Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/AfroCROWD-Championing Communities of African Descent on and in Wikimedia and Improving the relevance of Wikipedia and open technology to communities of Color

Regional Committee feedback and questions

Hello Shanluan, Aliceba and Adjoajo, thanks for AfroCROWD's proposal for general supporting funding for its activities and project between 2022-2025. The US/Canada Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wanted to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review:

• The committee was pleased to see AfroCROWD's focus on Black youth in LGBTQ communities, and are interested in learning more about how you plan to engage with those communities. Does AfroCROWD have strategic partners for this aspect of the project that are specifically tied to those communities and can support that outreach and programming? Alternatively, will any of the Community Organizers specifically focus on those communities?

Our strength is most often in the role of facilitator. That said, we've found our most fruitful connections where needs and goals intersect. Rather than target specific groups, our intent is to create spaces such as online forums where speakers can be invited to connect with users in conversation relevant to the LGBT community and the African diaspora. We anticipate this will allow for a more organic development of a community which is more effectively tailored for the needs of our users. We were primarily going to work with partners on this throughout our programming, but on this, we see the Committee’s point. As a result, we can bring on board a consultant specifically to guide our progress in this area. We would like to ask for an additional $5,000 to support this contracted consultant role. Shanluan (talk) 23:41, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• There is a considerable focus on partnerships in this proposal in relation to a number of activities, and we are excited to see that AfroCROWD has continued to maintain partnerships with a variety of institutions for its work supporting communities in the Africa diaspora. We understand that while each partnership may operate differently, one main goal for AfroCROWD's cooperation with partner organizations is to help amplify AfroCROWD's programs and successes to relevant audiences and communities. Beyond disseminating this information, are there other general goals or expectations for how organizational partners will be supporting AfroCROWD's programmatic work?

AfroCROWD intentionally emphasizes partnerships as a tool to reach our mission goals. We find it an effective way to connect to deeper audiences and expand mutual efforts. In addition to their communication and outreach support, our partners are often an integral part of our programming. This includes event space, food for our events, information resources for our activities, equipment like laptops and internet connection for in-person events and sometimes extra video conferencing support for online events.

We also work with associates, for example in the case of work with the Schomburg Center, for greater content access or to consider programmatic design, trajectory and theme. Working with BLERD, which holds a comics conference, our theme focus was on Black Women Comic Book writers. When working with Mount Sinai Medical Center, our focus was on people of African descent in the medical sciences.

We've been fortunate that collaborators often approach us. We also approach potential collaborators with ideas. They help drive participation as well. Centrally important is that partners share our core desire to improve representation online, support open access, and have compatible objectives. Shanluan (talk) 23:41, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• In terms of your proposed work for communities directly in African regions (especially Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana as they are named in the proposal), are there any Wikimedia movement affiliates or regional organizations you expect to collaborate to support your engagement and coordination with these communities?

While our work focuses on the African diaspora, we regularly partner with Wikimedia user groups and affiliates in Africa. We work together and champion each other. In Africa, we are continuing partnerships with the Wikimedia Community in Africa. For example groups in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. Outside of Africa, we have connected with diaspora African communities of similar backgrounds, including communities from Ethiopia, Kenya and others.

We have worked with Wikimedia groups like Wikimedia Nigeria, Open Foundation West Africa and Wiki Loves Women. We are set to be part of the Wiki Africa Challenge, and have presented and participated at Wiki Indaba conferences. We also believe in mutual connection and support between the African diaspora and the African continent.

In 2019 we even worked with Wikimedia Nigeria, leaders of Wiki Indaba that year, Wiki Caribbean, which AfroCROWD helped develop, and Wikipedia editors at WikiConference North America at MIT, to create a declaration of friendship and support in memorial of the 400 years since the start of the Trans Atlantic Slave trade, and supported one of our organizers who volunteered time in Ghana to organize an international editathon documenting the Year of Return in partnership with OFWA. We aim to continue to grow mutual efforts like this moving forward. In the coming years, we aim to continue to grow with more Africans partners in the Wikimedia Movement and in the diaspora. Shanluan (talk) 23:50, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• AfroCROWD proposes substantive growth in its programmatic work over this multiyear period, especially with respect to its work with partner organizations as well as the addition of new Community Organizer roles the ED will manage. Currently, the Executive Director is tasked with many important roles, including program management, developing organizational strategy, managing volunteers and contractors, reporting, and leading partnership work, among other tasks. This proposal suggests that there will be an increased workload in some of these areas for the ED, but we would like to understand better if your expectations are different or if we have misunderstood how some of these roles and responsibilities are delegated. Will the ED have any additional or different kind of support around their roles & responsibilities in this funding period around their compared to last year?

The projected growth does increase support needed in this area. While the ED planned to work with community organizers to pick up some of the expanded workload, in step with the Committee's observation, we can add a part-time program assistant role to the grant to cover general support. Therefore it would help us to bring on board a contracted part time program assistant at 0.5 FTE for the period who can support the ED’s administrative load and the program in general. The program assistant would assist with the day-to-day operations of AfroCROWD by doing tasks such as filing paperwork, sending mailings, following up and answering community emails and, preparing documents for meetings and partner correspondence. They would also manage the calendar of the community organizers and help them with event follow-up and minor outreach updates. This person would also work in concert with the ED to help plan coming events in line with our stated goals.Shanluan (talk) 23:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• One area of concern from the committee is that some learning questions do not have clear metrics or evaluation methods to understand what progress you may be making towards responding to those needs. For example, it's not clear how AfroCROWD will make conclusions about useful practices or methods for supporting black youth from the LGBTQ community, or how best to reach low-income communities and involve them in the project. The committee would like to understand how you plan to evaluate your work for these learning questions.

We intend to use survey evaluations both on entry and exit of our events to identify progress of our S.M.A.R.T.ER goals and objectives seen here to help identify achievement of our qualitative and quantitative metrics for our programming. This applies to both areas identified here as well as keeping track of self identification throughout our programmatic year and beyond.Shanluan (talk) 23:58, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• Related to your request for multiyear funding, could you please give a brief outline/strategic outlook of your general organizational/programmatic priorities for year 2 and 3 compared to year 1?

Year 1 is dedicated to collecting data and recruitment. Year 2 will focus on implementation and year three focuses on establishing AfroCROWD longer termed connection groups outlined in the table we are providing here.

• Can you elaborate about what kinds of ways participants will learn to “code, analyze data, and set up data security measures using Wiki technology as a gateway option to help close the digital divide”?

Most of the time, wherever we go, the Wikimedia community brings with it skilled volunteers. The Wikimedia Movement is one of the largest volunteer communities with technical knowledge in the world. At AfroCROWD, we want to share this built in, even innate expertise with the communities that we work with. Wikimedian understanding of information, data analysis (think Wikidata), privacy, creative licensing alone are important for anyone dealing with information online, and is important for our new and growing editors as they navigate their Wiki journey and experience. Their learning process for us is one of the more natural and widely available tools to help close and combat the expanding digital divide. Shanluan (talk) 23:50, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

• Please provide more details about your translation projects. What kinds of information or content will AfroCROWD be prioritizing or encouraging participants to translate, and into which languages?

This is largely driven by partnership and interest. We focus on items of importance to the African diaspora, but the subject matter often has to do with what we are working on with partners. For example, we recently worked with the National Science Foundation REU ILLC students at a college in Brooklyn New York on translations. They were linguistic students who all identified as women. We worked with their professor to map out a curriculum that incorporated Wikipedia and identified topics related to their coursework on languages in the African diaspora and related themes for translation, with the aim of closing knowledge gaps between language editions of Wikipedia. The languages chosen can then depend on the languages spoken by the participants, in this case the students, in other cases interested participants.Shanluan (talk) 23:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

We would like your feedback on these questions/comments by Wednesday, 11 May 2022 to support a final decision from the Regional Committee, and please use the talk page here to share your response. Thanks you again for the hard work on your proposal to support AfroCROWD's continued work, and we look forward to your responses! On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Timeline update for funding decision announcements

@Shanluan, Aliceba, and Adjoajo: Due to an unexpected medical issue I experienced earlier in April, I unfortunately was not able to interact with the Regional Committee or generally work during much of April last month. Due to this absence, we were unfortunately not able to provide committee feedback in a manner consistent with our original schedule. Consequently, we will be adjusting the date for announcing a funding decision for your proposal by one week from May 18th to May 25th. This change will help support the time needed for you to review and respond to committee feedback, as well as for the Regional Committee to finalize a funding decision. Please let me know if you have any questions or need clarification over this change in the schedule. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Thank you for your comments and helpful questions. We are loading responses inline. Our very best, Shanluan (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 133,489 USD

@Shanluan, Aliceba, and Adjoajo: Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 133,489 USD with a grant term starting 1 July 2022 and ending 1 July 2023.

The Regional Committee appreciates AfroCROWD’s continuing work to support communities in the African diaspora. We are excited to see the expansion of this outreach to engage new communities, such as HBCUs and communities in the Caribbean. AfroCROWD also has done consistent success in its outreach with a broad set of organizational partners to both amplify their achievements and resource its work. This success demonstrates an important aspect of sustainability in AfroCROWD’s programmatic work and potential for impact. AfroCROWD also demonstrates effective collaborative work with multiple Wikimedia affiliates and communities.

The Regional Committee supports full funding for AfroCROWD for the next year, and an additional 5,000 USD for a contracted consultant role to support its work with Black youth in LGBTQ communities as disucussed on the talk page. The committee also supports AfroCROWD’s original plan to work with partners around your programming with these communities where it may be beneficial or practical.

The Regional Committee did not support AfroCROWD’s request for multiyear funding due to some concerns in the evaluation plan and organizational strategy. The Regional Committee encourages AfroCROWD to apply for multiyear funding in its next application with the following recommendations:

• The committee supports your plans to survey some of the communities you will be working in. AfroCROWD should provide more information on some of the qualitative information it will collect in proposed surveys. A completed or drafted survey with specific questions is not expected for the proposal, but the committee was unclear on how your survey or other data collection would support you to assess (for example) practices for reaching low-income communities, or the relevance of Wikimedia projects with African diaspora communities.
• Related to the above, AfroCROWD should specify some goals related to that qualitative information beyond participation metrics. These goals should relate back to one of the broader purposes of your programs, that is to improve the relevancy of Wikipedia and Wiki technology to people of African descent. In what ways can AfroCROWD assess and report on the relevancy of Wikimedia projects in the communities it works with? How will you know that your programs support improvements in the relevancy of Wikimedia projects in these communities? Over the next year, we are happy to work together with you in considering some approaches to these questions.
• The committee also recommends using some sustainability measures around your participants and partners, such as ones described in the Additional Metrics section. Qualitative approaches to these measures, such as asking about participants’ motivation or goals for attending AfroCROWD’s programs, could also be used. These measures can help establish what outreach efforts are more or less effective in the communities you will work with.
• The strategic plan documents (AfroCROWD Strategic Plan: 2022-2025, Three Year Plan Outline ) highlight very different parts of AfroCROWDs work and should be more cohesive. In the Outline document, AfroCROWD’s goals and general activities are focused on new editor growth over the three-year period, while the Strategic Plan focuses on a broader set of outcomes, but these are not explored in the Outline. While the committee supports AfroCROWD’s goals for new editor growth, the committee would have liked to have seen more consistency in this documents, as well as more consideration of AfroCROWD’s broader goals and learning questions, such as how to improve access to Wikipedia, or what motivates people of African descent to edit or support translation.

We appreciate AfroCROWD’s continued and expanding work to support the needs of African diaspora communities, both actively in and new to the Wikimedia movement. The committee looks forward to working together with you in your future work in these communities. On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:33, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Dear I JethroBT (WMF) and members of the Regional Committee: We appreciate your kind consideration and generous support of AfroCROWD, our global community, work, and vision. We are grateful for the time and thoughtful remarks you put into our application and will endeavor to make your recommended adjustments, especially concerning our evaluations and operational structure. We look forward to future collaboration with you. Thank you for your vote of confidence as we continue in our efforts to champion communities of African Descent on and in Wikimedia and further highlight and increase the presence, pertinence, and relevancy of Wikipedia in our communities.Shanluan (talk) 03:15, 27 May 2022 (UTC)