Grants:Project/Wiki Loves Monuments international team/2021 coordination/Finances


Budget

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Below is your approved budget. Please use this table to keep track of actual funds spent for each line item and list the difference from the approved budget at the end of the grant period.

Expense Approved amount Actual funds spent Difference
1 - Prizes and diplomas 11,500 EUR 6,998.38 EUR -4,501.62 EUR
2 - Support of national competitions 9,958.00 EUR 6,286.31 EUR [1] -3,671,69 EUR
3 - Travel 0 EUR 0 EUR 0 EUR
4- Micro-grants 792.00 EUR 493.82 EUR -298.18 EUR
5 - DEI consultation and review 9,000 EUR 12,680.74 EUR +3,680.74 EUR
6 - Admin and Overhead 5.250.00 EUR 5,250.00 EUR 0 EUR
Total 36,500 EUR 31,709.25 EUR -4,790.75 EUR


Notes

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  1. Including designer working on newcomers guide to WLM and translations.

Request changes

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We understand that sometimes plans change. Please use this button to request approval for changes to your grant’s budget while your project is in progress. Any variation of 20% or more to any line item in your budget must be approved by staff here before you make the change (for projects with budgets of $15,000 or more, the accepted variance is 10%).


Budget change request and rationale

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@Mjohnson (WMF): Hi Marti, we have budget reallocation request. We would like to request reallocation of approximate 4,000 EUR from support for national campaigns to admin and overhead tab. The reason being, we would like to have the staff time (15 hrs / week) of Wikimedia Austria (our fiscal sponsor) partly to have more admin and related support for the campaign during the last three to four months of project. We would also likely extend this support into next year, however, that is a conversation for the new grant proposal. Let me know if you need any other information, thank you. KCVelaga (talk) 10:54, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Update budget table and specify source of reallocation

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KCVelaga, before I finalize approval for this change, can you please update the table above to show what funds have already been spent (Actual funds spent), and what funds are remaining (Difference)? Then in your request language, specify where the funds will be moved from and where they will be moved to, referencing the line items of the budget table above.

Currently, the table shows a breakdown that adds up to 39,000 Euros, which is 2,500 Euros more than your originally approved budget. My understanding is that your intention is simply to reallocate within the original budget of 36,500 Euros, correct? We just need the table above to reflect the actual current status (before the requested change) and then have the change request specify where the funds would come from and be moved to. Ideally, you'll also mention why the funds are no longer needed for the originally designated purpose and what the benefit of the reallocation will be, briefly.

As discussed in our last call, the longer term plan for staff support will be reviewed by the Northern and Western Europe Committee, through the General Support Fund review process. Happy to support with that in whatever way is helpful.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): Hi Marti, I have updated the table with the latest expenses information. Yes, you are right the total approved budget is 36,500 Euros, and we are not requesting an increase of that. My bad, I wrote the wrong numbers when I first updated the table, it is fixed now. About the specifics of the reallocation:
  • We would like a total of 3,750 Euros to be moved to admin and overhead, and the sources for that would be
  • a) 3,208 Euros of total "Micro-grants" underspend and
  • b) 542 Euros from "Travel" tab.
  • This is leaves 958 Euros in "Travel" still, and we would like to move that to "Support for national competitions" (this is an additional point that we haven't discussed in our previous conversations about reallocation, which I will be explaining below)
  • Regarding why won't be needing these funds under the original division: For micro-grants, we haven't received many requests from national competitions this year, and as the campaign period is over, there won't be any requests for micro-grants further. For travel, as the world is slightly opening up, one of the anticipations was we could have a team meeting or travel to any in-person conferences, however, that didn't happen as well. So as there no spending to be made in these categories from the underspent funds, we would like them to support activities in other categories.
  • For the reason to move 3,750 Euros to admin and overhead: WLM international team has largely been a volunteer team with fiscal sponsor support from Wikimedia Austria, and paid contracts for some specific goals, for example, DEI review and technical support to Montage tool. However, the main coordination, documentation and at-large logistical support to the campaign has been done by volunteers. As the campaign grew over the last few years and also owing transitions within the team, several members are being overstretched with most of the time being spent on logistical work such as setting up pages, templates, categories on Wikimedia Commons to sending announcements to national competitions. This is leaving almost no time for volunteers on focus on new areas or spend time on evolving the competition strategically. Partly taking inspiration from Wiki Loves Earth, where Wikimedia Ukraine along with fiscal sponsorship is also providing active project management support to WLE, we realized that the model could benefit us to. So for the rest of the grant period, we would like to have an existing staff member of WMAT to support us with admin and logistical support to the campaign. While these months of paid admin/project support won't drastically change the way we work, but it will help us get the necessary experience to consider a longer term staff support for the campaign, and start transitioning to that model.
  • Regarding 958 Euros to be moved to "Support of national competitions": We are planning to support some technical development for Montage tool, which is a jury tool used not just WLM and many other major campaigns in the movement. We usually spend some funds every year for tool maintenance and bug fixes, and since there won't be any travel, we would like it to be moved to category where we can best use the funds.
I hope these details are helpful. Please let me know if you have any further questions. KCVelaga (talk) 09:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Request approved

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KCVelaga,

This budget change request is approved. Thank you for posting the changes to the table.

Our grants admin team will be in touch.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Mjohnson (WMF): Thank you. KCVelaga (talk) 13:49, 2 April 2022 (UTC)