Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/DCW October 2024 - March 2025 Strategic Activity Plan (ID: 22747478)
Support. The proposal is a valid and actionable continuation of DCW's existing activities to encourage more student and academia participation. The proposal will help DCW to expand its affiliate capacities and build on Wiki club participation.
I have been following sessions from Deoband community (DCW hours) and I see that they are promoting wikimedia projects, approval of this project will allow more resources and allow more contribution to free knowledge. Tesleemah (talk) 03:48, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello @Aafi (DCW),
Hope you are well. Sharing an update that we'll require more time to review your application and I'll look to provide an update (or outcome) next week. I noted your proposed start date is scheduled for 1 October. Thanks for your patience and we'll connect soon.
Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:36, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Hello @Aafi (DCW),
Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 410,000 from 1 October 2024 to 31 March 2025.
Observations/ Recommendations / Notes
- 1) Key comments captured through the review process: No open community notification evidenced. Only closed source communication. Of the total budget 85% is for staff related expenses. It is in the much higher percentage range.
- 2) Related to question 17, we recognise the success you have in establishing and supporting the running of Wiki Clubs. As part of your learnings, would you also consider putting together and publishing a set of best practices in establishing and supporting Wiki Clubs based on your local context and experience. This best practices guide that you produce will be useful for future teams who may be interested in doing similar work. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, they can re-purpose your documentation to support their project conceptualisation/ implementation. Please include this as one of the deliverables in your learning report.
- 3) In the 12-18 months, we noticed that you have started to put together rapid fund grants on a 6-monthly basis - DCW September 2023 - February 2024 Half-Yearly Plan; DCW April 2024 - September 2024 Strategic Activity Plan. When you are ready to move to a longer planning timeframe, do reach out to your programme officer so that we can plan ahead and support your gradual transition from rapid funds to the general support fund programme where appropriate.
We know even the best thought through plans may change
In the event that there are changes to your implementation schedule, you can reach out to request for a grant extension (i.e. extend end date). Similarly, if there is a surplus budget or changes to your planned budget, you can reach out to me about reallocation (via email and on this talkpage). There is also the option to have the unspent funds deducted against a future grant. More details here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Return_unused_funds_to_WMF
We thank you once again for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. Good luck with your project implementation.
Thank you.
Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of the SA Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:21, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF): Thank you. Your suggestions/comments and feedback is noted. We will evaluate our processes per your observation in #1. Re #2, we will surely work on creating and curating a set of best practices for the initiation and sustanability of Wiki Clubs: we look forward to including some in our current grant learning report as well. Re #3, we will let you know once we are ready for a transition - most likely in the upcoming year. Thank you once again. signed, Aafi (DCW) (talk) 06:03, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF): I believe it is necessary to clarify that: we usually use Deoband Community Wikimedia/News for almost all of our public announcements through Meta-Wiki, as it is substituted on the main page of the affiliate. The announcement for this grant was put on 1st August, and removed on 27 September; which I believe was missed in your review. However, I take a note that we should utilise more public channels but given the centralised place of Meta-Wiki, we feel the announcement here was enough and sufficient.
- On the percentage of the budget, I am also concerned as to how it becomes over 85%: we have three volunteers contributing efficiently with a lot of their time (including me, @Munazza (DCW), and the conversation hour lead), and my calculation says, this is (3,15,000/4,10,000) is only 76%. Technically, the conversation hour lead is a volunteer supported with a stipend to make their task easier, and this means that an amount of 48,000 is going to supporting their work. The only major staff roles have a budget of "65% of the total". However, given your notes and feedback, I believe we should evaluate and revise some of the terminologies that we use. I thank you for taking out time and sharing your observations. We look forward to utilising these learnings in our future programs and proposals. signed, Aafi (DCW) (talk) 07:46, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
- Hello @Aafi (DCW),
- Thank you for your responses to #1. I'll flag it to the SA regional funds committee.
- Noted about #2 and #3 which were suggestions from the Programme Officer.
- Regards,
- Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF), thank you Jacqueline. I'm unable to understand why the proposal has been marked as "hold for dependencies"/"Awaiting requirements". I wrote an email to the Grants Admin and haven't received a response yet. Pinging @Jtud (WMF) to get a clarity of what is going on around and by when will the grants agreement be issued. signed, Aafi (DCW) (talk) 04:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Dear @JChen (WMF). I hope this message finds you well. You might be aware of our pilot leadership development program "Train-a-Wikipedian" which we conducted for two-days on 22-23 February. Even after Rachit & Praveen having supported with about additional 19,976 INR - covering the event venue expenses, and us having taken some budget from some of our additional lines, we are running out of "5185.89 INR", at the moment. This amount covers 4616 INR to be given to TaW scholars & participants as incidental reimbursement, and 1500 INR for March 2025 communication material. Although, 4616 and 1500 make up 6,146 collectively, we have 930.11 INR available with us. Given that 5185.89 INR only makes $59.28, I wonder, if we could be granted $100 to cover up these unforseen expenses, and also to organise a community meetup in early April. The rest of the amount will help us organise this meetup.
I'd also request the grant-end-date be adjusted to 15 April. This would allow us work on evaluation and learnings more profoundly as we are having our board elections this month. Thanks for your consideration! signed, Aafi (DCW) (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
- Hello @Aafi (DCW),
- Thanks for sharing your thoughts and project updates/needs.
- We may need to consider your request for a top up with your new application
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources_and_Partnerships/India_Rapid_Project/DCW_April_2025_-_July_2025_Strategic_Activity_Plan
- Let's chat more when we meet.
- Thank you.
- Regards,
- Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
- @JChen (WMF): Thank you. I unintentionally messed up two different things in one single message. Looking forward to the meeting. signed, Aafi (DCW) (talk) 11:19, 3 March 2025 (UTC)
Hello @Aafi (DCW),
Hope you are well. Thank you for sharing and for your update. Your grant end date has been extended to 30 April 2025 and the final report is due 30 May 2025 on Fluxx. If you are able to complete your project ahead of schedule, please feel free to submit your report earlier.
Thank you.
Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 02:17, 3 March 2025 (UTC)