Grants talk:Index/Archive 1

What would help the Mission Activities Grants have a larger impact on: Participation, Reach, Quality and Credibility?

• I don't think P/Q/R are an effective measure of the success of our mission -- as opposed to, say, Empowerment, Education, and Effectiveness. How about linking back to the Mission itself instead of using this shorthand? -- sj · translate · + 13:30, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
• ...

Add Grants: namespace?

To ease with organizing this info, I suggest adding a Grants: namespace. This would make it easier to track new pages and changes (both of which have namespace filters), and reduce the amount of prefix/subpage hackery without polluting the main namespace. Any thoughts about this? Otherwise I'll go ahead and get this set up.--Eloquence 20:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I can't see any problems that would be created from that, I think you can go ahead and do it. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 21:11, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Opening to projects at large

I understand the original proposal of the grants program was to finance good projects regardless of chapter mediation. To me, that sounded great both for the proponents and for the chapters themselves. I consider the phrase "we may expand the grants process to volunteers and like-minded organizations" to mean there is an ongoing debate about it happening already this year. Does anyone know what is the current state of opening the grants program and where is this being discussed? Thanks, --Solstag 22:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

There hasn't been a lot of discussion about it yet. Even the chapters grants progress has been running on life support (i.e. I'm doing it) and will likely continue to do so until we've filled the Chief Global Program Officer vacancy. To the extent that we have talked about it internally at WMF, what we've said so far is that we'd like to explore ways to fund activities by individual volunteers and other like-minded organizations that are relevant to the mission, while minimizing overhead, scope creep, distortion of volunteer motivations, and risk of waste. We're also very interested in DonorsChoose type approaches of connecting donors directly with important work.

I can try to participate a bit in a discussion here, if you want, and I encourage you to make bold proposals, which can help to energize the conversation and carry it forward.--Eloquence 01:45, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The DonorsChoose model is a good one for this type of thing for a few reasons: first, it's transparent, when done well. Second, it's a good gauge of the interest in a project by a subset of the community. There are some legal issues around giving money away to volunteers (does that make them contractors? consultants?), I'm sure Mike is thinking about that as well. As a general rule, speaking as an individual and in no capacity for the Foundation, I tend to think that we should find a way to encourage donation to individuals and indirectly affiliated organizations. Like Eloquence said, now's the time for brilliant ideas. Philippe (WMF) 19:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

WM-CZ is going to be late

Hi, as Wikimedia CZ is currently quite overwhelmed with Book World exhibition, we unfortunately won't be able to submit all our projects today. Hopefully we'll manage to post at least few, but we have several more in the works, so I'd like to ask if it would be possible to extend the deadline a bit, which we've been said is possible. So, if you can, please wait :-) Many thanks --che 14:36, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Grants for new year

Is WMF going to offer some grants for a new year?--Juan de Vojníkov 14:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the Index page is out of date, and I'll be fixing it in the coming day. You are welcome to submit new grant requests! Ijon 17:45, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thank you!--Juan de Vojníkov 14:34, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Not funded grants

Hi there. First, let me say that I do like the Grants program, allowing people and unofficial groups outside chapters to get their good ideas funded. What I don't get is the 'Not funded grants' part, as the reasons for the refusal are not public. This can lead to a certain amount of speculation: was the idea rejected because it was crazy/stupid/too much money was asked/not enough people were involved/details were not specified and so on. Lastly, this leaves the impression that WMF did not approve at all of the idea itself or the people proposing it, and that it would be seen as a complete waste of time and money if it was funded in other ways or if someone else tried today to put something similar forward. --Elitre 12:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you -- sometimes I'm also eager to know why a certain grant was rejected. --Abbasjnr 20:00, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Certainly, it is valuable information. As announced in my blog post, we are looking to make our grantmaking more transparent. While we would not be making a statement of the form: "The requested is rejected on the grounds of X", we will be having a public discussion about each grant on its Talk page, and it should usually not be difficult to see that rejected grants (from now on) have outstanding issues or unanswered questions. Ijon 22:15, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

You lost me here. If the request has outstanding issues or unanswered questions, where is the problem in stating "the request is rejected because it has outstanding issues/unanswered questions", saving people's time in otherwise painful and maybe useless researches? --Elitre 14:31, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Open Space

Hello GAC members, et al., Just suggesting that we should consider having an open space or a page where people are free to suggest ideas/projects and may not necessarily know how to implement them. Or creating a fishbowl where everyone is welcome to beef up an idea into a successful project worth giving a grant. Some people have the ideas, but don't necessarily know how to express them. --Abbasjnr 20:00, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

A good idea! Why don't you help me create one? Perhaps a bakery for half-baked ideas? Ijon 20:15, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Yo, Asaf. Happy to be a GACer, or a baker, or whatever. Where can an old fella like me find out what actually needs to be done at every point in time? Harel 20:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Open grant submissions are the basic task list of the GAC. Right now, there are very few open submissions, and those have received some comments from the GAC already. You are welcome to review those submissions' talk pages and add thoughts of your own, or, if you're happy with what's already there, await new submissions or significant updates (e.g. more detailed plans; responses to concerns raised by the GAC), which I will generally advise the GAC about via e-mail. Ijon 22:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Grants may be submitted in any language provided it is in English?

The criteria on the grants page state that "Grants may be submitted in any language." and a couple of bullet points later that "All applications must be submitted in English." I guess, one of them should be removed or clarified. --Dami 19:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

er, yes, that was silly... Thanks! Ijon 01:53, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to be a bore, but now grants can be submitted in Klingon; or Latin; or Mongolian. Could we be practical about costs and assisting applicants who need language help? Tony (talk) 13:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we leave ourselves open to the prospect of receiving grants submitted in Klingon. However, as that is a very remote prospect, we judge it better to take that risk than the (infinitely more likely) risk of turning potential high-impact grantees away because they fear they won't be able to make the case for their proposal in English. So far, all grantees have been able to discuss their grants in English, and we've only had one grant request submitted in a different language, and that grantee was able to translate it as well. So we choose to welcome grant proposals in any language, taking into account some proposals may require some possibly-paid back-and-forth translation (including the GAC review), while reserving the right to adjust that policy if and when it turns out to be too impractical. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it asking for trouble? I wonder who's responsible for paying for the translation. Tony (talk) 03:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Local currency for Estonia

Just out of curiosity, has the adoption of euro made it possible for the WMF to disburse grants in the local currency of Estonia? --Bence (talk) 21:26, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Heh, good catch, Bence. Fixed! :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 22:09, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Grants paying for positions

In the paragraph:

Grants should not fund staff salaries and other recurring expenses (e.g. rent). In some cases, grant requests may fund part time or temporary positions specifically focused on the activities of the project for which funding is requested.

Are we to understand that grants in some cases may fund "part-time permanent positions" and "full-time temporary positions", not only "part time and temporary positions"? Or should the above read like the latter? Cheers! --Solstag (talk) 20:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Ni! :)

Good question. Now clarified, I hope. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Ha, better now! Perhaps we could say short-term instead of "temporary", or simply remove the quotes, as they often just keep people wondering if they really understood what was "meant". Ni! --Solstag (talk) 00:15, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

They're not quotes, they're two single-quotes, i.e. italicization of the word temporary. Diff-view shows raw wikicode...  :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:17, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

75% of US government per diem rates; reference to WMF's travel policy

Highly problematic, I believe. First, may I suggest that this document be more selective in how it borrows from the foundation's travel policy, some of which is not applicable and some of which is inappropriate in many countries. It appears that neither the FDC nor the GAC have dealt with the matter of what is a "reasonable" cost (see the travel policy) ... I'd have thought the relative purchasing power of local currencies was at issue. This is an issue that many international bodies deal with in more fine-grained way, so that spending a night/day in Manilla is not the same as spending one in Zürich or New York City.

Could I suggest that we remove the explicit reference to 75% of US govt rates, which in the WMF's travel policy is belied by its own example, which uses the rates not of the US govt, but of one of the US state governments? And that we have a think about which parts of the foundation's travel policy should apply to the spending of GAC funding? Tony (talk) 13:42, 31 August 2012 (UTC)�

A fine point. One that should really apply to our own travel policy, not just the grants policy. –SJ talk  01:21, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why Tony believes "spending a night/day in Manila (so spelt)" is "the same as spending one in Zürich or NYC". Our wmf:Travel policy refers to the government's rates (and pace Tony, it is the federal government and not a state government) in section 7, for meals and incidentals, and those rates do take the local cost of living into account. One may click through to those federal sites to see for oneself. Section 5, on lodging, merely describes a private room with a bath in-unit as the standard, with the implicit expectation that the most frugal option offering that (in reasonable proximity to the destination) be selected.

So I'm not sure what needs changing. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 07:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Correction Asaf, Tony said that spending a night in Manila is not the same as spending one in Zurich or NYC Abbasjnr (talk) 06:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No, he said it's not the same in criticizing the current policy, which he incorrectly implies does treat them the same, i.e. he as good as said that (to us) they are the same. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 17:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)