Grants talk:PEG/WM IT/Wikimedia Conference 2013/Report

Explanations of budget variances

Please note that you are required to explain here all budget variances of more than 10% per line item from the original submitted budget for grants US$15,000 or over. After analyzing your actual expenses against your budgeted expenses, this means you will need to offer an explanation for each line item so WMF can approve the difference in writing. It seems you saved money in many areas of your budget, but also overspent in some unexpected areas. Please offer an explanation for the variances below:

• Travel expenses: 24.07% over budget
• Lodging expenses: 24.58% over budget (or perhaps 50.14% under budget including the refunds if we read this report correctly)
• Volunteer travel expenses: 69.80% under budget
• Stationery: 241.37% over budget
• Wikivoyage booklet
• Facilitators: 77.44% under budget
• Staff and project manager: 28.41% over budget
• Local transport expenses: 45.60% under budget
• Conference venue + catering + WiFi: 19.43% under budget
• Welcome event: 76.00% under budget
• Party: 81.27% under budget

Thank you, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Winifred, thanks for pointing that out, Giulia (Wikimedia Italia's WMConf project manager) is on vacation now, but we will prepare an explanation for every line and publish it as soon as we can. Thanks for your patience. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 12:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply, Cristian. We do appreciate the update. Best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 20:46, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Winifred, here WM-IT's explanations of the budget differences:

• Travel expenses:

Travel expenses: 25 scholarships 20.000,00

we had to pay for 4 flight tickets -with total exceeding 4291,42 €- that went unused due to some scholarship recipients not getting a visa. They were two representatives from Bangladesh (1175,89 € and 1234,89 €), and two from the Philippines (1880,64 € for 2). In order to maximize representation we decided to include a last minute replacement for Philippines, and another couple of people who were on the scholarship waiting list. Finally, due to the high number of requests we granted more scholarship than budgeted. It is to be considered that we had some minor expenses to allow for last minute changes in travel accommodations for people who could not afford the delay caused by the Lufthansa strike.

• Lodging expenses:

lodging expenses, scholarships, about 50 people 50 € each/night 10.000,00 + Volunteer's lodge: 10 volunteers, 4 nights: 50 € each/night 2.000,00

Total expenditure for lodging volunteers and scholarships: 14.949

The confirmations from the participants were very late -despite our staff urging to confirm the presences- so we were at first forced to cancel many booked rooms from the hostel since a low attendance was expected, and then we later had to book new rooms in other places at a much higher price.

• Volunteer travel expenses: 69.80% under budget

We were estimating expenses for the worst case: volunteers converging on Milan from all Italy. We had a strong response from the community, so ultimately we had the option to employ mostly people from Milan and surrounding area for the duties at the venue, while volunteers who were further away were involved mostly in support roles.

• Stationery: 241.37% over budget

Stationery 600,00

We needed to rent 3 laptops and buy many electrical plugs, this were not budgeted.

• Wikivoyage booklet

We did not make it, because there were not enough contents about Milan on Wikivoyage, we considered creating them but there were higher priorities.

• Facilitators: 77.44% under budget

Our budget was based on offers from the facilitation schools in Milan. Ultimately we chose a better offer, which was more compliant with the kind of conference we had in mind.

• Staff and project manager: 28.41% over budget

We underestimated the amount of taxes on the work contracts.

• Local transport expenses: 45.60% under budget

There were less people participating (see below), some people bought the tickets by themselves before the registration.

• Conference venue + catering + WiFi: 19.43% under budget

There were less people participating and the venue cost had a fixed part and an amount pro capite. From the early estimation we had more than 200 people participating, thus the budgeted number of presences was not the expected number of people attending but the maximum number of people we were able to manage.

• Welcome event: 76.00% under budget and party: 81.27% under budget

We proposed parties held in dedicated spaces (booked for ourselves only), with catering and drinks. Given the large amount of criticism received in the grant request process, we had to re-scale both the events, falling back to our second option, parties held in smaller, public venues with limited drinks and food.-- CristianCantoro (talk) 11:26, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Evaluations

Please let us know when the evaluations will be ready! Depending on when they are available, we may wait to review the rest of this report until that information is complete. Thank you, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:07, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Winifred, sorry for the late reply. Please find in the section "Evaluation" the first preliminary data and the timeline you asked. Please don't hesitate to ask for clarifications. Thank you. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 01:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both for the preliminary results and the schedule for requesting feedback! We will have further questions or a decision on this report this Wednesday. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 16:19, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Last minute expense changing

Just two days ago a Fly company gave us a partial refund for one of the WM Bangladesh' representatives who couldn't come to Milan for the notorious Visa problems. The amount of the refund is 1.139,49 €. I changed the data report adding it. --Cotton (talk) 16:19, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for this update! We are glad to hear that you recovered at least some of the funds. We did note that the unused plane tickets were expensive, and we hope that you'll work to avoid this type of unused expense in the future by purchasing refundable tickets in cases when it seems possible that a traveler may not receive a visa in time. Best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The fact is that refundable tickets are even more expensive, so we did that choice. In addition they were between the firsts ticket we bought and we still didn't know exactly which countries could have Visa problems. --Cotton (talk) 21:00, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Report accepted

Thank you for this report; it is now accepted. Cheers, AVrana (talk) 18:22, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation delay

Hi all, a quick update about evaluation. We have been slow in sending the reminders to the participants to fill the survey. So we are a little behind schedule. Here's the new dates for that:

• Sunday, September 6th - closing and complete data analysis
• Sunday, September 13th - final results

Thanks for your patience. -- CristianCantoro (talk) 09:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)