Grants talk:PEG/Bojana Wiki PG/Wikimedia Start Republika Srpska 2016

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment

1. --DerekvG (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

We understand from an email with Bojana that the Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska have been planning this event since October and were waiting to open a request until they had completed their previous grant report. Normally, we recommend that people submit funding requests two months before a project is set to begin so that there is sufficient time to review and refine the request, and so that grantees can receive funding before the event. We understand that this event has been planned for mid-January over a national holiday weekend so that more people will be able to attend the event. For that reason, we have posted comments before sending the proposal to the GAC so that the applicant can begin to make changes to the request as soon as possible.

1. Update the request to include a program for each day that shows all of the different sessions and activities that are planned.
2. Refine the goals so that they explain what you changes you want to create by having the conference. From reading your proposal it sounds like your two goals are to get new users involved as volunteers in your community, and to give current volunteers a chance to meet offline. For the second goal, you need to explain what kind of outcome you want from having volunteers meet each other offline - is it to have them collaborate on organizing projects together, to teach eachother new skills or something else?
3. Be clear about what follow up strategies you will use to achieve your goals. If you invite 20 people who are new to Wikimedia, what will you do after the event to encourage 10 of them to become new members or active contributors?
4. Develop more descriptive measures of success, with criteria for what changes you want to see within a specific time period. For example, what does a stronger community look like? Does this mean more collaboration between volunteers, new volunteers who participate in or organize events? What does it mean to be a new community member - is it number of edits per month, participation in events or something else? Do you want to see these changes within 1 month, 3 months or 6 months of the events.
5. We understand that holiday times mean that people are in a festive mood and have the free time to come to events, so it makes sense to plan your event at that time. Indeed, people may not want to edit the day after a big party, but in order to fund this request, the Wikipedia 15 event needs to be more than a celebration. You could ask members to give short 'lightning talks' of about 5 minutes about programs or projects they are working on or want to plan, and encourage participants to collaborate with each other. In your follow up survey, you can ask whether participants began work on a new project, or began collaborating with someone as a result of the event.
6. It is a good idea to plan workshops where participants at the first event have a chance to create user names and try out editing, rather than schedule a day full of lectures and talks about Wikimedia. You could set a goal that every participant will create a stub or add an image to an article by the end of the day.
7. Accomodation for participants and organizers makes up 25% of the project budget. Is it possible to lower this cost by having participants share rooms, or providing accommodation only for the night between the two events?

Please let us know when you have made adjustments to the request - we look forward to learning more about this event! Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:42, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Dear Kacie, thank you for your questions. We are sorry for this misunderstandings about ability to aply more that one grant. Please fine our answers:

1. Please find updated request and program at Plan section
2. Main goal of the Wikipedia Day celebration is promotion of Wikipedia in our local community and recruitment of new Wikipedia editors and local User group members. Also, the goal is to join the global celebration of Wikipedia Day. Of course, such activities improve the work of volunteers and face-to-face meeting brings a better understanding between the members. During our last live meeting, three new ideas/projects were aggreed upon. Conference goals are like goals for Wikipedia Day, but we will enter more deeply into topics and projects. Part of participants will be different relative to the event day before. As we wrote in the email. There will be a group of students with their professors who are interested to work on EduWiki project and participate in Edit-a-Thon. (Edu activities will start in February and at this time we are working on concept). A large number of active wikipedians and wikimedians will participate in the planned conference. Many of us have different experiences and knowledge related to different projects in different areas. This will be a chance the share what we know, to get to know each other better and to improve our skills. All this will bring better collaboration in local user group thus providing more fluid execution in our future projects.
3. We will try to involve new people in Wiki things. As we wrote above, there will be a group of students and professors who are already interested to work with us. Conference program will not concern only EduProject but will cover all parts of Wikimedia project as well giving students and others who are not familiar with Wikimedia project or know only about Wikipedia chance to learn about others project (both online and offline) and how to participate in the work of local community. We keep our members informed on all new activities and urge them to participate. We tend to establish permamnet communication channels with our new members so we can provide them with assistance in education or inclusion.
4. Through member relations improvement, we will strenghten our mutual colaboration in different areas. Guided by earlier experience we’ve noticed that after similar live events, members feel more like equals and have greater liberty in presentation of their ideas. Given the fact that some of our members are long term editors of Wikipedia, while others have valuable experiences in other than wiki-projects, idea that in the future our group should develop into a chapter slowly gains strength. This is a long process which requires significant ammount of work and research and that we aim to be a well organized chapter from the very start, we understand implementation of our idea involves extenstive ground-works in this early period. Besides this dual project (Wikipedia Day and one day conference) there are several new ideas and projects being disscussed. Their realization and implementation will serve as a measurement for group development and strength. Regarding your question about time periods used for measurment of member activity, we plan to monitor member activities in longer time segments and create situation overview every three months. New members are all those that join our group during and after the event, but we are particulary focused on number of active members. Given importance of members for a small group such as ours, we dedicate time to each member in order to get acquainted, disscuss his wishes, ideas and availability for participation in our projects. In accordance with answers we get, we try to involve our members in suitable project. New members are welcomed into the group disscussion and do have opportunity of getting familiarized with activities within group.
5. Wikipedia day is not planed to be only a celebration. During 4 hrs there will short video projection about Wikipedia. There will be 3 presentation (one about Wikimedia, one about Commons and CC things and one about our projects). After it, there will be 15-20 individuals who will try editing Wikipedia where one of us will show how to write short article from the start. After that is someone want to try to edit - will be welcome. Also, 3 wikipedians will talk about their experience at Wikipedia. So far, two journalists expressed interest in interview and to cover Wikipedia 15 event (one of them is reporter of national TV station) so we have taken into account interview with the attending media. Furthermore, we will suggest to the attendees to open accounts on some of Wiki projects and will provide advice which Wiki project could suit their needs and interests. Based on their preferences concerning their choice we will offer them participation in concrete activities.
6. As we already mentioned in earlier questions, program of the conference includes creation of new profiles by participants wich will provide them with opportunity to edit one of the wiki projects right there and then.
7. January 15th in Republic of Srpska is a national holiday, the Othodox New Year, day after is also a large religious holiday called Little Christmas while January 7th is Orthodox Christmas celebrated through the Republic. January the 9th is the Day of The Republic while 27th is a great national holiday celebrating first Serbian archbishop and historical figure, St. Sava. As you can see, January is a festive month during which you always have increase in prices generally, from shoping to hotel services. During our budget creation we payed special attention to extent of our expenses. We would like to point out our event is organized during holiday season when, in general, prices of accomodation increase. We decided to implement principle of multiple individuals per single room, where applicable (only one or two individuals can not share a room). In case more explanation and reasons one or two persons can not share the room we will provide them via mail. Despite this the price will be the same. Despite the holiday season we did, however, managed to get a 12% discount in the hotel we are planning to use. We were also provided with free internet service, a single tech support person, part of the equipment and discount on the meals and drinks. All of this contributed towards lowering accomodation expenses and other items. Currently, in average, room for one night per person is 33 euros, with taxes and breakfast. Concidering the holiday season, this offer was the best we were able to come up with. One of the main reasons for merging these two events, that is their day after day execution, was so we could reduce traveling expenses, logistic and promotional materials printing expenses.

Let us know if there is something more we should write and help you for desition. Cheers, --Bojana Wiki PG (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Additional comments

In my initial review, I was confused about who would participate in each event, and what the purpose of each event was. Your responses have given me a better understanding of what your goals and plans are for these events. The budget you have proposed is too high for a small celebration and an outreach conference, and we cannot support the full amount you have requested.

1. We will fund up to 10 EUR per person for the WP 15 celebration. This includes venue, decoration, cake and refreshments. I recommend that you limit attendance to current volunteers and community members.
2. A budget of 856 EUR for a 1 day conference for 20 people is too expensive, especially because it is mostly focused on doing general outreach to teach people about Wikimedia and projects. Other organizations have not seen much benefit from having conferences that are focused on general outreach. In fact, the best way to begin GLAM and Education programs in schools is by having a community member work one-on-one with an educator or staff person at a GLAM.
3. We will fund reasonable travel and accommodation expenses to enable volunteers to participate in impactful projects. This means people who travel should be teaching a workshop, or meeting with someone to plan some future project or collaboration, or have some other clear reason WHY they must travel to attend the event. You should reduce this expense by paying for 1 night of accommodation, or limiting the number of people who will travel.
4. One way to lower your budget is to hold both events on the same day. The first half of the day can be used for some of the sessions listed in your conference agenda followed by a celebration for Wikipedia 15. We recommend that you focus on workshops that teach new users how to edit or participate in projects, sessions to teach existing users how to use new tools, and dedicate time for current and new users to plan future projects and collaborations together. We will approve funding for either light refreshments or lunch, but not both.

We understand that you have been planning this event since October, and that it may be difficult to change plans now. In the future, please talk to a program officer when you begin planning conferences and events so that we can help you plan effective programs and reasonable budgets. Let me know if you would like additional recommendations for ways to revise this plan. Best, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Funding decision

We are pleased to approve this request to support the Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska to meet their goals of increasing the number of active volunteers in their community, engaging teachers and students in an education program, and increase collaboration on projects between volunteers. We appreciate the hard work you put into lowering your budget and setting clear measures of success. In the future, please contact a WMF program officer as soon as you begin planning a project or event that may require funding. We can work with you develop your project plans to help ensure that you have an approved proposal before you make commitments to your community or to vendors. We also recommend that you seek low cost options for food, travel and accommodations in the future. This can include sharing transportation, planning events that minimize the number of nights needed in hotels, and seeking in-kind donations such as food or event space. Once again, thank you for remaining engaged in this process. We look forward to hearing about your event. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 02:04, 18 December 2015 (UTC)