Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation/Movement strategy discussion(s)

Clarifications

Thank you, Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation for submitting this grant proposal for organizing movement strategy discussions in Nigeria. It is great to see a wide engagement plan across the university partners and local hubs to create good engagement on the local level. At the same time, I am concerned regarding the grant presentation overall, which looks more like a draft than a complete proposal. As a result, I have some follow-up comments and questions to clarify the scope and budget for the planned activities.

• First of all, I would like to highlight that this grant application came in really late considering the actual event date. We announced the movement strategy grants on October 26, 2020 and I feel there was a sufficient time buffer to file in the grant proposal much earlier than it was done now. This has implications to the assessment of the grant. I would suggest that in future you will take time to submit proposals well in advance of the events, so it would be possible to process them more thoughtfully and also have funds sent over in advance of the activities.

• I am a bit unclear regarding the agenda of the event. I currently only see the general containers and cannot actually understand the true content of the discussions. This also relates to the facilitation plan. How will the conversations be facilitated? How are the participants supported in mapping out their priorities? How do you ensure that they are sufficiently informed? Having this information readily available would also facilitate assessment of the budget of this grant proposal. I hope you can provide more clarity around this.

• There is a significant budget item for coordination of the event, but I do not fully understand what it entails. From what I read the communication duties have been handed over to local leaders and I would like to understand better: what activities does the coordination of the event include? how have the coordination costs been calculated, i.e. what is the breakdown of the costs? what is the support provided to the local organizers in communication regarding the events? I would really like to learn more about this to better assess the proposal.

• In your grant proposal you have noted that there are no planned tools and services, at the same time you request 64.99 USD for that. I would kindly ask you to remove this from the budget or explain in the proposal the tools/services investment.

• There is no clear documentation plan presented in the proposal, at the same time you request 250 USD to support the documentation efforts. Maybe you can clarify what documentation activities are planned? What is the breakdown of the documentation costs for this grant?

• Finally, you are requesting for significant amount of data subsidies. I have a high concern regarding this line item, because Igbo and Hausa communities are already requesting data subsidies for their respective movement strategy discussion grants and as you state that these packages will be distributed to these communities, I am concerned that there might be duplicate request about this. I would prefer to have this covered in their respective grants. What is your thinking behind adding this line item to the budget? Have you coordinated the support efforts with respective communities?

• I apologize for having so many questions in relation to the grant application, but it really feels to be rather in a draft form than a complete application. It will be difficult to fund this application as it came in so late and the event has already been announced, yet I appreciate the effort put into organizing this event and am available to figure out if there are ways how it can still be funded. Having responses to my questions would help to make the application more complete and facilitate the assessment. I am available for any specifications regarding this. Thank you for your kind attention! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 11:59, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Response to KVaidla (WMF)

Movement strategy discussion by Wikimedia User group Nigeria

Particiapation across different groups within our network

The prioritized recommendation by members of Wikimedia community in Nigeria

• First of all, I would like to highlight that this grant application came in really late considering the actual event date. We announced the movement strategy grants on October 26, 2020 and I feel there was a sufficient time buffer to file in the grant proposal much earlier than it was done now. This has implications to the assessment of the grant. I would suggest that in future you will take time to submit proposals well in advance of the events, so it would be possible to process them more thoughtfully and also have funds sent over in advance of the activities.

We apologize for the late submission of the grant request. In the future, we will take time to submit our proposals well in advance of the event. On a side note, the late submission was partly due to the diverse nature of our community. We have 8 fan clubs across Nigeria and we needed enough time to get them involved in the planning and implementation of the discussion.

• am a bit unclear regarding the agenda of the event. I currently only see the general containers and cannot actually understand the true content of the discussions. This also relates to the facilitation plan. How will the conversations be facilitated? How are the participants supported in mapping out their priorities? How do you ensure that they are sufficiently informed? Having this information readily available would also facilitate assessment of the budget of this grant proposal. I hope you can provide more clarity around this.

The Agenda of the event WAS divided into three key areas namely:

1. Review and presentation of historical background of the Strategy movement 2030 to tell the story about; where we are at the moment, how we got here, what we stand to benefit in participating in the strategy discussion.
2. Comment, Questions and Answers:

• Participants were allowed to share their thought on how the 10 recommendation will impact on their activities.
• Experienced members /members of the movement strategy were encouraged to participate in this session to assist in providing answers to questions from the participants.

1. What is next after the conversation ( After the conversation , it assumed that everyone has s been brought up to speed on the movement strategy, so, we need to decide on what next to be done to realize the prioritization of the initiatives)

• We designed a survey to capture all inputs and what the community would like to prioritized
• We plan to Constitute a committee that will drive the initiative(s) in 2021

Facilitator – We plan to pay the facilitators at the rate of 50 USD/hr.

Payment will be made as follows:

1. 2hrs for all the pre-event activities; (Debriefing): organizing pre-event meetings among the local leaders to explain the expectations and coordination of the members within their group before the event.( 2@hrs@50USD=100USD)
2. He/she Coordinates the various programs during the meeting proper, which include, designing the detailed program for the event proper. Setting up expectations for each anchor/facilitator for the meeting and slides preparation. Allocated hours = 2hrs ( 2hrs@50USD=100USD)
3. Post-event: coordination of all activities leading to the publishing of the final report for the global conversation, coordinating the survey for selecting prioritized recommendation(s) among the community members, coordination and inauguration of the implementation committee, and other activities that relate to this role. Allocated Hour= One hour ( 1Hr@50USD)

• It is great to see the initiative of working with translations for 3 languages (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) - thank you for your work on setting this up, as it is well aligned with the values of the movement strategy. However, I would like to understand what exactly the translation items include and how have you calculated the costs? The costs seem to be slightly higher compared to other translation support we have seen in the grant program. Providing more information regarding this would help me to understand the plan and the cost structure better.

1. The translators were engaged to interpret from English to Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa
2. Translation of the final report on landing page to the respective languages

Cost implications

1. Debriefing ( 3 translators by 50USD= 150USD)
2. Interpretation during the event ( 3translatorsx 70USD=150USD)
3. Translation of landing page ( 3translators x50USD=150)

Total = 450USD ( This figure has been corrected in the grant)

Wikimedia Nigeria has a very wide network which cut across, tribes, our clubs and hubs in the country. We plan to pay each person 50USD flat rate each for the time invested by each of the community lead for coordinating their member registration, briefing their members on the benefit of participating in the strategy, filling in the survey and to motivate their members to participate at the event.

• Lagos State University= USD 50
• University of Ibadan= USD 50
• Ekiti State University = USD 50
• Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta= USD 50
• University of Nigeria = USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Abuja= USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Owerri= USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Enugu= USD 50
• Total =450 ( We have corrected this figure on the grant)

In your grant proposal you have noted that there are no planned tools and services, at the same time you request 64.99 USD for that. I would kindly ask you to remove this from the budget or explain in the proposal the tools/services investment

Yes, it was a mistake, we bought a professional zoom for the meeting. ( I have made the correction in the grant)

• There is no clear documentation plan presented in the proposal, at the same time you request 250 USD to support the documentation efforts. Maybe you can clarify what documentation activities are planned? What is the breakdown of the documentation costs for this grant?

Documentation Plan:

• Debriefing of the document by the project coordinator on the expectations of the movement strategy meeting. Allocated Hour= 1hr @50USD

  Taken minutes during the event to be used for the final report of the conversation to be published on the landing page of our conversation Allocated Hours = 2hrs @50USD

  Design of survey to support the collation of prioritized initiatives for implementation in 2021. Allocated Hours= One hour

  Publishing of landing page to report the final outcome of conversation that led to the selection of the prioritized initiatives on Meta. Allocated Hours= 1hr

Total= 5hrs@50USD=250USD

• Finally, you are requesting for significant amount of data subsidies. I have a high concern regarding this line item, because Igbo and Hausa communities are already requesting data subsidies for their respective movement strategy discussion grants and as you state that these packages will be distributed to these communities, I am concerned that there might be duplicate request about this. I would prefer to have this covered in their respective grants. What is your thinking behind adding this line item to the budget? Have you coordinated the support efforts with respective communities?

Unlike other language-based communities, our members cut across all the languages, tribes, and ethnic groups in Nigeria. So, we planned to accommodate the participation of these groups in the meeting and make available our global materials in these languages.

Specifically, our data subsidies did not focus on languages but on our network structures. So, the plan is to subsidies data expenses of participants from each of our clubs and hubs thus;

• Lagos State University= USD 50
• University of Ibadan= USD 50
• Ekiti State University = USD 50
• Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta= USD 50
• The University of Nigeria = USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Abuja= USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Owerri= USD 50
• Wikimedia Hub, Enugu= USD 50
• Total USD 450

Lastly,KVaidla (WMF), we understood the difficulty that the late application of our grant might cause the grant decision-making unit. However, our decision was based on the information received that all the interested affiliates with the intention to join the global conversation must be produced and submit their report before the commencement of the global conversation on the 21st and 22nd of November, 2020. Our community is so passionate about the need to be a key partner in this movement and that was what prompted our decision and we will appreciate your support accordingly so as to motivate the members for further participation.

• Our community has gone ahead to meet the obligation of organizing the event on the 17th of November 2020. Please see the published final report and this have been shared the the strategy core team
• In addition to the conversation after the meeting, we designed a survey for the selection among the interested members of our community to priories an initiative to be implemented in 2021.Thank you Wikimedia Nigeria (talk) 12:21, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear representatives of Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation, thank you so much for providing this information and for following up via email to remind me that this grant proposal is still unresolved. I had further questions and clarifications regarding this grant in November and unfortunately became overwhelmed with the Movement Strategy Global Conversations and never followed up. I am truly sorry for this omission from our side and look forward to resolve pending questions swiftly.

In the meantime some of the concerns that I have had regarding the costs for this grant have been mitigated with similar practice and costs from other events and reimbursements for global events. There are still 2 remaining items I would like to understand better prior to facilitating approval to reimburse costs incurred with the grant funding:

• In your application you have demanded for translation costs into 3 languages and have dedicated funding for documentation. We have well received your response to our prioritization form, yet the final report you have provided is not really adding content and also seems to be only available in English. I would like to know - how the documentation and written translation resources were allocated and where can I acquaint myself with the results of that investment?
• You have well provided the list of the collaboration partners for the event. In the grant application you list 9 of them, yet on the talk page only 8 (Edo hub seems to be missing). As a result, the numbers on the talk page do not add up. Was Edo hub part of the collaboration or not?

Once I have a clear understanding regarding these items we should be able to swiftly move towards resolving this pending grant request. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 10:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Reply to WMF's queries

Dear KVaidla (WMF), Thanks for the feedback. Our initial expectation was that the grant application would be approved before implementation. That never happened and we were unable to fund some of the budget items such as translation of materials into the three basic languages spoken in Nigeria (Yoruba, Hausa & Igbo) has proposed. For translation supports, we were only able to support the translation of the recommendation summary in Yoruba language (see here). The overall documentation of the meeting including how we connected, who participated, what was discussed, our prioritization from the recommendation can be found in our final report. We may not be reimbursed (USD 300) for the translation into Hausa and Igbo since translations have not been done for these languages. We hope to be reimbursed for other budget lines that have been done (Internet, online tools or services subscription, facilitation, coordination and documentation). On a side note, we'd like to mention that @MPourzaki (WMF): and @Abbad (WMF): attended the meeting.

1. Yes, Edo Wikimedia Hub was part of the collaboration. We mistakenly omitted them on the talk page, this has been fixed.

Please let us know you require additional clarification. Thank you. Wikimedia Nigeria (talk)

Thank you for such a swift reply! The expectation of having the grant application approved prior to the event is a fair one and we were able to make it happen for most of the events. It is unfortunate that this was not the case for the discussion organized by Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation. I understand how this can have implications to the translation efforts.

As far as I understand no translations were made as part of this grant, as also the recommendations translated into Yoruba were done previously in June 2020 as part of closing the Phase II of the strategy process. As a result, I would request that you remove these line items from the budget and budget total, i.e. edit the grant application accordingly.

Otherwise I do not have any further inquires and once you have made the changes based on this discussion in the budget, I will move it forward to final approval. Thank you so much for your time and kind attention! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 10:24, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Dear KVaidla (WMF), the Addition of the cost of translating our final recommendation to the Yoruba language was a mix-up and we regret this instance. As instructed, all the cost of translation has been removed from the line items in the budget. Thanks --Wikimedia Nigeria (talk) 17:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Grant approved

Dear representatives of Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation,

I am truly sorry for the huge delay regarding the decision on your proposal. Generally, grants are not approved retroactively and also there have been transitions in the Movement Strategy process that have complicated the approval.

However, based on the information received (thank you for your responsiveness!) it seems that it makes sense to reimburse the costs incurred for this Movement Strategy engagement effort in Nigeria for $1,390.00 USD.

Thank you for your contribution to the global movement strategy conversations! --KVaidla (WMF) (talk) 12:26, 16 July 2021 (UTC)