Grants:Simple/Applications/Black Lunch Table/2021/staffingplan

BLT 2021 Staffing Plan

Introduction

Black Lunch Table’s (BLT) Wikipedia project redresses omissions by mobilizing a collective authoring of images and articles on the lives and works of Black artists. When we began our Wikipedia project in 2014 (the larger project began in 2005), important figures such as Fred Moten, Meschac Gaba, Peggy Cooper Cafritz, and Valerie Cassel Oliver were all without pages. Six years later, each person has a page that began as a BLT target. Through utilizing a combination of Wikidata, WikiCommons and Wikipedia we have identified over 1200 articles for Black visual artists, curators or institutions that are missing or need improvement.

Included in our sAPG 2021 staffing plan are title revisions, one entirely new position, and various pay rate increases as we move to include two full-time staff members., BLT is working to retain our current hires, build momentum for the project and increase cohesion and functionality.

We have initially requested a substantial increase in grant funding to account for an increase in personnel costs across the entire team. Here we have included an explanatory outline for those increases.

Increased staffing costs

• Four staff at full time
• Wikimedia Director
• Project Assistant, who will support Director
• Benefits are offered to full-time employees
• Increase to per/hour proxy rates for events throughout the year
• Adding a Communications Specialist

• The time to invest in social media in COVID has become critical
• Staff is overextended which has resulted in missed opportunities
• Ongoing brand/project identity management and development needed

• Expanding Web Developer / Digital Specialist position

• This dedicated specialist will assist with running Wikidata queries, data visualization, integration with the BLT archive, culling metrics, and collaborating with Wiki coders to implement new technologies.
• This UX specialist will make our pages more accessible and visible. We have received feedback from new users about their struggles to navigate the Wiki platform (and about its aesthetics). We’d like to make our meetup page more user friendly, inviting, and synchronized with our BLT project.

Labor/Capacity/Output

• We are accounting in part for the additional labor that WMF prioritization labor implementation will require, and deeper engagement with the WMF community.

• This includes attending strategy sessions, affiliate and liaison meetings, etc.

• The increases reflect the capacity that is truly required to do that and the work we have already set out to do and to fully compensate our team for their time spent.
• Salaried compensation better accounts for and recognizes the ongoing labor invested and dedication to BLT’s overall project. Hourly pay, while offering pay for a set number of hours does not succeed in fully compensating for our team’s investment.

We see our momentum as empirically positive and envision an opportunity to level up the organization's impact and form. However, circumstances this year (COVID19/M4BL) have produced additional demands on our team. We are moving towards our original goals while addressing the influx of opportunities and challenges.

BLT 2021 Staffing Plan

Introduction

Black Lunch Table’s (BLT) Wikipedia project redresses omissions by mobilizing a collective authoring of images and articles on the lives and works of Black artists. When we began our Wikipedia project in 2014 (the larger project began in 2005), important figures such as Fred Moten, Meschac Gaba, Peggy Cooper Cafritz, and Valerie Cassel Oliver were all without pages. Six years later, each person has a page that began as a BLT target. Through utilizing a combination of Wikidata, WikiCommons and Wikipedia we have identified over 1200 articles for Black visual artists, curators or institutions that are missing or need improvement.

Included in our sAPG 2021 staffing plan are title revisions, one entirely new position, and various pay rate increases as we move to include two full-time staff members., BLT is working to retain our current hires, build momentum for the project and increase cohesion and functionality.

We have initially requested a substantial increase in grant funding to account for an increase in personnel costs across the entire team. Here we have included an explanatory outline for those increases.

Increased staffing costs

• Four staff at full time
• Wikimedia Director
• Project Assistant, who will support Director
• Benefits are offered to full-time employees
• Increase to per/hour proxy rates for events throughout the year
• Adding a Communications Specialist

• The time to invest in social media in COVID has become critical
• Staff is overextended which has resulted in missed opportunities
• Ongoing brand / project identity management and development needed ::*Expanding Web Developer / Digital Specialist position
• This dedicated specialist will assist with running Wikidata queries, data visualization, integration with the BLT archive, culling metrics, and collaborating with Wiki coders to implement new technologies.
• This UX specialist will make our pages more accessible and visible. We have received feedback from new users about their struggles to navigate the Wiki platform (and about its aesthetics). We’d like to make our meetup page more user friendly, inviting, and synchronized with our BLT project.

Labor/Capacity/Output

• We are accounting in part for the additional labor that WMF’s prioritization of labor will require, and deeper engagement with the WMF community.

• This includes attending strategy sessions, affiliate and liaison meetings, etc.

• The increases reflect the capacity that is truly required to do that and the work we have already set out to do, and to fully compensate our team for their time spent. ::*Salaried compensation better accounts for and recognizes the ongoing labor invested and dedication to BLT’s overall project. Hourly pay, while offering pay for a set number of hours does not succeed in fully compensating for our team’s investment.

We see our momentum as empirically positive and envision an opportunity to level up the organization's impact and form. However, circumstances this year (COVID19/M4BL) have produced additional demands on our team. We are moving towards our original goals while addressing the influx of opportunities and challenges.

Here is a link to our overall Staffing Structure. This includes both Wiki and non-wiki staff as proposed for 2021 budgets.

Job Descriptions

Wikimedia Director

Why

Last year Eliza Myrie, as Project Manager, held the highest-compensated position we offered, yet she worked part time. We discovered that the work required for our project far exceeded the bandwidths of both the Project Manager and Lead Organizers. The need for our project has increased, demanding urgent response and we still have our original vision’s goals to achieve. You can see the details of our work in our 2020 Midpoint Report.

In order to meet the demands for BLT engagements, and continue following our ongoing vision, we have proposed the promotion of Eliza to Wikimedia Director, a full time position. In this position she will be fully compensated for the work and time she is already dedicating to the project, and she will have the capacity to develop the project further. We are expanding positions in all areas of our nonprofit (recently granted 501c3 status) to meet industry standards and allow us to reach the next phase of our goals.

What

BLT’s Wikimedia Director develops a vision for the project with Lead Organizers and strategizes the execution of that vision at a high level. The Wikimedia Director must have experience organizing a multifaceted, constantly evolving project and have a proven investment in BLT’s mission as well as an understanding of the Wikimedia Movement and an investment in that community. This position will manage all aspects of BLT’s Wikimedia projects and people internationally.

• Represents Black Lunch Table in the Wikimedia community including at conferences, collaborations and events whenever possible
• Develops and Maintains WMF relationships.
• Develops and Maintains Wikimedia Movement relationships including with other Usergroups and individuals.
• Develops and Maintains relationships with partner institutions and individuals
• Identifies opportunities for BLT events, contests or partners through research of coinciding events and notable dates.
• Supervises all BLT Wikimedia-related staff and contractors
• Works with Project Assistant to train, advise and oversee regional proxy relationships and events
• Standardizes BLT Wiki public presence and internal systems and policy in collaboration with other team members.
• Maintains financial records, timeline and progress for the BLT Wikimedia projects
• Evaluates efficiency of systems and works with Lead Organizers to develop and adopt improved systems
• Leads development goals as they pertain to BLT’s Wikimedia projects including collaborating with Lead Organizers to write grants, produce campaigns and cultivate individual donor lists.
• Leads the organization of monthly meet-ups including having a visual presence at outreach events and edit-a-thons whenever possible
• Works with Wikimedia Assistant to develop and strategize user engagement.
• Implements progress toward meeting strategic goals which are developed in collaboration with Lead Organizers
• Collaborates with communications team to strategize PR and language
• Works with Nonprofit advisor, Lead Organizers and Board of Directors to strategize vision as needed
• Directly supervises Project Assistant and develops efficient systems to utilize that position.
• Oversees facilitation of all Wiki events and project initiatives.

Compensation

This position is compensated at a maximum of $75k/year including salary commensurate with experience and benefit requirements. This is a competitive salary for the industry standard, more detailed justification linked in budget.

Digital Director

Why

Black Lunch Table is positioned on the edge of innovation. We are developing a system that employs Linked Open Data to interface between Wikidata and the metadata structuring our online oral history archive. This position presently consists of managing and advising two staff members in the creation and implementation of this system.

In addition to stabilizing our oral history archive’s code behind the network and community-tagging interface, we are also modifying existing open-source software to synchronize our audio playback with textual transcripts and information nodes. Working in conjunction with interested partners and projects, we have begun development on data ontologies and standards to facilitate Linked Open Data systems. At the same time, the team has begun discussing data standards and ontologies with interested users and projects, with a goal for producing an exploratory white paper by the end of the next grant year which will inform future LOD development.

We need to partially fund this position to compensate for an estimate of ½ of this person’s part-time work being embedded in Wikimedia platforms and community.

What

• Oversees the digital aspects of BLT Archive Development
• Supervise Web Developer/Digital Specialist
• Lead guiding the vision for linking Wikidata + BLT Archive
• Develop a plan for executing the vision of this integration
• Develops and maintains relationships with organizations and individuals in the digital humanities, data visualization and LOD communities
• Leads development goals related to BLT’s Digital projects including collaborating with Lead Organizers to write grants, develop campaigns and cultivate donors.
• Works with Board of Directors to set strategic vision for the digital side of the BLT project

Compensation

• This position is compensated part time at $8k/year and costs are split equally with the non-Wiki funded, larger BLT project budget. Wiki budget would cover $4k/year.

Lead Organizers

Why

Each year the Lead Organizers have worked well beyond the Budget. The budget for this position is the first to be cut annually. The proposed salary estimates a fairer compensation for time worked. BLT still needs this position to maintain a vision of the overall project and how the constituent parts work together. This unprecedented year required quick project decisions as well as the development of institutional stances and policies, as urgent responses were needed. We found that Lead Organizers needed to be on-call all the time. We don’t foresee the alleviation of this socio-political situation we are in, so we imagine that, although still not full-time, this proposal, in conjunction with the promotions and expansion of other staff to full time will alleviate and disperse the workload at the highest level.

What

• Lead the development of strategic plans with the Board of Directors, Nonprofit Advisor and Directors.
• Maintain legal and financial compliance for nonprofit
• Oversee Directors
• Leads the development of strategic plan: e.g. organizing committees to generate best practices documents, approves proposals, collaborates on development, fundraising and grant writing, etc
  • Responsible for steering the direction of the entire nonprofit.
• Collaborates with Wikimedia Director about project goals and special events,

Compensation

• This position is compensated at $14,560/year each x 2 positions based on the standard $35/hr fee.

Project Assistant

Why

The Wikimedia Director will require assistance with the execution of their work in order to allow them to focus on vision and moving parts across the project. This past year, the Project Assistant was not able to make an impact on the tasks needed with the hours in the budget we had approved. Instead BLT focused the Project Assistant on one of the many duties we had tasked them with--PR management. We quickly discovered that even that duty was under-compensated, and the Lead Organizers and Project Manager had to absorb many of those tasks. This new proposal would create a full-time position to essentially be the Wiki Director’s shadow and execute, in collaboration with the Director and other team members, all of our tasks and goals.

What

• This position is moving to full time
• Project Assistant aids Wiki Director in all managerial aspects of their job (excluding executive level tasks)
• Implements in-person and online tasks including errands, events, data entry, organizing, researching.
• Maintains connection to the Wikimedia communities including other Usergroups and individuals
• Maintains connections with partners including institutions and individuals
• Must have strong prior administrative experience at a nonprofit or equivalent
• Must have a proven investment in some aspect of BLT’s mission
• Must be highly organized and self-motivated
• Main point of contact for Wikimedia Proxies in executing their events including providing training, tools, support and guidance

Compensation

• This position is compensated at $40k/year including benefits commensurate with experience and location. To apply email info (at) blacklunchtable (dot) com

BLT Operations Director

Why

As noted above, our entire team expended the hours they were budgeted and worked beyond those. We found that we depended on our smaller role Project Manager to coordinate training, create systems of organizations, create administrative project standards, draft policy, manage hire paperwork, communicate with all legs of the project and was simply underpaid for all of this. The new proposal will promote this person to full time and give them the title that describes what they are already doing, and expanding the possibility of reaching new goals while complying with standards for our 501c3.

What

• This position works in an overarching role between the Wiki side and Archive side of the BLT project.
• Oversees BLT’s daily business activities.
• Manages BLT’s resources including human resources, software and assisting Lead Organizers in liaising with Accountant
• Drafts and edits grant proposals
• Copy edits project texts
• Develops and implements an operational plan and ensures that procedures are carried out properly.
• Maintains overall calendar and timeline for BLT
• Evaluates organizational efficiency and proposes necessary changes to maximize project productivity.
• Assesses the needs of BLT and finds ways to contribute to the big picture by ensuring daily operations run smoothly and as efficiently as possible.
• Maintains BLT software and hardware i.e. Asana, Gdrive, calendars, recorders, microphones, computers etc.
• Must be a proven leader and supervisor
• Must have strong prior administrative experience at a nonprofit or equivalent
• Must have a proven investment in some aspect of BLT’s mission
• Must be highly organized and self-motivated
• Must have excellent problem solving skills to assess system issues

Compensation

• This position is compensated at a maximum of $75k/year including salary and benefits. Costs are split with ⅔ covered by non-Wiki funding included in the larger BLT project budget. (Wiki budget would cover $25k/year).

NFP Strategist

Why

We are new to running a non profit. Other foundations and consultants have recommended we work with an advisor.

What

• Proven effective nonprofit advising and leadership
• Demonstrated investment in some aspect of BLT’s mission
• This position supports our recent and continuing efforts at growing the nonprofit including: expanding the board and bylaws, establishing policy, clarifying mission and guiding our fundraising efforts.
• Work directly with the Lead Organizers and Directors team to bring the nonprofit into compliance and advise on continued development

Compensation

• This position is compensated at $15,000 (consultant fee) which covers half of the full-year cost. There is a potential $1.5k discount for advance payment.

Regional Proxy

Why

Each year we add new regions to our BLT family and continue to support regions we have worked with in the past. We wish to continue this outreach into two areas (to be determined) . These proxies will each host three events. Our past Proxies will host one additional event each, which will be funded by us. These events are supervised by the Wikimedia Director and assisted by the Project Assistant. Events may be online, in person or consist of contests that meet our mission and. We found that the time each Proxy was investing in organizing their event exceeded their budget and we wish to raise their organizing compensation to an amount competitive with that provided by other Wiki Usergroups.

What

• Legacy Proxies include the regions of: Houston, Ilorin, Trinidad & Tobago, Los Angeles and Seattle.
• New Regional Proxies, TBD, two total
• Wikimedians based outside of the New York/Northeast and Chicago/Northern-midwest areas (where our payroll staff live) to help establish BLT’s Wikipedia initiative in their own community by hosting local Wikipedia edit-a-thons and other events.
• Outreach and events develop local editorship through existing and new community and institutional connections.

Compensation

• This position’s hourly rate has increased from $20/hr to $35/hr
• Legacy proxies are expected to host one annual event. Event planning and execution is estimated to take 25 hours, $875/per proxy. $3500 total.
• New regional proxies are expected to host three events in their respective region, over the course of the grant year. Event planning and execution is estimated to take 25 hours, $875/per event, $2,625/per proxy, $5,250 total.

Communications Specialist

Why

We found that our Project Assistants hours were over-extended with outreach and social media management. We need to remove that duty from that position and create a position that specializes in BLT’s public-facing material. This should be someone who has professional experience in similar positions for other nonprofits, successful online campaigns, developing brand identities and social media presence.

What

• Manages all external BLT communications
• Represents the company to the outside world
• Drafts media statements, public statements, answers public and media inquiries, compiles publications, plans events and press interviews.
• Work as project manager with Lead Organizers and Directors Team to develop BLT’s visual identity and revise the style guide including identify protocol for its use including digital and print media, newsletter, brochures, project texts, and website
• Establish and maintain working relationships with media for the purpose of developing extensive press coverage of BLT activities
• Manage inquiries and provide information and images for news and editorial requests; maintain organization of press coverage in files and on website
• Act as marketing coordinator to support social media activities as needed

Compensation

• This position will be compensated at a part-time contractor rate of $8200. Half of these contractor's hours are compensated through Wiki related funds; the other half compensated by other BLT funds.

Web developer + Digital Specialist

Why

We found that our Digital Director occupied his time with grant writing and high level vision and writing for the project. We need a full-stack developer who specializes in UX and data visualization with experience in Linked Open Data to work with the Digital Director this year to work toward the execution of our vision to link our WikiData to our oral history archive. This person must be self-motivated and have a proven stake in BLT’s mission. This person works on multiple fronts of the digital management and vision of the archives and platforms central to the work of BLT.

What

• Works with Digital Director to develop and implement new integration, a bridge between the Wiki and Archive modules of our project
• Integrate WikiData with our ontology and metadata tags
• Design and create landing pages for entries in our ontology
• Design and implement an API for Linked Open Data (LOD) use
• Design of data visualizations for our ontology
• Integrate the above with our archive
• Extensive documentation of their work.
• Must work well independently and have proven experience in this field

Compensation

• This position is compensated at a rate of $20,800/year and may be additionally funded by external sources depending on needs and experience.

Accountant

• The accountant continues to work in cooperation with the Lead Organizers, Bookkeeper, and Lawyer to assist in its mission to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to Black Lunch Table (BLT) and comply with 501c3 standards.
• This position is compensated with a fixed annual rate of $1,500 (in proposed Wiki funds). This is half of the total annual fee, the other half to be covered by other BLT funds.

Bookkeeper

• The bookkeeper continues to work in cooperation with the Lead Organizers, Accountant, and Lawyer to assist in its mission to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to Black Lunch Table (BLT)and comply with 501c3 standards..
• This position will be compensated at a rate of $150/monthly. Half of this contractor's hours are compensated through Wiki related funds the other half compensated by other BLT funds.

Lawyer

• The lawyer continues to be retained as a part of the larger process of transitioning and maintaining BLT’s 501c3 non-profit/tax-exempt status. Works with lead organizers, accountant, and bookkeeper to assist in its mission to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to Black Lunch Table (BLT).
• This position is offered to BLT as pro bono work on the lawyer’s behalf through Lawyers for the Creative Arts.