Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Iraqi Wikimedians 2024 plan

Feedback from the Middle East and Africa Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Dear Iraqi Wikimedians User Group Team,

Thank you very much for your proposal, describing your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wishes to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review.

The committee was delighted to see that the group is planning to revitalize the community in Iraq, through the organization of a series of workshops, competitions, and activities designed to attract new editors and engage existing members, which we considered a positive step toward this effort.

We would like to understand better the following aspects of your revival efforts:

• Since the User Group was dormant for some time, as mentioned in the application, and you are making attempts to revive it, have you evaluated what led to the dormancy of the community in the past, why things were not moving as expected? If yes, could you provide details from that evaluation? If you have not, can you please provide us the SWOT analysis or community survey that informed this proposal?
• Did you develop perhaps a strategic vision or plan, to describe how the UG is planning for self-sustained community and programmatic work that reflects the community needs and the local challenges? Have you identified a list of potential partnerships in education, GLAM or gender that could feed into this vision/plan?
• What is the foundation that you are building for yourselves as a User Group in terms of your core team, governance structure, financial administration?
• What is the plan or vision for capacity building of key and new volunteers (because if this is a new community that you are coming to revamp or restart, there's a need for you to empower your trainers, in order to employ them or allow them to carry out autonomous activities in their own local context, even when the core team is not available)?

Can you please clarify further for us the following aspects of the current proposal:

• Can you please provide more information about the implementing team? Who would be responsible for what activity, and how did you calculate the staff costs? In your budget, you mention management expenses and a project coordinator (incl. Social media and the UG), while in the proposal text you described a project coordinator and a Wikipedia Administrator (Graphic Designer) position.
• What is the rationale for the 2-days meetup in Baghdad, how does this guarantee the engagement with the former editors versus organizing regular online events and meetups for engagement?
• In the timeline, activities are missing for the month of November, besides online meetings, is there a reason for that?
• The planned metrics are too low considering the numerous activities planned, can you please revise them?
• During the planned awareness raising events, who are the targeted audiences (e.g. general public, advanced contributors or sectoral representatives)? Do you plan to organize content contributions or training activities during these events? What are the expected outcomes and impact of these activities?

We hope you find this initial feedback useful. In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by 01st of May 2024. After this time, the Regional Committee will begin a final review of the proposal to make a formal decision.

Thanks again for your work on the proposal and supporting our review.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, Dnshitobu (talk) 12:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC).

Dear Dnshitobu,

Thank you for your feedback on our application!

• For the past 2-3 years more active users joined the user group including me, and the discussions with all the UG members show a simple reason for what made that dormancy which there were no group activities implemented by the user group which made most of our members to work with other user groups or individually. So starting from wikiArabia 2022 we decided to work more on bringing all members together under the UG to support the growth of our local community and apply for this fund support.
• Iraq has a very good environment for initiatives and community development, many potential partnerships could be happening to support our local movement. Our vision is not to keep depending on Wikimedia funds but also through the potential donors in Iraq, and to achieve that, we are working first to revive our local movement and build a convincing profile that shows our dedicated work which we aim to achieve through our current submitted plan. Additionally, we have already 3 partners who are ready to provide logistical and community support for our current plan.3
• Core team : *User: Ravan -> Trainer, User: Mahmoudalrawi  ->  Community engagement + Trainer, Luma.H -> Trainer, Mohammed Qays -> Wiki Administrator, Alli Khalil -> Project Coordinator + Financial Administrator

in addition to an external professional graphic designer who will create a visual identity for the user group(for social media and wiki pages) that could drive our mission for the next 3-5 years. This identity will be used in the specified platforms by the junior designers we have in the user group for at least 3 years ahead.

• We will work on a channel to monitor and support new volunteers in their wiki journey, and we will involve them in our planned activities and organizational process to get them ready to implement their activities. Furthermore, we guide them to be involved in the broader Arabic community to learn and be involved in the online community workshops.
• The paid staff is, 1- Project coordinator, 2- Wiki Admin, 3- Graphic designer(External). The budget was calculated manually depending on the NGOs rate in Iraq.
• The in-person meeting will contain skill-share workshops, More in-depth discussions, and interactive editing. Additionally, it will support our mission of increasing the interactivity between the members and breaking the cultural boundaries since our UG is diverse and we aim to invite a representative or 2 from the Kurdish UG(they operate in our same country). The online meeting will keep the connection and discuss urgent matters.
• The reason for no major event or activity is a part of our study of our local community and the level of engagement this month, However we will keep working on communications, building partnerships, etc..
• Talking about capacity building, our core members are already participating in trainings each has their own wiki focus, so through our 2-day meetup we are trying to share skills and directions with other members who have a passion for advocating for wiki projects in their home cities and communities in Iraq.
• Awareness Raising Events: We have only one main event, Which is Arabic Language Day, where we will join a number of active local NGOs and Initiatives to advertise the Wiki project to the audience that is in touch with the Arabic language community which is the best audience that could be interested in Wikipedia. Additionally, there will be some governmental and high-level people who could hear about wiki projects for the first time and will be passionate about collaborating with our UG.

Let me know if you have any further questions/points to clarify, we will be happy make sure that everything is clear and we are on the same track and vision.

Best :) Alli Khalil (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund Approved at Local Currency Equivalent of 12,000 USD

Dear Iraqi Wikimedians User Group,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The Middle East and Africa Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed your application and recommended partial funding in the amount 12,000 USD for the period of July 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024.

It is great to see that the Iraqi Wikimedians user group is once again organizing and activating its activities. We hope that this grant will support the activation of the Iraqi Wikimedian community and we eagerly look forward to seeing the results of your activities. We see that you still have some work to do with regards to your strategic vision as a user group, and we hope that you can take some time this year to collectively work on this.

After a thorough review of your proposal, we recommend that you focus on developing a strategy that will increase newcomers to your user group and build and sustain the community. We are eager to see the results of this support within your grant period. We wish you the very best in the continuation of your journey in growing the Iraqi Wikimedia community and look forward to learning more about the impact you achieve.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff, FElgueretly-WMF (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2024 (UTC)