Grants:MSIG/Examples/Hubs planning

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Current Grants Approach

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Before you apply

Take a bit of time to read the ongoing proposals about hubs that are listed on the Hubs page on Meta. In November 2020, Hubs were selected as a priority for Movement Strategy implementation. Several proposals are in progress. The proposals are at one of the following stages:

1. Research: Collecting data to identify needs the hub could serve, what its role would be, and what structures or networks similar to the hub existed in the past.
2. Planning: Early conversations with the potential communities of the hub to agree upon and define next steps.

It’s currently recommended that any new grant request begin with one of these two steps. The steps both require extensive work.

The grant-funded proposals need to address at least one of the following questions from discussions about hubs:

• What is a “hub”? How is it different from a “non-hub” structure?
• What are the objectives of the “hub”? What "value" will it bring to the community?
• What is the relationship between a “hub” and other structures in the Wikimedia movement? How is overlap with other existing structures prevented? If there is overlap with existing structures, how is it handled?
• Is all funded work in a region or topic required to go through the respective hub? What happens when a project falls under more than one hub (e.g. regional and thematic)?
• Can affiliate board members be decision-makers in their regional hub? If so, how are Conflicts of Interest handled? If no, who would be decision-makers in the regional hub?
• How do hubs start? How do hubs get 'promoted' and how do hubs expand?

Examples

1. Research: Example of a hubs research grant proposal
2. Planning: Example of a hubs planning grant proposal

statusdraft

Movement Strategy

xx.wikipedia.org

This is a made up example of a well-organized grant proposal on hubs planning in a certain region.

target10 affiliates of the south seas and the Antarctic continent

start date15 April

start year2022

end date15 October

end year2022

budget (local currency)(N/A)

budget (USD)(N/A)

grant typeOrganization

grantee• Antarctica affiliates community

contact(s)• Penguin Featherwing

friendly space expectations

browse all requests

Share your results

Applications are not required to be in English. Please complete the application in your preferred language.

The following is a made-up example of what a well-structured grant request for hubs may look like. There’s no requirement to follow it: it can be a starting point or a reference to help you formulate your own grant request. Your grant request should both meet the grants criteria (which are practically shown in this example), as well as your own unique goals.

Summary

This example is of a planning project that aspires to facilitate conversations within several well-established communities that can help create a draft implementation plan. The community has previously conducted a research grant project, through which they have identified their community needs and how a hub can help fulfill them, as well as what are some of the expected challenges for setting up this hub. With this knowledge, the community seems ready to discuss a practical plan for launching a hub in their region, and to seek the necessary agreement and support for the project.

Project Goal

What will be the outputs of your project and how will those outputs contribute to advancing a specific Movement Strategy Initiative?

What specific Movement Strategy Initiative does your project focus on and why? Please select one of the initiatives described here

26. Regional & Thematic Hubs: Hubs have been prioritized as one of the Movement Strategy initiatives for implementation in November 2021. Throughout the past few months, we have conducted research to define how hubs should function within our region and what is the purpose that they would serve. Now that the scope and role of the hub in our region are fairly defined and shared with our community, we are looking to start the larger and harder conversations with them to plan the hub project.

Project Background

When do you intend to begin this project and when will it be completed?

Start date: 15 April 2022

End date: 15 October 2022

Where will your project activities be happening?

The Antarctic region is our main focus. Closely-related communities will also be considered in the research to identify whether they are interested in participating.

What specific challenge will your project be aiming to solve? And what opportunities do you plan to take advantage of to solve the problem?

The challenges that this project aims to address:

• Agreement and action: While we have completed a research project in a previous grant, there remains a lack of sufficient agreement and support from the community for the tangible steps in creating a hub.

The opportunities that this project aspires to seize:

• Informed process: Now that we have conducted a research project, we know what are the needs that we need to address and we also know what are the expected disagreements and difficulties. This will help us to engage in informed conversations with the community.

Does this project aim to apply one of the examples shared in the call for grants and if so which one?

N/A: This, itself, is an example.

Project Activities

What specific activities will be carried out during this project? Please describe the specific activities that will be carried out during this project.

The planning project will be carried out according to the following plan:

1. Defining conversation agendas: Using the previous research results, we will prepare the conversation agendas beforehand. We intend to focus: 1. On resolving the major points of disagreement that we have defined during the research phase, and 2. On defining a clear process for setting up the hub (including its composition, functions, timeline and similar), which we will refer to as the "draft implementation plan".
2. Opening conversations and seeking agreement: Conversations with the communities are not predictable and cannot be put into a rigid process, which is why we think this will be the longest step in the process, and will not necessarily adhere to our suggested timeline. While conversations can be long, we will provide facilitation support and will summarize and document each stage to help reach solutions and ways to move forward.
3. Drafting a Hub implementation plan: We will use the data that we have collected from the conversations to put together a proposed draft implementation plan for the regional hub, which will be shared with the community. There will be at least one round of open feedback with the community, which may also not stick to a predictable timeline.
4. Finalizing the work: Once we have collected the feedback and discussed with the community, we will publish a final implementation plan that defines the process for setting up a regional hub.

How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project? Please add the names or usernames of these individuals responsible for updating the community

Grant request:

• We will announce the grant request to our community on-wiki, in its planning stage, as well as if and when it is approved.

Discussion:

• The main discussion will be openly held on the wiki village pump or on Meta, according to the community's preference.
• Announcements of the discussion and its progress will be made through the mailing list, Telegram groups and social media.
• Online meetings may be held during the process, with professional facilitation, to help reach agreement on difficult points.
• Target outreach and interviews with affiliate leaders (board members and executive staff).

Who will be responsible for delivering on this project and what are their roles and responsibilities?

The project will be co-led by three affiliates, with the following roles:

• A: Finance and logistics, including the grant processing, distribution and reporting, as well as the support of meetings and documentation.
• B: Facilitation, including setting up conversations, scheduling meetings, running the discussions and wrapping them up.
• C: Documentation, including summarizing the conversations, seeking agreement points and putting together the Hub launching plan based on conversations.
• Shared: The design, plan and execution of the planning project will be shared responsibility between the three affiliates.

Additional information

If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive? Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions.

• We plan to hire a facilitator with experience in supporting collaborative brainstorming and decision-making.
• The Wikimedia Foundation’s friendly space policy will be applied.

If your activities include in-person events or activities, you will need to complete the steps outlined in the Risk Assessment protocol. Please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool.

(N/A)

If your activities include the use of paid online tools, please describe what tools these are and how you intend to use them.

We do not plan on using any paid tools for this part.

Do your activities include the translation of materials, and if so, in what languages will the translation be done? Please include details of those responsible for making the translations.

We will translate the document into the following languages:

• Antarctican
• Penguinese
• 2 more languages open for requests.

Are there any other details you would like to share? Consider providing rationale, research or community discussion outputs, and any other similar information, that will give more context on your proposed project.

(N/A)