Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Thailand 2024

Proposal Feedback and Invite for Response

Thank you for submitting your application. After the review process please find the feedback - comments and questions below for your response;

• We appreciated your transparency with your work and progress and especially in the allocation of funding. We assessed a sense of stability in your operations and thoughtfulness in the plan to consolidate ongoing efforts.

- Thank you so much for your encouraging words and support.

• We also see a clear intention to really think about community health- we see this when we look at the strategic plan and efforts such as translation of the UCoC. On this we are keen to learn  is there ongoing effort to support outreach for access to and supporting discussion on the UCoC.
• For programs such as Wiki Gap and for Women - > how can you pursue other goals beyond awareness. For instance , tapping into the capacity building work and including those who participate in the capacity based activities. Overall, what  happens next beyond awareness and outreach.
• We see an opportunity for regeneration of leadership to ensure there is avoidance of having  the same same people in the board over long periods etc.
• We would like to learn if there is intention to expand beyond Bangkok - growing beyond your current strength areas.

- Yes, there is. We are expanding to various cities outside Bangkok. A meet up was held near Pattaya two months ago. We hope more meetups will be held next year in various cities.

• Beyond academic audiences we see an opportunity and  need to diversify the participants - the community. In one of the activities we saw in a picture that the participants were mostly men - How are you planning for women participation and capacitation efforts.

- We acknowledge the gap here. Targeting girls school may be a viable option here.

• We see an opportunity to leverage the large youth demographic - starting with the academic institutions and universities.
• Need to open to including more organizers - diversity - ToT and could learn from the Indonesia ToT program.

- We are definitely planning to learn from more experienced affiliates, especially on program evaluation and staffing.

• We also wanted to confirm on the progress of the local  registration of the organization.

- It is still in progress. Documents have been submitted. WMTH and our law firm are in constant communication with the authority. We will notify the regional committee and WMF as soon as the NGO status is granted.

The overall strengths of the proposal	Recommendations and general feedback and questions	Responses by Applicant to the feedback and questions
It is welcome that Wikimedia Thailand is formalising further. I believe this year should be used to embed that and see how it affects their activities. TB Good initiative for community health and safety which is reflected in the strategic plan. Can be added in their proposal. [KSH] All clear, the strategy, timeline, and budget for next upcoming year.[GS]	Human Resources seems to be very fulfilled. Wikimedia Commons is also at a high level. May I have the reason why you have no FTE? I guess the same reason as the Japanese user group, which laws require many kinds of fring benefits for workers who work more than 20h/week. [YS] It would be good to have some suggested Wikisource targets given its inclusion in the planned activities.[ TB] We have no study on the demographic setup of Wikimedia Thailand. My personal understanding is only the Academic & Scientific community composed the community. Provide knowledge, technical and some financial assistance on Thai delegation such as visas, local transportation subsidy on conferences next year such as Wikimania in Poland (July-August), Wikimedia Summit (April), ESEAP Conference 2024 Malaysia (May), Libraries conference (May), Youth Conference (June) Had they started initiatives in Women and Youth development? BB After translation of the UCoC - is there ongoing effort to support outreach? After conducting Wiki Gap and Wiki4women for a few years - >  how can they make it beyond awareness (edithathon, meet-up) - what happens next beyond awareness and outreach. Can they merge or tap into their capacity building work by proactively including new women/gender diverse participants. [KSH] This is new to me that affiliate reducing their budget for the upcoming year. However, their proposal shows honesty and it makes their strength to know their capacity to plan the program and strategy for the upcoming year. Please do a consultation with an affiliate that successfully formally incorporated and hired staff. Wiki Advocates Philipines User Group.[GS]	FTE is not provided due to the fact that we are not yet formally incorporated. Not to mention social security and other legal obligations. However, we note that volunteers may be compensated periodically. Other initiatives in Women and Youth development have not been implemented yet apart from Wiki Gap and Wiki4Women. We still lack supporting structure for volunteers after the UoC is implemented. Thank you for raising this issue. We will initiate one soon and will be particularly cautious on conflict of interests, transparency and fairness. We will be providing technical (visa and etc) and some financial assistance for Thai delegates attending international events. This was also done for our Wikimania attendees this year. We might use travel agency in the future for efficiency and to reduce the workload of our volunteers. - Thank you for pointing this out. In the past we tended to overestimate our budget and as a result there were always large amounts of underspent budget. :)

Expert Reviewers - education

• I think the main strength of this project is the variety of activities, covering different aspects of education and target groups that could contribute to the expansion of projects in the future.
• It is not clear enough whether and in what way the feedback from the participants will be collected. It would be good to specify which tools and methodology will be used. I suggest using different methods of evaluation and interview.

- We aim to collect feedback from participants by administering questionnaires (Google Form or Qualtrics). All feedback will be evaluated quantitatively and quantitatively to see whether the expectations and outcomes are met, and to improve future events.

• The general advice is to pay more attention to aspects of sustainability and evaluation of their work. In this way, they will know best what the effects of the performance are, so that they can correct some aspects of their work in the future.

- Thank you so much. We agree that it is best to look at the sustainability of the programs and the actual impact they have on the community. Therefore, we will be extra careful on program evaluation.

Expert reviewers - GLAM

Reviewer 1:

• Unsure where community was consulted for this proposal. Is the proposal being shared in community channels? or how do they plan to involve the community in the future for co-creation of the proposals or engage participation?

- Although the proposal was not shared publicly prior to the application, some of the community members are now part of WMTH. This is a huge milestone for us because there used to be a huge gap between the affiliate and the community. We believe that opinions from the broader community should be valued.

• They plan to have 1.5 staff for the whole programmatic work, to me it seems they are over committing. If they can break-up the programmatic activities by months that will be easier to understand. While the work seems to be do-able, it shouldn't lead to the burn-out of the staff, maybe also to see how the board would engage with the staff in co-delivering the activities. ,
• They have an experienced team within the affiliate, with clear defined roles and expertise. They have identified the partners whom they plan to collaborate during the whole programmatic period. This makes them strong candidate, I endorse the proposal.
• Some regional collaboration with ESEAP communities, knowledge exchange with Wikimedia Indonesia and other regional affiliates could be a great opportunity to pursue.
• Question: Since they are working on a digitization and Wikisource project with the Siam Society, would they consider contributing to the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts learning partners network

- Thank you for directing us to this project. This initiative really aligns with what we are planning to do. One of our team members will look into it to implement our project more effectively.

We highly recommend you get in touch with the regional program officer to support you in understanding the questions raised or if you find it useful to meet with the committee as well, please let them know and they can organize a conversation meeting.

Thank you, and we look forward to receiving your responses to support us in the next steps. On behalf of the ESEAP Regional Committee and Staff - VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 12:38, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Replies to the Regional Committee

We humbly thank the ESEAP Regional Committee and its staff for commenting and scrutinizing our grant proposal. Please find above our responses. We also appreciate all the suggestions and we will reflect on them. Please let us know if any additional information is required. Thank you. —Athikhun.suw (talk) 07:10, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund Approved at 1,332,669.01 THB

Dear Wikimedia Thailand,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The ESEAP Regional Committee and Staff have thoroughly reviewed, discussed and deliberated upon your application and made the decision to fund you at  1,332,669.01 THB for the grant period 1st January 2024 to 31st December 2024.

Here are a few points to note;

• We recognize that the local registration process has been underway for some years now and are keen to learn on the barriers that hinder its completion. Please let the program officer know how they can be of assistance.
• From this experience, it is our hope that you will document on the learnings and share those with others in the region, including the approach you took and resources that were helpful. Our hope is that you can share your experiences.
• As pointed out in previous feedback shared - we hope in the future progress shared to learn about your intentionality with gender diversity in your work. We highly recommend developing a gender and youth plan/framework that then guides meaningful engagement of women and youth in programs beyond participation.

We hope to continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Do set up a regular schedule to connect with your ESEAP Programme Officer based on your needs. The reporting requirements for the grant will shared in your grant agreement and on Fluxx. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.

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. VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 11:55, 15 December 2023 (UTC)