Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/WIKI EDITORAS LX 2024

Endorsements

•  Strong support Delighted to know that Wiki Editoras Lx applied for multi-year funding. The work carried out by this group is changing the wiki-pt landscape in a very positive way, and should be encouraged. Wikimedia greatly benefits from their continued passion and knowledge. Their inclusive and consistent approach to contributing to collective knowledge has without a doubt increased the number of editors working towards closing the knowledge gender gap. As an editor who has largely benefitted from the community created by this initiative, I think it is crucial that this group continues to carry out their incredible work. It has certainly driven me to edit wikipedia more and branch out into other wiki areas. This funding will allow them to bring in more editors, and shed light on more parts of history/ knowledge/ information that are still under the cover of darkness. BlitzkriegBoop (talk) 12:26, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you so much, BlitzkriegBoop. Working with you this year has been such a pleasure! It's a thrill to know the impact the existence of the group and its activities have had on you, an experienced editor. That really shows the importance of these support communities to motivate editors to keep contributing to Wikimedia! Anita Braga (talk) 11:24, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

•  Strong support Working and learning alongside Wiki Editoras Lx continues to benefit me as an individual editor and in my role at Art+Feminism. I strongly support their application for multi-year funding to continue improve the work we do as feminists and as open knowledge advocates concerned with equity gaps. Nyeboah (talk) 18:39, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you so much for your support, Nyeboah. We are looking forward to keep learning from each others and to expand our collective work in the following years. Anita Braga (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

•  Strong support Providing multi-year funding for projects like Wiki Editoras Lx is a critical step in the Movement's equity goals. It's extremely exciting to see the work they've done and continue to do. I am eager to continue engaging with them in an individual capacity, as well continuing the collaboration of Wiki Editoras Lx and Art+Feminism. --Kiraface (talk) 19:01, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you so much for your support and kind words, Kiraface. Art+Feminism has been a huge support to our group practically since the beginning, and we're looking forward to keep collaborating on the following years. Anita Braga (talk) 11:33, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

•  Strong support Wiki Editoras Lx has a past of amazing campaigns and editing work on underrepresented communities and cultures, and already is a well established partner of many institutions and communities. This founding stability will make them able to increase the number and quality of their work, with clear benefits for the all the community. It pleases me to see such a group of people working on such important topics, and still see how well integrated thy are with other wikimedia groups like Wikimedia Portugal, from whom they are a very important partner. Alchimista (talk) 14:06, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you so much Alchimista. Your support and kind words are very important to us. We cherish the good relation the group has with the local Chapter, and we are looking forward to keep collaborating in the next years, contributing to a more diverse and inclusive lusophone community. Anita Braga (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

•  Strong support Danielly Campos Dias (talk) 15:04, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

•  Strong support for the continuity of this important work on gender and knowledge equity within the Wikimedia movement and projects Contaminadas (talk) 14:39, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Feedback from the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Dear Wiki Editoras Lx team,

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

• We welcome your well thought through strategy and plans building on actual experience, and we see it to be in full alignment to the movement strategic plan for 2030.
• We like the leadership model where you have a cooperative model.
• The educational proposal is exciting, especially if the process will be well documented in order to share with others of similar thematic scope (and challenge) (Wikiesfera, Les sans PagES)
• The "Toolkit for feminist wiki organisers" is a very interesting and promising initiative. We hope to see it translated in several languages soon.
• We like the approach "we are actively going where people are, partnering with off-wikis collectives and organisations, instead of waiting for them to show up in our activities. Also, we are focusing on bringing younger contributors, thinking about the sustainability of the volunteer force."

While elaborating on your proposed plans, the committee members recommended for you to consider

• While we are excited about the qualitative presentation of your results, we believe that more can be done for finding a few quantitative impact metrics to inform your programs.
• While we very much like the educational proposal, we see it as risky, since you have not done it before. Risk assessment and understanding of potential barriers in this field would be useful.

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

• We wonder, what are your plans for sustainability? Just now you have no legal status in Portugal and not yet an affiliation with WM, and so heavy reliance on the general support fund.
• While we approved your leadership model, we wonder how you handle the compensations and also what the individuals receiving compensation do in their time outside this program. (Do they get salaries from other entities?)

Due to restrictions on our ability to adjust our overall General Support Fund budget for this round, it may not be possible to (fully) fund this proposal. However, we do want to understand what impact a partial funding decision would have on your budget and related activities or operations? How would you proceed if you get the same funding as last year, or if you get the 75% of the increased sum you request?

On behalf of the Regional Committee, Anders Wennersten (talk) 18:06, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Dear Regional Committee,

First of all, we would like to thank you for your work in reading and considering all the points of our proposal. We very much appreciate the opportunity to debate specific details of our as well as your inputs and to have the space to further clarify some fundamental questions about this funding request.

We are grateful that you recognize the time and dedication we have given to building a new strategic plan that is solid and aligned with the Movement's Strategy; that you value our governance model, and that you have appreciated our new programs and activities, as well as our approach to attracting new editors.

Kindly find below our answers to your comments and questions:

• “While we are excited about the qualitative presentation of your results, we believe that more can be done for finding a few quantitative impact metrics to inform your programs."

We share the same concerns about reflecting a differentiated work like ours in quantitative metrics. We've already had this conversation with the WMF and other groups and affiliates that also work on topics for impact and we've been very pleased with the openness, insights and new ideas. We participate in environments where these issues are debated in search of solutions, whether at Let's Connect, Organizer Lab, etc., and peer-to-peer moments, as well as in our mentoring by the Foundation, namely through our PO. This is a frequent question inside and outside the Wikimedia Movement for those doing work with a social impact and we would like to improve this aspect of our project, adding more quantitative metrics and also rethinking, even collectively, how we can fairly quantify impact work.

In sum, we will definitely work to include more quantitative metrics, and any suggestions and advice will be greatly welcomed.

• "While we very much like the educational proposal, we see it as risky, since you have not done it before. Risk assessment and understanding of potential barriers in this field would be useful."

We are aware of the risks that this proposal entails: potential lack of interest on the part of the groups, lack of availability, lack of consistency in participation. These are very similar to the risks of other types of activities that we develop.

We are going to work with self-organized student communities, independently of institutional support. We have already started research and some contact with groups in Lisbon and Porto. This is our risk mitigation plan - we have established a range of audiences and communities, so that we can test with various contexts. Which means that although we haven't implemented this activity before, we've already gauged interest from potential participants, and it's been positive - both from a feminist school and a university feminist association.

Moreover, it's important to say that this is not an education project as we usually see it within the Movement, that is, based on institutional contact with universities. Our focus, as always, will be on the self-organized communities within these spaces (not just universities, but we will start with them), whether they are students, teachers and/or researchers. For us, what is important is to access interest groups that are aligned with our mission and, at the same time,familiar with research, writing and creating knowledge. This project comes from the will and need to bring newcomers into the group, but also to create autonomy for these small communities.

The decision to work with study and research groups and/or self-managed student activist collectives is also based on the notion that working directly with institutions is a big challenge, especially taking into account the small structure of our user group and our resources. This was defined in consultation with our Advisory Board, which includes wikimedians with experience in wiki education projects.

Another program design decision we took was to look at this project with a longer-term perspective, slowing down its realization time, meaning that, for instance, in the first year, we would only be planning, researching and adapting materials, as well as consolidating the outreach to potential study communities. The implementation of the capacitation and training is planned only to start on year 2; and year 3 is an opportunity to continue the project by reiterating and adapting the learning from the previous year.

• "We wonder, what are your plans for sustainability? Just now you have no legal status in Portugal and not yet an affiliation with WM, and so heavy reliance on the general support fund."

Thank you for your question, it’s an important one. We have already submitted the application to become an Affiliate, and we believe there is no reason that it shouldn't be granted, considering our track record and the support from the linguistic community.

When it comes to becoming a legal entity in Portugal, our previous professional experience, working in non-profits and international organizations, shows us that it’s more wise to take smaller steps. We understand that it might not be the best option for a small team - as it’s the case at the moment - because that implies an extra workload, more procedures and reporting, meaning more costs and human resources.

However, becoming a legal entity is a wish for the future, as long as we have the conditions for it. Receiving this full fund, and the 3 year stability and commitment it sustains, would allow us to plan for these consolidation steps for the group in the medium term.

It’s also important to clarify that, while we are not yet an independent legal entity, the relationship we have with our fiscal sponsor, Penha Sco/Paisagem Elementar is very good and it’s more that a fiscal partnership - they are a well known local non-profit with a large curriculum in receiving funds for other organizations, collectives and individuals, working as an incubator for several cultural projects, like Wiki Editoras Lx - supporting our group with space for events and dissemination of our activities throughout their network.

With that in mind, we planned our fundraising activity for the first year, as defined in our Strategic Plan, relying on their support and history, precisely because we are aware that WMF's resources are limited and cannot always keep up with the Movement's growth.

• "While we approved your leadership model, we wonder how you handle the compensations and also what the individuals receiving compensation do in their time outside this program. (Do they get salaries from other entities?)"

Our core team is made of independent workers and consultants, that is, people who accumulate this work with other part-time or short-term projects. Their commitment to the project was defined according to their availability outside of other work commitments they might have. Any changes in this situation, in a longer term, will be subject to a new recruitment process, in order to keep the positions and team needed to implement our Plan.

As you can see from the budget, we don't have any human resources dedicated 100% to the project. The time commitment of the people is 0.75 FTE for the co-coordinators, 0.3 FTE for the person responsible for the design and management of the social networks (in the first year) and 0.1 FTE for the person responsible for Communication and PR. The other human resources will be paid per hour worked, on a contract basis.

The reason why we don’t have full time positions does not come from a lack of desire to work full-time on the project, particularly the positions with the greatest dedication (co-coordination), but with an awareness of the limitations of requesting funds from the WMF. We are aware that it would not be possible to request two full-time coordination salaries from the WMF. Therefore, the budget presented represents a balance between the minimum amount of time we believe people need to dedicate, based on this year's experience, and a minimum fair remuneration for this work.

• "Due to restrictions on our ability to adjust our overall General Support Fund budget for this round, it may not be possible to (fully) fund this proposal. However, we do want to understand what impact a partial funding decision would have on your budget and related activities or operations? How would you proceed if you get the same funding as last year, or if you get the 75% of the increased sum you request?"

This 2024-2026 Strategic plan represents a major evolution in terms of growth and maturity from last year’s plan, since it is now designed in a programmatic way, setting paths for further development in the future. It builds upon the group's first year of professionalization, after 3+ years of voluntary work. And it comes in response to the growth the group has achieved this year and aims to support responses to the needs identified by the community.

It's important for us to share that the budget we've drawn up comes after a moment of internal evaluation of what we've done this year. One of the lessons we learned from this year's budget is that the amounts we considered for staff and some logistics didn't take into account taxes and duties. So, in reality, the work was underpaid, resulting in precariousness. Therefore, this proposal for the next three years is based on correcting these errors and adjusting the figures to a fairer and more equitable reality.

It’s also important to mention that even though we have corrected these errors and adjusted the figures, we still think it might be under budgeted for the amount of work we are proposing ourselves to do, but we were mindful of the limitations of the General Support Fund possibilities, as well as the fact that we will start a Fundraising activity. We feel that the requested amount is what we need in the next 3 years, to give us a basic stability and to consolidate our professionalization as a group, so we can build more autonomy from the GSF, as we increase our fundraising efforts.

Realistically, partial funding would mean a reduction in people's time dedicated to the project, and consequently a reduction in the activities we would be able to carry out.

The scenario of us receiving the same funding as this year is insufficient to compensate for the increase in inflation and the costs resulting from the fees and taxes demanded by the Portuguese tax authorities. In practice, this scenario is not viable for maintaining the group's activities, and so it wouldn’t be sustainable.

Regarding the scenario of any reduction of the amount requested, the impact of this reduction would highly affect the team compensation - resulting in reduction of FTEs and reorganization of positions, meaning we would probably have to let some people go, with a high impact on team workflow and results.

If faced with a reduction of the requested amount, we would most probably have to take the following decisions:

1. Removing of the activity "Lusophone feminist organizers toolkit" (year 1)
2. Removing of the activity "Wiki Luanda training support" (year 1)
3. Reduction of number of round-tables (years 1, 2 and 3)
4. Number of capacitations and editing sessions for Education and Culture and Heritage Programs (years 2 and 3)
5. Reduction of external communication efforts (years 1, 2 and 3)

But also at the logistical level:

1. Reduction in travel grants, local and international transportation (years 1, 2 and 3)
2. Reduction in prize amounts (years 1, 2 and 3)

Considering the activities removal, even though they are very cherished activities that we wouldn’t want to let go, they are also the ones, from all of our Strategic Plan, that we think would most likely be able to attract funding from other sources, considering we would keep our fundraising activity. So that would be a strategic decision.

But we also want you to be mindful of the impact of reducing communication efforts when we want to start external fundraising, and also the impact of reducing travel grants and transportation, when we are trying to reach out to more potential editors and also sharing our experiences and learning with other peers. Reducing round-tables, capacitation and training sessions also means that the bigger effort of creating these opportunities and resources will impact less people in the end.

We would like to point out that fundraising takes time, and specially to establish procedures and to outreach to potential donors, so keeping these activities out of the General Support Fund, with a reduced team, might risk the implementation of these activities.

Finally, we believe that the reason why this Committee pointed out so many structural good points about this Strategic Plan is precisely because it is coherent and designed towards meeting the needs of the community and the Movement. We believe that defragmenting the Plan would jeopardize these objectives and we ask that this be taken into consideration when deciding upon our funding.

Anita Braga (talk) 14:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

Round 1 FY24 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to partially fund your proposal for 60,000.00 EUR for the implementation period of 1st January 2024 - 31st December 2024.

Comments regarding this decision:
We appreciate your planned efforts in solidifying your strategic aims in sectoral and community support programs and shareable tools, supporting the growth of the Lusophone community in feminist practice. We wish you success with your affiliate application, as your organization is already on its way to serve as an example of effective gender-related organizing in our movement, with a very strong Global Majority coordination profile. We welcome your approaches of meeting people where they are and based on aligned values, investing in young people, and using Commons as an entry point and centering learning and iteration.

We are excited to learn mid-year about the progress you made, and evaluate the second and third year of your proposed plans in light of that. Understanding that the decision of not approving this application as a multiyear proposal right away is disappointing, the committee offered the lightweight review next year of this current proposal as a renewal application.

We wish all the best for the implementation of your activities in 2024!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, –ABruszik-WMF (talk) 07:06, 29 November 2023 (UTC)