Grants talk:Project/The African Narrative

I endorse this project and believe in the impact it seeks to achieve.

Eligibility confirmed, Round 1 2021 - Community Organizing proposal

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for review in Round 1 2021 for Community Organizing projects.

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Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community review period. By March 4, make sure that your proposal has incorporated any revisions you want to make and complies with all of our guidelines. If you have not already done so, you can make use of our project planning resources to improve your proposal further, too.

The Project Grant committee's formal review for round 1 2020 will occur March 5 through March 20, 2021. We ask that you refrain from making any further changes to your proposal during the committee review period, so we can be sure that all committee members are scoring the same version of the proposal.

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We look forward to engaging with you in this Round!

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--Marti (WMF) (talk) 06:24, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for The Africa Narrative

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	5.6
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	5.4
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	4.0
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	4.4
Additional comments from the Committee: The project may fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities although its long-term sustainability is questionable. The background information of this proposal could be clearer and specific, especially when that's a key for measuring the potential impact of your proposal. Sometimes presenting some data could be helpful for clarifying your idea. Action in an underrepresented content. The approach is pretty conventional - hire a WiR and let them do something useful. The risks are high as it is unclear how this WiR will perform and the goals seem too ambitious. The outputs and outcomes will be difficult to evaluate. Most details of their plan seem will be developing later. Although there is a structured plan, it is not yet concrete. It is hard to understand who is the grantee. The username is not clear and seems it does not exist. The scope can be accomplished in 12 months. The budget (mainly a WiR) is reasonable. The participants may have the necessary skills but this should be verified. I am not sure if this applicant has a connection with the Wikimedia movement before they applied for Project Grants. The direct labor cost is the prime cost for the budget and that likely does not fit with the criteria. The community engagement is low. I noticed there is a strong concern from one of the experienced community members. There are some data not present to evaluate the project. IT is hard to know who is the grantee. How to manage the risk of commercial content and COI (professionals will write articles related to their own production)? Is there an expert Wikipedian? Do they already have contacts with professionals and partners? The project overall looks interesting and may result in a significant impact as the coverage of Africa-related topics in Wikipedia is rather poor. However, its practical execution is hard to predict. The organization (Africa Narrative) seems to have little experience with such projects. If this grant is funded it should be probably be divided into two or more installments with intermediate reports between them. I'd like to suggests the WMF holds the proposal until more information is identified. There needs to be someone from the existing community involved in the project. I agree with Florence's comment on who is responsible. Involvement of the community is definitely a must. Otherwise, I would suggest partial funding.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Monday, March 29, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced no later than Friday, April 22, 2021.

Questions? Contact us.

Response to committee comments

Q: The project may fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities although its long-term sustainability is questionable. A: The AfroCreatives campaign was created to introduce a new specialised audience of Creative industry professionals to bring their expertise, experience and knowledge to bear in curating high quality information about the industry. A primary goal is to recruit an important new audience and to loop them back into major campaigns streams like AfroCine (a major stakeholder in the African cinema Wikimedia campaign space)and through collaborations with other communities focused on African cinema and filmmaking. The Africa Narrative developed the project specifically with a thoughtful long-term sustainable plan in mind: starting with a targeted 4-country initiative that it will build on after a careful assessment of campaign metrics and assessment. We believe that this project which concludes with a public-facing campaign makes this a unique and exciting project that will generate long-term momentum.

Q: The background information of this proposal could be clearer and specific, especially when that's a key for measuring the potential impact of your proposal. Sometimes presenting some data could be helpful for clarifying your idea. A: Conversations with movement organizers, specifically the AfroCine project, which was facilitated by the Wikimedia Foundation contributors to African cinema and creatives (which has limited coverage on Wikipedia) were existing Wikimedia community members. This project, based on the information we gathered, complements the work that is being done by the African community to grow knowledge on the cultural and creative industries, and specifically the film sector for this initial effort, by tapping into our network of professionals (film festivals, guilds, industry professional associations, news entertainment outlets, academic and training institutions, etc.) to train them on how to contribute knowledge on Wikipedia and help grow the African communities working in this space.

Q: Action in an underrepresented content. A: The AfroCine project has done an amazing job growing knowledge on African cinema over the last couple of years yet there remains a major gap in the quantity and quality of content on African cinema and filmmaking on Wikipedia. Tapping into all the considerable developments taking place in the sector (the entry of streaming players such as Netflix, Canal+ and Apple+, international co-productions, and the engagement of the African Diaspora in African film projects) while harnessing the knowledge and interest of contributors from a blossoming African film industry, we intend to notably enhance film content while increasing the awareness of Wikipedia to new audiences.

Q:The approach is pretty conventional - hire a WiR and let them do something useful. The risks are high as it is unclear how this WiR will perform and the goals seem too ambitious. The outputs and outcomes will be difficult to evaluate. A: The approach to work with a WiR is a tested and validated model of guiding new organizations want to implement a Wikimedia project for networks of professionals new to Wikimedia. The WiR will be in charge of interfacing with the target communities, providing internal guidance to The Africa Narrative and providing general support to interested participants of the campaign. We want to underscore the strength of the team that will be in place that will work in close coordination with the WiR: a project manager, a social media director, a comms person, and a supervisor. As a new organziation to Wikipedia, we will also benefit from the continuous guidance from the partnership and campaigns team from the WMF to help us understand and better navigate the Wikimedia ecosystem. Given our outreach and marketing plan, we think our goals are very achievable.

Q: Most details of their plan seem will be developing later. Although there is a structured plan, it is not yet concrete. A: We have developed a project plan with the aim of working closely with the WiR to improve and align with the principles of the Wikimedia movement. For the purpose of this project grant application, we provided the high level plan which can be viewed in the project plan section of our application. We have a detailed plan that we can share should it be required. However, we aim to implement a plan that has contributions from an experienced Wikipedian in order to address aspects of the project that may need further alignment with the movement strategy and policies.

Q: It is hard to understand who is the grantee. The username is not clear and seems it does not exist. A: The Africa Narrative is a non-profit organization singularly focused on developing and supporting high impact projects aimed at African storytelling, African creatives and the African cultural and creative industries. TAN launched as a project in 2019 with funding from the Ford Foundation and the King Baudouin Foundation with notable outcomes that included a landmark study on how Africa is depicted in US media and entertainment and a short film competition aimed at emerging African filmmakers, a partnership with YouTube. TAN intentionally went ‘quiet” in 2020 while developing a series of over a dozen projects that it will roll out over 2021 and 2022. The film sector is front and center with projects ranging from a Film Fund For Africa to a seminal research project about Nollywood.

Q: The scope can be accomplished in 12 months. The budget (mainly a WiR) is reasonable. The participants may have the necessary skills but this should be verified. A: No response needed.

Q: I am not sure if this applicant has a connection with the Wikimedia movement before they applied for Project Grants. The direct labor cost is the prime cost for the budget and that likely does not fit with the criteria. A: We started our journey in the Wikimedia movement by reaching out and engaging with the AfroCine project organizers to learn more about their work and understand what The Africa Narrative can do to support free and open knowledge on African cinema and filmmaking, and the cultural and creative sector more broadly. Our goal is to continue to interact with communities, organizers and projects in Africa to grow our knowledge and understanding of the Wikimedia movement in order to better understand how to leverage our resources and networks to support the growth of the African community in the Wikimedia movement, especially around filmmaking and cinema.

Q: The community engagement is low. A: It is because of the very fact that there are few organizers focusing on African cinema and filmmaking within the movement that is encouraging us to work with the movement to grow the community. In addition to this, we have contacted the few communities in Africa who are stakeholders and benefactors to the work we are proposing.

Q: I noticed there is a strong concern from one of the experienced community members. A: We acknowledge the concerns of the experienced community member. However, the concerns of the community member in question were addressed in the preliminary stages of the project, as we have been in touch with the key stakeholder within the campaign film space and they have shared insights about how their campaign runs. This project will in fact enhance and benefit the project of concern. In addition to this, our project plan indicates the very first set of actions we plan to take in preparation to launching the campaign within the community; we have prioritized the onboarding of a WiR within the first 3 months of the planning process. Our commitments to the project are already resources we have internally and do not need to do additional recruitment for. Our priority is to build The Africa Narrative’s capacity by bringing in a WiR to usher us into the Wikimedia movement.

Q: There are some data not present to evaluate the project. IT is hard to know who is the grantee. How to manage the risk of commercial content and COI (professionals will write articles related to their own production)? Is there an expert Wikipedian? Do they already have contacts with professionals and partners? A: The impact section of our proposal clearly states our metric which will serve as metric for the evaluation of the project. Working with the WiR, we will develop a robust monitoring and evaluation framework based on these initial goals. The professional network are everyday workers within the filmmaking and cinema industry who are interested in the growth of local knowledge on Wikipedia. Their goal, like every other Wikipedian, is to grow African knowledge with the guidance of a WiR. Professionals are being prioritized for this project because they are privy to industry insights and resources that will bring a high level of content to the project. Moreover, given that they will be educated on the policies of contributing to Wikimedia projects, they are not expected to contribute to their own articles or articles related to their work. Over the years industry experts have been introduced through campaigns such as; 1Lib1Ref - Librarians, WikiforClimate - Activists/environmental experts, WikiforCovid - medical professionals, etc.

Q: The project overall looks interesting and may result in a significant impact as the coverage of Africa-related topics in Wikipedia is rather poor. However, its practical execution is hard to predict. The organization (Africa Narrative) seems to have little experience with such projects. If this grant is funded it should be probably be divided into two or more installments with intermediate reports between them. A: As noted above in a response to a question about The Africa Narrative, we have developed and will be executing a wide range of projects, many that are Pan-African, that are larger in scope and complexity than this project. We are confident with the team that will be in place that we will be able to execute the AfroCreatives Wikiproject with a notable level of expertise and professionalism.

Q: I'd like to suggest the WMF holds the proposal until more information is identified. A:

Q:There needs to be someone from the existing community involved in the project. I agree with Florence's comment on who is responsible. Involvement of the community is definitely a must. Otherwise, I would suggest partial funding. A: The approach is pretty conventional - hire a WiR and let them do something useful. The risks are high as it is unclear how this WiR will perform and the goals seem too ambitious. The outputs and outcomes will be difficult to evaluate. A: The approach to work with a WiR is a tested and validated model of guiding new organizations want to implement a Wikimedia project for networks of professionals new to Wikimedia. The WiR will be in charge of interfacing with the target communities, providing internal guidance to The Africa Narrative and providing general support to interested participants of the campaign. We want to underscore the strength of the team that will be in place that will work in close coordination with the WiR: a project manager, a social media director, a comms person, and a supervisor. As a new organziation to Wikipedia, we will also benefit from the continuous guidance from the partnership and campaigns team from the WMF to help us understand and better navigate the Wikimedia ecosystem. Given our outreach and marketing plan, we do not think our goals too ambitious.

Round 1 2021 decision

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.

Marti (WMF) (talk) 00:37, 23 April 2021 (UTC)