Grants talk:APG/Staff proposal assessment form v1

Edits and comments

I'm making my through this, in several edits over the next day. Please revert anything that's inappropriate or needs discussion.

• Trimming the wording back
• Intend to merge Feasibility and Risks/concerns—they're so entangled.
• Queries about assessment and rubric (which look mostly excellent ... wow ... this is a powerful statement from the foundation board about best practice for entities!).
• The document speaks both to applicants (who just read) and staff/FDC members (who assess and report). Needs to function in this dual way, so a few links would be good; and I presume it will be translated into other languages along with the application form. Can we have independent auditing of the translations? Surely one can easily find volunteers to do this—for example, to check that "mission" comes out right. Tony (talk) 05:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

More comments:

• Both "entity" and "organization" are used. Could it be consistent? I slightly prefer organization as the more commonly used word. I didn't tamper with this.
• "mission and vision"—I can imagine these two epithets might be mangled in translation. Are they different? Can just one of the two be used (possibly "mission")? Just one niggle is that the V-word can sometimes be personalised by those in charge of an organization (personal vision); but I'm not close enough to this process to know what is intended.
• "strict formula" versus "framework"—this could be clearer. I've inserted "preliminary" before "framework" as a contrast with "strict". In fact, that whole paragraph is wobbly. I took the hatchet to it: please examine.
• "Amounts requested are reasonable given activities proposed"—Please consider tightening it thus: "Amounts requested are reasonable given the anticipated outcomes". There's advantage in encouraging measurement in terms of the planned end-point, not the fluff in the middle.
• "Organization has a track record of success in similar activities"—ok, as long as the "similar" bit is not used to resist innovation. No big deal.
• "on budget / on track"—how are they different? Again, in translation this might cause problems. Why not just "on budget"?
• "to execute on"—not so easy for translators into some languages. I changed to "implement".
• "Activities are unique and could be replicated elsewhere in the movement if successful"—I removed "if successful" to avoid elevating the possibility of lack of success, and replaced it with "later" (replicated). I'm uncertain about the requirement to be unique: so funding can't be sought to implement something either proven elsewhere or being undertaken by another chapter, perhaps if such a good idea it deserves replication before even completed in the original jurisdiction?
• "The organization is ready to share lessons learned with the movement"—ambiguous; I've sought advice on how to get around it.

Tony (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed review and comments. I went through the document and made some edits based on your input. LauraL TBG (talk) 17:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Classy edits in their simplicity. Thanks, Laura. Tony (talk) 08:55, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Evaluation criteria and scoring metric descriptors

Some queries:

• May I suggest that communication between the staff and the applicants—not to mention the FDC, the foundation board, the ombudsperson, etc—would be greatly assisted by numbering the criteria cumulatively? [I've done this.]
• Some of the rating descriptors were too black-and-white, in my view, making extra work for the staff and the FDC and perhaps leaving the door open to wikilawyered complaints by applicants.
• Criterion 1: where are these global targets? A search of meta and the foundation's site yields nothing. Sorry if I'm being dumb. If global targets are simply expressions within a plan of intended outcomes, is cr. 1 much different from cr. 2? I'm confused.
• Cr 2, rating 3: "Some or all of the activities have an unclear relationship to intended outcomes"—I added the first two words. Some of these descriptors are too black-and-white, and will hamstring the staff.
• Cr 4, rating 1: "The organization has had trouble succeeding in similar activities and has rarely achieved desired results" ... what does the last bit mean? I've added "in any activity", which may be too tight (in which case why not remove "and has rarely achieved desired results", since it's vague and probably unnecessary after the first bit). And what is a "similar" activity? Will this militate against innovation?
• Cr 5: "The organization's leadership is stable and committed to the organization's mission and vision"—the metrics don't make a single reference to the organization's mission and vision. I previously linked "mission" and "vision" to the pages expressing the foundation's mission and vision. But I'm wondering whether the intention was this: "The organization's leadership is stable and is committed to the organization's mission and vision plan". [I've changed it thus.] If there's a will to include commitment by leadership to the foundation's mission and vision, could I suggest that it be in a separate criterion ... or somewhere else? Half the board of chapter Z might have qualms about the plan at issue, but be very committed to the foundation's mission and vision; or vice-versa?

• Cr 6, ratings 1–3 (proposed budget): I edited this significantly.
• Cr 7 (budget record). The descriptors are in a mess—they seem to contain three carrots-and-sticks, which are unevenly mentioned in the three descriptors: significant and consistent over-/underspending; proper recording of such; plans to do better (unclear whether that's for the under/over spends or the proper recording, or both). What if a chapter performs badly on underspending but records it well and intends to do better? And let me get this right: it's bad to underspend by 50%, but good to underspend by 5%? I changed ~50% to e.g. 50%, since the range is likely to be huge (as opposed to the ~5% in rating 5.

  I'm confused, yet this is one of the most important sets of signals to be sent to the entities. Suggest it be expressed more flexibly to give the staff and FDC more leeway and to minimize complaints by applicants. On second thought, I've implemented overall performance openings plus for-examples; I've hacked it about.

• Cr 8: I singularised to "each activity": is that the intention? I hacked into the ratings wording.
• Cr 11: I have problems with the framing of unique, vs innovation. So the Indian chapter wants to employ the same methodology for one of its language groups that's been working wonders in Kenya: is it marked down for this? Or the Japanese chapter proposes a scheme for bringing women into the movement that appears to be relevant only to Japanese culture. As rating 1 is worded now, something has to be relevant to "many" other movement groups to avoid this rating.

Tony (talk) 05:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments

I'm doing a few surface copy-edits. Anything substantive I'll raise here. Thus far:

1. I've added "($US)" to the first two columns of table I (roman numerals to distinguish from the application form?).
2. Last column, table I: is this intended to be in $US, as a % variance from the previous year, or in terms of staff numbers (e.g., + 0.5)?
3. Table II, last dimension: I changed "Potential to add new knowledge / innovation to the movement" to "Potential to add knowledge and/or other benefits to the movement". I was also concerned that "innovation" doesn't appear in the related criteria, and the expression was a bit odd. Tony (talk) 01:58, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

A summery of annual plan is needed

I feel there should be a summery of annual plan of the entity applying for fund. The staff proposal does have a section called 'feasibility and risks for the annual plan' but it should be preceded by a summery of annual plan. It could be a descriptive summery of one or few paragraph prepared by FDC support staff & should be based on the proposed annual plan submitted by the entity applying for fund. Additionally, such summery may be used to evaluate whether the activities undertaken in a particular year was according to its submitted annual plan or not. We may also ask for clarification/justification for any subsequent modification/alteration made to the original plan (and this information may also be included in the staff proposal as a separate section of few paragraphs along with summery of annual plan). - Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The application form is a summary of the annual plan isn't it? Or, at least, that part of the plan that the applicant intends to fund with the FDC grant. --Tango (talk) 18:15, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Ideally the application form should be based on annual plan. However, it is a general practice to give executive summery in a report. Since, FDC support staff will be preparing the staff proposal as a report, it should contain a summery as well. It is not necessary to include any financial data or any other details in the summery. However, it should give a description of the activities that an entity is planing to undertake in a year (development programs/activities, regular activities/programs and anything else, like 'the organization is planning to do this and this activities/programs and expect these outcomes'). This summery will also be useful to match with the actual activities performed after the year. --- Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 07:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

If you summarise it any more than it already is on the application form, I don't think you have enough detail left for it to be useful. You definitely couldn't assess outcomes against expectations based on such a summary. The FDC are going to have to read the actual submissions. --Tango (talk) 11:08, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Tango on this, Ali. I think the proposal is, in a sense, already a summation (if not a summary) of the annual plan strategies and programmes, and I don't think it makes sense for it to be summarised here - beyond what we will use to answer the questions around alignment, context, feasibility and so on. The summary of the annual plan that will be used to match (or contrast) with the actual activities will be in the Impact Report (and the draft of that will shortly be at a page near you!). Hope this clears up my thinking on this. --ASengupta (WMF) (talk) 00:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't mean to include a summery as a base for decision making. Obviously the FDC members won't be taking decisions based on a summery. However, it helps as a tool when you are considering a good number of proposals and you have time limitation. From my practical experience, I see this thing saves lot of time and improves decision making as a result. It is common that all the members of a group will not be interested in every part of a proposal in the same manner. They will have interest in different parts/sections according to their background and experience and that is very good because it improves the capability and efficiency of a group by group members complimenting each other. In such case, a summery gives you a quick look of the whole thing and let's you concentrate on the part of your interest quickly - it saves time and energy of a member by not requiring him to read through the entire proposal and find out his area of interest and expertise. There are some other benefits as I mentioned earlier. However, it's not that this staff proposal won't work at all if we don't include a summery. But believe me, it helps me when I am working on multiple proposals at a time in my professional life. -- Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 16:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree that summaries are useful, it's just that the application is already a summary. Everything you say about summaries applies to the annual plan. All FDC members will need to read all the applications, but they will probably only want to read those parts of the full annual plans that relate to areas they are interested and experienced in. --Tango (talk) 01:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)