Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda General Support fund 2024-2025

Comments after revision of Regional Committee

Dear Wikimedia Rwanda,

Thank you for submitting your request for General Support Funding. We reviewed and discussed your proposal and would like to share comments, recommendations and questions for you to engage with. Your responses and comments will support the committee and staff in making a final funding decision.

Programming;

We are keen to learn more on how the volunteer community was engaged in identifying the needs and opportunities included in the proposal for funding. Additionally what roles do volunteers role in the work being done beyond participation. We are uncertain on the presence of capacity [ expreience and skills ] to implement the capacity building programs and GLAM initiatives and curious to hear from you on this assessment and also your plan in building the capacity needed.

We especially see an opportunity in the user group dedicating more effort and resourcing in skill development and the role other experienced Wikimedians beyond the UG and in the movement can play to develop the competencies needed. We see you mentioning that you will work on Wiki Data but see no detail on the same or metrics to measure the work. Please say more about your secondary school program and the schools you are working with including past engagement and the results yielded if any. Is there a curriculum you will be using and is this available to be shared. At the end of the engagement you will have with the learners, what are the expected cognitive and action based outcomes and are these linked to any learning outcomes?

Governance; We would like to know more about your governance structures including who is on the board and their engagement with the work being implemented by the UG.

Metrics; Would you share any impact metrics on the change you have seen on the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia based on the contribution you are making to it? We find your metrics to be low in comparison to the requested funding. We know you will be engaging in campaign related projects which typically support in advancing content related objectives and in a significant manner. We lack to see this reflecting in your proposal. Please provide more detail on the metrics using the description section of the table. We overall invite you to apply a logical and methodical approach in identifying the metrics that you will measure to speak to the progress you are making in achieving your set objectives.

We see a need for the UG to reflect on its vision. We know a strategic planning process can be beneficial in clarifying how n entity will contribute to the vision and fulfill the mission it has set, we are keen to learn more about the UGs vision. What informs the UGs interest in developing a strategic plan? We see you have already identified focus areas and curious how those came about? What is the planned approach? We see a budget for the process and keen to know the rationale

We noted that you responded that you have an annual UG plan but did not see the link in the proposal to the document. Please share it here. Budget; We overall find the budget to be significantly high compared to previous years and keen to understand the rationale behind the increase in funding request. We find the administrative costs disproportionate to programming

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, Aristidek5maya (talk) 11:35, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello Aristidek5maya, thank you for providing us with this feedback on behalf of the Grants review team. We are getting back within the proposed time frame. ɴᴅᴀʜɪʀᴏ ᴅᴇʀʀɪᴄᴋ 🐎 (talk) 16:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Responses

To the Wikimedia annual grants reviewers, Thank you for your time and input as you reviewed our request for General Support Funding. Below are our inputs from the recommendations and questions.

Governance Overview Wikimedia Rwanda's governance structures are important for overseeing the organization's activities and ensuring effective decision-making. The board of Wikimedia Rwanda consists of 6 individuals who bring diverse expertise and perspectives to the community.

The board of Wikimedia Rwanda is responsible for advising the organization's strategic direction, providing oversight, and ensuring compliance with legal and ethical standards. These are volunteers who are passionate about the mission of Wikimedia user group Rwanda and have a range of skills relevant to governance, Conflict management, finance, advocacy, and community engagement. Our board comprises 6 volunteer individuals with a variety of backgrounds, including professionals from the academia, media, non-profit sector, and community leaders. Ideally, the board reflects the diversity of the Wikimedia community in Rwanda and includes members with a deep understanding of local contexts and challenges.

Our Board members have fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of Wikimedia Rwanda and its stakeholders. They are responsible for reviewing budgets, policies, and major decisions, as well as providing guidance and support to the organization's staff and volunteers. Board members serve under two committees, with the first committee focused on specific finance, fundraising and program development this came as a solution to the financial management challenges we faced in the previous years. Whereas the second committee focuses on conflict management and resolution. 

Overall, the board of Wikimedia Rwanda plays a vital role in guiding and shaping the organization's efforts to promote free knowledge and empower communities through Wikimedia projects. Their engagement and leadership are essential for driving impact and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within the Wikimedia community in Rwanda.

Vision and strategy We aim to organically grow into a local movement which represents a free knowledge ecosystem in Rwanda and beyond by:

Targeting specifically to level up our skills in Wikimedia tools and platforms. 

To leave no one behind, by identifying the barriers to inclusion, including people living with the physical handicap as a priority.

To bridge the gender gap, we have special engagement plans to make mandatory quota participation in initiatives and affirmative action will be required for our community members to fully embrace the inclusion.

We plan to have strategic plans as means to detail our ambition and the process will be engaging where the community will be involved in all stages.

Volunteers play an important role in the work being done beyond mere participation. Their involvement entails: actively contributing to creating and expanding content on Wikimedia platforms such as Wikipedia. They write articles, add references, upload images, and contribute multimedia content, thereby enriching the knowledge base available in Kinyarwanda and other relevant languages.

Volunteers are actors in Community Building, They engage in community-building efforts, fostering a sense of belonging and collaboration among Wikimedia contributors in Rwanda. They are the ones organizing meetups, workshops, edit-a-thons, and other events to facilitate networking, skill-sharing, and mentorship within the community.

This can be witnessed through initiatives that were initiated and organized by volunteers such as the Digital accessibility project that engaged people with physical disabilities in contribution to Wikimedia projects in Rwanda, She said the campaign in Rwanda, Rwanda Going Green Mindsets and Lifestyle Awareness Campaign. Urban wetlands protection and advocacy campaign in Rwanda etc. Our volunteers also play a role in Outreach and Advocacy, by serving as ambassadors for Wikimedia projects, raising awareness about the importance and promoting digital literacy and open knowledge principles. They engage with educational institutions and other stakeholders to advocate for the integration of Wikimedia resources into educational curricula and cultural initiatives. Our volunteers contribute to the capacity-building efforts of Wikimedia Rwanda by sharing their expertise and knowledge with fellow contributors. They provide training sessions to help newcomers learn editing skills, navigate Wikimedia platforms, and adhere to community guidelines. Our volunteers play a crucial role in translating content and resources to make Wikimedia projects more accessible to Kinyarwanda readers. They translate interface messages, help pages, educational materials, and other content into local languages, ensuring that language barriers do not hinder participation and engagement.

Volunteers actively participate in the planning processes and governance structures within Wikimedia Rwanda. They provide input, feedback, and insights that inform decision-making and shape the direction of Wikimedia initiatives in Rwanda. As outlined in the proposal, we have a strategy to support the attendance and participation of at least one community volunteer annually at a Wikimedia event. This initiative aims to facilitate capacity building and foster networking opportunities within our community.

Regarding GLAM Programs, Wikimedia Rwanda will collaborate with existing and new partners such as the World Heritage User Group, Wikimedia Uganda, and Rwanda Heritage Academy. These partners will provide us with experienced and proficient personnel who will provide invaluable support in capacity building, guidance, and fostering collaboration for the proposed programs.

We recognize the gap in fine-tuning our vision to be unique and respond to the needs of our members, this for instance is demonstrated by (the event-based writings as evidenced by wiki scan 2020-2024)

We also noticed the lack of dedicated active editors going beyond 1000 edits (source https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/rw.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Cline%7C2020-04-26~2024-04-16%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly ) and we intend to work on these gaps as a community within a time frame of 3 years and have a positive impact hence the community outreach programs in the proposal.

We have identified some of the important organizations locally, on the African level and worldwide who have accepted to partner with us (MoUs signed ) and we intend to double the efforts in formalizing strong partnerships with other knowledge organizations to get the writing skills needed (example Rwanda Heritage Academy and the local libraries )

We are committed to strengthening our local education strategy through the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, Hence We shall do a bit of contextualization and translation to avoid language barriers with the resources provided by The Wikimedia Education team (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Reading_Wikipedia_in_the_Classroom/Modules). On impact metrics, Quality community growth: The rise in the number of editors from 9 in May 2022 to 78 in December 2023 demonstrates Wikimedia Rwanda's success in attracting and retaining contributors. This increase is likely a result of targeted outreach efforts, training sessions, and community-building activities organized by Wikimedia Rwanda. (Source: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/rw.wikipedia.org/contributing/new-pages/normal%7Cbar%7C2020-04-26~2024-04-16%7C~total%7Cmonthly)

Similarly, the significant increase in monthly edits from 21 in 2020 to 3146 in 2023 reflects the growing activity and engagement on the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia platform. Our emphasis on providing resources, support, and incentives for editing has encouraged more frequent contributions from editors. The rise in newly registered users from 21 to 58 indicates an expanding user base and growing interest in participating in the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia community. Finally, the notable increase in the number of new pages from 1 in May 2020 to 2180 in 2022 highlights our focus on content creation and expansion. Through initiatives such as edit-a-thons, and content creation campaigns, we have facilitated the creation of new articles, thus enriching the Kinyarwanda Wikipedia's content.

Overall, these impact metrics demonstrate our commitment to nurturing a vibrant and thriving Kinyarwanda Wikipedia community by encouraging participation, fostering collaboration, and expanding content coverage.

We've noticed that a significant portion of our budget is allocated to administrative tasks rather than programs. In our upcoming strategic plan spanning 3 to 5 years, we aim to rectify this imbalance. Our focus will shift towards securing funding partnerships, particularly with proposals totalling $100,000 currently in the pipeline. By doing so, we intend to redirect resources towards sustainable programs. This shift is crucial for nurturing a skilled and well-managed community, both at the national and provincial levels.

The plans outlined above were shaped by a range of inputs, including feedback gathered from community engagements, findings from the needs assessment project, feedback from the General Assembly, as well as guidance and recommendations provided by our board members and volunteers.

Best regards ɴᴅᴀʜɪʀᴏ ᴅᴇʀʀɪᴄᴋ 🐎 (talk) ɴᴅᴀʜɪʀᴏ ᴅᴇʀʀɪᴄᴋ 🐎 (talk) 12:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund Approved at Local Currency Equivalent of 33,000 USD

Dear Wikimedia User Group Rwanda,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The MEA Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed, discussed and deliberated upon your application and made the decision to fund you in Local Currency Equivalent of 33,000 USD for the grant period of 1st July 2024 to 30th June 2025.

Here are a few points to note on the decision;

• We found no justification for the close to appx—200% increase in budget and especially from an objective and programmatic point of view. The work is similar to last year’s.
• We see the majority of your costs are towards salaries and bringing on board additional staff.
• We believe that the user group has an opportunity to improve on it’s efficiency in it’s operations to supporting the development of the community. What we mean by efficiency;
  • Finding a means for the work presented here to be done by fewer paid roles and ensuring volunteers are brought in to support implementation.
  • The committee is not convinced that you need all the paid roles in their current structure and costing to support the work.

• We see the growth of the community being low and not aligned with the growth in the operational components of the organisation.
  • Growth here means the number of active editors from the user group
  • It also looks at the wiki skills competence of the editors going through your programs. It is important that the volunteers you are working with have the technical know-how and experience to support their contribution on Wiki projects.
  • It will be important in the future to learn more about the retention of editors through your programs.
• Metrics are low
  • Given the resources being requested and the metrics shared, the committee finds them low and see an opportunity to improve

• Leadership dev - bringing more volunteers to leadership
  • While we know you have done some work bringing more volunteers to taking on organizing roles, we see a need for more visibility of their leadership
• Salaries are high ;
  • Given the scope of work, we find the salaries high and see an opportunity for structuring roles to allow more volunteers to take up roles and not have the user group rely on a few individuals to support the implementation.
• Governance;
  • We continue to find it important for the user group and to actively engage their board as part of the organzations governance process in shaping the vision of their work. We also see the board informing how the roles in the organization support the work being done recognizing the volunteer nature and essence of the movement.

Once again, Congratulations! We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on a new year of project implementation.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff. On behalf of the committee. Ibrahim.ID ✪ 14:06, 4 June 2024 (UTC)