Grants:IdeaLab/WikiSoCal 2017 Original

statusinactive

Project Grants

WikiSoCal 2017 - Original Proposal

summaryNew Approaches for WikiVolunteer Engagement We believe that, beyond the incredibly noble goal of making the most accurate information accessible to every person on earth, we also want to make it possible for every person to be part of the wiki movement in whatever ways they can, inclusive of all cultural backgrounds, ages and abilities. We have developed partnerships with organizations including Wikimedia Mexico, American Foundation for the Blind, the Heroic Imagination Project, the San Diego Museums and Libraries, and the other organizations who want to work with us to build more engaging volunteer service learning activities across the wiki projects. We would welcome you to join us!

targetSpanish, Simple and English Wikipedias, and all other Wikimedia Projects

type of granton and offline training activities and events

amount$100,000 USD

grantee• [[User:WikiSoCal|WikiSoCal]]

contact• dr.mel.ganus@gmail.com

project manager• DrMel

this project needs...

volunteer

developer

designer

project manager

community organizer

researcher

advisor

created on03:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

round 1 2017

Friendly space expectations

Project idea

This proposal was what we submitted in March, requesting $100k from WMF for the growing international volunteer program we've been developing with our partners. Based on the feedback we've been given, we have instead submitted a significantly reduced proposal for on $30k. The work we are already doing is scalable, and we have the capacity, with all the project management and resources needs to do what's listed below for $100k, or a lot less for the $30k. Or something in between. We are doing whatever we can to support the noble causes within the wiki movement. We hope the WMF Grants Review Committee will ask us whatever Qs you have and discuss ideal paths forward so we can maximize the impacts that are possible. Thank you for your consideration!

If you build it, they will come.

• Mysterious voice to Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams

It's not about saving our world, it's about saving theirs.

• Michael Douglas to Paul Rudd in Antman

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

We want to build more bridges when other people are building walls. Our world has moved into intense turmoil as we write this. Better accessibility to comprehensive, accurate information has grown so much over the years, but still there remains an incredible “room for improvement.” Beyond working to make it easier for every person online to access high quality information, Wiki improvements need to come from more community-wide efforts, supported by volunteers from around the world. We have, especially this year, an ever more pressing need to protect and improve the quality of information available online, and to support the work of the volunteers and community members that make those improvements possible.

But the diversity of volunteers in the Wikipedia community is frightfully uninclusive and the experiences of volunteering are so often alienating that we understand retention of new volunteers can be as low as 2% per 100 of new editors. Many past and current Wikimedia volunteers do not feel that they have been well cared for, and continue in spite of the frustrations.

Beyond doing a better job of caring for the well-being of current volunteers, we need new blood. We see an incredible number of willing and able people in the world who could be helping the wiki movement in a wide variety of ways, both on and off wiki. We believe the wiki movement is facing an urgent need to engage and support more volunteers as quickly and effectively as possible. And we believe that is much easier to do by collaborating with other organizations who share so much in our missions. We can do so much more together than apart.

What is your solution?

We, as members of WikiSoCal, are creating WikiWonderland, a collection of incredible volunteer and service learning experiences. We are based in San Diego, California and have members from around the world. Our partnership organizations, expert advisors, and core team members have already donated thousands of hours and dollars to bring us to this moment when we are ready to ask you, the Wikimedia community, for this significant funding, to grow our capacity and make it possible to bring in hundreds or even thousands of new wiki volunteers.

HISTORY OF WIKISOCAL

We began hosting San Diego editathons in February of 2016. On April 28, when the Cascadia User Group had to cancel their plans to host WikiCon USA, we stepped in to help, and became the new conference organizers, with only 5 months to put together 4 days of events. We were required to survey past attendees and submit a new proposal, once the new grant programs became active on July 1, 2016. In May and June of 2016, we worked tirelessly on this incredible opportunity, to build WikiSoCal with the WikiCon USA communities, and create an extraordinary 4-day weekend of outreach and community building activities, with a theme of "Inclusivity" and efforts to make every thing we did as inviting and inclusive as possible.

Through a never ending set of logistic and programming conversations, we were able to secure

1. an in kind donation of space and staff time from the San Diego Downtown Library (worth more than $35,000),
2. discounted housing rates at the closest hotel and hostels (worth more than $3,500), and
3. a day of activities hosted at Balboa Park with special access to most museums (worth more than $5,000)
4. a collection of incredible expert volunteers willing to give their high value time to our cause, advising us and offering their resources to help make the events as inclusive and meaningful as possible (worth more than $30,000 in combined pro bono time).

DrMel did the majority of the work, especially in partnership development, outreach and event planning, working full time as what some would call San Diego's first "Wikipedian in Residence" with a team of other WikiFans helping with the time and resources they could contriibute. With such ambitious goals (4-days of WikiEvents with only 5 months to plan) and an understanding that the community of Wikipedians she was working with wanted her to bring Wikipedians together in San Diego, DrMel believed that there was plenty of collaborative support working toward the same mission and reallocated her next 5 months schedule to be entirely focused on supporting the wiki movement with the work we could do in San Diego.

At the end of June, DrMel took a week to fly to Washington DC for a GLAM and a Diversity workshop. She was especially there to meet the senior leadership of previous WikiConferences, and was able to recruit many to join the planning team. But following her return to San Diego and their trip to WikiMania in Italy, a great deal of confusion ensued. What we had been designing as WikiCon USA & WikiConSoCal became WikiConference North America, with a new planning team.

The event plans we'd worked months to develop with our team and partners were discarded by the new planning committee in favor of previous conference formats. Suddenly all WikiSoCal questions and concerns were being rejected or ignored. Contacts who had been working closely with us prior to WikiMania disappeared as did previous offers to help with fundraising and resource development. All of this was quite confusing given the loudly promoted WMF goals of building inclusive communities.

All subsequent requests for help to supporting WikiSoCal were then denied ignored or denied. In July we had to cancel our plans for outreach at the Pride March and Comic-Con, along with all remaining WikiSoCal meetup plans for 2016. All our hundreds of hours of work had just been Reverted without acknowledgement or consideration. WikiSoCals initial momentum was crushed, with the many volunteers we'd had ready to help walking away disappointed. Those of us remaining opted to step back while the WikiConference planning continued without us. We handed everything off as well as we could then went back to looking for other work. We offered to answer questions and help however we could as advisors, but did not hear from anyone in the new committee.

Yet with all that drama, we were very happy to see that the WikiConference North America was held October 7-10, 2016 at Balboa Park and the Downtown San Diego Public Library, with a theme we'd originally chosen of "Inclusivity" (though only 300 attendees were included). From our (ambiguous) understanding of who did what before and during the events, we estimate that more than 3,000 hours were donated by the complete collection of staff, volunteers and pro bono professionals. We are unclear what outcomes were achieved with the WikiConference North America, but understand it was considered a wonderful success. While we received no acknowledgement for our part in making it possible, we are still very proud of having been able to host the events here. We want to acknowledge the incredible work of all the volunteers who have helped make WikiConference North America possible, including all those involved before San Diego was part of it, and all those who took it on with only 3 months to go. It was an amazing success!

After the WikiConference North America events, we met new supporters who shared our beliefs that this wiki movement and Wikimedia's work within it are worth the effort and frustration. Even though the financial costs have been more than we had ever intended to take on, we have not wavered in our commitment to continue building WikiSoCal. We are now scaling up again, with a constantly growing team of diverse and remarkable people, in SoCal and around the world.

2017 AND BEYOND

We are now working to dramatically improve the quality of volunteer experiences within the various wiki projects, and to make it less likely new volunteers will be discouraged by the sometimes very unwelcoming communications from other volunteers. In a grand collaboration with our partner organizations, we are developing volunteer and service learning activities with our volunteers’ well being at the core of our designs. We want everyone we bring in to be able to contribute in some way to the Wikimedia projects. There are so many backlogs and tasks besides editing articles that volunteers can now help with - we are working to make it easier for them to be part of this incredible project in whatever ways they have time for and inclination to do.

More than being a regional program, we at WikiSoCal are inviting people from anywhere in the world to come visit us, physically or remotely, any time of year, to be part of our service learning and volunteer programs. We have the resources around us, the beautiful locations, and incredible people to make San Diego a host for all sorts of Wiki trainings, meetups and other activities. With all the partners, advisors, students and other volunteers we already have helping and eager to do more, we are ready to put full-time effort into growing our service learning and volunteer activities. We are confident that we can engage and retain a large group of new volunteers, in activities both simpler than and beyond the complexities of wiki editing. We have an remarkable number of expert advisors, interns and volunteers working with us to help design volunteer and service learning activities for people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. We want all our volunteers to have the resources, training and support to have fun and be successful as Wikimedia volunteers.

Important note for grant reviewers: almost all of our current partners, advisors and volunteers have either not yet signed up for a wikipedia account, or have very few edits! And they've already given hundreds of hours over the past year to helping us figure out how to succeed in these ambitious plans. The work everyone has been doing has been primarily focused on needs and resource analysis, and planning in off wiki systems. Given the extremely low retention rates for new volunteers in the past, we want to make sure everyone has the support they need to engage in extensive volunteering. No one has enough time to waste doing work that isn't useful or enjoyable.

By supporting this grant application, you can help us speed up the development of systems to make sure all our new volunteers have the support they need to stick around.

Invitations to our activities for 2017 are posted at www.meetup.com/wikisocal (please sign up!), and include:

• WikiConSoCal - Alicia's Adventures in WikiWonderland - October 6-9 in San Diego's Balboa Park
• Promoted monthly meetups, inclusive of all WikiFans, friends and family - with activities for all ages, abilities and backgrounds
• Weekly planning sessions with core team members, face-to-face and online, to design and test our service learning activities in our WikiWonderland contexts.

We welcome your questions, doubts and especially any statements of support. Yes, this is an incredibly ambitious project, and we would welcome getting Wikimedia Foundation and all the wiki volunteers more involved.

Project goals

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

• Research, design and test best practices for building collaborative online volunteer and service learning activities, with clear plans for intake, ongoing support, and incentivizing volunteers.
• Dramatically increase the number of active volunteers within Wikimedia projects, with new volunteers coming from across the blind and disability communities, on Wikimedia projects in English, Simple English, Spanish and other languages as we are able.
• Further develop San Diego partnerships with and hosting of wiki-related outreach and volunteer events within San Diego's Balboa Park Museums and Public Library System.

Continuing and expanding on our current activities:

• develop at least 12 collaborative partnerships with other like-minded organizations and expert advisors
• design, test and share at least 12 training and engagement activities for new volunteers
• host at least 12 WikiMeetups in SoCal and online to bring in new volunteers and keep them engaged
• bring in at least 1,000 new volunteers from diverse backgrounds, and keep at least 50 engaged and actively contributing in the months that follow

Who will you be doing outreach with?

We are working to outreach to the blind and the sighted, English and Spanish-speakers within and beyond the United States and Mexico. In the US, more than 23 million people have identified ourselves as blind or vision impaired. We also have 45 million Spanish speakers within the US, and . And millions of other people looking for opportunities to make a difference in the world. Our outreach objectives are extremely inclusive – everyone is welcome to participate in any of our activities and events, and will be given guidelines for identifying how to do what they want to do. 

Activities

Already completed - 2016

February to April - First 3 WikiSoCal Monthly Meetups, held at Mission Valley Branch Library in San Diego, CA (supported by $750 PEG grant), invited by Downtown Library to hold monthly editathons in their computer lab. Applied for $30k IEG grant, and joined WALRUS group.

May to July - Began intense WikiCon research, planning, resource and partnership development for small and large multi-day events in 2016 & 2017; two additional meetups in May (photo hunt in Balboa Park) and June (first Editathon in Downtown Library); IEG grant unsupported so new fundraising strategies development. DrMel's participation and volunteer recruiting at Wikimedia DC's GLAM and Diversity Workshops (sponsored by Wikimedia DC), then, following WikiMania meetings, a change of conference leadership and transfer of all contacts, research and planning activities to new conference management committee. By mid-July all WikiSoCal activities suspended until WikiConference North America concluded.

August to October - WikiSoCal activities suspended. October to December - New team members and advisors recruited to support WikiSoCal growth. Monthly editathons and meetups begin again, with meetups in October and December and additional site visits and planning meetings for core team at Balboa Park. WikiConSoCal announced for October 6-9, 2017. 2017 - So Far January through March 14 (grant submission deadline):

• Intense momentum and development of partnerships with American Foundation for the Blind, Wikimedia México, Philip Zimbardo's Heroic Imagination Project, San Diego's Balboa Park and Libraries.
• Extensive outreach to experts, potential partner organizations, students and other volunteers.
• Wikimedia Mexico's Paulina Sanchez comes to San Diego for first site visit (sponsored by Paulina Sanchez).
• Two more small monthly meetups, held at Mission Valley library in January & February.
• Weekly planning meetings with core team at Balboa Park.
• Finalized PEG grant report from 2016.
• DrMel's trip to San Francisco, representing WikiSoCal (sponsored by AFB) for tours and meetings with Wikimedia Foundation, Wiki Education Foundation, San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind, and lunch with Dr Phil Zimbardo.
• DrMel's trip to DC, representing WikiSoCal, for AFB National Leadership Conference (sponsored by AFB), announced additional recruiting, partnership agreements and event planning. Grant writing and additional fundraising activities developed.
• Grant development, partnership recruitment, strategic and event planning.
• Assist with Downtown Library's first Human Library event, recruiting event participants.

2017 - What's Next Remainder of March:

• Respond to questions about this grant application - please post questions, suggestions and other comments on our Talk page!
• Post WikiSoCal "Call for Participation" and Invitations to Everyone for October 6-9 WikiConSoCal - Adventures in WikiWonderland. Seeking diverse volunteers and partners for planning and events, of all ages, cultural backgrounds and abilities.
• Continue needs and resource analysis, with research, design and test of service learning activities
• Continue development of partnership and volunteer recruitment and agreements
• Launch and manage first WikiConSoCal t-shirt fundraiser on Booster.com
• Monthly meetup and wikithon at Mission Valley Library, Sunday, March 26
• Weekly planning meetings at Balboa Park and online
• Ongoing communications with existing team, partners, advisors and new recruits

April:

• Launch and manage Kickstarter fundraising campaign
• Launch new WikiSoCal Volunteer, Service Learning and Internship Programs
• Monthly meetup and wikithon at Mission Valley Library, Saturday, April 15
• Weekly planning meetings at Balboa Park and online
• Ongoing communications with other team members

May:

• Begin summer internships for WikiSoCal student interns
• Prep for summer activities
• Monthly meetup and wikithon at Mission Valley Library, Sunday, May 28
• Weekly planning meetings at Balboa Park and online
• Ongoing communications with other team members

June: July:

• Comic-Con
• GLBTQ Pride March

August: September:

• Finalize 2017 event and activity designs and decisions
• Training for event volunteers

October:

• Final arrangements for Oct 6-9 WikiConSoCal - Adventures in WikiWonderland
• Events in Balboa Park and around the San Diego and Tijuana areas, with remote participation from around the world
• Publicize all materials and make learning activities available freely online

November:

• November 6-8, National Federation of the Blind "Dare to Be Remarkable" training conference
• WikiSoCal Project assessments
• Monthly meetup
• Support for WikiConference North America in San Diego, as needed

December:

• Plans for 2018
• Holiday parties and wikithons
• Grant and funder reports

Budget

Total Requested: $100,000 for expenses through December 31, 2017

Budget breakdown:

• $24,000 - develop 12 wikiservice learning activities - research, design, test and share 12 accessible and inclusive wikivolunteer experiential learning modules, available to public by October 2017
• $24,000 - wikiproject and event management, provided by the core team. Work includes ongoing partnership development, contract negotiations, financial management, and additional fundraising efforts.
• $40,000 - we are requesting $10,000 per day for the planning and delivery of WikiConSoCal, and our Alicia in WikiWonderland activities, taking place in San Diego's Balboa Park, October 6-9, 2017 (work includes survey research, volunteer program development, venue costs, catering, insurance, security, supplies, volunteer appreciation, swag, travel expenses, training materials, decorations, and entertainment).
• $6,000 - operating expenses for other WikiSoCal events throughout the year (including wikinic, WikiSoCal at ComicCon, regional travel for outreach, training events, local meetings)
• $6,000 - contingency budget for unanticipated expenses

In calculating our budget proposals, weve done a careful analysis of past proposals, objectives and budgets, within and outside Wikimedia. On average, the cost per participant in events averages $100/per person per day, or $25/event for shorter events. Examples: 300 Wikipedians for 4-days in San Diego 2016 cost $120,000 ($50k from WMF & $70k from SD orgs) = $100/pp/day. WikiCon USA 2014 was 250 Wikipedians for 3-days in NYC ($35k from WMF & $40k from NY orgs).

We are planning our outreach to bring in at least 1,000 new volunteers throughout 2017, especially during our 4-days of events in October, in which we expect at least 250 participants per day, from both the local areas and coming in from other parts of the country and world.

Project team

About the idea creators

WikiSoCal is a growing collection of community organizers and organizational representatives working together to develop extraordinary volunteer program and service learning activities. DrMel has been a Wikipedian since 2004, with many years of experience as a philanthropist, community organizer, volunteer program developer, learning designer, and behavior change expert. In 2016, she helped co-found WikiSoCal with a series of editathons, and became conference facilitator for WikiConference North America. Kirk Adams is president of the American Foundation for the Blind, our lead partner. Ivan Martinez and Paulina Sanchez represent Wikimedia Mexico. Phil Zimbardo's Heroic Imagination Project brings us even more volunteers who are committed to making a difference in the lives of others. We are also working with a number of San Diego's GLAM and nonprofit organizations, with a special focus on community building events and volunteer service learning activities in San Diego's Library System and Balboa Park Museum District.

HOW DO WE ALL FIT TOGETHER? Together with our partners, we are developing internationally inclusive volunteer programs and communities, with high impact, accessible, and engaging service learning experiences. Each partner organization has committed to ongoing support for these projects with time and other resources as available. The wiki movement is one of the most significant projects in human history, and one of the most meaningful any of us have been part of. We are trying to make it easier for our volunteers to help within the Wikimedia projects, and hope you, the Wikimedia Community, can help. Be idea creators with us, and help with the creative problem solving! With an incredible number of potential volunteers available from the communities we are part of, we believe this work is not only possible, but critically important to continue with. We invite you to join us in making this possible.

Project team

CORE PROJECT TEAM

• Dr Melissa Ganus - DrMel - Project Director, Partnership Development, Outreach & Designs
• Paulina Sanchez - Psanchez820 - Wikimedia Mexico Organizer, Program Design, Spanish Inclusivity
• Priya Dharshini – TiagoGracia – Project Management, Finance, Graphic Design
• Rocco Petrongolo – Rocco91928 – IT Coordinator,  Mediawiki, Programming
• Julia Gomez - EB90 – Project Management, Learning Designs, Outreach, Assessment
• Stan Wilson - Slwsandiego - Project Management, Logistics, Operations

ORGANIZATIONAL PARTNERS & LIAISONS

• Kirk Adams – President, American Foundation for the Blind
• Dr Phil Zimbardo – Founder & President, Heroic Imagination Project
• Ivan Martinez – Community Organizer, President of Wikimedia Mexico
• Lane Rasberry – Wikipedian in Residence, Consumer Reports & Wikiproject Medicine
• Brian Bashin - President, San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind
• Judy Pigott - Founder, Personal Safety Nets
• Erwin Managua – Director of Special Events, San Diego Library System
• Joaquin Ortiz – Director of Innovation, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts
• Lauren Meyer – Director of Special Events, San Diego Hall of Champions

ADDITIONAL EXPERT ADVISORS (Partial List)

• Dr Brian Detweiler-Bedell - Psychology, Heroism and Resource Development
• Nedra Weinrich – Regional, National and International Social Change Campaigns
• Steven Wright – Strategic Planning, Graphic Facilitation, Visualizations
• Helaine Blumenthal – Wiki Education Foundation, Blindness, Wiki & Education
• Dr T. Noble Foster, JD - Meditation and Negotiation Skills
• Tyler Walker - ImprovEverywhere and flash mob expertise
• Linda Nguyen - Logistics, Housing, Tourism
• Caitlan Hernandez – Blindness and Education
• Jon Mindas – Fundraising and Nonprofit Program Development
• Sophie Ellis - Youth Programs and Activity Design
• Thea Finney - Public event management
• Zanna Smith - Research and Applied Psychology
• Kaitlyn Heap - Graphic Designs and Youth Programs
• Dr Nat Finney - Grant Writing, Education and Sciences
• Dr Stephen Carroll - Metalearning, Writing, Nonprofit Funding
• Dr Andrea Letamendi - Popular Culture, ComicCon and Applied Psychology
• Stephen Nicholls - Personal Safety and Self Defense Instructor
• Dr David Caruso - Emotional Intelligence Development
• Valerie Sutton - American Sign Language, SignWriting and ASL Wiki
• Ian Seyer - Technical advisor and Design Vision

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Beyond our growing group of current volunteers, interns, advisors and core team members, we want to acknowledge the incredible support we've had from so many other wonderful people who aren't active in our projects at the moment. Once we've got our systems setup, we'll be inviting all y'all to join us again! Many thanks to each and every one of you. Looking forward to catching up.

Get Involved

Community engagement

Through our extensive network of collaborative organizations, in our region, nationally and internationally, we will be able to invite and include anyone who is interested in being part of the wiki movement. San Diego is a fantastic destination city, with ample venues and housing to host any wiki events. Our project will include strategic plans for social media and live outreach materials and scripts for events and other opportunities.

OTHER PARTICIPANTS - WANT TO JOIN US IN THE DESIGNS AND DEVELOPMENT? PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME HERE

• Project manager Committed to continuing the development of WikiSoCal volunteer programs and outreach activities. DrMel (talk) 04:05, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
• Advisor Committed to working on ideas to include the Spanish speaking community into WikiSoCal activities. Psanchez820

Endorsements

Want to endorse this as a good idea? Or express your comments and questions? You can review what others have posted below and add your name and comments by:

• answering a couple questions in this SurveyMonkey Questionnaire (especially for people without wiki editing experience),
• posting your comments and questions on this proposal's Discussion Page
• clicking the button in the upper right infobox above, and/or wiki-editing this section directly.

Thank you!

• Anthere (talk)
• Slowking4 (talk)
• Commendable project. But easier said than done! Diptanshu^Talk 10:29, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
• This is an incredibly important project since the goal of Wikimedia is to compile all human knowledge, it is only fitting that all humans be included and it is far from that right now. I fully support this project and hope to be able to work together with WikiSoCal to make it a reality. Psanchez820
• from Kirk Adams , President of American Foundation for the Blind (afb.org): "The American Foundation for the Blind is dedicated to the inclusion of people who are blind and visually impaired in every aspect of life. Accessing and creating knowledge and information is one of the highest level activities in today society, enhancing the inclusion of people who are blind in these activities by engagement with Wikipedia is a goal that we fully support."
• I strongly believe that the quality of what will be produced within this project will be profound. I am willing to devote my time and knowledge for the benefit of others, not only for the individuals involved today, but all of the recruited volunteers to come. EB90 (talk) 23:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
• from Dr. Phil Zimbardo, Founder and President of Heroic Imagination Project: "Wikipedia is one of the most important sources of information on the planet, and we are enthusiastic about having WikiSoCal here in California. Our world needs so many more heroes in these troubling times when democracies are being threatened by autocratic elites. We in the Heroic Imagination Project are working to inspire a new generation of everyday heroes, especially among our youth."
• Valerie Sutton, Director ASL Wikipedia Project "We wholeheartedly support and endorse WikiSoCal's efforts in improving support for volunteers and we hope to actively participate in working with WikiSoCal and supporting them in their efforts in the future. Our Deaf writers and editors need assistance in learning how to edit Wikipedia articles. It is a win-win project. It helps Wikipedia increase the numbers of happy and ongoing volunteers, and it also gives Wikipedia a good reputation for being inclusive to everyone, including those from the Deaf Community and other groups that until recently, have not been included. If volunteers have good experiences and good feelings related to Wikipedia, there will be more volunteerism. I have been surprised at how daunting a task it is, to learn how to use Wikipedia software, and in my case, I need to be able to teach others how to do it too, using American Sign Language, and so I need to be trained and I welcome the help from this project."
• In working with individual and families who suffer from various mental/physical health ailments over the past eight years, I can unequivocally write this endorsement for Dr. Melissa Ganus and her amazing team for this projected grant. WikiSoCal has produced a team and a concept that is advanced when it comes to producing an all-encompassing and interactive opportunity for children of all ages and abilities. With the support of this grant, WikiSoCal will be able to launch volunteer outreach programs that not only reach those with disabilities but will bring new and energetic volunteers to Wikipedia.Jmindas02 (talk) 20:10, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
• Phenomenal organization. WikiMedia has created one of the most powerful non profits in the world, and expansion of its activities towards volunteer inclusion only makes it more cohesive and capable. This projects seem well outfitted to achieve its goals and foster growth. Ianseyer (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Community notification

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips? We are ready to notify everyone of our proposal and would welcome having your suggestions and help sharing it across your circles. Please post comments here or on our talk page with descriptions of any people or groups you'd recommend we reach out to, and what links you'd recommend we use. Thank you!