Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/GSF WikiDZ 2024

Feedback

I read Wikimedia DZ proposition and I found it very solid. This rather little group has been active for many years and very effective so far. I thought the description of the planned program very well done, it seems reasonable, achievable, and impactful. Costs and timeline associated were very coherent, well aligned. Budget is limpid and whilst I did not go into deep details, seemed straightforward. I enjoyed the clarity of their proposition which shows they know what they can do, and how. Anthere (talk) 12:50, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Dear Wikimedia DZ:

Thank you very much for your proposal, describing your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Regional Funds Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wishes to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review.

The committee appreciates that this program focuses on raising awareness on topics in Algeria.

It would be supportive of the Committee’s understanding of your plans if you’d be so kind as to elaborate on our following specific few questions:

• New participant outreach. The committee is curious to learn more on how you plan on reaching out to new participants for the writing workshops, sports and Algerian women workshops. They notice that you have been active for many years and yet there has been modest growth. May you share what has been the rationale or reason for this?
• Budget-related questions. After reviewing the budget, the committee had a couple of questions with regards to your budget for your elaboration:
  • Audio visual project. The committee noticed that about 35% of the budget will be spent on the audio visual identity for Algerian articles. The committee is curious to understand the need to purchase a high cost and 4K professional equipment. What is the importance of publishing professional videos on Wikimedia projects that rely on text and images only? While this is an interesting project, is there any way that this amount can be decreased or re-distributed? Meanwhile, there are other important activities (such as workshops) where the expenses are less and there are not enough details about them.
  • Staff compensation. The committee would appreciate that you elaborate on the rationale for the relatively high salary compensations for staff.
  • Request for clarification. May you share more on the following line items in your budget:
    • Rente evaluateur (3 min par Ateliers )
    • Honoraires de l’animateur Seance Photo
• Recruiting and retaining volunteers. The committee is interested to know more on how your proposed activities will recruit or retain volunteers.
• Bringing in women and underrepresented participants and editors. It would be interesting to understand further what are your strategies and approach to bringing in women and underrepresented participants and editors. Do you have available data on gender within your communities? Will you implement any affirmative actions to achieve gender diversity within your programs and communities? (ie. gender quotas, specific pieces of training aimed at women, child care, creating tailored programming that allows these audiences to contribute more easily, etc.).
• Partnerships. May you share more on who you intend to partner with regarding other Wikimedia affiliates/entities? Also, is there any intention to work with gender-focused groups such as les sans pagEs or other gender-focused Wikimedia initiatives in Arabic for the activities focused on gender?
• Community health and inclusivity. What are the measures that you are taking to maintain or improve community health, safety, and inclusivity?
• Community engagement and feedback. How do you plan on incorporating the community and getting feedback on your work throughout the year?
• Timeline of activities. According to the timeline, some activities are scheduled before the start of the applied grant (in May and June 2024), however they are still considered as a part of the proposed program. May you elaborate further on this?
• Hiring process. The committee would like to learn more about your recruitment process. Will you hire individuals who are not members of the user group or members of the executive team?
• Regional conferences. How will you select from your group who will attend regional conferences? What is the process to make this decision?
• The committee recommend that you organize your proposal to show the main challenges that your application is addressing, the areas that you want to focus on and the activities per area. This will allow you to see and measure change. You may also want to prioritize activities, given that this is your first annual grant and you need to assess this against your capacity.

Regarding the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by the 1st of May 2024. After this time, the Regional Committee will begin a final review of the proposal to make a formal decision.

Thanks again for your work on the proposal and for supporting our review. On behalf of the Regional Committee, Azogbonon (talk) 20:49, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Dear Regional Committee

Thank you very much for reading our proposal and asking pertinent questions. We appreciate your insight into our proposal.

The group debated the responses in order to provide you with point-by-point explanations that were as basic and clear as possible, and these are the answers to the questions.

• New participant outreach.

For our community group, WikiDZ. Previously, the group focused on acquiring knowledge through one-off events, without retaining members.

This is our new approach:

We're going to focus on our actions. We'll attract participants interested in specific topics through personalized invitations.

We'll engage participants through interactive activities. We'll use a remote dashboard and social media to reinforce e gagement during events.

We'll engage participants after the event. Keep links active through online workshops, video interviews and capturing event highlights.

Focus on participation. Local seminars and educational events can broaden reach, but don't force people to attend.

It's essential to set up a formal management team to oversee the various aspects of the organization.

• Budget-related questions.
  • Audio visual project.: The project is to improve the quality of Algerian articles on Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia. The project aims to create high-quality audio and video content to supplement these articles. This will make the information more engaging and trustworthy for readers. The project is requesting funding for equipment and training to achieve this goal.The equipment requested is the bare minimum required to produce acceptable audiovisual output. Investing in high-quality materials is critical to guaranteeing the project's success and endurance, especially considering its emphasis on all human-free knowledge value. Relying on experienced members of the project team can improve strategic planning and execution, reduce risks, and increase the chances of significant outcomes. Also, it will help the Wikimedia Algeria members to document all the activities and events with high-quality. While the committee's worry regarding budget allocation is understandable, it is critical to ensure that the projected expenses are consistent with the project's objectives and long-term vision. That is why we cannot determine how you calculated 35% of the audio equipment, while calculations imply only 17%.
  • Staff compensation.: We have assessed our human resources requirements: 2 paid staff, the salary is calculated on the basis of the Algerian minimum allowable salary, which is acceptable for good and reasonable remuneration. The first position of project manager is partially remunerated at the equivalent of 20 hours a week, half the legal 40 hours in Algeria; And the second at 5 hours a week, one 8th of the legal Algerian rate. The hourly cost is calculated at less than half of what a social networking manager can earn per hour. The rate does not exceed 20% of the total budget
  • Request for clarification.
    • Rente evaluateur (3 min par Ateliers ) : Small gift for 3 evaluators as minimum (min= minimum)
    • Honoraires de l’animateur Seance Photo : Remuneration for photo lessons with our participants
• Recruiting and retaining volunteers. :

Our plan for recruiting and retaining volunteers is simple. It involves a mix of workshops and social media.

Attracting new volunteers: highlight the educational and collaborative aspects of the projects, like Wikipedia attracts contributors.

Offer attractive workshops, so participants feel like they belong.

Highlight the impact of the work done, and invite them to continue. To keep volunteers involved.

For the long term, which is the hardest part. By getting feedback and making changes to our plans to keep volunteers committed. If we keep just one volunteer, we're doing well.

• Bringing in women and underrepresented participants and editors.:

Algerian society is inclusive by nature, and this is visible in all aspects of social life, even if it isn't clearly expressed.

Our workshops on writing articles about women: translating existing articles about women and creating new ones to celebrate their achievements. They have identified a list of under-represented Algerian women and articles in French that need to be translated into Arabic.

Our local language development projects are a demonstration of what we're doing in this direction, the creation of the Algerian and Mozabite Darja dictionary for example.

Our recruitment will be geared in this direction, our partnerships are quite thoughtful because we have provided inclusive premises, and we want to develop this further to learn more if the opportunity arises for us to launch learning sessions and detect what can still be improved in the continuous learning and application of our strategy in parallel with the 2030 strategy.

• Partnerships.: Although we've experimented with partnerships in this direction before, for our first year of activity based on a fully subsidized program on a GSF, we saw ourselves starting with a modest approach while focusing on building the group's capacity and experience to launch into establishing collaborations in the coming years. For this first test year, the group will focus on local projects, participate in global but locally organized competitions, and at the end of the cycle, evaluate our organization, adjust it, and broaden the spectrum, because to establish collaborations we need to have something to offer that we'll have to build on in the first year of operation.
• Community health and inclusivity.:

We have already established a wikidz charter since 2020, which guarantees this, and as an affiliate, we follow the movement's charter with interest. friendly space policies and Code of Conduct are also applied in all our events.

• Community engagement and feedback.:To do this, we simply plan to distribute simple and quick questionnaires with direct questions during and at the end of each workshop and program. However, we intend to create a file containing all the comments collected on social networks and discuss them during our regular briefings.
• Timeline of activities

We acknowledge the discrepancy in activities are scheduled before the start of the applied grant (in May and June 2024) you've identified.

This is due to our reliance on annual volunteer efforts, which can fluctuate depending on the grant funding we receive. Unfortunately, without confirmed grant support, we cannot guarantee 100% capacity.

To minimize costs before grant confirmation, we rely heavily on volunteer support through:

Free venue use, Volunteer-funded travel, etc

For larger expenses associated with projects like gifts, we await grant announcements. For instance, we haven't announced anything regarding participant awards for the "Algerian rail way Articles Translation" project, which is currently in its initial phase.

Similarly, for the "Wiki Loves Africa Photo Competition," we plan to offer t-shirts to the winners that we already have,

To best use of resources, and with advice of the Grant WMF staff we've postponed all the timeline of the rest of the annual plan to July . This allows us to focus on the "Climate Change" project, for which Amine Benloulou requested expedited grant approval. While technically an individual project, it still receives core support from WikiDZ.

• Hiring process.:The Algeria Group is recruiting for two part-time positions: Project Coordinator and Social Media Coordinator.

Priority is given within our community during the recruitment process.

The first position was filled with a person actively involved in wiki projects and recognized for their relevant skills (project management for the coordinator and social media for the other position). it will go to a woman specialist in social networks and events

The appointments were made after consultation with the members of Wikizd Algeria to ensure transparency. They have been in post for the first volunteering for 3 years already and the second social network position will for the first time come from outside the wiki community and will be a woman.

• Regional conferences.:WikiDZ prioritizes selection based on a member's involvement and commitment to Wikimedia projects. They take particular account of active members who may need financial assistance to participate. Finally, they value transparency by involving all members in the decision-making process.

Thank you for reviewing our proposal and for your feedback. We appreciate the committee's suggestion to reorganize the proposal to highlight the main challenges, focus areas, and planned activities. This will enhance clarity and allow for better measurement of change.

We will prioritise activities within the proposal, given that it is the first annual funding, and our capacity to manage them successfully, which will be visible in the final report.

Thank you again for your support and guidance throughout the review process. We look forward to the committee's final decision.

Sincerely,

In the name of WikiDZ - Muhammed amine benloulou (talk) 00:30, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund Approved at Local Currency Equivalent of 28,000 USD

Dear WikiDZ User Group,

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 28,000 USD, with a grant term starting July 15, 2024 - July 14, 2025.

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended funding the user group with the amount of 28,000 USD for the period of July 15, 2024 - July 14, 2025.

We see that WikiDZ user group is a community that has been around for a while, with a lot of activity since its establishment. You have committed members who have been organizing activities over the last couple of years and have grown with experience.

After a thorough review of your proposal, we would like to bring to your attention that we are concerned with how you plan on growing the WikiDZ community. We particularly see a lack of female organizers and members in your group. How do you plan on building a more diverse user group. We recommend that you work on a strategic approach to intentionally diversify and train new organizers to grow your group. This is an area that we hope to discuss with you throughout the grant period. We would also like further clarification on where your activities will take place.

We are looking forward to seeing the impact of the documentation project, and please ensure that the audiovisual equipment is accessible to all of your local community. Please keep an equipment log as a part of the ownership management of your assets.

We wish you the very best in the start of your journey and look forward to learning more about the impact you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff, FElgueretly-WMF (talk) 06:44, 9 June 2024 (UTC)