Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Argentina/Proposal form

Mistakes in the proposal page

• Budget 2016: Number of people attending to Wikimedia Conference on behalf of WMAR in April 2016 are 3 people not 3x4
• Budget 2016: The total amount of staff expenses expected is 1,192,604.90 instead of 1.192.611,45
• Overview section in the proposal: The total of staff expenses in the following table must be USD 123.167 instead of USD 123.200. This change does not change the ratio of increase. However the correct table is the following:

Rate of growth: comparing budget 2015/2016

	2015 budget	2016 budget	% of increase	Total increase
Programs	65.389	84.532	29%	19.142
Administration	31.858	33.915	6%	2.056
Staff	117.350	123.167	5%	6.317
Total	214.600	241.614	13%	27.014

Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Anna Torres (WMAR), are these changes you would like to make to the proposal form? If so, given the mistakes, please correct with strikethrough text. Thank you! KLove (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 13 October 2015 (UTC)!

Hi KLove (WMF)! Thank you! Done it!--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 14:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi WM-AR, just to check - I think that the title of the expandable box in section 6.2.2. Long-term Community Support Program's target: scaling up program is incorrect, it says "Long-term GLAM Program's target" but it is in the "Community Support" section, not the GLAM section. It's not a problem, I'm just a little confused :-) Wittylama (talk) 11:10, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Wittylama you are right! Thank you! Check it and changed! Hugs--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 12:33, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi, we found another mistake in our proposal that is important to point out. Here comes the table 1 correct: Table 1

	Currency requested	US$
Total expenses for the upcoming year	241.614 USD	241.614 USD
APG funding requested for the upcoming year	241.614 USD	241.614 USD
Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year	212.000 USD	212.000 USD

--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments

Thanks for your proposal which enables us outsiders to follow you promising developments in WMAR. First three general comments:

• your proposal is hard to read (and grasp) with the huge amount of text and frequent Expand boxes. Also have you left out the summarized Global metrics box that was expected.
• Why have you included a request an increase in funding from FDC when you got a fairly good one last year which you then stated would becoma a sustainable level of funding? And even with many good activites in the plan, I can not see the rationale for this increase.
• while your targets and Goals could be seen as about OK, I would expect from a mature chapter like your to have even more evolved and impact related tagets and goals. Could you elaborete on this issue please?

Comment per program

• GLAM. I find it OK/good and have no comments
• Community support. I am pleased to see you have defined this program and elobarated on it. I see it as an important program and that you in your thoughts are on the right track. But even so I see you goals/targets a bit passive and more focued on enablers then "real" results. I also wonder if you have really looked into examples of what other chapters do in this area, I miss some of the ones being found very effective by others.
• Education. I read what you write and get confused. A broad experience from almost all chapters working in this activity area is that the impact is much less then could be expected. Except for Uni level the articles produced is not good enough and the acticivty from users disappears as soon the class ends. Also that the workload on the community becomes quie a burden to fix all substandrad articles released by "newbee" students. Are you experince som much different from this general one, and why could this be so then

Anders Wennersten (talk) 14:13, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear Anders Wennersten, first of all thanks so much for your questions.

1. Regarding the first comment, let me explain you WMAR’s strategy regarding this proposal. We understand there is so much information it may be hard to read (sorry!) but we tried to organize everything in a coherent way to give the FDC and assisting WMF staff everything they can need to assess our proposal.

Our main goal is to reflect in the proposal a sustainable path for WMAR’s in 2016 in the short and long term. What we do understand as planning? For WMAR, planning is the process of formulating specific objectives according to the reality of the context, that are the answer to main objetives, which can be quantitative and qualitatively measured, developed from activities according to this reality and that impact in results.

According to this definition we have developed this proposal as follows:

1. Diagnosis: What we have done over the past year? What have been our results? What is our long term goal? Which is our current context? Which are the needs assessments coming from the community? It refers to this specific part of the proposal: here

2. Strategic lines: What we do expect as results from our programs? How are we going to address these expectations? Find them here

3. Strategic approaches: Which strategic approaches frame our main and specific objectives into concrete actions?. Find the strategic approaches here

4. Strategic objectives: How are we going to address our main objectives according to our expected results per strategic line? Find the strategic objectives from GLAM participation and content strategic line here

5. Projects (or specific activities): How can we address our main and specific objectives through long term sustainable projects? How can these projects approach the short-term results expected and improve movement learning? Check the project Increase participation from GLAM program here

6. Activities: How are we going to implement our objectives into projects and projects into activities? How are we going to address specific results? How can we make our projects long-term sustainable? Check the activities proposed for Increase participation project from GLAM program here

7. Evaluation: How are we are going to measure our impact? Which are our quantitative and qualitative measures? How are we going to measure our projects or activities in the short and long-term? Find an example in the section What are the results expected and how will we measure them? Quantitative and qualitative metrics here

We understand that this presentation can be the optimal exposition method or the one you would have preferred. We learn from every FDC process and all the comments are more than welcome. We struggled to build a stronger proposal than last year, both in substance and in terms of its readability, and surely we will do our best in the future to incorporate all valid suggestions and corrections.

Our main objective was to be able to explain the process of construction of the strategic planning of WMAR from the initial assessment to the final evaluation of activities through the formulation of our programs and our strategic guidelines.

In relation to Global Metric’s table, we understood, perhaps wrongly, that we were expected to express the metrics by program and not in full. We can modify this, if required, to provide you with a clearer big picture.

2 The increase we are requesting represents +13% than 2015 and is lower than the request we have done for 2015 in comparison with 2014. This is basically because two main reasons:

1. In Argentina there exist two macroeconomic variables that affect directly to our organization costs: inflation rate & currency exchange rate. Ir order to have a quick overview, the annual inflation rate in 2013 was about 28% and in 2014 closed to 38%; for 2015 it is estimated to be near the 30%. If you observe the devaluation rate, during 2014, the Argentine peso has been devaluated only 20%, and if we analyse the accumulated rate (YTD), it is about 9%. What does this mean? That the inflation rate is annually above the currency exchange rate. Part of the organization increased costs (+25%/30%) is covered with the annual devaluation when we itemize the budget in dollars, but there exists another part that necessarily has to be covered with an increase in the annual Grant request. For this reason we have requested to FDC a +13% than 2015 that in pesos represents a +28%.

2. For 2016 we are planning to do new virtual activities (as we had described along the programs). Although we know that these activities/projects are more expensive than others, we realise that are necessary for our organization in order to generate longer term engagement between WMAR & the community.

3. WMAR believes that its objectives are consistent with its context and with our effective past capability to deliver results. When contrasted with 2015, our goals for 2016 mean a realistic increase in terms of results and impact:

• In education we expect a +100% increase regarding articles created, edited or improved by images by improving the involvement of teachers and students to our project.
  
• In GLAM we expect at least a 40% of growth in terms of articles created and improved and we expect to maintain the high ratios of released images obtained in the last semester. Last year between 1500 and 3000 images/pictures/documents were planned to be released but finally +7000 documents have been released. We hope to maintain this figure, which seems consistent for the work we have done with our cultural partners. However we expect to improve our work by empowering and engaging new partners, assist the first WIR and address new Wikimedia projects.
  
• We remain committed to bringing the Wikimedia Argentina’s projects and activities to new publics and diverse audiences, to involve these newcomers as users and afterwards as editors. We know that the editors’ retention rates are a difficult aspect to address in Wikimedia but we can never have that goal in mind if we do not develop the correct strategy and activities that encourage newcomers to the movement as well as listening to the demands of current active editors to remain active. From this point of view, WMAR focus its activities to build a larger and wide community of editors.
  

Finally, we would like to remember than no matter their good will and our ability to relate with very important cultural and education partners, Argentina remains a developing country and their available resources (financial and technical, but also human, in terms of staff and training) are typically way more restricted than those you could find in an equivalent European or American GLAM or educational organization. This forces us to be very prudent in our expectations and to consider that our staff and volunteers could have assist in all kind of tasks that would normally be expected to be done by the institutional partners.

This general situation, of course, does slow down results. But we have promised realistic outcomes in the past years and we have delivered them, in many cases exceeding our base expectations. We intend to continue in our prudent but consistent growth path.

Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 14:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Comments per program

Thanks again for your comments, Anders Wennersten

Wikimedia Argentina obviously draws on the experience of other chapters to develop their programs, but we also have a very different context . Many of our activities from our program of community support are the answer to the interests detected in our own community . We have great expectations placed on the actions we have planned in this new program and look forward to the expected results. Similarly, we know that reformulations may be done along the way. We maintain a good relationship with the rest of Wikimedia chapters, with which we will work whenever necessary to learn from their actions and reorient our activities to better results. In any case, if you find any missing step we are open for input to strengthen the implentation phase.

Regarding the Education Project, Wikimedia Argentina consistently addresses the expected results. During the last year and also in 2014 we realized what activities can confront the high school students comparing to uni students. You can find the different activities proposed here. We do not propose the same activities for different audiences. Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia in particular can be improved in different ways. Wikimedia Argentina also focuses an important part of its work in education in training teachers through the online courses we offer. In this sense we are very aware of how much it cost to the students to edit correctly. In this sense, we've established specific measurement indicators and specific activities (find the measure ratios in this link

We also want to note that WMAR has a sustainable and planned Education program, with activities aimed away from being isolated and focused in improving the incursion of new editors, both teachers and students in Wikipedia and its sister projects. Here we can refer to our past experiences and results:

• Building educational strategies and positioning WMAR's Education program here
• EduGlam program, more information on this post
• Editing contests for students (so far (ongoing) 40 new articles created or improved) here
• Some information regarding our online course can be found here

Most of our information is in Spanish. We are able to give you more accurate information in English if needed.

Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

questions from FDC staff

Hi there, friends and colleagues at WMAR, thank you for submitting your APG proposal this round. The FDC staff have some questions that we'd like to know more from you. If any of these is unclear, please let me know.
Many thanks for your responses! Warmly, KLove (WMF) (talk) 22:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Anna, for the detailed responses! I have two further questions, which I've noted inline. Thank you, friends! KLove (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your questions. Find under each question, WMAR's answers.

1.What is the total amount you will spend on staff and volunteer travel?

Regarding programs:

Wikimedia Argentina allocates part of its travel budget to promote the meeting of the staff and community. According to the programs, travel funds are distributed as follows:

• Education Program: 2 meetings in at least two communities that drive the education ambassadors project, with the participation of at least one person from the staff. Estimated amount: USD 1,239.00 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  
• GLAM Program: Meetings with inner cultural institutions with the participation of the WMARs staff or to support Wikimedia Argentina community in its volunteer role within cultural institutions outside Buenos Aires . The program promotes improving the presence of Wikimedia Argentina in cultural institutions around the country within the aim of improving the presence in the Wikimedia projects regarding Argentina’s culture and heritage. Including new cultural institutions (two as much) into our digitizing project or our Institutions takes GLAM! project is one objective we want to achieve during 2016. The amount spent on this program for staff travel is: USD 2788.00 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  
• Community Support Program: we hope to encourage participation and build a more inclusive community, to involve new editors, support volunteers projects and strengthen existing communities. For this program WMAR has budgeted the following regarding travel:
  
• Strengthening communities: two trips during the year. Estimated amount: USD 4028.00, (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  

• Can you clarify: is this domestic travel to visit those two communities? KLove (WMF) (talk) 00:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear KLove (WMF), yes, this refers to domestic travels, as it follows:

Rosario city: current prices as of 22.10.2015

	Per Unit	Unit	Total ARS	USD
Tickets travel 1	1.358,00 ARS	3	4.074,00 ARS	USD 421,00
Hotel	587,00 ARS	3	1.761,00 ARS	USD 182,00
Travel allowances (meals&insurances)	420,00 ARS	3	1.260,00 ARS	USD 130,00
Tickets travel 2	1.358,00 ARS	3	4.074,00 ARS	USD 421,00
Hotel	587,00 ARS	3	1.761,00 ARS	USD 182,00
Travel allowances (meals&insurances)	420,00 ARS	3	1.260,00 ARS	USD 130,00
Total Rosario			14.190,00 ARS	USD 1.467,00

Mendoza city: current prices as of 22.10.2015

	Per Unit	Unit	Total ARS	USD
Tickets travel 1	2.413,00 ARS	3	7.238,00 ARS	USD 748,00
Hotel	587,00 ARS	3	1.761,00 ARS	USD 182,00
Travel allowances (meals&insurances)	420,00 ARS	3	1.260,00 ARS	USD 130,00
Tickets travel 2	1.358,00 ARS	3	4.074,00 ARS	USD 421,00
Hotel	587,00 ARS	3	1.761,00 ARS	USD 182,00
Travel allowances (meals&insurances)	420,00 ARS	3	1.260,00 ARS	USD 130,00
Total Mendoza			24.783,00 ARS	USD 2.560,00

Total travel expenses for strengthening communities	Total ARS	Total USD
Total amount	38.973,00 ARS	USD 4.028,00

Thank you for your question. Let us know if you might need any other clarification --Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 16:23, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

• Giving support to volunteer travel: we plan to provide scholarships to volunteers living far away from our office and are not in conditions to afford the costs by themselves and so they can participate in differents WMAR activities. Estimated amount: USD 1859.00 (includes only travel tickets)
  

Total amount expected to be spend it in travels: USD 9.914,00

Comparing to the total amount requested, this amount represents the 4% of the budget

International Cooperation:

WMAR presence in international events has been budgeted as follows:

• Wikimedia Conference 2016: 3 participants on behalf of WMAR. We estimate less than USD 3.000 per person. Only the ticket is estimates in USD 2.000 for each. The total amount requested is USD 7.746,00 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  
• Wikimania 2016: 3 participants on behalf of WMAR. For this, we estimate an amount per person barely below Wikimedia Conf just because Italy is cheaper than Germany. In total, we estimate an amount of USD 6.816 Comparing to the total amount requested, this amount represents the 7,5% of the budget.
  
• Iberoconf 2016: 2 participants on behalf of WMAR. Estimated amount budgeted USD 3.718,00 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  
• Iberocoop: In order to strengthen the relationship with regional chapters and increase the synergy between us, working together and designing strategic activities for LATAM, we plan to have an amount of money available if we all decide to arrange a meeting during 2016 to do a particular cross activity connecting the chapters with each programs. The amount estimated is USD 5.756 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)
  

Total amount expected to attend to international WMF events: USD 24.036,00

Comparing to the total amount requested, this amount represents the 10% of the budget.

Specific events:

Wikimedia Argentina wants to continue improving the presence of its programs through participation in specific events. In this regard, we believe that we have a mature Education program that can serve as an example in the community. We intend to participate through our Education program at any annual meeting boosted from WMF for program leaders (eg last year in Edinburgh).

For this reason we have budgeted USD 2,582 (includes all travel expenses: tickets, health insurance for travelling, hostings & meals)

Total amount expected to attend to specific events: USD 2.582,00

Comparing to the total amount requested, this amount represents the 1% of the budget.

Item	Total amount
Regarding programs	USD 9.914,00
International Cooperation	USD 24.036,00
Specific events	USD 2.582,00
Total amount	USD 36.532,00

2. What is included in the line item, “Supporting material for WMAR's community”?

The support provided by Wikimedia Argentina during 2016 to its community and volunteers rangs from institutional support to free trainings and to improve the access to the tools they might need.

In this sense this category covers the following items:

• Business cards for volunteers to lead a project: (At least five people) = USD 58
• Entries for specific events (if required, at least 5 during the year)= USD 600
• WMAR photo camera to cover events by volunteers or WMAR projector /light cannon to implement program’s activities= USD 1299,00
• Merchandising for volunteers and the community= USD 625,00

Total amount requested: USD 2.582,00

3.What is the total amount you will spend on printed materials and merchandise? Can you explain how these printed materials and merchandise will lead to more impact?

The total amount requested for merchandising and printed material by WMAR comes as follows:

Program	Item	Total amount	Comments
Education Program	Wikibooks	Each Wikibook: USD 10,35 Total amount: USD 2.582,00	We expect to reach 700 students directly or indirectly in the classroom during 2016. The Wikibooks are the name given to common school notebooks. Every one (250 in total) is given to the students when having an activity in the classroom.
	Wiki Education KIT	Pens, bags broochs & sticky flyers Each KIT: USD 5,00 Total amount: USD 2.323,00	Includes regular merchandising for trainings, workshops, wikiambassadors or attendees to lectures and online courses students.
	Other materials	Total amount: USD 1.033,00	Printed education manuals for educational institutions.
GLAM Program	GLAM merchandising and publications	USD 3.615,00	WMAR hasn’t got specific merchandising for the GLAM program within participants neither cultural partners. However even more important is to have available and printed our activities regarding the GLAM program as specific manuals to favor its implementation.
Community Support Program	Merchandising for the community	USD 625,00	Specific merchandising for the community to attend events on behalf of WMAR.
Total amount		USD 10.178,00

(Sorry for posting this here; I can't quite figure out the best place to do so). I have a further question about the GLAM merchandising. You note that the line item for GLAM merchandising, which totals USD 3.615,00, doesn't have specific merchandising set yet. Do I understand correctly that you expect that this line item will be spent on printed materials and brochures about your activities? KLove (WMF) (talk) 04:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear KLove (WMF), sorry for not posting in advance the detail regarding GLAM merchandising. Please find it in the following table:

Printed material for GLAM activities

	Per Unit	Unit	Total ARS	USD
Printed material for face to face activities	12 ARS	900	10.800,00 ARS	USD 1.115,7
Printed activities manuals for new editors	200 ARS	15	3.000,00ARS	USD 309,9
Printed manuals for the community and partners regarding GLAM activities	12 ARS	350	4.200,00 ARS	USD 433,9
General merchandising (pens/pencils/stickers)	15 ARS	350	5.250,00 ARS	USD 542,4
Stickers for positioning GLAM brand	7 ARS	350	2.275,00 ARS	USD 235,00
GLAM merchandising for online course participants and other cultural partners	10 ARS	150	1.470,00 ARS	USD 151,9
Kits for new editors	400 ARS	10	4.000,00 ARS	USD 413,2
Kits for GLAM volunteers	400 ARS	10	4.000,00 ARS	USD 413,2
Total amount			34.995,00 ARS	USD 3.615,00

Hope this description helps. Hugs--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Having a good merchandising is important to complement the actions of Wikimedia Argentina.

At the education level, the program is more mature and designed in terms of content, yet teachers need more specific manuals and tailored tutorials. We believe that by designing these manuals supplemented with new educational portal, teachers will have the resources needed to carry out successful activities in the classroom. It is no coincidence to aim to be printed material. Teachers in Argentina prefer, still, paper manuals with which can also draw if needed, when the lack of internet appears (in some areas, quite often)

For students Wikimedia is still a strange brand. They receive and perceive many and diverse information through technology and internet. With the merchandising WMAR intends to stay in the classroom, through everyday objects.

Unlike the education program, the GLAM program is not yet known within the cultural sector. Even having very important partners we do feel they haven’t still developed a real sense of belonging within the GLAM program.

GLAM program is been designed, as can be seen in the proposal, through concrete actions and specific activities that only belong to it. It is necessary to position the brand, to position Wikimedia Argentina within the cultural institutions and so, generate a sustainable network around the program. Therefore we will design manual’s activities, what they are, what we intend with them and how we can coordinate actions together with cultural institutions.

The cultural sector in Argentina is a deprived level resources sector. That's no excuse to have good results but we can not claim to embrace the cultural world globally. We want to consolidate and intelligently add new partners to our program.

In this sense go to meetings, giving lectures or sending via email information about the program is considered by WMAR as a good strategy to enhance our contacts and coordinated way to open new work opportunities.

Finally the Community Support program is the new program for 2016. Both the community and the volunteers should feel identified with WMAR to build project managers, editors, volunteers to give talks etc. with a long-term bonding.

The merchandising is necessary to generate this sense of belonging. The volunteer, the community, needs to receive something back for its work. The merchandising is only a very small part to support the community and to build a strong network of collaboration.

Thank you again for your questions. Please let us know if there is any other question you might need us to answer. Hugs! --Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 22:17, 18 October 2015 (UTC)