Grants talk:PEG/WM BE/Budget 2015 S2

Latest comment: 8 years ago by Tony1 in topic Community comments

GAC members who support this request edit

GAC members who support this request with adjustments edit

  1. I know the difficult experience of Belgium to setup a chapter, I know the difficulties connected with the linguistic differences and I am happy to support a chapter like, similar to Switzerland, where the linguistic differences are real and are barriers to the integration and not like a "nuage" of colors in a biggest picture. I will give my questions in the dedicated section. --Ilario (talk) 14:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

GAC members who oppose this request edit

GAC members who abstain from voting/comment edit

  1. MADe (talk) 13:01, 11 September 2015 (UTC), in the board of WM BEReply
  2. --DerekvG (talk) 18:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC) member of the WMBE boardReply

GAC comments edit

I don't have too much to say on the organizational part, it's the first budget, there are some kick-off costs. I would only to ask to be more clear about the communication material. The cost seems to me huge, may you define clearly how many you print? --Ilario (talk) 14:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

It depends on the type of folder, brochure, one pager, cheatsheet, ... etc, on its subject (General, about GLAM, about education, copyright & licensing issues, projects etc. or its intended public : general public, GLAM staff, lecturers & students of a WEP pilot, off-wiki volunteers, newbee wiki contributors etc...
In some case we might get "small size pre releases" in order to test if the material is useful, up to expectation of the public, or it might be translation of existing brochure with a proven track record. If we expect to distribute 250 over the course of the year of a well established brochure we might print 500 pcs, as we are working on the wikiducation pilots we might just need 200 student brochures and see if we need to adapt them for next year, and we might need 10 lecturer brochure but we also need to think about 40 extra to prepare and recruit new schools/lectureres for next years pilots and later we might have to produce them in larger editions.
wikiductaion : we are lookign at 10 one-pagers and 7 mulitpige borchures in a single language (current focus ducth) then english (other languages later)
GLAM we have published currently 2 brochures in 2 languages, 1 in in 4 languages and we need to produce
General we published 2 folders in 4 languages we need to produce 4 more in the next year
Volunteers, we need to establish all printed matter and establish edition numbers
We published cheatsheets on copyright and editing wikipedia in 4 languages , we need shortkly to produce 2 mulitpage brochures in at laest 2 languages and shortly foloowed by the 3rd language
one pagers might be printed for test runs using a color laser printer but folded multi page brochures over and edition of 20 pcs might have to be produced professionally. we will make our best efforts to keep paperwaste to the strictest minimum, but also make larger reusable editions at the lowest (unit)cost possible. Hope that clarifies our approach and how we decide on production--DerekvG (talk) 14:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Community comments edit

Tony1 edit

I'm inclined to recommend rejection of this relatively large bid on the basis that it was posted here 10 days after the start of the project period.

Could you explain the timing? Tony (talk) 09:04, 14 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hey Tony, I take responsability for the delay. It was planned to be launched mid August. Due to technical problems with my colleague @DerekvG:, and a busy period on my work, we were not able to finish the grant as planned. We are volunteers and are not always available to launch a grant request like this one. Sorry for this very brief explanation on the delay. MADe (talk) 17:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, MADe. Could you please set the start-date (and end-date if you wish) more appropriately, then? Tony (talk) 07:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • Measures of success: when it says "Please provide a list of both quantitative and qualitative criteria that will be used determine how successful the project is.", I don't think it intends that you simply repeat the holding/conducting of activities you've asked to be funded. That's not at all helpful to reviewers or staff. What is required is more related to the impact of those activities, or at least something more detailed that is related to movement priorities. Like ... > 40% of attendees female at x event. These items need to be recast or dumped and replaced with more meaningful benchmarks:
    • "Well organised General Assembly (November)" (I certainly hope so—the minimum expectation is good organisation)
    • "Continuous communication to our members;"—what, 24/7? I'd block you from emailing or phone me if I were a member. I'm more interested in the number of community members you'd be pleased to be in ?weekly or monthly email, skype, or phone communication with, and the number of exchanges of information as opposed to mail-outs.
    • "Organisation of a Project Day, attended by 20 people in total"—again, it's not the organisation of the event, but the number you hope for (i.e., please remove the first bit).
    • "5 projects organised directly by WM Belgium or by partners."—vague. Impact? Member satisfaction on feedback questionnaire (see appropriate learning pattern on Meta)?
    • "organisation of 3 public board meetings;"—inappropriate to list as a measure of success.
  • To what extent will you be using your online chapter site as a forum for organising members and activities? I'd be delighted to see a measure of success that you've formed x number of wikiproject-type groups among the members on that site.
  • Again, I'm opposed to back-paying for funding already spent under the assumption that all will be approved in your budget and plan. When we can sort that out, I'll be not in-principle opposed to funding (if a little more detail can be built into the plan, especially in terms of community engagement and hoped-for impact, both on-wiki and off). Tony (talk) 07:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Tony1—mark II edit

I see this application has been re-activated recently after months in abeyance, and that the budget has gone up by some 50%. I note, again, that it appears to be a retrospective application, for the period 1 September until the end of next month. The application first went live after the start of this period, and now we're almost at the end of it. I don't understand; I believe it's extremely bad practice for a grantmaking organisation to fund retrospectively, and the on-again off-again application needs explanation. Could we have some information about this from staff, please?

  1. Has the budget almost entirely been spent?
    No. We have communicated the funds that were already spent. It is mainly costs for brochures and the support for the SOIMA conference. I'm pinging my colleague @DerekvG:to get the exact numbers here.
  2. Under "Activities", there are four bullets of "Planned, no date yet". Will these actually be held in the funding period?
    No. Due to the uncertainty in the budget, these activities were postponed several times. I will check whether we still plan these activities.
    OK, would be good to adjust the application page. Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  3. The "Big Fat Brussels Meeting" was scheduled for last week, but is a red link.
    See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting_-_Episode_3
  4. How many members are there by now?
    We now have 48 members.
    Excellent. I won't bother you now with stats, but it would in future be great to know the linguistic split of members (it's important in terms of the impact on the three WPs, etc.) Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  5. Some of the activities look really worthwhile, although there's not much detail about them. Are there indications of the number of attendees at events that appear to have already happened?
    good idea, I will ask hte organisators to upload the images of the events, and to add a (estimated) number of people present. I can share my experience, and that is that we have not been very good at attracting people at our events. This is a point of attention for the future (hence certain aspects in the budget).
    OK. Do you have a social-media presence (for promoting the affiliate and its activities)? I wonder whether there's a learning pattern on Meta concerning this ... the staff will provide helpful advice if you need it. Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  6. The website is a great start, and I hope you're able to expand it (and make the background more structured and less white) when it's possible. This would be a much better target for spending money than the still-very-large budget for printing (plus trinkets like pens). It is, after all, in support of an online cause, isn't it?
    I agree with you. However there has been a lot of discussion within the board whether to invest this much in printing costs. At the moment we have stopped any new printing/designing expense, as we want to investigate cheaper alternatives (eg. only printing English version documents, reusing documents already made by other chapters, use of "home printed" (low quality) folders, better negiated prices
    OK, I'm glad you've stopped. I don't see the point of any printing, frankly. I'd put all communication online. Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  7. Detail missing from budget: number of people travelling to Dutch, French, and German WM meetings. €900 looks like a rather low budget even for a single person.
    Belgium is centrally located, and a number of our members have a company car, which makes travel cheap.
    Yeah, but Berlin is quite a ride, surely overnight accommodation? Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
  8. I agree with the WMF comment below querying the need for / spending on monthly face-to-face board meetings.
  9. It's a fairly large budget for an average of 8 people attending the events.

Tony (talk) 10:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your comments, Tony. We have a call with the board of WM BE on December 5th to discuss the application and several of the issues you have listed. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 22 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
@Tony1:, I answered your questions. I'll take contact with Kacie. MADe (talk) 18:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for your responses, MADe. I look forward to resolution on the time-range of the proposed project, after your 5 December call with the WMF. Tony (talk) 12:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)Reply

WMF comments edit

It is good to see that you have made changes to the proposal following our phone call last week. As we discussed, it is best to focus on a limited number of promising programs and projects at this time, and to demonstrate that the chapter has the volunteer resources necessary to make those project successful. For the sake of clarity, the proposal should not list activities or programs that have been canceled or postponed.

Activities

Following our call, my understanding is that WMBE will focus on the following:

  • Hold monthly WikiSaturdays/board meetings in Brussels
  • Conduct education program pilot at 2 schools, which includes volunteer led workshops and monthly editing meetups.
  • Do a feasibility study on WiR program with 3 GLAMs
  • Prepare for an online survey to find out what contributors and readers would like to see the chapter focus on

It is not clear if and when the following activities will take place:

  • Mind the gender gap editathons
  • Train the trainer programs for moderators and workshop leaders
  • Online volunteer recruitment and planning mentorship programs
  • Activities within the Community Capacity Development and Volunteer Supporters Network
  • WikiProject days
  • 3 on wiki writing contests (listed in the budget, but not in activities)

It is OK if your chapter has decided to focus on different projects than we discussed, but it is not clear which you will be focusing on for the remainder of this year. Would it be possible to revise the proposal significantly to show, very simply, what activities you are planning to conduct in the coming months, which volunteers are responsible for planning/leading those activities, and the measures of success you will use to demonstrate how those activities lead to desired impact? Please note that the measures of success should include things such as number of program participants, new editors, content created, trainers trained, and so forth.

Budget
  • Line items 3.4 and 3.5 have a total of €500 in the budget for promotional materials for the events. Are those materials different from the €3,000 in promotional materials listed in line 1.7?
  • What projects are included in line 2.4 for € 2,400 for 'Provisioning Projects'?
  • What are the costs related to participating in SOIMA in line 3.2?
  • Please check the numbers in line 3.3, it seems like there may be an extra zero in the carry-over budget column.
  • Is there a reason why postage is included in both line items 1.3 and 3.6?
  • Can you explain the negative numbers in the carry-over column for lines 3.4 and 3.5
  • The request includes a total of €6,500 in printing materials, accounting for nearly half of your total budget. We understand that you need materials in four languages to meet the needs of the Belgian community, however, this is a considerable sum. One way to lower the cost is to print a limited set of materials, or to focus on core languages spoken in areas where you hold activities.
  • Will you be sending an active WikiSource contributor to Vienna for the WikiSource conference?

We appreciate all of the thought that has gone into this proposal, and we do want to support your chapter as it begins a few programs. I am happy to set up a call or work with you more closely to get the proposal into better shape.

response edit

WMBE will focus on the following:

  • Hold monthly WikiSaturdays/board meetings in Brussels -
  • Conduct education program pilot at 2 schools, which includes volunteer led workshops and monthly editing meetups.
  • The a feasibility study on WiR program with 4 GLAMs has been postponed - until 2016 s1
  • To prepare for an online survey to find out what contributors and readers would like to see the chapter focus on : is a very desireable activity but we need extra volunteer manpower for this any expences related to this have been withdrawn and will resurface in 2016
  • our own promotional materials were maintained but the Wikciductaion material are postpned until 2016
  • The "Mind the gender gap"=editathons WMBE is not our the organiser we only support the womensgroup who organise the event s
  • Train the trainer programs for moderators and workshop leaders ( part of wikiducation project)
  • Online volunteer recruitment and planning mentorship programs
  • Activities within the Community Capacity Development and Volunteer Supporters Network
  • WikiProject days : I've proposed they will be integrated with the WMBE Wikisaturdays 1 expence for basically 3 complementary events.
  • 3 on wiki writing contests (listed in the budget, but not in activities) will be postponed

As far as measures of success are concerned we are not focussing on things such as number of participants, new editors, content created, however we are concerned about number of participants in capacity building activities, trainers trained, and so forth.

  • What projects are included in line 2.4 for € 2,400 for 'Provisioning Projects'?
    • As discussed with Alex during H1 the Provisioning project funding item is a micro financing tool through which we fund small projects typically in the order of 500 € or less.
  • What are the costs related to participating in SOIMA in line 3.2?
    • we had a stand presenting Wikimedia at the last 2 days of the SOIMA conference , a very succesfull stand btw, on our activiteis and we had a lot of interest for using wikipedia as a accessibility interface for archived AV materials, the irccom project is one of its outcomes
  • Please check the numbers in line 3.3, it seems like there may be an extra zero in the carry-over budget column.
    • done the 9 was a typo
  • Is there a reason why postage is included in both line items 1.3 and 3.6?
    • different purposes
  • Can you explain the negative numbers in the carry-over column for lines 3.4 and 3.5
    • overspending in the H1 budget on those particular items
  • Will you be sending an active WikiSource contributor to Vienna for the WikiSource conference? no, I intended to go as part of the wikiducation initiative in order to see if we can use wikisource to publish wikiducation syllabi.

--81.243.22.188 15:19, 31 October 2015 (UTC) I was not logged in --DerekvG (talk) 15:48, 31 October 2015 (UTC)Reply

initial budget table edit

Activity Total budget estimated Funding carried over from H1 [T 1] New funding requested Comments breakdown
outreach efforts to our community (Part #1)
1.1 "WikiSaturdays : Organisation of monthly public facing events Including Board Meeting, General Asembly and project day + wikicafe € 2100,00 € 155,00 + 165.00 € € 1.780,00 3x Rent of the venue (400€ per event) and stipend (150€) and refreshments 250 € (combined with project day and GA) (carry over 155 € from H1-3.1 boardemeetings and 165 form project days)
1.2 Organisation project days (2x) € 750,00 € 915,00 € 0,00 Planned in November, In collaboration with Transforma Bxl. Rent of the venue (400€/event) and transport costs (100€), refreshments 250€
1.2 Setup website € 1.070,00 € 1.070,00 € 0,00 Includes website design (800€), cloudhosted website (Drupalgardens, 150€), and cost mail server (120€)
1.3 Communication (postal mail, telephone) € 900,00 € 150,00 € 750,00 Postal mail surveys to education community with pre-paid answer envelope, printing surveys
1.4 Organisation General Assembly (2 time) € 1500,00 €-95.00 € 1595,00 venues 400€. refreshments 250€ stipend 100€
1.5 Advertising on social media € 150,00 € 0,00 € 150,00 Promotion of our Twitter account (budget of 50€ pm).
1.6 Promotion of three onwiki writing competitions € 450,00 € 0,00 € 450,00 Support three writing competitions on the NL, FR, EN, DE wiki projects by giving prices. We plan 3 visits "behind the scenes" in Belgian museums, estimated at 150€ each.
1.7 Preparation and printing of multilingual brochures leaflets a, posters and gadgets € 3000,00 € 0,00 € 3.000,00 Printing of Folders, leaflets, Brochures, and gadgets (stickers, pins, pens, usb sticks)
Tshirts from WMF ? [T 2] (design)
Subtotal part#1 : € 9920.00 € 7725.00
Projects and Micro Grant program (Part #2)
2.1 Organisation Project Day 755.00 € see 1.1 "WikiSaturdays".

--->

2.2 Preparation of Wikiducation pilots € 3.900,00 € 0,00 € 3.900,00 Printing of translated Education Brochures (different printing then in WLA project grant) 3000,€ + travel expences 12 sessions * 75 € =900,00 €.
2.3 Preparation of a Wikimedian in residence projects € 1000,00 € 0,00 € 1000,00 1000.00€ is planned expenditure for the current semester (total of the 4 projects below) Analysis of the project, planning GLAM education, requirement definition and concept, planned activities, staffing, KPI, Grants and budget preparation
€ 250,00 2.3.1- Boekentoren Gent Analysis of the project, Education of GLAM, requirement definition and concept, planned activities, staffing, KPI, Grants and budget total budget estimate for this plan 1000 € of whihc 250,00 in 2.3 for budget S2
€ 250,00 2.3.2- PLantijn Moretus Antwerp Analysis of the project, Education of GLAM, requirement definition and concept, planned activities, staffing, KPI, Grants and budget total budget estimate for this plan 1000 € of whihc 250,00 in 2.3 for budget S2
€ 250,00 2.3.3- Felixarchief Antwerp Analysis of the project, Education of GLAM, requirement definition and concept, planned activities, staffing, KPI, Grants and budget total budget estimate for this plan 1000 € of whihc 250,00 in 2.3 for budget S2
€ 250,00 2.3.4- Collaboration framework agreement for Wikimedian in residence project with minitery for culture felmish gouvernement; Analysis of the project, Education of GLAM, requirement definition and concept, planned activities, staffing, KPI, Grants and budget total budget estimate for this plan 1000 € of whihc 250,00 in 2.3 for budget S2
2.4 Provisioning projects (6x under 150€, 1x under 1500€) € 2.400,00 € 240,00 € 2.160,00 Excludes projects above 1500€, as these will be discussed directly with the WMF in the PEG system
Subtotals part #2 : € 7300.00 € 5140.00
Capacity building of the board (Part #3)
3.1 Organisation regular Board Meetings € 0,00 see 1.1 "WikiSaturdays".
3.2 GLAM : Participation in SOIMA € 2.500,00 € 0,00 € 1.000,00 total participation cost cost, booth see program of SOIMA; Contributions form France 500, Austria 500 and WMNL 500 ( € 1500.00 covered by participating chapters).
3.3 Attendance at meetings of Dutch, French and German WM € 900,00 € 800,00 € 100,00 Transport and accomodation costs
3.4 Wikimedia presence at Open data dag Vlaamse overheid € 400,00 €-160.00 € 560,00 250€ budgetted for promotion (eg. flyers, brochures, banners, installation of booth), 100€ attendance fee, 50€ stipend)
3.5 Creative Commons Belgium organises a conference € 500,00 €-500,00 € 1000,00 250€ budgetted for promotion (eg. flyers, brochures, banners, installation of booth) + 150€ attendance fee, 100€ stipend).
3.6 General Administrative expences € 500 € 0 € 500 copies, postage, official documents etc..
3.7 Attendance to Wikimedia related conferences (Wikimedia Conference, Hackathon) € 600 € 0 € 600 Included budget for hotel and travel arrangements.
Subtotal aprt #3 : € 5400.00 €3760.00
Totals : €22720 € 3875 €16625 financed from 3rd sources € 1500.00


  1. Positive figures are underspending from H1, negative figures are overspending from H1
  2. Belgium is multilingual (see target public) and we will need brochures and printed items atleast in 4 languages to serve all parts of our community, in Dutch, French, German and English. The flyers will be used for different projects, events and activities of WMBE.
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