additional women to our board next year..
2. Geographical representation - The WUGN Networks and Fan Clubs represent a significant part of our structure and are spread across all the states of Nigeria and tertiary institutions in the country. They have representation on our board. All our network communities and clubs elected these representatives and presented the selected person to the board as their representative.
3. Age representation - As mentioned above, the clubs and Network represent a significant element of our governance structure, each with an age bracket peculiarity. The clubs are our communities in academic institutions across Nigeria, and their age category is between 18- 30 years, while the Network are communities outside tertiary institutions comprised of adults from all walks of life, and their age category is between 35 and above. All our club communities and Networks elected these representatives and presented their selected person to the board as their representative.
4. Language representation – All the representatives speak the three major languages in Nigeria, notably English, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba and Pidgin English.

• Kindly review your metrics providing more specifics measures so to help us understand metrics per program and the tools to support you in measuring.

This would be reviewed as recommended

• Lastly, we believe an organization like Wikimedia Nigeria could benefit from a strategic plan that informs current and future interventions. Is there a plan to embark on this process with the community? Additionally, since you have implemented some of your programs over the last years, would you speak to data [ qualitative and quantitative ] that validates it they work to fulfill the desired impact.

Yes, there is a plan to embark on this process with the community. We have just completed our demographic survey and the data is being analyzed. We plan to send out the need assessment survey next week. We will share our strategic plan with the program officer as soon as it’s ready and we will be happy to share with the grant review committee as well.Some of our key project for last years were evaluated. See the evaluation reports below

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_User_Group_Nigeria/Community_Support_Fund/2022_learning_and_evaluation_report

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiGap_Nigeria_Online_Challenge/2021/Evaluation_report

But there would be much robust evaluation report this year as we now have a dedicated staff member that manages these reports.

Thank you for your feedback. We have carefully reviewed it and hope our response adequately addresses your concerns. If you have further questions or need clarification, please reach out to us. --Olaniyan Olushola (talk) 16:09, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Expert reviewer - GLAM

Overall strengths we see: Advocacy - It's really nice to see they add "Libraries and Cultural Institutions" to the Public Policy Advocacy section. It reflects the engagement some of the participants of the group have with the GLAM-Wiki/OpenGLAM environments. It would be nice to have them in contact more with our own Advocacy team – if they are not yet in contact.

Overall Recommendations / Opportunities Seen: Partnerships - In the proposal, they mentioned they had built several partnerships in the past but were not able to sustain many of them, therefore their goal now is to contact their past partners and partner with them again. Despite understanding their strategy here, I believe it would be wise of them to try to innovate, review, and refresh their cohort of partners, especially if that involved GLAM institutions, as a way to find new methods and pathways of collaboration and new possible projects to work on.

Follow-up / Clarifying questions for Meta, if any: - It would be useful to understand better and to have more details about the cultural and heritage/GLAM projects the group is planning to have. How many initiatives and partnerships do you intend to have? Are you planning to upload data or media files? Or have events or organize campaigns with GLAMs? Or are you considering culture and heritage the campaigns such as 1Lib1Ref, Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, and Wiki Loves Monuments? The proposal doesn't go into that or add an initiative or a programmatic activity in which the group especially mentions working with GLAMs.

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you, and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and Staff - VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. We will be glad to contact the WMF’s advocacy team to have a more structured conversation about advocacy and our GLAM work. While we had earlier planned to contact our past partners, we agree that it would be nice to try to innovate, review, and refresh our cohort of partners, especially the GLAM institutions, as a way to find new methods and pathways of collaboration and new possible projects to work on. We believe this is more strategic than our planned approach.

We are planning to have two major cultural and heritage/GLAM projects. The first one is our oral language documentation projects, which formed one of the major highlights of our programmes last year. We want to continue this effort and have the works donated to academic, GLAM, and cultural institutions, as we have done in the past. The other project is the “Wikidata of historical books” in the National Library of Nigeria. We want to collect the metadata of historical books in the archive of the library and have a data catalogue for them on Wikidata. Data would be contributed to Wikidata and files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. There would also be edit-a-thons in these libraries to contribute these contents. 1Lib1Ref, Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Earth, and Wiki Loves Monuments are regular projects we implement. We will find a link between these projects and our GLAM work. Of course, we will update our proposals with the details provided in this response. Thanks for your feedback. They are very helpful. Regards. T Cells^Talk 13:22, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

General Support Funding Approved at USD 139,000

Dear Wikimedia Nigeria,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The MEA Regional Committee and Staff have thoroughly reviewed, discussed and deliberated upon your application and made the decision to fund you at USD 139,000 for the grant period 1st April 2024 to 31st December 2024.

Here are a few points to note;

• We spent a lot of time discussing the budget, and this process was challenging since you did not provide a detailed budget as requested. Kindly add a tab in the already shared budget with a detailed budget. It will be beneficial to see a breakdown of resourcing going to support hubs, mini-grants, etc. We want to ensure that we are allocating resources that are supportive of your work, and having a budget that is not detailed limits that assessment.
• We encourage you to create space for other communities in the movement to learn about your approach with the mini-grants program.
• As agreed on, kindly review your metrics to align with the resources awarded.
• Lastly, and because you indicated that you will be implementing some advocacy-based work,

- Advocacy Funding Decision: As advised by the Foundation Advocacy team, which thoroughly reviewed your proposed advocacy work - There is no funding for advocacy work.

- The recommendation was greatly influenced by how WM Nigeria narrowed their scope to a handful of advocacy priorities. The group identified two acts already signed into law, which do not provide much opportunity for advocacy efforts as these happen before a bill becomes law. This unpromising target, combined with their initial application, which listed an impossible volume of ideas, signals that there is a lack of thought-out focus and need. However, the application was exceptionally strong on many fronts.

- We are excited by WM Nigeria's interest in advocacy work and their clear alignment with core policy priorities relevant to the movement. It is refreshing to see an applicant connect the dots between the policy priorities the Foundation has identified for the movement and national legislative developments. The applicant stood out from others in this regard. It is also great to hear that WM Nigeria has existing relationships with possibly influential stakeholders such as the Nigerian Copyright Commission, the Federal Ministry of Justice, and the Minister of Information. WM Nigeria's existing relationships and initial application hold great promise for advocacy work in Nigeria, and our team would like to help support in other ways.

- Based on the above recommendation, here is a proposed plan on how to use the allocated funding of USD 5000 :

• Please find time to meet with @Franziska Putz to review the feedback and recommendations provided for deepened understanding and, to the extent feasible, begin to develop a plan for future advocacy work.
• There is an upcoming DRIF (Digital Rights & Inclusion Forum) that, given your interest in advocacy, would be a great way for you to build connections with regional advocacy allies and also get a better sense of how your advocacy priorities sit within the larger ecosystem of internet governance policy in West Africa.
• Last year, the advocacy team provided robust support to a number of Wikimedians in East Africa to meaningfully contribute and attend the forum. They hope, dependent on a few factors, to provide similar support to a few representative Wikimedians from West Africa who would find the space valuable. Part of the budget could go towards this engagement.

Beyond this, we hope to continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Do set up a regular schedule to connect with your MEA Programme Officer based on your needs.

The reporting requirements for the grant will shared in your grant agreement and on Fluxx. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.

Once again, Congratulations! We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on a new year of project implementation. Azogbonon (talk) 12:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)