Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Proposal form


The Centre for Internet and Society received a funds allocation in the amount of ₹12,000,000 (~US$194,000) in 2013-2014 Round 2. This funds allocation was recommended by the Funds Dissemination Committee on 24 May 2014 and approved by the WMF Board of Trustees on 28 June 2014.


Basic information

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Overview of grant request

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1. In order to support community review please provide a brief summary description of your organization's upcoming annual plan, including focus areas and goals.

One of the key mandates of the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is to work towards catalysing the growth of the open knowledge movement in South-Asia and in Indic languages. CIS has been a steward of the Wikimedia movement in India since December 2008, when Jimmy Wales visited Bangalore. From September 2012, it has been actively involved in growing the movement in India through a grant received from the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). Based on the 18-month experience of working with various Indic Wikimedia communities, CIS-A2K has developed its Work Plan for July 2014 to June 2015.
This work plan consists of 21 plans across 6 verticals. These are:

  • 7 Language Area Plans: CIS-A2K has put in significant efforts in four focus language area plans during the last year and has been successful in reaching most of its goals. In 2014-15 we will further deepen our engagement in these four language areas (Kannada, Konkani, Odia and Telugu). Further, this experience and the lessons from it will be leveraged to work on three more large Indic language Wikipedia projects, which are Bangla, Hindi and Marathi. We have developed a detailed plan for each of these language areas, which can be seen here.
  • 3 Community Strengthening Initiatives: We propose community strengthening initiatives that will further grow the Indic Wikimedia projects and the associated community, both qualitatively and quantitatively. These initiatives, focussing on building capacity and nurturing leadership in the Indic communities, will ensure that growth is sustained beyond the CIS-A2K program. A detailed plan for each of these initiatives is available here.
  • 8 Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects: These stand-alone projects will have clear deliverables in a limited span of time, and will help us understand how to take up bigger initiatives in the respective language. All the stand-alone projects are more fully described here.
  • Creating Movement Resources: Once CIS-A2K began actively working with the Indic Wikimedia communities, it soon realized that unlike in English there were not many Wikimedia related resources available in Indic languages. During the last year, we produced some resources which were mostly unplanned outcomes and proved to be impactful. However, we feel there is an urgent need to create movement resources in Indic languages like a Creative Commons (CC) handbook; a Copyright handbook; training manuals; video tutorials, etc. See our plans for concerted efforts to create resources for strengthening the Wikimedia movement in India and in Indic languages here.
  • Publicity, Research and Documentation: Many of the Indic Wikimedia projects, in spite of being in existence for more than 10 years, have not received adequate publicity. Also, the Wikimedia movement in India could benefit from more systematic research and documentation. CIS-A2K will put in more intensive efforts into Publicity, Research and Documentation of the Wikimedia movement in India during this year as per the plans discussed here.
  • General Support and Service to the Movement: CIS-A2K deeply believes in extending support and service to the Wikimedia volunteer community in India. This has been one of the important aspects of our work so far. We have honoured up to 100 requests of all types that we received from the Wikimedia volunteer communities across all Indic languages. This page gives more details about the proposed work.

The work plan includes details of aims, objectives, program activities and expected outcomes. Most of the language area plans were put together in active consultation with the respective Wikimedia language communities. Various inputs and ideas contributed, opportunities provided, and challenges thrown at the CIS-A2K program during the last year by the Wikimedia communities in India, our institutional partners, Executive Committee (EC) of Wikimedia India Chapter (WMIN) and the Wikimedia Foundation's Grantmaking Team have significantly informed our work plans.


2. What is your organization's proposed rate of growth in budget since last year? Please explain your organization's rationale if your proposed budget will increase this year.
  • CIS-A2K program's budget will increase by about 23% when compared to the Grant received from WMF last year. Rationale: a) Proposed increase in the quantum of programmatic work from last year. We will be working in 7 language areas as against last year's 4 language areas; b) Unlike last year we propose to take up 3 Community Strengthening Initiatives, 8 Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects in addition to creating number of movement resources and supporting the Indic Wikimedia communities; c) Need to accommodate increment in staff salaries; and d) Inflation.

Note the FDC Framework funding guidelines on the rate of growth of year-over-year FDC allocations. These guidelines relate not to an organization's overall budget growth, but rather to movement resources (that is, what the organization received through Annual Plan Grants through the FDC process or what the organization retained via payment processing in the prior funding cycle).


Contact information

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Table 1

Organization information Legal name of organization The Centre for Internet and Society
organization's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd) 04/01-03/31
12 month timeframe* of funds currently requested (mm/dd/yy–mm/dd/yy) 07/01/14-06/30/15
Contact information (primary) Primary contact name T. Vishnu Vardhan
Primary contact position in organization Program Director, CIS-A2K
Primary contact username User:Visdaviva
Primary contact email vishnu@cis-india.org
Contact information (secondary) Secondary contact name Sunil Abraham
Secondary contact position in organization Executive Director, CIS
Secondary contact username
Secondary contact email sunil@cis-india.org

*Timeframe should ideally be for a 12 month period that begins after the FDC decision.


Amount requested

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Table 2

Currency requested: INR

Currency requested is defined as the currency in which you wish to receive funds (e.g., EUR, GBP, INR). Note that the FDC makes grants in local currency when possible.

Exchange rate used (currency requested to $US): 61.8016

Please use Oanda.com on March 1 2014 to determine the exchange rate. Please use five decimal points.
Currency requested US$
Total annual expenses of organization 74,973,600 64,392,036 1,213,134 1,041,915
Amount proposed to the FDC for the coming year's annual plan 18,406,454 297,831
Amount to be raised from non-FDC sources 56,567,146 915,302
If applicable, amount of FDC funds allocated to organization last year NA NA



Community engagement

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This section provides the FDC an overview of your organization's work with your members, with volunteers, with the communities you serve, and with Wikimedia's online projects.

1. How many members does your organization have, and what is the role of members (e.g., attendance at events, paying dues)?
  • CIS is not a membership/volunteer driven organization and thus it does not have any members formally. However, there are many members (researchers, academics, designers, coders, free/open source enthusiasts, students) who are informally associated with CIS and are interested in the research work that we do in the field of Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Intellectual Property Rights, Openness, Internet Governance, Telecom and Digital Natives.
2. How many volunteers are engaged with your organization’s work? And how are volunteers engaged with your organization’s work?
  • CIS is not a membership/volunteer driven organization. However, CIS-A2K program since September 2012 has actively worked with Wikimedia volunteers across India. We have reached out to more than 3,500 people as part of our outreach work and we regularly engage with more than 300 Wikimedia volunteers.
  • Volunteers are involved in: a) planning some of the A2K activities; b) organizing most of Wikimedia events' supported by CIS-A2K; and c) training new volunteers as part of outreach.
3. How does you know what the members of the community / communities your organization serves (including chapter members and broader online volunteers) need and want? How does this influence your strategic planning and decision-making?
  • CIS-A2K undertook needs assessment of 5 Indic Wikimedia projects and associated communities during its last year's work plan exercise. Similar needs assessment was done even during this year's work planning. We understand the community's needs by participating in community discussions during meet-ups/events, observing discussions on Wikipedia Village Pumps, conversations over IRC and social media and interacting one-on-one over e-mail and phone. We also have a very active Requests page on Meta, which received about 100 requests from various Indic communities.
  • Majority of our work plans try to address the needs expressed by the communities.
4. Does your organization's program work support a particular Wikimedia project or projects, and if so, which particular project or projects does your work support?

As part of the WMF's grant during the last year, CIS-A2K has directly worked towards catalysing the growth of the following Wikimedia projects.

In addition to the above we have also extended need based support to the following Wikimedia projects since the inception of the WMF's grant in September 2012.

Reflection on past programs and activities

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1. Please give at least three examples of successful programs or activities that your organization has completed, and explain why they were successful. You may also provide links to information about these programs and activities, when available.

Language Area Planning

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One of the important strategies that CIS-A2K worked with was to develop granular Language Area Plan, which was successful. During the last year we had worked on 4 language areas. To illustrate the success of this strategy we have attempted to show case one language area plan - Konkani.

As on July 2013 there was nearly no editing activity, no outreach efforts and an extremely small Wikipedia community of 2-3 dispersed members who were individually investing time and effort to get more people involved in Konkani Wikimedia projects. In addition to this low level of activity on Konkani Wikipedia, Konkani as a language faces 3 major challenges:

  • Multiple scripts - Konkani speaking population is limited to 25 lakh approx., and the challenge of multiple scripts further divides this population into even smaller subsets.
  • Dispersed population – Large number of Konkani speaking population settled outside of India which makes it difficult to unite Konkani diaspora towards a common objective or a common movement.
  • Lack of formal Konkani education – There are inadequate opportunities and venues to formally study Konkani in schools and colleges in India.

What is the Success

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The success of CIS-A2K’s work on Konkani language area can be viewed in the factsheet and graphs shared below. Statistics are generated from Tool Labs.[1]

Factsheet
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Parameter As on Jul-2013 As on Feb-14
No. of scripts used in current incubation project 3 (Roman, Devanagari, Kannada) 3 (Roman, Devanagari, Kannada)
Total No. of Articles 86 447
Total No. of Articles Per Script:
  • Devanagari
  • Roman
  • Kannada

  • 52
  • 32
  • 2

  • 286
  • 159
  • 2
No. of MediaWiki messages translated and reviewed::
  • Devanagari
  • Roman
  • Kannada

  • -
  • -
  • -

  • 88% translated, 44% reviewed
  • 99% translated, 26% reviewed
  • -
No. of redirects 4 39
No. of revisions 1113 (including 254 minor edits) 7437 revisions (including 327 minor edits)
Total No. of Editors - 201 editors (including any with at least one edit)
No. of Editors Per Month 0 32
 
Total No. of Articles on GOM WP between July-2013 & Feb-2014
 
Edits Per Month on GOM WP between July-2013 & Feb-2014
 
Editors Per Month on GOM WP between July-2013 & Feb-2014
 
Article Growth Per Script on GOM WP between July-2013 & Feb-2014
Key Highlights from factsheet and graphs
  • Total number of articles grew consistently at an average rate of 20.2 per cent month on month (MoM).
  • In a script-wise breakdown, highest growth in number of articles was seen in Devanagari followed by Roman.
  • CIS-A2K organized translation sprint as a result of which we achieved high percentage of translated and reviewed MediaWiki system messages in both Devanagari and Roman.
  • On an average 13 editors have been editing Konkani Wikipedia month after month since July 2013.
  • On an average 726 edits and 434 KB of data have been added on Konkani Wikipedia every month since July 2013.

What Worked

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Train the Trainer Program

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Based on an internal needs assessment exercise undertaken by CIS-A2K, it has been realized that:

  • bulk of the Indian population does not know about the existence of Indic Wikipedias and sister projects.
  • there is a lot of potential to do outreach in India but it is hampered by community members' lack of time, lack of availability of support material and/or ability to do outreach.
  • though many Indic Wikipedia community members have desire to undertake offline outreach they seldom receive support and guidance.
  • there is a need to further build the capacity of interested community members to conduct effective outreach sessions.

What did we Do

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Organized a four day residency training program, details of which can be found here. As part of Train the Trainer program participants from Punjab, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala were trained on effectively organising Wikipedia training workshops. Some of the key highlights of the event are:

  • Twenty Wikimedians from 9 Indic Wikimedia projects attended the 4-day program.
  • Designed the program in consultation with the community members.
  • Involved experienced Wikimedians to act as Resource Persons.
  • Created a space for peer interaction among the participants.

What is the Success

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  • Post the program, many participant Wikipedians organised effective outreach sessions in their cities.
  • Three Telugu Wikipedians who attended Train the Trainer program played significant role in organising the decennial celebrations of Telugu Wikipedia and have actively taken part in conducting Telugu Wikipedia Outreach programs.
  • Facilitated the creation of an inter Indic language network, which has since been quite active. Many of these Wikimedians are now taking initiative to invite fellow Wikimedians from other Indic communities and sharing best practices

Institutional Partnerships

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During 2013-14, CIS-A2K focussed on building various Institutional Partnerships, especially focussing on higher education institutions.

Opportunity

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Growth of Colleges in India
 
Growth of Indian Universities in India

As can be seen from the graphs there is a huge boom in higher education in India in the last 15 years. This demonstrates a huge growth in the number of students producing and consuming knowledge. CIS-A2K sees this as an opportunity to create future Wikimedians/open knowledge producers. We have focussed our energies on how to harness student time for knowledge production. CIS-A2K soon realized that building an institutional partnership is a time taking task but had a huge long term return to the Wikimedia movement if successful.

What did we Do

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The A2K team had first put together a list of knowledge institutions, groups and individuals with whom it has some connections and believed that it can bring them into the Wikimedia movement. We also worked on creating a preliminary long list of potential institutional partners in each of the language areas. Further, we have taken proactive steps to reach out to these potential institutional partners. Our focus was to bring many students as new editors onto the Indic Wikimedia projects. Rolling out a Wikipedia Education Program in these institutions was the key objective. For instance, the program at Christ University enrolled over 1000 UG students as new editors who produced approximately 600 articles across Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu Wikipedia projects. Some of the other key partnerships that were built during the last year are: Goa University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) University, and Kalinga Institute of Information Technology (KIIT) University. We have also built many successful informal institutional partnerships like the University of Hyderabad, which freely hosted Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam and 12 community meet-ups. Some more institutional partnerships are in the pipeline. CIS-A2K was successful in building institutional partnerships. In doing so, we have focussed on integrating Wikipedia into the pedagogy than as an add-on. We have shown to our institutional partners, how the Wikimedia projects could be a change agent. We have also been successful in leveraging the resources of these institutions for the Wikimedia movement in India.

Learning

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The biggest learning is that, institutional partnerships could be used for diverse purposes and not just for growing new editors. When CIS-A2K began implementation of its plan last year, it was mostly looking to partner educational institutions to bring on board new editors and to harness the student time in producing knowledge in Indic languages under the guidance of the faculty. After concerted efforts and some failed attempts we realized that not all the institutional partners that we approached were keen to take the (Indic) Wikipedia into the classroom. However, they were open to support the open knowledge movement and CIS-A2K’s efforts. For instance, CIS-A2K initially approached the University of Hyderabad (UoH) to introduce a Telugu WEP, which did not materialize. But UoH was glad to offer a central space in the Hyderabad city, at the request of CIS-A2K, to organize various Telugu Wikipedia community events and meet-ups, which in retrospect was a significant contribution. This learning will inform our work across other languages too.


2. What are the programs or activities that did not work for your organization in the past? What did you learn from those experiences? What changes were made after learning from these experiences?
  • Language Area Plans: There were some programs and activities that did not work in each of the language area plans. CIS-A2K has learnt from these failures and has put earnest efforts in redesigning these programs wherever possible. These have been discussed in detail in developing the respective language plan for the period July 2014-June 2015. Instead of repeating them again here, we felt it will be useful to give links to the discussions. Please follow the below links for a detailed discussion about the learning and challenges in implementing the various language plans.
  • Pilot Project-Performing Arts in India: This pilot could not at all be implemented by CIS-A2K as per the proposed design though it was good. We have realized that there was a flaw in the process by which it was put together and not in the design. Unlike the other language area plans, which were put together in active consultation with the community, CIS-A2K did not do any prior consultation in putting up this pilot plan. This discussion about the plan was useful for us to learn the importance of community consultation, how much ever effort it takes. Based on this learning, we have prioritized community consultation even more in all our subsequent work. For instance, based on this learning, we shared this pilot project idea with some of the Telugu Wikipedians during a meet-up. It was discussed and taken up as a thematic project and CIS-A2K agreed to provide necessary resources. This resulted in about 200 new articles on performing arts and artists and in the improvement of 100 existing articles on Telugu Wikipedia, within a short span of time. The learning from this pilot also helped us in successfully facilitating India's first ever multi-lingual edit-a-thon on Indian women scientists, called Lilavati's Daughters. This is being taken up on 9 Indic Wikipedia projects now.
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Link table

Completed fiscal year Current year Upcoming year
Link to current mission statement of the organization Not required. Mission Statement Not required.
Link to annual plan, including a budget. Annual Plan 2012-13. This was taken over by CIS in September 2012 Annual Plan 2013-14

Budget Document

Annual Plan 2014-15
Links to community discussions around each annual plan. FAQ from WMF Annual Plan 2013-14 Annual Plan 2014-15
Link to annual report, including a financial report. Annual and Financial Report of CIS Not required. Not required.
Links to relevant strategic planning documents. Not available 2013-14 2014-15

Link table details, if necessary:


Upcoming year's annual plan: strengths, opportunities and threats

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1. What organizational strengths enable your organization's plan (e.g., leadership, program planning and goal-setting, program expertise, experience with programs, governance structure)?

We have given below the general organizational strengths of CIS and also the specific strengths of the CIS-A2K program.

CIS Overall
  • Leadership: CIS’s management ethos is inspired by Wikipedia and other global commons-based peer productions. CIS organisational principles include 1. subsidiarity 2. war on meta-work 3. post-facto accountability 4. amorphous institutional boundary 5. plurality.
  • Experience with outreach: Four of the directors at CIS have experience with outreach. Dr. Nishant Shah has worked with digital natives across three continents over the last 4 years. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan has worked with the disability community in India for the last 5 ½ years. Sunil Abraham has been part of free software community for the last 13 years and has worked in the Asia-Pacific and MENA region. T. Vishnu Vardhan has more than 11 years experience in the research and not-for-profit sector as part of which he helped design and roll-out outreach activities across the length and breadth of India.
  • Governance structure: CIS’s Board has two people deeply committed to the global free culture movement. Lawrence Liang, chairman of the board and distinguished fellow was the first affiliate of CC in India and has written and spoken extensively on open content licenses. Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam has been a long term champion of the Open Access movement in India.
  • Experience with programs: CIS has vast experience in designing, planning and implementing varied programs with varied donors. For example, currently the organisation has ongoing programs in accessibility and inclusion, access to knowledge, internet governance, telecom, digital natives and digital humanities (RAW) which are supported by Kusuma Trust; Pervasive Technologies project funded by International Development Research Centre (IDRC); Internet Governance funded by MacArthur Foundation; Privacy project funded by Privacy International; Espeak and NVDA project funded by Hans Foundation; The Internet Institute project funded by Ford Foundation and many more.
CIS-A2K Specifically
  • Program planning and goal setting: CIS-A2K has tremendous strength in developing granular plans with active community consultation. Our expertise is developing in understanding the needs of the Indic Wikimedia communities and projects and we set SMART goals in trying to address these needs. Each of the 21 plans that are part of the Annual Plan for July 2014-June 2015 has detailed activity-wise break-down of goals. This granularity in plans gives a focussed direction for the CIS-A2K team and the volunteers who will collaborate with us in the effective implementation of the plans.
  • Outreach: CIS-A2K team collectively, probably, has the highest amount of experience in designing and executing Wikimedia outreach programs in South Asia. We have vast experience in organizing Wikimedia outreach programs: for all sizes of audience groups ranging of 10 to 300; in diverse locations from a high-end college in a metropolitan city to a smaller town group; and in almost all Indic languages. Our recent outreach efforts have resulted in better editor retention and conversion to active editors.
  • Institutional and cultural networks: CIS-A2K has over the last year gained access to institutional and cultural networks in seven Indic languages, which will be leveraged in executing the annual plan. We have so far collaborated with about 30 institutions within India, in organizing various Wikimedia activities. CIS-A2K has signed formal agreements with the following institutional partners: Goa University; Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; Christ University, Bangalore; Mysore University; English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad; KISS University, Bhubaneshwar; KIIT University, Bhubaneshwar; IIMC, Dhenkanal; and School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University. There are few more partnerships in the pipeline.
  • Programmatic agility: CIS-A2K deeply believes in extending support and service to the Wikimedia volunteer community in India. This has been one of the important aspects of our work. We have honoured up to 100 requests of all sizes that we received from the Wikimedia volunteer communities across all Indic languages in the last 18 months. Most of these requests are listed here and here. CIS-A2K also receives requests over e-mail and some community members do reach out to us over mobile phones to place requests. In general the quick response time of CIS-A2K to these requests has been appreciated by many of the community members.
  • Team composition and community connect: The A2K team has a good mix of Wikimedia volunteers, who are part of Indic Wikimedia communities and have a first hand experience of the community's needs. CIS-A2K has in the last 18 months built a very good rapport with some of the Indic Wikimedia communities. Almost all the team members are active on the social media networks and we keep in touch with the community through multiple channels. Most of the team members share deep passion for free knowledge; free/open source software and openness.
2. What external opportunities enable your organization's plan (e.g., socio-political contexts, community engagement, ability to raise external funds)?
  • Socio-political context: CIS has been in international and domestic news around 800 odd times in the last 5 years and 9 months. It has gained the trust of many reporters and journalists by being available if they needed support and also by contributing columns and opeds on a regular basis. Using these relationships CIS is able to influence public discourse on Wikipedia and free knowledge quite significantly. CIS has used RTI and to create a database of 400 odd journalists that it is in touch with on a regular basis.
    CIS has working relationships with several Indian bureacrats through participation in the following current committees :-National Electronic Accessibility Policy Implementation committee[2], Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) for India-Internet Governance Forum[3], and Expert Committee of the DNA Profiling Bill[4]. In the past CIS has served on Justice A.P. Shah Committee constituted by the Planning Commission on the Privacy Bill[5]. In Karnataka, CIS has relationships different ministries and departments thanks to 3 e-governance tours that we had organised for politicians and bureaucrats from Tajikistan and Iraq. We are slowly beginning to develop similar relationships in other states starting with Maharastra and Kerala.
  • Community participation: CIS as an institution and its board members in particular Lawrence Liang and Subbiah Arunachalam have been stewards of the Free/Open Source Software movement, open content / free knowledge movement and open access movement for little more than a decade. Lawrence is also Nishant Shah, the director of Research is connected to the academic community in India and global that is interested in digital humanities:- Mudra Institute of Communications – Ahmedabad, Tata Institute of Social Sciences – Mumbai, Christ University – Bangalore, National Law University – Centre for Media and Communication – New Delhi, Inter Asia Cultural Studies Society – Asia Pacific, and Leuphana Universität - Lüneburg . From the second year of existence CIS has a ongoing relationship with University of Toronto and late last year we joined the Creative Commons as an affiliate.
    CIS staff are associated with the following organisations: Sunil serves on the boards of Open Society Foundations - Information Programme, Mahiti, Samvada and International Centre for Free/Open Source Software. Sunil is also part of the Ashoka fellowship since 1999 and the Cyber Stewards Fellowship since 2013. CIS management team is quite active on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
  • Fundraising: Fundraising for CIS is not easy. This is because our FCRA approval says that we cannot receive monies from Hivos and IDRC unless we seek prior permission from the Home Ministry. The tax authorities in Karnataka has asked us to provide an undertaking that we won't take grant or consultancy money either as grants or consultancy contracts from corporations that have a business interest in the Internet and their associated foundations. Our board has prohibited us from taking money from the ministries of external affairs of foreign countries because of conflict on interest concerns. Raising from the public has not picked up because none of the payment gateway providers are willing to serve us. We have over the last 5 years expanded our donor base. High-networth individuals are going to remain a focus for CIS as far as fundraising is concerned.
  • Raising other sources and in kind support to Wikimedia movement: Of late CIS-A2K has successfully managed to raise in-kind support and funds from other sources for the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. For instance, we have got one of our institutional partners (Christ University) to freely provide state-of-the-art production facilities and technicians to produce Wikipedia video tutorials, which would have otherwise costed a lot of money. It should be noted that we have proposed to raise Rs.1,015,900 or US$ 164,380 from other sources and in-kind support for the Wikimedia movement in India as part of executing the plan.
3. What are the risks or threats that could prevent your organization from achieving your proposed annual plan (e.g., socio-political contexts, staff or board transitions or turnover, lack of community engagement, extraordinary circumstances, lawsuits, lack of ability to raise funds)? How will you minimize these risks and threats?
  • CIS-A2K being a non-chapter or Wikimedia volunteer-driven entity faces very valid questions about legitimacy, representation and "voluntary sector" vs. "volunteer" dichotomy. Various transparency and accountability measures were taken up by CIS-A2K during the last year to address some of these concerns. We will continue to improve upon our transparency measures. As it may be noted from the annual plans we are aiming for a mission level transparency with our annual plans. Also we have been earnest to add value to the Wikimedia movement in India and were open to receive feedback and criticism. CIS-A2K took various measures - like a) creating inter-language networks among Wikimedia communities in India; b) serving and supporting the community (the quick response time of CIS-A2K was appreciated by the community); and c) reaching out to the communities through multiple channels and being available for conversations (especially on social media, Meta, WP Village Pumps and at meet-ups) - which helped in creating an atmosphere where the Wikimedia communities in India have begun engage with our work. Even during this year CIS-A2K will put every effort in this direction.
  • A section of the community view CIS-A2K as a competitor to WMIN for financial resources which undermines trust-building and consequently threatens synergies between WMIN and A2K. CIS-A2K has reached out to the WMIN EC periodically and we have agreed to inform the EC about all the key plans, activities, support to volunteers and communities that we commit. We have also taken proactive steps to collaboratively work with the WMIN Chapter and organized many joint events like the Creative Commons India re-launch. We have planned many collaborative programs with the WMIN Chapter during this year.
  • Staff transition is a major risk for a tightly run program. Even though we are a small program team, we have had significant staff turnover (3 people left the team in the last 1 year). We are exploring ways to address this concern internally.

Key programs in the upcoming year's annual plan

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You may also include illustrations such as charts, graphs, and timelines when answering these questions about each of your organization's programs.


Language Area Plan (Telugu)

Telugu was one of the five focus language areas as part of CIS-A2K’s work plan during 2013-14. Since February 2013, CIS-A2K has been working closely with the Telugu Wikipedia community in productively channelizing the efforts to plan and execute collaborative projects on Telugu Wikipedia and Wikisource and in bringing a good ratio of new editors on board. It has been a huge learning experience for the CIS-A2K program to work with the Telugu Wikimedia community. Based on the lessons and challenges in implementing the work plan, it has been decided to further deepen our work in growing the Telugu Wikipedia project and the associated community. In addition to Telugu Wikipedia, efforts will also be put towards further strengthening Telugu Wikisource as part of this program.

1. Please share the a) goal as well as (b) the measurable result(s) your organization hopes to achieve, including (c) when you expect the result(s) to be achieved.
  • By June 2015 we would like to achieve the following goals on Telugu Wikipedia:

{{

Parameters As on January 31, 2014 Expected Target by June 30, 2015 Dream Target by June 30, 2015
No. of Editors 655 965 1125
No. of New editors 117 (during last year) 427 587
No. of Active editors 75 106 122
No. of Articles 55799 60,000 62,000
% age of Articles above 2KB size 40% 50% 55%
No. of Outreach Events 15 18 22
No. of Books Donated NA 71
No. of Folios Digitized NA 58,000
No. of Institutional Partnerships NA 7

}}

2. How does this program address Wikimedia movement strategic priorities?
  • The measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of: a) increasing participation by increasing new and active editors contributing to Telugu Wikipedia and Wikisource; b) improving the quality of Telugu Wikipedia through various thematic Wiki projects and by expanding the number of stub articles in a systematic manner; c) contribute to increasing the reach of Telugu Wikipedia through various awareness building, outreach programs, events and press and media publicity.
3. What key activities are associated with this program?
  • We will be putting concerted efforts to catalyse the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource and the associated community through a set of 17 activities during July 2014 to June 2015. Most of these activities will be executed in active collaboration with the Telugu Wikimedia community. All these activities will broadly fit into 4 categories as shown below.
  • Cultivating New Editors
    • Institutional Partnerships (Higher Education): To partner at least 2-3 of the above institutions in developing thematic projects and create a network of academicians that will actively use Telugu Wikipedia as part of their pedagogy. To reach out to 5 other higher education institutions to conduct Telugu Wikipedia Workshops mainly with an intention to spread awareness and to arrive at possibilities for long-term partnerships.
    • Small City Outreach: Actively spread awareness about Telugu Wikipedia in small cities across Andhra Pradesh, where internet penetration is high.
    • User Interest Groups (UIG): Target and enrol at least 4 existing collectives/groups (both physical and virtual) and motivate them to utilize Telugu Wikipedia as platform.
    • Telugu Wiki Bus: To undertake a massive travelling outreach program about Telugu Wikipedia to ensure that at least all the cities and about 100 major towns are covered.
  • Strengthening Existing Community
    • Advanced User Training: To train existing wikipedians on advanced editing options on Telugu Wikipedia.
    • Training on Copyrights and CC Licenses: A need was expressed by many of the Telugu Wikipedians to have a comprehensive understanding of how copyright and Creative Commons licenses work. CIS-A2K will put efforts to create useful materials in Telugu about Indian copyright and Creative Commons.
    • Capacity Building Meet-ups: To facilitate more qualitative interactions amongst Community Members, with an aim to a) foster creation of new project ideas; b) periodic review and mitigation of troublesome issues; c) foster a culture of collective review of the expansion of Telugu Wikipedia.
    • Thewiki Pushkarotsavam (TeWiki 11): To celebrate 11 years of Telugu wikipedia at Hyderabad/Tirupati/Vizag. Bring in all active Telugu Wikipedians across globe.
  • Content Donation/Release under Creative Commons License
    • Institutional Partnerships: To partner at least 3-4 of the above institutions in getting large Telugu content donation/re-release under Creative Commons license.
    • Typing Sprint on Telugu Wikisource: To organise typing and proofreading sprint to enrich Telugu Wikisource.
    • Dictionary Donation
    • Telugu Quran Donation
4. How will your organization measure and report the results of this program?

We will be using the following Evaluation Tools to measure the impact

  • Quarterly growth of no. of articles
  • Quarterly growth of no. of total editors
  • Quarterly growth of no. of new editors
  • Quarterly growth of no. of active editors
  • Quarterly growth of no. of very active editors
  • No. of page views
  • No. of articles < 2 KB < 5 KB
  • No. of new tools/gadgets made available during a time-slice
  • No. of mentoring interactions
  • No. of bugs filed and resolved
  • No. of edits (Article, Other mainspace edits)
  • Print and electronic media mentions

We will be publishing quarterly reports about the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and Wikisource, which will be shared with the wider Wikimedia community. In addition to this monthly report of all activities will be published in our Newsletter and all key major activities' reports will be independently published. Blogs about the activities will also be shared with the community.

5. How will what your organization learns from measuring these results direct your future program planning and decision-making?
  • The tracking of various growth metrics quarter on quarter will be very crucial to quickly understand what has worked and what has not worked. This will also help us to do necessary mid-course corrections and changes to project/activity designs. The continuous learning from this project will also inform the other 6 language plans that we propose to implement this year. The overall lessons from implementing this plan will go a long way in scaling up our work in the future and also for the various communities and WMIN to plan and execute programs beyond CIS-A2K program purview.

Any additional details: For a comprehensive understanding of this program see here


Community Strengthening Initiatives

CIS-A2K proposes to undertake 3 community strengthening initiatives that will further grow the Indic Wikimedia projects and the associated community, both qualitatively and quantitatively. These initiatives, focussing on building capacity and nurturing leadership in the Indic communities, will ensure that growth is sustained beyond the CIS-A2K program.

1. Please share the a) goal as well as (b) the measurable result(s) your organization hopes to achieve, including (c) when you expect the result(s) to be achieved.
2. How does this program address Wikimedia movement strategic priorities?
  • One of the measurable results of this program addresses the strategic priority of stabilizing infrastructure, by nurturing Mediawiki and technical talent hidden within the Indic communities.
  • By creating an inter-Indic network of technically savvy Wikimedia volunteers could result in innovative solutions to bugs and interface management that are specific to Indic Wikimedia projects.
  • Quality of contribution by volunteers could increase due to the Wiki Data India marathon.
  • One of these initiatives will also significantly increase the reach of the Indian Wikimedia projects by training new volunteers which could continue beyond CIS-A2K's program purview.
3. What key activities are associated with this program?
  • Prepare a curriculum to be circulated to the volunteers.
  • Design and execute a training program/workshop
  • Preparing necessary/useful tutorials and guides.
  • Creating an inter-language network among various Indic Wikimedia communities
  • Follow-up activities or events
4. How will your organization measure and report the results of this program?
  • Collect feedback from the participants
  • List the number of bugs/outreach programs/labels done by the volunteers post the workshop/training
  • Post event tracking of volunteer efforts

Each of the three initiatives will be extensively documents on Meta. In addition to this a detailed workshop/training report will be shared with the community. Participant feedback will be recorded wherever possible. Event videos and photos will be put up on Meta.

5. How will what your organization learns from measuring these results direct your future program planning and decision-making?
  • The feedback received from the participants will be crucial in redesigning such programs in future. CIS-A2K will do a value for money analysis to see if the workshop/training has helped the volunteers and the Wikimedia projects, based on which we will increase the initiatives that have been more successful in the coming year.


Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects (Odia Wikisource as OER)

This project aims to make Odia Wikisource a live project. Towards this, three things will be done by CIS-A2K. First, to get a major Odia author's (Dr. Jagannath Mohanty) content re-released under CC-BY-SA 3.0 and to host it on Odia Wikisource. Second, with the help of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, undertake a project whereby the students will type and proof read the books on Odia Wikisource, which could be used as Open Educational Resources across various educational institutions. Third, the digitized children's literature in Odia will be freely distributed across the government schools in an offline form. This project is inspired by the Malayalam Wikimedia community's efforts of introducing Wikisource in schools as part of the IT at School program in Kerala.

1. Please share the a) goal as well as (b) the measurable result(s) your organization hopes to achieve, including (c) when you expect the result(s) to be achieved.
  • By June 2015 we would like to achieve the following goals vis-a-vis making the Odia Wikisource a live project and using it as a Open Educational Resource:

{{

Parameters Expected Target (by December 2014) Dream Target (by December 2014)
No. of New editors 30 60
No. of New Active editors 10 20
No. of books made available on Odia WikiSource 20 50
No. of folios typed and proofread 4,500 5,500
No. of Training Workshops 3 5
No. of Events 1 2

}}

2. How does this program address Wikimedia movement strategic priorities?
  • The measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of increasing participation, by cultivating new and active editors who will contribute to Odia Wikisource and help to make one more Indic Wikimedia project live.
  • The second measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of improving quality, by bringing encyclopedic content in Odia under a free license.
  • The third measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of increasing reach of the Odia Wikimedia projects to the wider Odia speaking population by making Odia Wikisource content available in an offline form which could be a potential Open Educational Resource. This could tremendously increase the popularity of Odia Wikimedia projects.
3. What key activities are associated with this program?
  • Educate and evangelise Creative Commons and the importance of free knowledge, so that more authors will come forward to release their books under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
  • Scanning and digitization of encyclopedic content on Odia Wikisource
  • Train new volunteers in typing on Odia Wikisource
  • Organize Odia typing and proofreading sprints
  • Create offline copies of Odia Wikisource
  • Build and work with institutional partners
  • Generate awareness and media publicity for the project.
4. How will your organization measure and report the results of this program?

We will be using the following Evaluation Tools to measure the impact

  • Quarterly growth of no. of folios added and typed
  • Quarterly growth of no. of total editors on Odia Wikisource
  • Quarterly growth of no. of new editors on Odia Wikisource
  • Quarterly growth of no. of active editors on Odia Wikisource

We will be maintaining a detailed project page on Meta. Also quarterly progress report of this project will be shared with the wider Wikimedia community. All major activities and events will be informed to the community periodically.

5. How will what your organization learns from measuring these results direct your future program planning and decision-making?
  • Based on the lessons from this project, we will better design a framework to improve other Indic Wikisource projects.
  • As this project will be executed with active collaboration by the institutional partners, the learning will help in creating one of the successful models for institutional partnerships that could benefit not just CIS-A2K but also other movement entities and volunteers, especially in India.

Any additional details:

  • We propose to execute a total of 8 Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects, which are given below:
  1. Med GLAM Project at Calicut Medical College
  2. Wiki Loves Public Art (India)
  3. 100 Books on Gujarati Wikisource
  4. Urdu Wikipedia Education Program at MANUU
  5. Odia Wikisource as OER
  6. Making the Tulu Wikipedia Live
  7. Making the Santali Wikipedia Live
  8. Telugu Wiki Bus


Creating Movement Resources

Once CIS-A2K began actively working with the Indic Wikimedia communities, it soon realized that unlike in English there are not many Wikimedia related resources available in Indic languages. We have tried to produce some resources so far, which were mostly unplanned outcomes. However, we feel that there is an urgent need for concerted efforts to create resources to strengthen the Wikimedia movement in India and in Indic languages. Under this initiative we have planned to create resources that could: a) bring new editors on board Indic Wikimedia projects; and b) benefit the existing Indic Wikimedia volunteers. The resources created to bring the new editors on board could also be used by the existing Indic Wikimedia communities and institutional partnerships, which could reduce dependency on CIS-A2K to conduct outreach.

1. Please share the a) goal as well as (b) the measurable result(s) your organization hopes to achieve, including (c) when you expect the result(s) to be achieved.
  • We plan to reach out to more than 30,000 people across 7 Indic languages by June 2015 through various Wikimedia resources that will be designed and developed in consultation with the Indic Wikimedia communities.
  • Of the 30,000 people we propose to reach out by June 2015, we plan to get 1,000 new editors to register on Indic Wikimedia projects.
  • We plan to enhance the knowledge of 300 existing active editors across 7 Indic Wikimedia projects on Copyright and Creative Commons.
2. How does this program address Wikimedia movement strategic priorities?
  • The key measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of: a) increasing reach and participation by making available essential knowledge resources to contribute to Indic Wikimedia projects.
  • The other measurable result of this program addresses the strategic priority of stabilizing infrastructure by improving the internal capacities and understanding of the legal aspects pertaining to open knowledge among Indic Wikimedia communities.
3. What key activities are associated with this program?
  • Creating Wikipedia Editing manuals in 6 Indic languages
  • Wikipedia Video Tutorials in 5 Indic languages
  • Create (Indian) Copyright handbook for Wikipedians in 7 Indic languages.
  • Creating CC handbook in 7 Indic languages.
  • To create the Wikimedia resources like cheat-sheets, how to file a bug manual, input guide and offline Wikipedia in collaboration with the respective Indic Wikimedia community.
4. How will your organization measure and report the results of this program?
  • User and Community feedback on the various products that we propose to develop.
5. How will what your organization learns from measuring these results direct your future program planning and decision-making?
  • Based on the feedback received on the various products we will take measures to re-do some of them, if possible. Also this experience will be helpful in creating other resources in future.

Any additional details:

  • Please see the detailed plan page here



Financials: year-to-date progress

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"Year-to-date" refers to the period between the start of your organization's current fiscal year and the date your organization submits this proposal. Please provide the most recent year-to-date financials available, whenever possible.

1. Please identify the start date (month/year) and end date (month/year) of the 12-month period you define as "year-to-date" in this section.

Table 3

Current fiscal year planned budget Year-to-date actuals Projected final amount
In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US
Revenues (from all sources) 44,639,000 722,295 55,963,515 905,535 55,963,515 905,535
Spending 41,230,000 667,135 48,630,323 786,878 48,630,323 786,878

Table 3 details, if necessary:

  • These above figures are an estimate only as on March 25, 2014. The final audited figures might change, which will be shared in the Annual and Audit report of CIS before September 30, 2014.
  • It should be noted that most of the revenues are designated grants received from various donors for specific not-for-profit purposes and should not be seen as income/revenue, as per the Indian Income Tax Act.
  • There is a significant increase in planned revenues as we received two long pending grants after clearance from the Government of India which we were not expecting.


Financials: upcoming year's annual plan

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1. Please link to your organization's detailed budget on this Wiki or in a publicly available spreadsheet file.
2. Beyond the Wikimedia movement, does your organization currently receive or expect to receive financial support from external donors?
  • Yes. We will be receiving financial support from other donors. Please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of CIS on sunil@cis-india.org for these details.
3. How much total funding does your organization plan to spend on travel (including staff travel, board travel, other volunteer travel, travel grants, and travel reimbursements)?
  • We have shared below a table which gives a clear picture of the travel and stay expenses planned to be incurred in the coming year. The details of the CIS-A2K program and other programs are shown separately to give a clear picture as to how much exactly we anticipate support from the FDC. It should also be noted that CIS-A2K will explore support for travel and stay from other sources and in kind support in executing the work plan.
Budget Detail Anticipated (in currency requested) FDC Anticipated (in US$) FDC Anticipated (in currency requested) Other Sources Anticipated (in US$) Other sources
A2K (Wikimedia Staff Travel & Stay) 1,680,000 27,183.76223 1,290,000 20,873.24600
CIS Staff Travel & Stay (Excluding A2K Wikimedia Team) -- -- 2,880,000 46,600.73526
4. Excluding these travel expenses, how much total funding does your organization plan to re-grant (as reimbursements, grants, or microgrants to individuals, groups, or organizations)?
  • We have shared below a table which gives a clear picture of the expenses that we anticipate to be reimbursing to the Wikimedia volunteers in India and various Indic Wikimedia communities in the coming year. We have done a detailed plan wise estimate which is available in the budget spread-sheet (link given above). It should also be noted that CIS-A2K proposes to explore to leverage its institutional partners and networks (as in kind support) to get support for the volunteers and community led events during this year.
Budget Detail Anticipated (in currency requested) FDC Anticipated (in US$) FDC Anticipated (in currency requested) Other Sources Anticipated (in US$) Other sources
Community/Volunteer Support 1,695,000 27,426.47439 625,000 10,113.00678
5. Overall, please estimate the percentage of total staff time spent on program work, as distinct from the total staff time spent on operational work (such as administration, fundraising, governance, legal, etc.)
  • CIS has readily available administrative and support staff and systems, which ensures that A2K staff's time is spent more in realizing the work plans. About 95% of the CIS-A2K staff time will be invested in the programmatic efforts, except for the Program Director, who will be devoting 80% of time on the program work.

Revenues

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Please list anticipated revenues, by source (e.g., Annual Plan Grants through the FDC process, WMF Project and Event Grants, other grants from Wikimedia organizations, grants from institutional donors, public funding, membership fees, donations, event fees or other revenue)

Table 4

Revenue source Anticipated (in currency requested) Anticipated (In $US)


Kusuma Trust-UK 16,000,000 258,893
FDC - Wikimedia Foundation 18,406,454 297,831
Privacy International 3,776,230 61,102
MacArthur Foundation 9,294,766 150,397
International Development Research Centre 18,700,000 302,581
The Hans Foundation 8,796,150 142,329

Table 4 notes, if necessary:

  • CIS has also applied for small grants to other donors, which are under process and there is no certainty about the receipt of these grants. If required we will share periodic updates should we receive additional grants.

(Table 5 not used)

Please include both part-time and full-time staff and long-term contractors. Current staff should include both staff that are currently hired and staff that your organization plans to hire during the current year. Please provide a link to a detailed staffing plan or organogram, if your organization has one.

Table 6

Department (e.g. Programs, Communications) Number of current staff Percentage of current staff time* Number of upcoming staff Percentage of upcoming staff time* Rationale for hiring new staff
Accessibility 2, 7** 2 x 100%, 7 x 100%** 0 0 Not applicable
Access to Knowledge (IP and Pervasive Technologies) 3, 1* 2 x 100%, 1 x 50%, 1 x 100%* 4 4 x 100% New project work under Pervasive Technologies project, which requires additional human resource. This is being funded by an external donor.
Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) 6 5 x 100%, 1 x 25% 2 2 x 100% Proposed increase in the quantum of programmatic work from last year. We will be working in 7 language areas as against last year's 4 language areas; b) Unlike last year we propose to take up 3 Community Strengthening Initiatives, 8 Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects in addition to creating number of movement resources and supporting the Indic Wikimedia communities; c) Need to accommodate increment in staff salaries; and d) Inflation.
Internet Governance 4, 3*, 3** 3 x 100%, 1 x 50% 3 x 100%*, 3 x 100%** 0 0 Not applicable
Telecom 1 1 x 100% 0 0 Not applicable
Digital Natives 1, 1* 1 x 50%, 1 x 100%* 0 0 Not applicable
Researchers at Work 4 3 x 100%, 1 x 50% 0 0 Not applicable
Administration and Other Staff 6 6 x 100% 2 2 x 100% Due to increase in the number of programs and activities CIS will recruit two more administration staff who will help with accounts, audit and office administration.
Support Staff 4 4 x 100% 0 0 Not applicable

*Please include estimates of the percentage allocation of staff members and long-term contractors. For example, for full-time staff, you would put 100% in this column. For half-time staff, you would put 50% in this column.

Table 6 notes, if necessary:
* Paid interns who work full-time. CIS also have some short-term interns mostly to work with us in the field of IPR, Internet Governance, who do not get paid.
** Consultants (paid) for specific projects/activities
Moreover CIS also has the following personnel working for various programs.

  • 4 Distinguished Fellows who get paid 48,000 per month.
  • 4 Fellows unpaid.
  • 1 Volunteer unpaid under Internet Governance who gives 100% time.


Summary of staff and long-term contractor expenses

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Table 7

In currency requested In $US Percent increase
Current staff expenses 24,099,153 389,943
Proposed increase for current staff expenses 2,409,915 38,994 10%
Proposed increase for new staff expenses 3,320,000 53,720 13.8%
Total staff expenses 29,829,068 482,659 23.8%


Table 7 notes, if necessary:

  • CIS typically gives 10% increment to staff on a yearly basis.



Program expenses

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Program expenses are the costs associated with your organization's programs. These costs do not include operating costs or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. For example, program costs may be the costs of an event, the costs of outreach materials specific to a program, budgets for microgrants and reimbursements, or technical costs associated with specific programs.

Table 8a

Program / initiative In currency requested In $US
Accessibility 7,103,320 114,937
Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) 5,466,600 88,454
Internet Governance 5,133,577 83,065
Access to Knowledge (IP and Pervasive Technologies) 7,141,120 115,549
Digital Natives and Researchers at Work 400,000 6,472
Telecom 200,000 3,236
Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 25,444,617 411,715

Table 8a notes, if necessary:

  • These are projected program expenses for the financial year 2014-15.



Operating expenses

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Operating costs are the costs associated with running your organization, and include administrative expenses such as office rent and maintenance, legal services and insurance costs, fees, financial services, board costs, internal IT costs, and fundraising costs. These should not include the program-specific costs described above, or staff costs described above.

Table 8b

Operating resource In currency requested In $US
Office Rents (Bangalore and Delhi) 2,028,414 32,821
Internet and Telephone Expenses 1,823,712 29,509
Utilities (bills, taxes, pantry, etc.) 285,094 4,613
Insurance costs 305,000 4,935
Office Costs (stationary, postage, maintenance, internal costs) 1,851,767 29,963
Additional Operational Expenses* 2,824,364 45700
Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 6,293,987 9,118,351 101,842 147,542

Table 8b notes, if necessary:

  • Projected operational expenses for 2014-15
  • * Includes a) staff medical reimbursements; b) staff medical insurance premiums; c) internal auditor; d) statutory auditor fees; e) web hosting and design expenses; f) legal adviser; g) internships; h) board meeting expenses; i) library acquisitions; j) honorariums and sponsorships; k) capital expenditure items like computers, peripherals, web-streaming kit, etc..


Summary of total revenues and expenses

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Table 9

In currency requested In $US
Total cash balance as of proposal submission 29,754,490 481,451.77471
Total revenues 74,973,592 1,213,133.51111
Total spending 64,392,036 1,041,915.35494
Net (revenues less expenses) 10,581,556 171,218.15616
Operating reserves,* if applicable 17,896,587 289,581.28916

*Operating reserves are liquid, unrestricted assets available for an organization to use as a cushion, and to cover the costs of operations in case of unanticipated expenses or loss of revenue. Operating reserves are not meant to be considered a solution to everyday cash flow issues; in most cases, they are meant to be held over from year to year, accumulating interest and growing based on each individual organization’s operating reserves policy.

Table 9 notes, if necessary:

  • Projection for the financial year 2014-15.


Additional budget questions

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Verification that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities

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Enter "yes" or "no" for the verification below.

The term “political or legislative activities” includes any activities relating to political campaigns or candidates (including the contribution of funds and the publication of position statements relating to political campaigns or candidates); voter registration activities; meetings with or submissions and petitions to government executives, ministers, officers or agencies on political or policy issues; and any other activities seeking government intervention or policy implementation (like “lobbying”), whether directed toward the government or the community or public at large. Grants for such activities (when permitted under U.S. law and IRS regulations) should be sought from the Wikimedia Foundation Project and Event Grants Program.
I verify that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities YES


Once this proposal is complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes. No changes should be made to the documents after the the deadline for proposal submission for this round passes without written permission from FDC staff. Proposals will be considered submitted once the deadline for proposal submission for this round passes, unless a proposal is withdrawn by the organization submitting the proposal.

Thank you for engaging with our proposal. --Visdaviva (talk) 19:24, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

References

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