Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group/2019

Request to revise budget and plan by 9 November

Sent by Email and also posting here so we can track what changes are happening and why:

Pershendetje, colleagues!

We are currently reviewing applications for consistency and completeness to make sure we have all of the information we need to proceed with programmatic review. We have some needs with respect to clarifying your budget.

Feedback about your budget

We appreciate that the format of your budget clearly links expenses to programs. This means that it is also less easy to understand your expenses total expenses by specific line items. So it might seem that I am asking about some very small items, but actually many of these items add up to larger sums when they are totaled across programs.

1. First, what is lacking in the description section is the number of units of each item you are purchasing. This should be provided for every expense. For example, food and refreshments for how many people? how many tokens of appreciation? how many trips are included for how many people in transport items? etc. 2. Next, there are a few line items that are not specific enough to give us an idea of what your expenses are. These include line items labeled simply as "transport", "tokens of appreciation", "working materials", "online advertising", etc. I have tried to highlight where detail is lacking using the comments feature, so that you know where we are missing information. 3. Finally, please pay close attention to any items where volunteers are being paid or reimbursed (whether stipends, travel expenses, or prizes), since we need to make sure we have a clear understanding of when this is happening and why.

Feedback about your program plan

Keep in mind that this is not feedback about the content of your programs themselves, but is rather focused on making sure that the right information is in your program plan so that we can make a proper assessment. This means more questions or conversations about your specific programs, will come in the future, after you implement these suggestions.

1. The education program is well-developed and clear. You have provided clear goals and targets, I can understand the larger context for your work, and I can link specific budget items and activities to the results you are expecting. Nice work!

1. The GLAM program lacks an explanation of your overall goals. We can see from the plan that you are focusing on new collaborations and on releasing materials, but there is no context for why you feel that work is important or what you hope to achieve through it in the long term. The Wikipedian in Residence, in particular, needs more explanation. It is not our usual practice to fund stipends for W-i-Rs, as we expect institutions to be contributing this if they are paid stipends, so this will need a lot of justification. Right now, there's no explanation of how this is related to your goals for your GLAM partnerships.

2. The Outreach program includes specific goals and measures, yet it is difficult to link the information provided in your budget with the information provided in your program plan, because there is not a detailed enough description of the activities you've included in your budget. That means that it is clear what you are trying to achieve, but that it is not possible to understand how the activities you are proposing to do will lead to those results, or how the funds you are requesting is related to those results.

We ask that you please revise your plan by Friday 9 November, so that we can proceed with review. If you think you need more time to make the changes we are requesting, please let us know so that we may adjust the deadline for you. Also, if you would like to meet this week to discuss any of this feedback, we can arrange that.

Faleminderit! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:55, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group’s grant is approved in the amount of 12,000 EUR Euro for 12 months

Urime! Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group’s grant is approved in the amount of 12,000 EUR for 12 months, with a grant term starting 1 January 2019 and ending 31 December 2019.

We are excited to fund your next year’s program plan, which builds on your current 6-month plan. We like the structure of your new plan, because it gives us a clear idea of where you are focusing your attention and why, and we see how the programs you’ve included build on what you have done in the past. We are very pleased to see the momentum you are building in several of these program areas, including GLAM and education.

Highlights include:

• Formalizing and developing partnerships with Museum of Kosovo and National Museum of Albania that you initiated in 2018. We imagine there are huge opportunities to digitize and make available material that is difficult for many to access.
• An ambitious goal of developing an accredited training for teachers based on Wikipedia editing, in Kosovo. We hope you can achieve this, as it is likely to enable you to achieve more integration with the education system there and may also serve as a model for working in other countries.

In the future, we would like to see some more concrete goals related to your diversity focus as part of your outreach program, including a plan for what target groups you would like to reach and why. It would be helpful to better understand how you think about diversity in your context, especially as this may be slightly different in each country you work in. We sense this is important to you, and so would like to challenge you to make your plans in this area more specific.

Working across borders in at least three countries is likely to be a challenge, and this challenge may increase as your organization expands, especially as your thematic scope may overlap with the geographic scopes of several active groups. You may need to increase your collaboration with others in the region as time goes on, and this may be something that we need to continually monitor together.

Finally, we understand you are receiving funding for a staff person from another source. Since we are providing funding for your general operating expenses and programs, we would still like to see a staffing plan that explains what this person’s role will be. This will help us to better understand how you are thinking about and utilizing your paid staff, which is important to understanding how your organization functions overall.

Gjith te mirat! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:45, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Please link to a copy of your complete annual budget

Hello, WALUG colleagues!

Please link to a copy of your organization's annual budget for 2019. We see that only expenses covered by the grant are included in the budget you submitted, but we understand you have expenses covered by other funding sources. We need a complete picture of your organization's finances for the year. Please post your complete budget her by 30 January.

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:15, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group Activity & Budget Plan 2019