Grants:PEG/WM AR/Professionalization

Withdrawn

This was a submission to the Project and Event Grants Program from an group, organization, or individual in 2013-14, but was withdrawn by that group, organization, or individual before a funding decision was delivered.

• See the discussion page of this grant request for more information.
• Since this grant was withdrawn, no report is required and no further action is required from the grantee.

Legal name of chapter

Asociación Civil Wikimedia Argentina

Grant contact name

Ivana Lysholm

Grant contact user-name or e-mail

isha@wikimedia.org.ar

Grant contact title (position)

Secretary

Project lead name

Ivana Lysholm

Project lead user-name or e-mail

isha@wikimedia.org.ar

Project lead title (position), if any

Secretary

Full project name

Wikimedia Argentina Professionalization Program

Amount requested (in USD)

u$s 10'200

Provisional target start date

April 1th, 2011

Provisional completion date

September 30th, 2011

Introduction

After four years working of volunteer work, the Association’s Comisión Directiva (CD, Board) envisaged it was impossible to correctly fulfill a series of administrative and planning tasks relying entirely on a voluntary basis. WM-AR’s CD decided to hire an Executive Director as the first step towards developing a general, comprehensive professionalization program. Additionally, WM-AR employs an external accountant since a couple of years ago.

WM-AR has been paying these expenses on its own, but our financial resources are considerably limited. Sadly, we can’t for the moment rely entirely on our own funds to cover these expenditures, at least not until we can effectively take part in the global WMF fundraising campaign, something our ED has been working on since her first day.

Wikimedia Argentina will present a long-term plan and the corresponding budget, should we require any kind of grants for that matter, in September this year, after our General Assembly takes place and a new CD is elected. This grant, thus, only covers the sixth months between our ED’s hiring, last April, and the approval of the proposed 2-yr-plan by the next GA. Our number of required employees can be expected to grow in the short term, at least by one.

Budget breakdown

The expenditures to be funded by the requested grant, during a 6-month period, are the following:

Role	Per-month outcome (USD)	6-month total (USD)
Executive Director (Lic. Beatriz Busaniche)	1500	9000
Part-time accountant (CPN Patricia de Melo)	200	1200

Project scope

The general scope of the work to be done by our ED has to do with elaborating a 2-yr-plan for our Association, which should include a comprehensive professionalization program. Yet, as Beatriz is to date our sole full-time employee, she is also in charge of coordinating several events and activities Wikimedia Argentina may organize.

The following are among the immediate tasks WM-AR’s CD has requested her to work on between April and September, 2011:

• Institutional reworking
  • Paperwork with government agencies to get 2009 and 2010 financial balances approved;
  • Complete pending grant reports;
  • In general, ensuring the house is in order for the next CD.

• Fundraising
  • Paperwork with government agencies to be able to participate in global fundraising;
  • In-depth inquiry about Argentine regulations on tax-deductibility;

• Projects
  • Coordinating activities that would be hard to develop without full-time, paid support:
    • Wikipedia 10 celebrations, a full-day event with a series of conferences;
    • I Ibero-American Wikimedia Summit

• Communication
  • Improving our communication with WM-AR members by providing a monthly newsletter;
  • Delivering monthly reports in Meta-Wiki;
  • Revamping of our institutional identity (new site and videos)

• Elaboration of a 2-year-plan focusing on educational outreach, GLAM collaboration partnerships and a comprehensive professionalization program.

Project goal

To transform Wikimedia Argentina from a volunteer-depending organization into a volunteer-driven organization with professional support to effectively develop both its own goals and those in common with the rest of the Wikimedia movement.

Non-financial requirements

None.

Fit to strategy

We think that the only way to accomplish both the Wikimedia movement’s strategic goals and our own projects as a chapter, which include helping organize other Wikimedia efforts in the region, is by lifting our complete dependence on volunteer work. Even if a huge amount of we’ll be doing in the future will continue to be volunteer work, and we want WM-AR to remain like that, we understand this is at times a limiting factor when having to organize complex activities or when having to deal with paperwork overload, i.e. willing to participate in the global fundraising campaign.

Measures of success

• 2009 and 2010 financial balances approved;
• Monthly reports with a detailed description of activities;
• Fulfilling of all necessary procedures to participate in the global fundraising campaign;
• Delivery of the aforementioned 2-year plan.