Grants talk:PEG/WM US-DC/Projects 2015

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

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC members who support this request

1. --Ilario (talk) 09:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
2. Beside the fully legitimate purpose and reasonable budget themselves, the people behind as well as my good personal experiences with their work on similar previous projects are good enough assurance for me to support this request.
   — Danny B. 02:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
3. --MikyM (talk) 19:24, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Damnit James, ask for more money and do more things. You have the bandwidth and skillset at WMDC to do so. Kevin (talk) 19:42, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
5. --DerekvG (talk) 14:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC) i will certainly follow this project to learn for our chapters own initiatives
6. Pending provision of the outstanding paperwork on previous requests as outlined by Alex. Craig Franklin (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2015 (UTC).

GAC comments

• I would know if this list is exhaustive for 2015. --Ilario (talk) 09:07, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  • The closest thing to an exhaustive list of programming for 2014–15 is our annual plan, wmdc:Annual plan (2014–2015). This proposal is for what I would call recurring programming; the things we more or less do every month, like our edit-a-thons. We have draft proposals for other, more complex programs under development. harej (talk) 19:46, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
    • Hi harej. Can you give us a brief sense of what those complex programs are? It would be helpful in understanding Wikimedia DC's plans for the the entire year and how these activities fit together. I know you are proposing to host a Diversity Conference, do additional train the trainer workshops, and work on specific GLAM partnerships. Any more details and a brief explanation on why you will be submitting separate grant proposal would be great. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
      • We are preparing separate grant proposals because we would like to give the Grants Advisory Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation an opportunity to review each program in depth, allowing you to judge each program on their impact relative to cost. This also allows us to space out the proposals, giving us more time to investigate and develop them. This current proposal represents our established, low-risk programs that we (and many others) have experience with. Subsequent proposals will be for our trainings (to be submitted later this month), our cultural partnerships program (to be submitted in January), and the Diversity Conference (to be submitted in February). The trainings will probably be held in early March, the cultural partnerships program will run from April 2015 to April 2016, and the Diversity Conference is scheduled for June. A lot of details need to be worked out before we can submit these proposals, and so I'd like to make sure that the proposals are the best they can be, and that there is enough of a chance to review each individual program. harej (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

WMF comments

Thank you for this detailed proposal. I just re-read your Annual plan for Fiscal Year 2014-2015 and it definitely helps to put this grant request in the larger context of what you are planning. I would encourage GAC members interested in this request to review the Annual Plan. Please see our comments below:

1. While this stand-alone request is quite modest (although there is an increase in editathons over last year), we understand you are planning for a year-long cultural partnerships program. Considering WMUS-DC's history of success in partnership with GLAM institutions to hold editathons, an obvious next step would be to partner on more systematic content donation projects and training sessions. We're excited to see this is the plan and look forward to your proposal.
2. We are also encouraged to see a shift in responsibilities on the board and a focus on developing a broader membership strategy.
3. We appreciate that WMUS-DC is serving a crucial role as the fiscal sponsor for the Art & Feminism project and that you plan on organizing the 2015 Diversity Conference. Do you plan to specifically focus any of your editathons on gender gap-related topics?
4. Please put a summary of your measures of success (some of which are mentioned under the related projects) under the "measures of success" heading.
5. We'd like to especially thank you for your efforts to let the community know about this grant proposal -- posting notices on multiple mailing lists and Wikidata.
6. While we understand your rationale for splitting up your projects into multiple grant requests (4?), we should think together about how you can move towards a planning process that allows you to develop a grant request that encompasses your annual activities.

Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. To answer your question, we are planning our Art and Feminism edit-a-thon for March. We will probably have other edit-a-thons dedicated to improving the coverage of notable women as well. harej (talk) 22:05, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Great. We actually track the amount of the budget allocated for gender gap activities, so any estimate would be helpful. Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

As for the measures of success, the current text under that heading reads "Number of institutional partners, number of participants (active editors, all editors, all people), number of events, number of edits, number of bytes added and removed, number of new/substantially improved articles, number of total articles edited, number of Wikidata project prototypes developed, number of Wikidata entries improved." Please let me know if there are planned activities for which there are no clearly discernible measures of success. Thanks, harej (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi harej. Yes, those are good measures of success, we just need the estimated numbers associated with them. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Alex, I have added numbers, some based on explicit goals set and others based on extrapolation from metrics for the past year (assuming a linear rate of growth). I also changed the start date to January 15. harej (talk) 00:52, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, harej. We are ready to approve once we've received the outstanding expense documentation from the three open reports (WikiConference USA Scholarships, Annual Plan 2014, and Train the Trainers). Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Updated budget

Please note that I have increased the small grants budget by $500 (to $1,000). We are expecting more demand, having recently approved a grant for an edit-a-thon in Hawaii in January for $300 (plus t-shirts) and anticipated applications for events in Colorado and Maryland. harej (talk) 22:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

You might anticipate one or two small requests for events in Portland, unless the Cascadia Wikimedians User Group receives funding of its own beforehand. Just a heads up. I appreciate and thank DC for their past support. -Another Believer (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2014 (UTC)