Re: [Wikimediaau-l] [Chapters] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations
While Sue's concerns about the overheads involved with some of the Wikimedia chapters seem well-founded, there would also be some pretty obvious problems with the WMF attempting to fund individuals around the world directly. A well run local chapter seems better placed to sort the wheat from the chaff when assessing country/region-specific proposals, and that might be a good angle to emphasise as part of WMAU funding applications - the chapter has a pretty good record in funding projects that result in additional content being added to Wikipedia and Commons (and other sites), and it's overheads are very low compared to some of the other chapters. The Committee might also want to highlight the kind of proposals it doesn't approve to demonstrate the advantages of local knowledge. As an aside, from having watched the video, it's notable that the WMF's grants team comprises 10 people. This is a large team to administer $US8 million in funding, most of which is apparently being provided to a small number of chapters with whom the WMF has long standing relationships and reporting arrangements - the overheads for the team alone would be in the order of $US1-$2 million. While it obviously costs money to assess and administer grants effectively (and this kind of work can be very labour-intensive when done correctly), this is relatively generous staffing compared to what NGOs or public service agencies would allocate to a program of this scale and type. If the WMF wants to allocate less money to chapters and more to individuals they're facing some major internal costs... Nick From: kerry.raym...@gmail.com To: memb...@wikimedia.org.au; wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2013 12:26:01 +1000 Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] [Chapters] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations Further to this, I happened to be watching to the WMF Metrics Meeting, which also reveals some interesting information on the grants process. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKKD5eGFNkI with the relevant section commencing at 34 mins 20 secs. Kerry From: Kerry Raymond [mailto:kerry.raym...@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, 4 October 2013 6:21 AM To: 'memb...@wikimedia.org.au'; 'Wikimedia Australia Chapter' Subject: FW: [Chapters] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations From: Chapters [mailto:chapters-boun...@wikimedia.ch] On Behalf Of Itzik Edri Sent: Friday, 4 October 2013 5:49 AM To: Chapters mailing list Subject: [Chapters] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations Hey, I don't know how many of you had the time already to read Sue's report. I'll give some Chapters Executive Highlights: · Upshot: I am pleased by the first year of the FDC. That said, I also want to note that I have significant concerns about how our movement entities are developing. · · Disproportionate resources and influence of Wikimedia organizations: I believe that currently, too large a proportion of the movement's money is being spent by the chapters. The value in the Wikimedia projects is primarily created by individual editors: individuals create the value for readers, which results in those readers donating money to the movement. We have over 40 Wikimedia organizations today, 12 of whom received funding allocations through the FDC last year. Of the US$5.65 million WMF gave out in grants last year, 89% or US$5.04 million were to affiliate entities, with US$4.71 million (83% of the total grants) to these 12 entities for their annual plans. I am not sure that the additional value created by movement entities such as chapters justifies the financial cost, and I wonder whether it might make more sense for the movement to focus a larger amount of spending on direct financial support for individuals working in the projects. · · High costs and unclear results: [...] I believe we're spending a lot of money, more than is warranted by the results we've been seeing. I am concerned by the growth rates requested by the entities submitting funding requests to the FDC: I believe that in order to justify the size of grants that have been sought, the entities involved should need to be able to say clearly how their plan will make an important contribution to helping the Wikimedia movement achieve its mission. · · Growing institutionalization of the movement: During the WMF strategic planning process, at the beginning of 2010, there were only three chapters with staff. By the end of the first year of the FDC process, there are at least 15 Wikimedia affiliates with full or part-time staff and offices (not all of them in the FDC process). [..] ·
Re: [Wikimediaau-l] [Chapters] Fwd: [Wikimedia Announcements] Funds Dissemination Committee: Report on first year of operations
On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Nick Dowling nick_dowl...@hotmail.com wrote: While Sue's concerns about the overheads involved with some of the Wikimedia chapters seem well-founded, there would also be some pretty obvious problems with the WMF attempting to fund individuals around the world directly. A well run local chapter seems better placed to sort the wheat from the chaff when assessing country/region-specific proposals, and that might be a good angle to emphasise as part of WMAU funding applications - the chapter has a pretty good record in funding projects that result in additional content being added to Wikipedia and Commons (and other sites), and it's overheads are very low compared to some of the other chapters. The Committee might also want to highlight the kind of proposals it doesn't approve to demonstrate the advantages of local knowledge. As an aside, from having watched the video, it's notable that the WMF's grants team comprises 10 people. This is a large team to administer $US8 million in funding, most of which is apparently being provided to a small number of chapters with whom the WMF has long standing relationships and reporting arrangements - the overheads for the team alone would be in the order of $US1-$2 million. While it obviously costs money to assess and administer grants effectively (and this kind of work can be very labour-intensive when done correctly), this is relatively generous staffing compared to what NGOs or public service agencies would allocate to a program of this scale and type. If the WMF wants to allocate less money to chapters and more to individuals they're facing 1some major internal costs... I agree that $1 million would be way too high as standard operating overhead. However they are reporting that FDC overhead is only USD 538,000, and roughly half of that is a once-off program startup expense. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Annual_report_on_the_Funds_Dissemination_Committee_process_2012-2013#Highlights_in_numbers_from_the_first_year US$537,911 was spent on support and overhead costs as follows: US$175,835 on personnel, US$65,424 on face-to-face deliberations (travel, venue, accommodation), US$2,466 on operating expenses, and US$294,186 on one-time expenses covering The Bridgespan Group's consultancy fees during the creation of the FDC process. It would be nice to see what that US$175,000 on personnel includes, as there are a lot of related expenses that may not have been included. The WMF currently has nine staff in the team according to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff#Grantmaking There is a breakdown of which staff are involved in which programs here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grantmaking_and_Programs#Grantmaking It looks like Katy Love (started in January 2013), Adele Vrana (started in October 2012) and Anasuya Sengupta (started in July 2012) are the main staff working on FDC, with Winifred Olliff split between many programs so she is probably only dedicated to the FDC process during the periods of high workload. A quick check of my emails shows that other people who have worked on he FDC includes: Jessie Wild, Christine Bocknek, Garfield Byrd, Barry Newstead, Heather Walls, Tilman Bayer, Melanie Brown Asaf Bartov. And of course Sue has spent a lot of time on this, and Erik has chipped in occasionally. There is also the FDC ombudsmen election. Incorporating the FDC ombudsmen into the board election cause quite a bit of unplanned trouble, as the software was only intended to run one election at a time. Then there is the costs of chapter staff, and the many volunteer hours thrown into it. There is also the time that WMF spent on their application and management of the FDC grant to WMF, which could be excluded from 'the cost of FDC' with some interesting definitions. -- John Vandenberg ___ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
