Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia ZA annual grant 2023/24

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

Hello , Wikimedia South Africa,

We hope you have been well. Thank you for taking the time to submit your application.

Wikimedia South Africa continues to demonstrate impact in their work and thoughtfulness in their growth. They remain guided and anchored by the strategic focus areas on diversity, capacity, access, flexibility and awareness and these have informed their programs and activities.

We found your proposal to be well structured, clear and coherent overall. We found the indicated metrics useful in supporting learning, evaluation and sharing and that these have been consistent and tied to learning questions that we also find that when answered can only deepen current areas of impact.

To support in further decision making it will be useful for WM ZA to;

We see your proposal of having a CEO and while we understand the vision are keen on understanding; the rationale behind selecting a CEO from the community?

What is the role of the community in the CEO selection process?

What is your vision of the process taking into account interest by community members who are not part of the board currently for instance.

Provide the activity timeline in a different format to allow for better understanding of information shared. We recommend that you Review the learning questions and metrics to better support WMZA in better measurement and learning. At the moment, the learning questions do not have aligned metrics that would support them in measuring the progress being made to support them in assessing impact. A better alignment is needed. Partnerships - would you let us know what partnerships align with the indicated strategic focus areas.

Lastly, we are curious to learn about the vision of the chapter seeing that some of the work you have been doing over the past years is similar to what user groups in the region do and wonder about the chapter factor in your work.

As always we recommend meeting with the regional program officer to support you in providing any clarity needed with the feedback shared here. The committee is also available to meet and join the call if that would be meaningful for you - just let the program officer know.

Thank you so much and we continue to appreciate your work and role in advancing the mission of the movement.

On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and staff , Azogbonon (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

FRENCH:

Bonjour, Wikimedia Afrique du Sud,

Nous espérons que vous allez bien. Nous vous remercions d'avoir pris le temps de soumettre votre candidature.

Wikimedia Afrique du Sud continue à faire preuve d'impact dans son travail et de réflexion dans sa croissance. Elle reste guidée et ancrée par les domaines d'intérêt stratégiques que sont la diversité, la capacité, l'accès, la flexibilité et la sensibilisation, qui ont influencé ses programmes et ses activités.

Nous avons trouvé votre proposition bien structurée, claire et cohérente dans l'ensemble. Nous avons trouvé les mesures indiquées utiles pour soutenir l'apprentissage, l'évaluation et le partage, et nous avons constaté qu'elles étaient cohérentes et liées à des questions d'apprentissage dont les réponses ne peuvent qu'approfondir les domaines d'impact actuels.

Pour soutenir la prise de décision, il serait utile que la MM ZA ; Nous voyons votre proposition d'avoir un PDG et, bien que nous comprenions la vision, nous tenons à comprendre ; le raisonnement qui sous-tend la sélection d'un PDG issu de la communauté ? Quel est le rôle de la communauté dans le processus de sélection du PDG ? Comment envisagez-vous le processus en tenant compte de l'intérêt des membres de la communauté qui ne font pas partie du conseil d'administration actuel, par exemple ? Présentez la chronologie de l'activité sous une forme différente afin de permettre une meilleure compréhension des informations partagées. Nous vous recommandons de revoir les questions d'apprentissage et les mesures afin d'aider WMZA à mieux mesurer et apprendre. Pour l'instant, les questions d'apprentissage n'ont pas d'indicateurs alignés qui les aideraient à mesurer les progrès accomplis et à évaluer l'impact. Un meilleur alignement est nécessaire. Partenariats - Pourriez-vous nous indiquer quels sont les partenariats qui s'alignent sur les domaines d'action stratégiques indiqués ?

Enfin, nous sommes curieux d'en savoir plus sur la vision de l'antenne, étant donné qu'une partie du travail que vous avez effectué ces dernières années est similaire à ce que font les groupes d'utilisateurs dans la région, et nous nous demandons quel est le facteur de l'antenne dans votre travail.

Comme toujours, nous vous recommandons de rencontrer le responsable de programme régional pour vous aider à clarifier les commentaires formulés ici. Le comité est également disponible pour se réunir et se joindre à l'appel si cela s'avère utile pour vous - il suffit de le faire savoir au responsable de programme.

Nous vous remercions et continuons à apprécier votre travail et votre rôle dans l'avancement de la mission du mouvement.

Au nom du Comité régional de l'AEM et de son personnel, Azogbonon (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Answers

Hello Azogbonon and thank you for the feedback. It is important for us to note that Wikimedia South Africa was originally planning to host a special chapter retreat that included our partners at the WMF before writing this grant. At the retreat we intended to discuss all the details of this grant, provide complete and well thought through details of all its aspects (such as the CEO position) and make it a 3 year grant. However the due date for this grant caught us by surprise forcing us to submit this grant before we could have that retreat. Therefore we decided to make this a one year grant that repeats many aspects of our previous grant with a few elements of what we hoped to have in the new grant put in.

Since submitting the grant we have thought more deeply about some of the new additions to this grant that differentiate it from the previous grant (such as the CEO position) and have decided that we are in fact not yet ready to hire someone for that role yet. Not until we have this retreat where we can discuss a) how and to what extent WMZA could become a hub chapter for a larger area of Africa, b) develop our next 5 year strategic plan (as the current one, developed in 2019, is about to expire), c) how to best marry the new strategic plan and hub responsibilities with existing partnerships and projects of the chapter, and d) how to better and further enhance the professionalization of the chapter that includes hiring a CEO but that maintains the unique functionality and working relationships that WMZA has developed over the years.

As such we would now rather rework the proposed budget so as to remove the CEO position for this year and rather keep the current management model for an additional year.

Having said that I have sought to answer the questions in kind below:

Q:"We see your proposal of having a CEO and while we understand the vision are keen on understanding; the rationale behind selecting a CEO from the community?"

As mentioned above WMZA has thought more deeply on the proposed CEO position and now feels that including it in this grant proposal was likely a rushed decision brought about by tight submission deadlines. We now feel that it is something that should be included in the next grant application after the chapter retreat. At the chapter retreat we will be able to develop a more complete and full account of how we can best hire a CEO and how we can best integrate the position into our existing chapter governance process in a way that grows professionalism whilst maintaining the best qualities of our current operating culture. This would include consulting with other chapters, who already have a CEO, on their experience on how best to hire and deploy a CEO, such as Wikimedia DE or Wikimedia UK.

Having said that here is an explenation on our current thinking on why we would prefer to have a CEO recruited from within the movement. There are three major reasons why there is a desire to recruit from within the community and one minor reason.

1. Understanding of the broader Wiki culture: we need a CEO who has an intimate understanding of the broader Wiki (ie. Wikipedia/Commons/Open Knoweldge) community culture. Our experience in hiring people from outside of the movement shows that it takes months, sometimes years, before people from outside of the movement understand all of the norms, expectations, systems, procedures, rules, and activities within our movement. This is less of a problem for employees in non-executive roles as mistakes from a lack of awareness of Wiki culture are less impactful and easier to overcome. However for an executive position making a decision in ignorance of Wiki culture is more problematic as it would be more impactful and possibly more alienating to the community. Additionally this person would need to be able to familiarize them selves extremely quickly to the cultural norms of our movement, norms that veteran movement members have spent many years learning.
2. Understanding of WMZA's culture and conflict management procedures: WMZA is a highly diverse chapter representing 8 language Wikipedias, diverse thematic interests, as well as demographic and cultural backgrounds. To deal with this the chapter needs, and has developed, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance norms that require both proven diplomatic skills and a deep understanding of these proceedures from the day a oersib in an executive level position starts the job. Hiring a person without a proven and intimate understanding of these procedures might be risky, however a work around for this problem (should a CEO from outside be selected) could a board mentorship period and listening tour wherein the CEO spends a couple of months focusing on familiarizing them selves with chapter norms.
3. Legitimacy in the eyes of the editing community: the successful running of a volunteer driven community organization such as WMZA requires that the executive level person enjoy a high level of legitimacy in order to operate with the confidence of the board. This is doubly true for an organisation as diverse as WMZA. It is seen as less risky to select a person from the board who enjoys both the legitimacy of the community and has the understanding of movement culture than to hire someone without these qualities. Again a possible work around for this problem could be a listening tour and board lead mentorship process.

We do note that hiring from within our own ranks is an experiment that might be only temporary whilst we workout if this is a workable solution that is best for community health and/or serves as a temporary solution whilst we start on the long and involved process of finding a permanent CEO that includes candidates from outside of the movement. Hiring non-executive roles takes us around 3 months typically whilst we expect the process of finding and hiring a CEO would likely take much longer.

Having said all of this the chapter is very open to other models of management that might replace a CEO model such as (for example) a shared part-time management model similar to the one the chapter currently has. This might turn out to be a better model in the end for the chapter given the success it has had so far, it has just come at the cost of overall coordination of the chapter but enjoys being a more egalitarian model that can more readily deal with local and thematic challenges. Having a CEO is a proposal at this stage and is not the only management option for the chapter's executive functions.

Q:"What is the role of the community in the CEO selection process?"

Please see the previous answer for details about the retreat where these details will be decided on in detail in preparation for this position to ideally be activated in the next grant period (2024/25). The chapter wants an open and transparent process but is still unfamiliar with the process of hiring a CEO. As such we would prefer to do this in the next grant period after the chapter has had a retreat to discuss these issues and consulted with WMF staff and other chapters with experience on this issue.

Q:"What is your vision of the process taking into account interest by community members who are not part of the board currently for instance."

WMZA is very open and interested in suggestions on how to be more inclusive of the interests of the broader Wiki Community we seek to represent. Currently the strategy is to host community building activities such as monthly community meetups (both offline and online) and awarding Wikimania & WikiIndaba scholarships; we have found this to be an effective way to connect with the existing community. However we know that we can and need to do more as the chapter currently only represents a fraction of the total Wiki editing community in the country and wider region. We would like to talk with other chapters how they best reach out to their communities and include them, WMZA considers Wikimedia DE as a good possible model in addition to many others.

Q:"Provide the activity timeline in a different format to allow for better understanding of information shared." We recommend that you Review the learning questions and metrics to better support WMZA in better measurement and learning. At the moment, the learning questions do not have aligned metrics that would support them in measuring the progress being made to support them in assessing impact. A better alignment is needed."

Thank you for the feedback, due to the rushed nature of this grant application we were unable to align the metrics with the learning questions to the extent we would have liked or normally expected of our selves. We are happy to revisit this part of the application and align the appropriate metrics. For the timeline, please see the time line of events below:

• First quarter - SADiLaR Wikipedia translation project launches (project will last until the end of the Fourth quarter), University and regional community incubation (TBA), Afrikaans Schools program (TBA)
• Second quarter - Wiki Indaba (3-5 November 2023), Chapter retreat (15-17 November 2023) immediately followed by the Chapter AGM (18 November 2023),
• Third quarter - Wiki Loves Science (December), 1Lib1Ref (TBA)
• Fourth quarter - Kaapse, Xan, & Khoe Wikipedias (TBA)

• Many other projects are 'ongoing' and run over the course of the year such as the Freedom of Panorama/Copyright advocacy (which is not funded through this grant but is still an important chapter activity), Wiki Bookshelf and community meetups.

• Other projects still have to have to be setup and aligned with partner organizations before rough dates can be determined such as: WikiGap, Artfeninism, Whoseknoweldge, Afrocrowd, Black Lunch Table, & LGBTQ+, GLAM digitization.

Q:"Partnerships - would you let us know what partnerships align with the indicated strategic focus areas."

The 2019 five year strategic plan outlines the the following 5 strategic goals:

1. Access: increasing access for all to free knowledge.
2. Capacity: increasing the capacity of the chapter to effect impact. Both by increasing administrative abilities to support chapter activities and by increasing the number of volunteers to create, manage and help implement projects.
3. Diversity: increasing the diversity (linguistic, demographic, and geographic) of the Wikimedia community in South Africa.
4. Awareness: increasing awareness to support chapter impact. Both awareness of how Wikipedia works and the need for more members of the public to participate but also the awerness of people's rights to free knowledge how to get involved.
5. Flexibility: increasing and maintaining chapter flexibility to react quickly to project opportunities.

The following partners alignn with the following goals:

• SADiLaR - Access (to knowledge through language), Capacity (by providing matching funding) and Diversity (by enhancing African language Wikipedias)
• WikiGap, Artfeninism, Whoseknoweldge, Afrocrowd, Black Lunch Table, & LGBTQ+ - Diversity (by promoting gender diversity) and Awareness (publicity surrounding the events)
• GLAM digitization - Access (by increasing the range of culturally important and historic Africa focused content on Commons for use on Wikipedia)
• University and regional community incubation- Awareness and Diversity (amongst young people/students at Universities)
• 1Lib1Ref - Awareness (increasing awareness of how to become a Wiki contributor amongst librarians)
• Wiki Loves- Awareness (of Wikipedia and Commons amongst the general public and new thematic groups like botanists) and Access (increasing photographic content for use on Wikipedia).
• Wiki Bookshelf - Access (providing access to otherwise paywalled citation material for editing Wikipedia and sharing those resources with the wider community in a copyright compliant manner).
• Kaapse, Xan, & Khoe Wikipedia incubators - Awareness, Access (new versions of Wikipedia in new languages), Diversity (include currently un-represented linguistic communities in the Wiki community)

Q:"Lastly, we are curious to learn about the vision of the chapter seeing that some of the work you have been doing over the past years is similar to what user groups in the region do and wonder about the chapter factor in your work."

The vision of Wikimedia South Africa is to promote the use of free and open knowledge resources to enable all South Africans to access, create and share knowledge, and to promote the values of openness, collaboration and participation on Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Our vision can be broken down into short term, medium term and long term goals as follows:

A. Short-term Goals

1. Increase awareness and understanding of Wikimedia South Africa Chapter
2. Increase the number of South African-based contributors to Wikimedia projects
3. Improve the quality of Wikimedia content about South Africa
4. Increase the number of South Africna language Wikipedias.
5. Provide funding and non-funding support to the South African community of volunteers and those based in the SADC region.

B. Medium-term Goals

1. Establish a network of Wikimedia projects in South Africa
2. Increase the number of South African-based editors in the Wikimedia community
3. Develop and implement strategies to improve the diversity and inclusion of South African Wikimedia contributors
4. Increase collaboration between South African Wikimedia contributors and other Wikimedia communities

C. Long-term Goals

1. Encourage collaboration between South African institutions and Wikimedia projects
2. Foster a culture of data sharing among South African institutions and Wikimedia projects
3. Promote the use of Wikimedia projects in South African education
4. Develop an open culture in South Africa that supports the use of open licenses and open source software

Please let us know if you have any follow-up feedback or questions for us and we will get back to you ASAP.--Discott (talk) 18:54, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Wikimedia Community Fund Approved in the amount of 100,000 USD

Dear, Wikimedia South Africa,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and approved funding in the amount of $100,000 for the period of July 2023 - June 2024.

As shared before via email - After a thorough review and discussion on your proposal and based off the information you shared with us as part of responding to feedback and questions, we make the following notes and recommendations;

• We found your responses to provide a lot of clarity and truly appreciate the care and detail provided.
• We see an opportunity for Wikimedia to grow , however, we see a lot of your work remaining the same and are unclear on the proposed budget increase. We know part of it was to support the CEO role but understand your review of your position on having this role at this stage in time.
• With that we recommend reviewing your costs and adjust your programs to a level served by the budget.
• We look forward to learning about your plan for engaging in the strategic review process and will be keen to support linked efforts.
• Lastly we appreciate your plan to support the community linked to Namibia and Eswatini and leadership of the Botswana community. We look forward to learning more about the outcomes of these efforts.

We hope this feedback and recommendations are useful in guiding your work now and in the future. Thank you for your contribution to the movement ; we value you as a community and partner in the movement and remain committed to ensuring you are supported in your work.

On behalf of the MEA Regional Committee and staff ,--Azogbonon (talk) 13:53, 29 May 2023 (UTC)