[Wikimedia-l] Changes to Rapid Grants - Effective August 1, 2019
Hello all, Hope this email finds you well. We are sending this message to select community mailing lists and all previous recipients of Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants. As you know the Rapid Grants Program <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid> [1] has played an important role in helping our communities to grow. The number of grants we have given out grew by 30% between FY16 -17 to this fiscal year, and they grew by 55% when measured by the total amount disbursed. (See the spending analysis <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis> [2] for reference.*) While communities have valued these flexible funding opportunities, on our part, it hasn’t been easy to measure and track their impact. We therefore will be implementing a number of changes in Fiscal Year 19/20, starting *August 1 2019*, to sharpen the focus and impact of rapid grants, whilst at the same time maintaining the quick and flexible funding options for community: 1) In the months specified below, we will prioritize support to *contests and campaigns* which have been an exciting source of growth in editorship, innovative participation and content generation by communities. These months will be solely dedicated to different contests and campaigns throughout the year: - *August*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Monuments* - *September*: only receiving proposals for *Awareness Grants* (campaign) - *December*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Africa * - *January*: only receiving proposals for *Art + Feminism* (campaign) - *March*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Earth* 2) Outside the months specified above, proposals are welcomed in all other categories: edit-a-thons, contests, photowalks, general promotion campaigns, and video campaigns. For added flexibility, we will also consider proposals outside of these categories, such as software development. However, we will no longer be providing rapid grants for travel support, equipment purchase or meetups. 3) We will evaluate each batch of grants once a month and accept the best proposals in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation’s medium-term goals. We will share the evaluation for the Rapid Grants Program that led us to sharpen the focus for the program once the evaluation is completed by September 30, 2019. In addition to these changes, we’ve also considered comments around Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants eligibility criteria and have clarified these criteria. Please take the time to re-familiarize yourselves with the Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants Guidelines and Criteria <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn> [4] page. The Wikimedia Foundation’s Medium-term <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019> [3] plan goals are set out here for information. If you have any questions, please email us at . Best regards, Woubzena *Please note that we have not yet put out the final FY 2018-19 numbers and we’re basing this calculation based on up to date internal numbers of 184 grants and $270,194. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn Woubzena Jifar (pronouns - she/her/hers) Program Officer, Rapid Grants User: WJifar (WMF) Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Rapid Grants Closure May 14 - June 30, 2018
Hello Fae, Thank you for sharing your experience with micro-grants and offering an experimental and responsive procedure. It's definitely a good model to consider. As we enter our planning year for the strategic direction our team will be soliciting ideas from the community and looking at different approaches. I will be sure to keep your suggestion in this consideration as we move forward. Best regards, Woubzena Woubzena Jifar Program Officer Rapid Grants Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> User: WJifar (WMF) On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 12:05 PM, Fæ <fae...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 2 May 2018 at 17:53, Strainu <strain...@gmail.com> wrote: > > 2018-05-02 1:51 GMT+03:00 Woubzena Jifar <wji...@wikimedia.org>: > >> 3. On your third point of having the 1st - 15th of the month be an open > >> application time, this is also an experiment. We hope that this focused, > >> clear timeline will allow us to respond more quickly and help community > >> members understand the state of their application more easily. > > > > Woubzena, there used to be a time when the promise of the Rapid grants > > was that they would be reviewed weekly. I understand this is no longer > > possible, even if the wording is still present on meta. Does the new > > rule imply a promise from the WMF that the grants will be granted or > > refused withing the same calendar month? > > > > Regards, > > Strainu > > On being experimental and responsive, it would be cool to bring back > some of the trust in grass roots volunteers, and consider funding a > system of very light-weight global microgrants using an open request > process on meta. Microgrants under $250, perhaps with a network of > long term identified local volunteers taking responsibility for > assessing that the money got spent on the right stuff, would be jolly > nice. Enough to pay for bits and bobs of travel expenses, software, > minor bits of hardware like accessibility or experimental kit. > > The community has discussed this before, in fact the UK used to have a > productive micro-grant procedure, which I think has been abandoned for > staff managed grants. In terms of trust, I recall going to Amsterdam > to coordinate a GLAM related event with a cash wad of a dozen people's > expenses in my pocket. It felt very informal, but a great > demonstration of trust that volunteers could sort out their own checks > and balances. My main headache was ensuring that everyone got the > money as quickly as possible, so it was out of my wallet! > > Any thoughts on lobbying for a tiny global budget to spend on a 100% > volunteer social and open simpleminded process, outside of any > Affiliates structure, with zero employee time needed to run it? > > Fae > -- > fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Rapid Grants Closure May 14 - June 30, 2018
Hello Strainu, Thank you for bringing the wording on our meta page to my attention. I will be updating the page with the new changes effective July 1st. Yes, we are instituting the application window of 1st - 15th of the month to facilitate a quicker response time. As I mentioned in my previous email we're hopeful that this timeline will help with workflow and better communication with community members. Best regards, Woubzena Woubzena Jifar Program Officer Rapid Grants Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> User: WJifar (WMF) On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 9:53 AM, Strainu <strain...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2018-05-02 1:51 GMT+03:00 Woubzena Jifar <wji...@wikimedia.org>: > > 3. On your third point of having the 1st - 15th of the month be an open > > application time, this is also an experiment. We hope that this focused, > > clear timeline will allow us to respond more quickly and help community > > members understand the state of their application more easily. > > Woubzena, there used to be a time when the promise of the Rapid grants > was that they would be reviewed weekly. I understand this is no longer > possible, even if the wording is still present on meta. Does the new > rule imply a promise from the WMF that the grants will be granted or > refused withing the same calendar month? > > Regards, > Strainu > > ___ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [GLAM] Rapid Grants Closure May 14 - June 30, 2018
Hello Pine, Many Wikimedians have been thinking a lot about the strategic direction and how we might best position ourselves to move towards it. We in the Foundation’s Community Resources team are planning some temporary changes that will allow us some space and time to be part of building towards a long term direction. Please keep that larger goal in mind as you read the responses to your questions about Rapid grants: 1. Yes, you are correct in that the budget of the Rapid grants program was originally 200,000 USD for this fiscal year, 2017-18. We have actually recently allocated an additional 65,000 USD in Wikimedia Foundation funds for this program, enabling us to fund grant requests already in the pipeline and programs such as Wiki Loves Earth. During the last quarter, we received a large increase in grant proposals for Rapid, and made over 70% more grants in Q3 this year than last year. The 6-week closure will give us time to process these and also allow the team to reflect on the program’s needs and explore proactive ways the rapid grant program can reach out to new grantees and find ways to collaborate with them better. 2. Regarding having a minimum of $500 for the rapid grants program, this is something we’re experimenting with while we’re aligning to the new strategic direction. Our preliminary data is showing that this change will improve our ability to support communities, allowing for more impactful grants with less overhead for a more effective use of our shared resources. We also need to make reductions in the time spent processing grants this year in order to make space for the considerable research and discussions needed to implement the new strategy, and we need to consider whether the impact of very small grants warrants their administrative expense. 3. On your third point of having the 1st - 15th of the month be an open application time, this is also an experiment. We hope that this focused, clear timeline will allow us to respond more quickly and help community members understand the state of their application more easily. Best regards, Woubzena Woubzena Jifar Program Officer Rapid Grants Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> User: WJifar (WMF) On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Woubzena, > > I would like to remind you that I am waiting for a response to the email > that I sent on April 19. > > Thank you, > > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > > On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 6:52 PM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hello Woubzena, >> >> I am glad to hear that the WMF Rapid Grants program has been so popular >> that its original budget for the year is near exhaustion. I trust that >> these funds are being spent wisely, and that community members and >> affiliates are achieving valuable outcomes with these funds. >> >> I have some questions about this group of decisions. >> >> 1. My understanding is that WMF routinely underspends its quarterly >> budgets for the organization as a whole. Also, WMF has ample funding in its >> reserves. Because Rapid Grants appears to be a popular program and the >> budget of this program appears to be relatively small (am I correct in >> saying that the program's total budget for FY1718 is $200,000?), why has >> WMF chosen to suspend the program instead of transferring a relatively >> small amount of other funds, perhaps $50,000, to support this program >> through the remainder of FY1718? >> >> 2. My understanding is that one of the original goals for Rapid Grants is >> to support small projects and events in an efficient and timely manner. I >> am puzzled by the decision to raise the floor for Rapid Grants to $500, >> which seems to eliminate WMF funding for small projects that might not >> happen without Rapid Grants support and/or require volunteers to take money >> out of their personal funds to support Wikimedia projects and events. The >> WMF Annual Plan for 2018-2019 is currently in a draft phase, and it seems >> to me that the plan could be revised to support continuing the Rapid Grants >> program with no floor, or perhaps a very low floor like $50, for funding >> requests. If the FY1819 budget for Rapid Grants and/or the budget for staff >> time for Rapid Grants needs to be increased in order to achieve the goal of >> supporting small projects and events in a timely manner with minimal or no >> floor, then it seems to me that the modest amount of additional funding to >> accomplish this would be reasonable. >> >> 3. Similarly, if additional staff time is necessary to support continuous >> processing of Rapid Grant requests instead of limiting requests to the 1st >> th
[Wikimedia-l] Rapid Grants Closure May 14 - June 30, 2018
Hello all! Hope this email finds you well. We are sending this message to select community mailing lists and all previous recipients of a Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grant. We have an announcement regarding the closure of the Rapid Grants [1] program between May 14 - June 30, 2018. This year we've received a lot of interest in the program and this quarter we've almost doubled the amount of grants offered to the community compared to last year's quarter. You can look at our spending analysis <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis> [2] for reference. Unfortunately, this means we've expended our funds for this fiscal year. The last date we will be receiving an application for a rapid grant before the closure will be *Friday, May 11, 2018*. We encourage *Wiki Loves Earth* participants to apply for a Rapid Grant by May 11, 2018 to receive support for their project. The grant program will be open again to receive grant requests starting *July 1, 2018*. At this point we will be implementing the following changes: 1. There will be a minimum of *$500 USD* for grant requests 2. Applications will only be accepted between the *1st - 15th of each month*. This is to help with our current workflow and to allow us to be more responsive to your requests. If you have any questions, please email us at rapidgra...@wikimedia.org. Best regards, Woubzena [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis Woubzena Jifar Program Officer Rapid Grants Wikimedia Foundation <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home> User: WJifar (WMF) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
