Grants:APG/Funds Dissemination Committee/Additional Information and Analysis/Interviews/Jan-Bart de Vreede

Funds Dissemination Committee/Board Interviews/Jan-bart de Vreede

Interview date: 4/27/12

Interviewee: Jan-bart de Vreede, BoT member
Jan-bart sent thoughts via email rather than via a phone interview

What types/sizes of funding should go through FDC (vs. other channels?)
I think the FDC should deal with programmatic funding of the chapters and other organisations which fall under the flag of Wikimedia . Apart from that it could approve OVERALL micro financing through chapters (e.g.: the UK chapter could apply for a 50,000K grant to disperse to smaller initiatives within their country. And it should also approve the size of financing for the grants committee (which I believe should continue its good work which is separate)

What scope of authority should the FDC have? Relationship with Board?
See above, relationship with board: two board members should be on the FDC, they will advise on the distribution of funds and this will be approved by the board as a matter of routine. Rejected applicants can appeal to the board (after having run through some kind of normal appeals process first)

What should be the role of the Advisory Group?
If what we are doing now is the advisory group, that group should lay down the structure of the FDC and its processes and then proceed to recruit members to make it start. The advisory group can also serve as an interim group to think of some way to finance programmatic activities if time runs out before everything is formalized. I think it is essential that those relying on the FDC for financing do not see their activities endangered because the FDC is not ready in time.

How would you envision the FDC evolving over time?
To a more mature body that moves away from simply chapter financing to also financing projects and larger initiatives within the movement. I see the FDC using the Wikimedia strategic plan (and every new strategic plan which we write together) as a yardstick for approving plans. (to what extend do the proposed plans further our goals as a movement)

What do you anticipate being the most contentious issues in this process?
I think the fact that we would want to use the projects contribution to the strategic goals will be contentious, but funnily enough, its not that hard. The strategic goals of the movement are so broad that a huge majority of the activities is likely to fall in the category of "furthering the movement goals as described in the strategic plan". I also think that a side effect of this will be a much larger enthusiasm in contributing to the next strategic plan, which can only be a good thing. The strategic plan should be something that we all write together.

What communities across the movement should we include? How?
Chapters and hopefully one or two critical individuals, and hopefully one or two larger initiatives which will also be recipient. But we have no such projects as of yet…