Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Reviving Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group Initiating Programs

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

Hello Eugene233, Bile rene and Lexy Tchuileu

Thank you for taking the time to submit your proposal. We are pleased to have reviewed it and have the following comments and questions;

• Overall the project is clear, in terms of the strategies in place to achieve desired impacts.
• The strategies listed for achieving their desired objectives are all feasible. Especially with the organization of edit-a-thons and online monthly community meetups. Also, the strategy of assigning major roles to members who have shown consistent interest is great. This gives volunteers a sense of progress or opportunities for growth.
• The proposal has great potential for impact and especially with the AfricanGerman Phrase project that focuses on bridging the content gap.
• The creation of the Wikipedian Guide is a commendable strategy that could be helpful and used by other communities in the future. The same goes for the development of exploring tools for language entry content and the planned monthly masterclass on interesting topics - gauge & build interest.
• Would you confirm if the roles shared are vacant roles or if there are members who already hold some of those roles. We are unclear whether the team implementing the project is available or you will be seeking to hire them.
• If they are all vacant, would you share your recruitment plan?
• The budget lacks a column for the USD currency,
• There is a need to break down the budget, in terms of what will be spent and how many units per item are mentioned (for instance: Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign: 2896810 is meant to be spent on what ?)
• Can more clarity be given to the units in column H. For instance, does the figure in cell H24 represent the days or the number of participants?
• There is a lack of anticipated risks and possible mitigation measures. What are the anticipated risks and possible mitigation measures concerning political disfavour in accepting executing projects on photography?
• The questions intended to answer or qualitative data to be collected at the end of the project are clear. However, what wasn't mentioned was the tools that will be used in collecting the said data. We recommend designing surveys, Google forms etc for such collection of data as well as motivational videos or stories.

Questions from Staff:

We see a significant portion of your resources is on staff and while we understand the purpose of the request we have a few questions to support us in understanding the measures you have put in place to support this transition from volunteer-led to hiring staff to manage projects;

• Have you taken time to review the labour laws and regulations and what policies have you put in place to be compliant.
• Employees' experience in organizations is enabled by organizational culture and in thinking about the experience you hope the proposed staff would have, might you have thought about the organization’s culture and other organizational elements associated with hiring staff.
• Additionally, who would the staff be reporting to and getting support from?
• Seeing that there will be a compensation/staff costs element, it would be financially appropriate that the payment is made from a legally recognized organization. Taking that into consideration are you legally registered and if not, what is your intended plan of action.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you. On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 14:15, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Questions for MEA region comments

Hello VThamaini (WMF)

Thank you very much for taking time to review or proposed application. We have looked at your interesting questions and suggestions and have a couple of responses:

• Regarding Roles: Our proposed staff plan takes into consideration members of our community who may occupy which roles based on their skills and experience.

We intend that most or all our staff are members of our community and the proposed staff plan according to the bureau with names of members to occupy these roles have been listed in this document

• Regarding adding column on proposed budget in USD to shared document

• A breakdown of the entire budget can be seen in our detailed finance proposal here. Every sheet in this document shows details for each program

• Clarity for the unit value:

"Days" represents the number of sessions or the number of days which someone will carry out a particular precise task, "Months" was used to represent monthly expenses such as contractor salaries, "Years" Has been used to represent global expenses for one project or task which will be done across the entire year.

All these have been detailed in the financial proposal shared above.


• With regards to risks and mitigation, we just recruited a couple of photographers who work for the government and are licensed. These our new members are trying to set up a partnership for us to have licenses to capture images on the entire territory which is a big win for our community.

• The recommendations on data collection procedures is quite appreciated and will be transmitted in our communication strategy.

Answers to questions from staff

• According the laws binding associations in Cameroon, organizations such as ours is authorized to provide remuneration to our contractors as incentives which is what has been done in past funding opportunities in the past. We hope to continue in this same light.
• Our proposed staff are community members who have shown a significant interest in the community’s culture and vision and also the entire community has thought about delegating these people to lead with these projects.
• The staff reports to the bureau through the project coordinator, to our important partners with whom they work and also to the concerned Wikimedia communities we are in touch with.
• The Wikimedians of Cameroon User group is a legally recognized association and this is our second major funding. Eugene233 (talk) 12:07, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund approved in the amount of $69,152USD

Hello Eugene233, Bile rene and Lexy Tchuileu

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of $69,152USD, with a grant term starting 1 July 2022 and ending 30th June 2023.

We recognize your deliberate focus on specific strategies and structures to support you in achieving your intended goals and community target audience. These areas of focus include; Increasing participation, Content Creation, Improving our communication and Community Development. The projects indicated align with the overall goals and objectives and clearly demonstrate how they contribute to addressing content knowledge gaps.

We are excited about projects such as the creation of a Wikipedian Guide and bridging the content gap through the AfricanGerman Phrase project. We hope that the general support fund will allow you to meet your need for long term funding and the development of organizational and programmatic capacities of the user group.

We propose you share a detailed plan for your collaboration with Wikimedia affiliates, as indicated in your application. Are there specific projects you will be collaborating on? We are keen on learning about these opportunities.

Overall, thank you for your work and all you do for the community and the Wikimedia movement.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

@VThamaini (WMF) and Team

Thank you and your team very much for taking us through this process to this stage of the funding process. Concerning partnerships, we are currently working with Wiki Kouman to see how to integrate their projects as one of our user group activities which will permit us to contribute to Wiktionary as one of our target projects in this proposal. Regarding other partnerships with other Wikimedia affiliates, this is still work in progress and you shall be informed as soon as this is established.

We hope to bring the change that is intended and get our community members more involved in our projects during this period. Eugene233 (talk) 09:17, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Timeline sharing

Hello all the team,
Hello VThamaini (WMF)

It is with great pleasure that we join you to share with you the timeline of the Program.
The timeline is available at Drive and accessible.

We thank you,
On behalf of the working group,
--Bile rene (talk) 18:25, 8 June 2022 (UTC)