Dear All, As you may be aware, Wikimedia Australia has withdrawn its application for funding from round two of the Funds Dissemination Committee’s (FDC) application process. John Vandenberg and Steve Zhang spoke about this at length during our public meeting last weekend, and I encourage you to read the transcript of the meeting below for their thoughts on the matter:
http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Meeting:Public_(2013-03-03)/Transcript This email is a summary of some of my thoughts on why we did this, and what direction the organisation should take from here. These are my thoughts only and not the official position of the chapter. The nature of the FDC’s application process is that they have two major grantmaking rounds every year, with the most recent round closing on March 1. It had been the intention of the management committee to apply for annual funding for the 2013 calendar year through this process. As March 1 came closer, it became apparent to me and the rest of the committee that we simply weren’t going to be ready for this date. The reasons for this were: * We were still in the early stages of planning the World War One WiR programme, a major initiative of the chapter that is tentatively budgeted at over $150,000. However, we felt that it was unlikely we would be successful in getting funding for this initiative until we had a more concrete idea of which institutions would be participating, how many Wikimedians in Residence we could realistically support, and what the overhead costs of running the program would be. * Other programmes that the chapter has on the table need further detail and costing to be performed before they’re ready to go. The outcomes of these programmes are positive, and they align with the strategic plans of both the chapter and the Wikimedia Foundation, but we need to get better at articulating how we’ll get from vision to implementation, and how much money we’ll spend, and what we’ll spend it on. * The FDC in the last round recommended that we establish a more consistent record of programme success, and while we have had successful programmes in that time (our presence at the New Librarian’s Symposium and ALIA Information On Line events, workshops in Toowoomba and Bendigo, and the beginning of a relationship with the State Library of New South Wales), another six months of solid achievement will give us a better foundation upon which to ask for further funding. The other major factor in making this decision is the significant amount of administrative overhead that is involved in preparing and submitting an application to the FDC. As you are probably aware, Wikimedia Australia has no paid staff, and the bulk of the work is done by members of the management committee, whose time is taken up with their own jobs, families, and other commitments. Our limited and precious Wikimedia time is usually best served advancing the interests of the community and the movement by doing the things that we are good at – running workshops, talking to GLAMs, and bringing the community together, rather than filling out paperwork for the Foundation. I have observed that most if not all of the entities who have thus far been successful in obtaining funds from the FDC have been those entities who already have paid staff and other resources who can write a quality application without having to worry about looking after the kids and cooking dinner at the same time. My other observation would be that lodging an FDC application effectively bars an organisation from requesting funding from the Wikimedia Foundation through their other funding processes. I do not see any logical reason for this; surely a request for funding ought to be judged on its merits and positive impact on the movement, rather than on decisions made in a separate programme by a separate body. If we applied to the FDC and got another disappointing offer, it would more or less preclude the chapter from being able to take advantage of any other opportunities that presented themselves for a whole year. Having been on the committee of management for over two years now, it has been my experience that such opportunities often present themselves at very short notice, and tying ourselves to an annual funding model with no opportunity to make supplementary applications would not be in the best interests of the movement. So, where to from here? At the moment, the plan is to apply for funding on a per-project basis from the WMF Grants Program (a separate avenue to the FDC). This will be done when the planning for each project is ready, and has a reasonable prospect of success. I hope that the Foundation will also be willing to come to the party and provide meaningful technical advice on the grant applications we make this way, not only so that we are successful in getting the applications improved, but also to try and spot any potential flaws or opportunities that we haven’t seen, and make sure that our programmes are the best that they can be. That’s all from me for now, I’m very happy to answer any questions that you might have on this topic. In the interests of transparency and openness, I would prefer if these questions are asked on the public wikimediaau-l mailing list (https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l) rather than the private WMAU members list, and I will provide my responses there. Regards, Craig Frankin Treasurer – Wikimedia Australia _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l
