Grants talk:TPS

Closing TPS program

The WMF Community Resources team is closing one of our smaller funding programs, Travel and Participation Support (TPS). TPS will no longer accept applications as of May 1, 2018.

Some background: TPS was created in 2011 as a movement outreach program. It reimburses travel expenses for Wikimedian volunteers who present about Wikimedia at non-Wikimedia events. Its closure comes as a consequence of the grants restructure following our [[Grants:IdeaLab/Reimagining_WMF_grants/Implementation |2015 Reimagining Grants consultation]]. As we have redesigned our grant programs to better meet the needs of our stakeholders, we are no longer resourced to support TPS as a separate program.

We will continue to support travel requests as part of our other grant programs, as follows:

Rapid Grants will now fund travel requests for non-Wikimedia events from individuals for up to $2,000 USD, prioritizing applications that include all of the following:

• Wikimedian presenters who have a special area of expertise in relation to their target audience (for example, a psychology professor who is sharing about Wikimedia projects at an academic conference for other psychology professionals)
• outreach activity with a training component and a plan for online follow-up providing ongoing mentorship and support (editing training, editathon, etc.)
• regional travel requests under $2,000 USD

Rapid Grants will continue to fund travel expenses for local Wikimedia events.

Conference and Events Grants will continue to support travel scholarships for Wikimedia events. Note that this funding is awarded to conference organizers who then manage requirements for participants. Requests for more than $10,000 USD are required to start the application process 6 months before the date of the proposed event.

Wikimania Scholarships will continue to support travel scholarships for Wikimania.

KLove (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

@KLove (WMF): This seems like a good thing for me. The rapid grants process is very similar and it seems like anyone wanting travel support can now go through that process, which simplifies the WMF grants application process and offers the same benefits.

I see nothing lost here and the same benefits offered in a way that is easier for the Wikimedia community. Thanks for this. If I understand correctly, there was some historical legal reason for classifying travel support and the rapid grants separately, but whatever the case, now having fewer application points for the community means a more understandable process. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikimania scholarships budget

Is this the main talk page of TPS? If not please move to the best place. I've read the reports on TPS+Wikimania scholarships, but I need some disaggregated numbers: it would be great if WMF could fill Wikimania/Scholarships/2014 and maybe even 2015; I'm currently writing 2016 and information on past years is essential, 2013 has been very useful to me. Nemo 10:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

For 2014 we issued 109 scholarships and for 2015, 110. I will include the totals on the scholarship pages for each of those Wikimania's. Thanks. --EYoung (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Long evaluation, no clear resolution

I assisted some individuals in applying for grants. In each of three cases the evaluation period lasted for months end ended ambiguously. I made a post at Grants_talk:Start#How_does_the_WMF_grants_team_feel_about_saying_"no"? advocating for clear outcomes to grant applications.

I wanted to share here because these were rapid grants. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:07, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Merge to Grants_talk:Start

There are many grant discussion pages. None of them get much conversation alone. The collective effect is that the current system splits similar conversations which ought to be together. Sometime soon, I will merge all talk pages for grants into Grants_talk:Start. Even with many pages merged together I do not anticipate that this one page will get much traffic in the near future.

Sometime soon I will merge this page! If you have comments, please post at Grants_talk:Start#Proposal_to_merge_talk_pages_for_grants. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:38, 12 April 2018 (UTC)