Grants:PEG/WM AU/Board Capacity Development

Funded

This submission to the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2009-10. This is a grant to an organization.

IMPORTANT: Please do not make changes to this page now. They will be reverted.

This project has been funded, completed, and a project report has been reviewed and accepted by WMF Staff.
To review a list of other funded submissions by fiscal year, please visit the Requests subpage, and to review the WMF Grants Program criteria for funding please visit the Grants:Index.

Legal name of chapter: Wikimedia Australia Inc.
Grant contact name: Liam Wyatt
Grant contact user-name or e-mail: w:en:user:witty lama lwyatt@wikimedia.org.au
Grant contact title (position): Vice President

Full project name: Board Capacity Development
Amount requested (in USD): 2,800
Provisional target start date: over the course of the elected terms for the WM-Au board 2009 and 2010.

Budget breakdown

Costings in Australian Dollars, unless specified. (Exchange Rate 1 $AU=.72 $US)

Travel

based on the present physical location of the WM-Au board members, and current budget airline prices, these are the costings for travel expenses for each to travel to and from Melbourne (where the greatest concentration of board members currently is).

2 x $450 = $900 (return flights from Perth)
3 x $200 = $600 (return flights from Sydney)
3 x $50 = $150 (petrol to get to Sydney/driving to Melbourne)

= $1650 (US$ 1188)

x2 for the 2009 board and for the 2010 board = $3300 (US$ 2376)

Training

A variety of organisations provide training programmes specifically designed for Australian non-profit organisations. For example the "Public Interest Law Clearing House" runs: Tax Concessions; governance issues (boards and committees of management); legal issues with managing volunteers [1]

Working on an average of $100 per training programme (in the case of PILCH $30 per person and we would send 2 people, which is very cheap) and assuming that in total the board would undertake approximately 4 programmes over the course of a year:

4 x $100 = $400
2 people @ 30 each x 3 courses = $180

= $580 (US$ 417)

Total

Travel - US$ 2376

Training - US$ 417

= US$ 2793 (rounded to 2800)

Project scope

This project is designed to increase the ability of the Wikimedia Australia board to undertake its mission. The principal limiting factor of any organisation in Australia is distance and as a result the elected board have never physically met each other. Furthermore, as a young organisation we have limited experience in the legal, financial and organisational obligations of running a non-profit in our juristiction.

Therefore, the money from this project will be spent on two areas:

Travel expenses for the chapter board to meet in person in 2009 and the new board in 2010.
Costs for undertaking professional training courses for positions on the board.

Project goal

The Wikimedia Australia Board will have been able to meet each other and a greater number of members and therefore been able to make concrete plans for the running of the chapter for the upcoming period (election year, financial year, conference schedule...). Also, the board's operation will be administered more professionally on the basis of specific training.

Non-financial requirements

The foundation might suggest some relevant areas for training that should be undertaken or write letters of reccomendation to gain access to these courses (or discounted access).

Fit to strategy

This project is specifically targeted at improving the organisational maturity and effectiveness of the Chapter in its first 2 years of operation. We can think of no more direct way of targeting this goal than bringing the elected representatives together for the first time and providing them with relevant professional training.

Other benefits

We hope that corresponding to any all-board meeting there would be a significant general wikimedian meetup in that city as well as the opportunity to make formal meetings with several institutions in that city whom we might not normally approach individually (such as the State Parliament).

Measures of success

This project would be successful if the board became more active, efficient and effective as a result of having met and planned their activities in a more intensive fashion than is possible with only online-meetings. Further, the organisation as a whole should see specific improvements in the running of events/portfolios as a result of the training received.