Wikimedia Conference 2013/Schedule/Friday/Small grants programs

(click the person logo on the top right to identify yourself, if you like)

People attending

• Asaf (WMF)
• Dorit (WMIL)
• Tomasz (WMPL)
• Pierre-Selim (WMFR)
• Pranav (WMIN)
• Jessie (WMF)
• Ivan (WMMX)
• Kirill (WMUS-DC)
• Dumisane (WMZA)
• Michal (Wikimedia Slovakia)
• Dennis (WMTW)
• Ilario (WMCH)
• Andrea (WMIT)
• Mile (WMRS)
• Ganesh (WMNepal)
• Jan (WMSE)
• Susanna (WMAM)
• antanana (WMUA)
• ?
• Balasz (WMHU)
• Delphine (WMDE)
• Salvador (WMMX)
• Miguel (WMES)
• Illia (WMUA)

The moderator identifies the points to be discussed and most interesting for attendees.

Small groups are created to works in these points. The paper with these points are rotate within the groups and the groups may agree or cancel or add comments using a different color marker.

• Issues of people who apply
• Metrics in assigning and evaluating
• How to attract applications
• Good ptractices, suggestions, useful stories

Issues of people who apply

• Need some suggestions for types of projects
• Think big, start small (but don't be shy <- "Shyness" is an issue!!
• Allow time for iterations/feedback
• Policies should be developed
• Guidelines have to be clear and clearly understood -> ask questions
• Timeline for processing grant application should be clear
• Separate what can be separated -> multiple grant applications for different projects
• Avoiding community politics prevents people from applying
• Fear of bureaucracy (real or imaginary)
• Preconceived ideas
• Visibility of grant/funding opportunities
• Inappropriate requests (not corresponding with Wiki goals)

Metrics in assigning and evaluating

• Some projects have obvious metrics, some don't -> be sure to explain what is the success of projects
• Number & quality metrics & timeline
• Review of grant after the project is finished and review of metrics (good enough) = measure of success
• Previous success can be a good starting point to define metrics and expectations
• Don't expect too much from volunteers especially with quality metrics. Give support for those but they need to be understood and delivered
• Grant projects should have simple and attainable goals
• Value collaboration with external organizations
• Outreach metrics: Document the grant
• Quantifiable measures of success should be precise and realistic
• Need longer term follow-up
• Multiple measures (eg. xy article and size of articles)
• Need to have measures around outputs, outcome and impact!

How to attract applications

• Face-to-face contact
• Site notice for logged-in users locally and globally to community members (village pump)
• Proactive offers
• E-mail list
• Advertise on the organization's communication network
• Other media (social media, others?)
• Have a group of people to help identify interesting people/projects
• Easy form of application, make the application process simple
• History of answers and delays
• Advice/help for application
• Keeping privacy for the public part of the request
• Success stories and unsuccess stories of funded grants
• Contact past unsuccessful applicants and help them to modify
• Evaluate process -> adapt, change, good practices
• Have a facilitator/reference person within the grant-giving body
• Provide "implementation support"

Good practices, suggestions, useful stories

• Follow-up with projects during and/or after the project
• Make sure proposals fully plan out the project
• Budget (itemized)
• Goals should be SMART = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time sensitive)
• Measures of success
• Group of people and leader
• Party receiving funds
• Timeline
• Have criteria for types of things to be funded
• Focus on impact: Why is this an important project and how do we know it worked?
• Impact means: improving content of Wikimedia projects, attracting more people to contribute, increasing our reach (f.ex. mobile access)
• Transparency of the process: Conflict of Interest policy
• Regular reports are very important -> continuous reporting (even if just for the applicant)
• Learning
• Non-financial support
• Know when a project has failed or has ended
• Global evaluation on the process to make it evolve (see grants program retrospective of WMF on Meta)

Things written on the flipboard

Grant Requests Q&A

Is Wiki Loves Monuments a good idea for a grant?

Yes, WLM is a good idea, it is a common and known project and it is easy to monitorate developing and steps

Which are the most interesting request you seen?

800 $ grant for photo contest on Tamil Wikipedia: great result; grant to Wikimedia Australia for the first GLAM conference: the GLAM project started there!

Can I hire a project manager?

Yes, you can hire a part time employee or a short term contractor

Can an office be funded by a grant?

Office and staff usually are FDC stuff

Other Things

What excited the commitee?

• software to improve wiki project use (i.e. Wikipedia adventure game)
• discussions into the commitee are profitable because timelines help to keep all ideas and talks closer

• some pojects can be replicated in many languages: read former applications!
• ask yourself which are he resources you really need. Money are noth everything and can even cause you some troubles! (Budget is not the goal!)
• the committee wants to be both proactive and listener
• the aim is to cover expenses (time, money) which cannot be covered by volunteers
• the results for Wikimediamovement needs to be tangible (best. driving more volunteership)

Report

follow instructions, you can ask questions about it, read past report, send it on time, prepare it during or right after a project (fresh memory

Project manager, staff, office

must be for the project, must be justified (will it be worth it?), tied to the goal

Paid job

• not for contributing directly to wikis, can be paid for organizaton, managing etc (off wiki stuff); one paid position should enable more voluntary. Paid position examples: coordinator for logistics, suppliers, lodging, etc.
• some kinds of work can (should) be outsourced to non-wikimedians, but it's better to use wikimedians
• even if the job itself is good injecting money in a community could be bad
• complex projects should value balance between results and workload on volunteers

how do you define impact?

ongoing conversation! Quantifiable and also qualitative ask wmf/community for help with this when writing grants and reports