Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Armenia General Support Fund/2023-2024

Regional Committee feedback and questions

Hello M.D. Shahinyan and Beko. The Regional Committee is pleased to see Wikimedia Armenia’s application for the General Support Fund for this round. The committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wanted to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review:

• Overall, the committee felt the proposal was strong in several areas, such as:
  • the level of detail around the changes you want to pursue over the next year, and explaining why these needs are important
  • the structure of your timetable shows good preparation practices and how you are balancing the demands of programming throughout the year
  • how Wikimedia Armenia has learned from its past work and governance practices with respect to needs for transparency in decisionmaking and communication practices.
  • that there are strong organizational skills of your team related to program planning and execution.

• One question in the proposal appears to be missing a response: 8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge. Could this question be addressed here in relation to your intention to address gaps related to age, geography, and coverage of important topics in your community?

• The committee agrees that having regular meetings involving staff, the Board, and chapter members can help support better communication practices in your organization. Would it be possible to provide a summary of major discussions and overall learning from these meetings as a part of your final reporting?

• Can you provide more information about the general roles and responsibilities of the Quality Program Coordinator?

• Does Wikimedia Armenia plan to do any engagement with communities in the Armenian diaspora? Our understanding is that your primary work is focused on communities within Armenia, but we were curious if your chapter was interested in or is already doing work with diasporic communities outside the country, particularly in online activities you are planning where remote participation may be possible.

In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by May 8th. 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 supporting our review.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 07:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello Regional Committee members. Thank you for your feedback, it's highly appreciated.

With this reply I would like to provide our answers and share our thoughts about the raised questions.

● About the Question 8.1 - Wikimedia Armenia pays close attention to thematic content. As previously, a lot of projects are envisaged to address important topics. Through discussions, feedback, and the interest of the community Wikimedia Armenia defines important thematic topics and, through professionals, and interested people, creates and improves them (e.g. historical, financial, medical, and cultural topics).

Regarding the age gap, Wikimedia Armenia is one of those Wikimedia affiliates that covers several age groups - tweens, teenagers, and adults. This is accomplished through various projects and activities such as Wikiclubs, collaborations with schools, universities, and various organizations where school and university students, school teachers, professionals of different ages, and experts in different fields are widely engaged in Wikimedia projects.

Regarding geographic coverage, Wikimedia Armenia always emphasized involving people from different parts of Armenia in Wikimedia projects. Actively functioning Wikiclubs and Wiki groups in rural and urban areas of Armenia are one of the best examples of geographic coverage; these not only provide a space for school students and interested people to contribute to Wikimedia projects but also act as the face of the Wikimedia movement in remote areas playing a crucial role in spreading the movement. For a number of projects planned by this proposal, such as collaboration with GLAM institutions, in order to have a broader geographic coverage, we plan to work and have previously worked with ICOM Armenia (International Council of Museums) where nearly all regional museums are represented. Similar cooperation exists with the National Center of Educational Technologies (KTAK) which enables us to organize training with all Armenian schools (e.g. recently more than 280 teachers have applied to participate in Wikipedia training with the help of this cooperation). Targeted cooperation and communication with various thematic unions enable Wikimedia Armenia to address the geography gap and provide its presence in various parts of Armenia creating a solid network of Armenian Wikimedians.

● About the organizational discussions and final reporting - It is absolutely feasible. Wikimedia Armenia will summarize all important and vital discussions, communication, and decisions made during the meetings and include them in the final report.

● The role of the Quality Program Coordinator - As providing quality content has become one of the focal points of Wikimedia Armenia’s activities, meaning that quality content is more significant than the quantity of created content, Quality Program Coordinator will design projects to address quality content gaps, discover and closely work with target groups like experts, professionals in different fields. The coordinator will also oversee the quality of created articles and engage experts (both Wiki-related and field related) in proofreading the created content.

● About the Armenian Diaspora and their involvement - Firstly, it should be noted that Wikimedia Armenia started the activities of Western Armenian Wikipedia which worked with the Armenian diaspora and coordinated their wiki activity. Now there is a user group that continues working with the Armenian diaspora. As most of the diaspora speaks Western Armenian, they are the target audience for the Wikimedians of the Western Armenian Language User Group.

Coming to the Eastern Armenian-speaking diaspora, Wikimedia Armenia previously had several online meetups with different communities telling about the importance and role of Wikimedia Armenia in creating strong connections with the Armenian diaspora through the Wikimedia movement. Wikimedia Armenia is always ready to find collaborators and work closely with them by collaborating with Wikimedia affiliates residing in corresponding countries. It is worth mentioning that Wikicamps play a vital role here as well, because we previously had cases when families living outside of Armenia came to Armenia during summer vacations so that their children could participate in Wikicamps. Thus, this is also a kind of motivation for the Armenian diaspora. M.D. Shahinyan (talk) 08:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 146,692 USD

@M.D. Shahinyan and Beko: Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 146,692 USD with a grant term starting 1 July 2023 and ending 30 June 2024. The Regional Committee supported funding for the proposal consistent with the reduced budget provided in the proposal.

The Regional Committee appreciates Wikimedia Armenia’s application this year in light of the chapter’s previous ineligibility for funding. The decision will support the chapter with full general operating support for operations and programming for the first time since the 2019-2020 fiscal year. During the interim, the Community Resources team provided your chapter with some support limited to operations. The committee acknowledges that the chapter has been making important improvements in its governance and communication practices based on its work with AffCom.

The committee highlighted several strengths of your proposal in its review:

• Efforts to train volunteers on some narrows staffing tasks supports the overall sustainability of your organizational operations and programs
• Wikimedia Armenia has established some good community engagement opportunities and practices that informs its priorities and programmatic choices
• Your chapter has been able to establish effective partnerships around common thematic areas (GLAM) as well as less typical ones (environmental organizations, economic institutions). Many partners provide your chapter with various forms of support around training, monetary support, and donations.
• Improvements in your governance practices have the potential to help you identify conflicts/challenges earlier and ensure that the related decisionmaking and communication around them is transparent
• The committee also appreciated having more context on the talk page around how you are working to address content gaps related to age and geography among Armenian communities, as well as understanding more about the Quality Program Coordinator role.

The Regional Committee was not able to provide full funding as requested. The primary reason for this was due to limitations on the flexibility of our overall budget this round. Separately, the Regional Committee was also concerned that the costs for WikiCamps in the original budget was too high – particularly the costs around accommodations and travel – and agrees that reducing the overall scope of the event is sensible, as was done in the reduced budget.

Importantly, the committee also notes that Wikimedia Armenia’s programmatic plans and overall budget in the original budget was ambitious. It may not be possible to rely on the General Support Fund to meet these goals for significant increases in your budget in the near future. We are glad that your chapter will be focused on seeking other sources of funding through other grants and fundraising, which can help support this kind of growth.

One important change in the General Support Fund is that a written midpoint report is no longer required. We will continue to have a midpoint conversation to meet and generally reflect on your progress, needs, and updates on your ongoing and future movement work. During this midpoint, the Regional Committee also would like to learn more about the work and progress of the Quality Program Coordinator's tasks and efforts related to quality content development.

In terms of next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you want to discuss the funding decision or have questions during the funding period, you are welcome to contact your regional program officer.

Thanks again for your hard work preparing the proposal and supporting our review process for the General Support Fund. We look forward to your work this year!

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 05:53, 29 May 2023 (UTC)