Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/WikiJournal User Group/2022

33% budget, US$35,000 for insurance

Hey, someone explain this.

The annual budget is about US$100,000. In the proposed budget there is this line -

34,897 Management Liability (D&O & EPL) Package, Miscellaneous E&O (Errors and Omissions) and Cyber. Expenditure includes a $30.00 Wells Fargo wire transfer fee.

This is a surprising amount of insurance. Can someone describe how you got this estimate and what it covers.

I am a member of this organization, I support the application in general, and I routinely review wiki community grant proposals. I am just here to chat.

I have shopped for and made purchase decisions on Wikimedia community project insurance before, and this item needs some more explanation. This could be accurate because when I was looking for insurance, some of the questions were about the liability of being part of Wikipedia as a billion-person organization operating on billion-dollar strategic planning.

1. What does this cover
2. Who gave the estimate
3. I would have expected something like $2-10k, depending - what makes this so costly

No big deal - just talk it through - thanks for the application. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello Blue Rasberry ,

Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. We appreciate your concern regarding this. This policy is in line with national market minimums and is actually on the low end for the types of coverages we have. This coverage was shopped around to multiple insurance carriers before we settled on the one we have. I wish myself that there could have been a cheaper alternative, but I feel confident in the cost and quality of the coverage that the project has obtained. All I can say that it is money still well spent. Mikael Häggström (talk) 19:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 103,900 USD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 103,900 USD, with a grant term starting 1 January 2022 and ending 31 December 2022.

WikiJournal UG was awarded its first Simple APG last year, and has proposed an 80% increase in funding in the current General Support Fund application. This increase is substantial, and the committee was willing to support it as we found clarity in the budget as well as the primary rationale regarding the need for hiring a group of technical editors to take on repetitive tasks associated with front and back-end operations of professional journals.

We also understand that the hiring of technical editors will “free up” volunteers to expand participation, general growth, and especially outreach to potential participants in marginalized geographies. By eliminating costs associated with open access publishing, WikiJournal UG can potentially create more opportunities to amplify research from communities marginalized from academic research and publications. This work should be a major part of the project’s growth over the next few years, beyond the grant period.

While the committee’s response to this proposal was generally positive, there were some concerns around the lack of clarity for CEO funding source and insurance costs, as well as some reservations about the use of Open Journal Systems platform instead of MediaWiki, and would appreciate more clarity on these points, which can be discussed at an informal meeting next year or clarified here on the talk page. Despite these concerns, we are happy to support the programs and initiatives outlined in this proposal, and excited about the growth of WikiJournal UG. Moving forward, the committee formally recommends that WK UG commit to the following:

• Growing administrative capacity with expertise and experience in the following: US charity expertise; tax filings; employee oversight; maintaining nonprofit status reporting,
• Develop an additional evaluation metric for the OJS-MediaWiki integration.

In closing, we look forward to the development of your projects in the coming year, and we are excited about how WIkiJournals will contribute to WIkimedia’s strategic goals around knowledge equity, especially. On behalf of the regional committee,

Matthewvetter (talk) 17:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)