Grants:PEG/WM PT/Start-up

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 Portugal
Grant contact name: Waldir Pimenta
Grant contact user-name or e-mail: User:Waldir / waldir@email.com
Grant contact title (position): none (the chapter hasn't formed yet)
Project lead name: N/A (it's not a project by the chapter but the creation of the chapter itself)
Project lead user-name or e-mail: N/A (see above)
Project lead title (position), if any: N/A (see above)

Full project name: Start-up funding to create the chapter
Amount requested (in USD): $7,908.69 = 6,071€
Provisional target start date: July 2009
Provisional completion date: June 2010

Budget breakdown

- legal fees                                   231€ ~= USD   300.58 [1]
- travels and meals                          5,040€ ~= USD 6,558.05 [2]
- office supplies & mail                       200€ ~= USD   260.24 [3]
- renting of a room for meetings               500€ ~= USD   650.60 [4]
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total                                        6,071€ ~= USD 7,908.69

The legal fees consist of 51€ for obtaining the (name/social denomination) availability certificate, plus 170€ for the full legalization process, which is conducted in a single act.
This value includes USD 3,747.46 for travels, and USD 2,810.59 for meals. The reasoning and details for these values are provided below:
- Since the most active members are spread across several cities in Portugal, instead of concentrated in an area, such as the capital, there will be a need for constant travels to organize meetings. We plan to meet monthly, and since there are 9 people in the Association's bodies, as defined in the bylaws, we calculated the travel value as 8 people (assuming that we meet in a city where at least one member resides) times 30€ (a base value which is a little less than the cost of a two-way travel between Lisbon and Porto by bus or train) times 12 meetings a year. This totals 2,880€ (USD 3,747.46)
- Since these meetings will involve a full day of travel, we also plan having one meal per meeting. At an average cost of 20€ per meal, we calculated the total as 20€ times 9 people times 12 meetings = 2,160€ (USD 2,810.59)
- Now, we are aware that the value for these meetings are quite high especially considering the remaining items in the budget. We are thus willing to reduce the frequency of the meetings if the total value is considered too high, resorting for example to virtual meetings. We also point out that we are only including expenses that are absolutely essential to the forming and basic working of the association. We have plenty of activities planned, and we intend to get local funding for these either with contributions from other entities or individuals, and with membership fees.
This is merely an estimate value. Due to the nature of our mission, which has a lot to do with digital knowledge and communication, and since we cannot at this point afford having permanent headquarters, we plan to make little use of physical paper and other office supplies. Thus we assumed that a budget of 200€ for a full year should be enough.
Calculated at a rate of approximately 40€ for a day, times 12 meetings a year.

Project scope

We have already seeked information about the legalization process, and are ready to advance with it as soon as we have the go signal from the chapters comitee and the necessary funding. There are about 40 wikimedians subscribed to the list of people interested in participating in the association, which will constitute the initial member base. In the first meetings, we will define the bodies' internal working rules, as stated by the bylaws , and discuss and create general action plans/strategies, concerning:

Finances/Fundraising

Communication

Logistics/internal organization

Later, we plan to start working on our list of activities for which we've outlined a draft on Wikimedia Portugal/Actividades, define concrete timelines for their execution, and organize them accordingly. Meanwhile, we intend to advertise the association and these activities, to gather more people to participate in them.

Project goal

We would like to make the necessary steps to oficially legalize the WM Portugal and build the conditions to make it operational.

Non-financial requirements

We will need a wiki to serve as our web portal, probably located at pt.wikimedia.org

Fit to strategy/Other benefits

Portuguese media has shown interest in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in several occasions. A few Portuguese wikimedians have been interviewed in radio and print media, and there is a noticeable need for an official body that can provide information to the media and clarifications to readers that often don't have a clear idea of how the projects work. This project will thus provide Wikimedia with a tangible, reachable organization that can better spread the mission of the foundation and broaden the understanding of the inner workings of the Wikimedia projects in the Portuguese society.

Measures of success

We will consider this project a success if the chapter is formed and gains enough structure to allow it to continue and fulfill our activity plans for the following years with minimal help from the foundation.