Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Shared Knowledge/2016

Eligibility discussion

After the applicant submits an eligibility form, Wikimedia Foundation will contact the applicant and evaluate eligibility.

Eligibility

Hello, Shared Knowledge colleagues:

(For those who don’t know, Shared Knowledge is a Wikimedia User Group that works on Wikimedia activities in Macedonia.)

Thank you for submitting your eligibility form on October 21. After reviewing your past grants we've determined that you are eligible to apply for a Simple Process Annual Plan Grant. Thank you for engaging with us in the discussions leading up to this application. We've enjoyed learning more about your recent program work!

Here is some of the work we looked at while evaluating your eligibility for a Simple Annual Plan Grant.

Shared Knowledge as a history of running successful contests in Macedonia for several years now.

• Grants:PEG/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 – Macedonia Organizing Team/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013
• Grants:PEG/Shared Knowledge/Wiki Loves Earth 2014 in Macedonia
• Grants:PEG/Shared Knowledge/Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Macedonia

Shared Knowledge completed its first annual plan for 2014-15, and this plan has been extended to cover the remainder of 2015: Grants:PEG/Shared Knowledge/Annual plan 2014-15. This plan focused on three program areas: GLAM, community (e.g. edit-a-thons), and education. Shared Knowledge sees important opportunities for digitizing media in Macedonia, and has been doing several programs that focus on adding content in areas that aren’t yet covered on the Wikimedia projects. Shared Knowledge also did a grant focusing on edit-a-thons targeting female contributors in 2015.

Shared Knowledge has a good track record of engagement in the Project and Event Grants program, although some reports have been submitted late. These reports, once submitted, have been high quality and informative. Shared Knowledge has grown in its ability to track the results of its work over time, and share learning about its work with the broader community. As Shared Knowledge continues its work, it will be important to work toward consistently capturing global metrics for all of your programs and refining program-specific metrics to show what you are achieving.

For all these reasons, Shared Knowledge is eligible for a Simple Annual Plan Grant. Yet, we have concerns about the increase in activity and budget requested, and about your current and proposed staffing plan. As part of your 2014-15 plan, Shared Knowledge applied for a 75% employee. During the course of the grant, you requested to repurpose the employee’s salary to cover two 75% employees with the same amount of funding, and this request was approved as a temporary measure. Shared Knowledge is now requesting to keep on both employees, and to increase the hours of the program person to 100%, while keeping the administrative person at 75%. This amounts to a significant increase from 0.75 FTE approved to 1.75 FTE requested.

The measures Shared Knowledge took to split the salary between two employees rather than reduce program activity to manageable levels with your current staffing raise concerns around governance, planning, and sustainability. Shared Knowledge is suggesting to further increase program activity in the current plan, despite challenges with capacity. At this stage, and given the outcomes we are seeing from your work so far, we would encourage Shared Knowledge to limit your staffing request to 1.0 FTE or less, which could consist of several part time employees or one full time employee.

We encourage Shared Knowledge to take a more focused approach to its programs and activities, and to take a more measured approach to budget and staff growth in the current application. We understand you are currently revising your final budget, and that we are still waiting on a final figure for your budget. We look forward to taking a closer look at your plans as part of the application process.

Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:02, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for completing the proposal form.

Thanks for completing this proposal form, Bojan. Participation in conferences should not be included as a program, although you can include conference participation in your detailed budget. Please remove this section from the application. We look forward to reviewing your application in the coming weeks. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 03:44, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Application discussion

During the month of November, committee members, other community members, and Wikimedia Foundation, may ask questions or offer suggestions.

From the committee

Volunteer and editor community (Anders)

I wonder if you could share som information with us related to your volunteer community and editor community on the Wikimedia projects? How many volunteers are engaged in the activities of your entitity, besides the members of the Board, and are all of these editors? How does your editor comminity function, are they a constructive communtity and do they see hte activites run by this usr group as a valuable supporter to their work?Anders Wennersten (talk) 13:19, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your question Anders. The membership of Shared Knowledge consists of: 1) experienced community members and 2) outsiders with skills and competences in organisational management. Our goal has always been directed towards connecting the both groups of members, thus allowing mutual collaboration and sharing of experiences, which would grow the community on the long run and also increase the number of skilled members to run the organisational activities. The number of volunteers engaged in our activities over the past year was about 10 and most of them were not active members of the community or have become during the year. The community also has about 10 members who are not members of Shared Knowledge but were successfully integrated into reaching our objectives through the editing competitions. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@Anders Wennersten: Thanks for that, Anders. They do indeed. Nearly all active editors in the community are well aware of our activities and see us as representative of the community and the movement, without any doubt. Many of them participate in the editing events, and some of them in the other activities. I have had suggestions for topics and activities by community members, and keep in touch with various editors to announce and discuss ideas with them. This, I think, is an invaluable feedback to our organisation and goes towards our aim to serve the community. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 13:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Growing the community (Smallbones)

Thanks for putting this proposal together and for all the time you've obviously spent on this. My main question is actually a follow up to Anders's question in the section below. How are you planning to grow the community, to establish yourselves as the group that represents Wikipedians in Macedonia? I'm guessing this will be challenging, but certainly possible. How do your plans fit in with this goal? Thanks again. Smallbones (talk) 21:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your questions Pete. The activities of Shared Knowledge and the Macedonian Wikipedia community in the past year were mainly promoted through organising events, running workshops and increased media coverage. My impression is that people can easily recognise our organisation as a representative of the Wikimedia movement but the fact that we have not yet resolved the problem on the status and name of the inactive Wikimedia Macedonia remains a hurdle. The negotiations with the members of the Affiliations Committee are open, though. For the next year, we plan to keep up with the successful practices and also to introduce educational events on different topics from or related to the Wikimedia movement to the general public. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Kiril is quite righ, and I would say that our potential is rather significant. There has been considerable institutional interest in us lately (both educational institutions and other agencies, local authorities etc.), which will undoubtedly result in growth via our activities there, if we approach matters properly. Beside that, our Education sector is gradually growing, meaning that we have access to a good number of young people. This will allow us to engage them in various ways and make a stronger community via our initiatives. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 13:00, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from Ido/Alleycat80

Hi Shared Knowldege! I'm Ido/Alleycat80 from the SAPG committee (also from WMIL board). I have a few questions and comments I'd like to highlight:

As a general note, your projects/programs are very diverse, which may be a good thing, but you should also prioritize and make sure your "most important" programs are carried out. I couldn't tell from your plan what are your most important projects in each program. I want to honestly say that I'm slightly concerned about the ability to achieve all this in one year. I also urge you to think strategically about your long-term goals (say, for 2016-2018) and then you'll be able to see which programs are more valuable to you, in light of these goals.

• I'm interested in your "expedition" projects - could you elaborate a bit more into the rationale? Is it only focused on content creation, or does it in some way contribute to community growth?
• What is the impact of the research program? Why do you think it fits in scope of your other programs?
• I'm seeing quite a lot of your budget being allocated to prizes - more than 10%! I strongly encourage you to consider reducing the amounts.

Comment@Alleycat80:Thank you for the question. We think that the amount for the prizes of the editing competitions is justified because of the following reasons:

• Each competition runs for a whole month
  • We expect a total of 2000 articles written at these competitions, which is a significant number for our wiki
  • These are topics that have been long neglected and are of high importance.
  • The competitions provide high quality content and wide coverage of the topics, essential to the quality of our wiki in general.
  • This means retention of good editors, given the nature of the commitment at this competition.
  • The first prize is somewhat higher than the average monthly wage, so the prizes are not as high as they may seem, especially considering that this is a month-long dedicated work.--Инокентиј (talk) 18:44, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Comment@Alleycat80: These prizes are welly well worth their amount, in my opinion. As Инокентиј suggests, and as I have witnessed (and participated) myself, a lot of sorely needed articles are being created on poorly covered, but important topics, during an intensive month of editing. The results so far have been very satisfactory. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 12:53, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• I think your expenditure of sending 10 persons to Wikimania should be better justified - what's the projected impact? Why not, for example, send 3-5 people?

Thanks, Alleycat80 (talk) 00:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your questions Ido.

• The Wikiexpeditions was one of our most successful projects over the past year both in the terms of generating content and community engagement. Out of the 9 people who participated in four Wikiepeditions and one Astroexpedition this year, only 4 were active members before the start. The growing interest among members to take part in the Wikiexpeditions has led to the introduction of different types of expeditions with the main goal of providing more thorough coverage of specific regions.
• Our research programme aims at increasing the understanding of the community and providing relevant evidence as a starting point in the planning of our future activities. The community members on the Macedonian Wikipedia will be surveyed very soon in order to get more information about the demographic structure, their interests and needs. In near future, we also plan to expand our research activities to other important topics within our movement or related to it and study their effects on society and global economy. The research programme is planned to be carried out as a pilot-project with no specific funds in the very beginning; however, the research activities may bear some costs after defining the scope of the research areas and depending on the amount of work needed.
• I see that Cvetko has already made a sort of cost-benefit analysis for the editing competitions. My view is that the prizes awarded in the photographic competitions may be reduced and we will be working on it.
• The underlying reason for sending 10 persons to Wikimania 2016 lies in the number of programmatic fields and the variety of projects and activities. We think that having a greater number of representatives at Wikimania would allow us to cover many activities and sessions that are scheduled to take place at the same time. Additionally, our goal is to promote the conference as the largest and most important event of the Wikimedia movement and to also to award scholarships to the most active volunteers who showed clear learning during the year. Considering the geographical proximity of Macedonia to Italy and the relatively lower travel costs, we see this is a great opportunity to present our community in a good light.

Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 11:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Questions from FloNight

Hello, I've been following the questions and answers already posted. I appreciate your replies, they helped me better understand your plans. But I have a few more questions and a few comments.

1) Since partner organizations benefit from having Wikipedians work with them, are the partner organizations contributing either funds or in kind donations to support the work that is happening in their institution? If so, could you add these in so we can see the full cost of the projects. If not, have you discussed the possibility of sharing the costs between the wikimedia movement and the organizations by asking them to pick up some of the costs?

Comment The partnering organisations contribute by providing in-kind support to our Wikipedians in residence. For example, the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) provide free Internet access, support from their staff and offer free space with equipment for organising edit-a-thons. Extending support in monetary means is practically impossible because all partnering organisations are state institutions that receive funds from the governmental budget and have very little impact on the budgeting process. Our priority is to get in touch with the highest governmental authorities and present our activities bu that process is time-consuming and requires strong and convincing history.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:20, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

2) Could you explain how you decided on your metrics for the education program? Is it based on past experience in Macedonia or elsewhere? It seems like an overly optimistic metric to me that you would recruit 100 editors or 10 active editors from 500 students. Are you thinking that these students will continue editing in the community long term or just during your contact with them? Same question for the GLAM program? 30 long term active editors from 378 contacts seems high.

Comment Yes. In writing the metric, we simply repeated the same as have been achieved in 2015. That is the number of students that take to editing and that is about the retention rate afterwards. @Инокентиј: can tell you more about it, as he is in charge of Education. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused by where the 76 new editors and 30 active in the Community section are coming from? They are not part of GLAM numbers of new or active editors but the edit-a-thons are held at GLAM organizations?

Comment The edit-a-thons will be held there, and these existing members are the active editors on the wiki, who participate in editing competitions. Morever, the number of new editors reflects all GLAM undertakings, many of which will involve individuals imrpvoing articles by participating in GLAM institutions, or from some of our other programs, but on things related to (about) GLAM matters. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

3) The various types of Wikiexpeditions are an interesting concept. I read your evaluation of your previous ones, and wonder how you are changing them to make them be more community building events or more local involvement which was an area noted in the past where improvement could happen?

Comment The ideas of introducing different types of expeditions have come in as suggestions by community members who are interested to take part in it. Since we are open to meet all the needs and interests of both the members of our organisation and community, the decision on making these changes was necessary and we believe it is a good example of a community building activity.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:20, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

4) The biggest weakness of the plan is that a small group of people is trying to cover too many projects that are likely too ambitious in the metric results listed.

Comment We pay close attention to that very thing, although we are not simply a group of people, but an organisation with governing body, two employees and relatively good number of members (which doubled since last year). These projects are easily achieved which such capacities; we have done larger ones with ease. If you take a look at our reports, you'll see what I mean. Cheers. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Bojan. I certainly appreciate that you are an organization with an engaged staff and board, and a number of active core volunteers. That said, this comment here about capacity doesn't quite make sense to me based on past conversations with Shared Knowledge about your capacity. If I am understanding this conversation correctly, the organization was struggling to meet last year's goals with the 0.75 staff that was approved for last year's plan and so had two employees working at 0.75 FTE each, while splitting the 0.75 FTE salary between the two employees, for a total of 1.5 FTE in time actually worked. This was despite similar assurances of your ability to do the plan with 0.75 staff last year on that same discussion page prior to the approval of the grant. This year's plan includes a much larger budget, with many more activities, and a staffing request of 1.0 FTE, which is actually less staff than you had last year in terms of actual time worked.

As part of the eligibility process, documented above, I asked you to keep your total staffing request at 1.0 FTE or less this year. Along with this, I encouraged you to take a more focused approach to your program plan and a measured approach to growth. We know it was difficult to make changes to your original plan, which included cutting some exciting projects. Yet, even acknowledging the impressive increase in volunteers involved with your activities, from what I'm understanding, things still don't seem to add up. Your actual staff resources are decreasing at the same time your budget and number of activities is increasing. Are we missing some information here or am I misunderstanding the situation?

In light of all this, I'd encourage you to look at Sydney's suggestion below, and to articulate your priorities here. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 19:35, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment @Wolliff: Hello Winifred. My answer above was intended to clarify what kind of organisation we are, i.e. that we aren't a smallish group. As for our capacity, we count on out growth in members, which we have seen recently, as well as on the interest expressed by institutions and other entities in recent periods. What you say about employees is right, but we rely on the significantly larger base of volunteers to justify our reques - and they are quite separate things. It should be noted that this year's budget is not very different from last year's. We reduced our activities in accordance with your recommendations, as well as our staff time request, but the capacity is clearly here, given that the circumstances aren't so different from last year's, whilst the budget remains similar, and the volunteer base is larger than before. We will provide the answer and link for the priorities to Sydney below. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 13:59, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

I know that you have already put loads of work into this application so I hate to ask for more work. But the current plan seems too broad and unfocused to be successful for an organization your size in your stage of re-organizing.

I would appreciate you making a list of the top priorities projects that you think will have the biggest impact based on previous positive results. Which past events had the biggest turn out of community members? Which past projects had the largest number of on wiki contributions/uploads/edits? Which proposed projects means the most the Macedonia because it is freeing knowledge about a topic with strong importance to the Macedonian people?

Thanks, again for your responses. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 22:30, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Comment @FloNight: Hello Sydney. I have placed the priorities in in the annual plan. Cheers. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 15:22, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Bjankuloski06, thank you. I'll point it out to the rest of the Simple APG Committee. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 17:49, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Note on project changes

Dear committee members. I would like to inform you that we have replaced a couple of projects (Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments) with two other project that are significantly more const-efficient and are certain to give good results. One of them is the highly visible and very well visited Archaeological Museum of Macedonia, and the other is a two-day tour about our great cultural asset - indigenous wines. Taken together, they are only half the cost of WLM and WLE, and have greater impact, especially the Archaeological Museum project, which is the most visited museum in the country. You will find the project descriptions on the request page. We have also reinstated the Veloexpeditions project, as discussed with Winifred. The project metrics and financial tables have been modified accordingly. I should note that the total has not been re-calculated, due to a pending decision about Wikimania participants; this will be done immediately after that. Cheers --B. Jankuloski (talk) 13:46, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

From Wikimedia Foundation

A few initial clarifications about your programs

Hello, Shared Knowledge team:

Before we get into a bigger discussion about your proposal, I think it would help to clarify a few details.

Activities in this proposal and your budget are not grouped in the same way Can you please clarify here the total amount you plan to spend on each program?

• GLAM
• Education
• Community
• Research

We noticed that you included program objectives, but these are not SMART because they are not measurable or time-related. Can you please revise your objectives to make them measurable and time-related before we continue with discussions? We need this information to better understand what you plan to achieve.

@Wolliff: Our objectives and measures are written in one way in the plan, but in a different way in the global metrics. There, each program measurement is presented with all the measurable impact you require, except the time schedule, which we will produce as soon as possible in a table form. The global metrics themselves do not show up here, since they are entered in separate forms that we filled in, whose data isn't displayed here. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 11:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Finally, a program is a group of activities that work together to achieve the same things, and have a similar way of achieving those things. That means that programs should share common objectives. Right now, your programs seem to each be a collection of activities, and it is unclear how these activities are linked by common objectives or approaches. Can you please provide some more background in your proposal for how your activities are grouped into each program and provide some program objectives that are shared by the activities in each of your programs?

@Wolliff: We will review the program and arrange them according to the common objectives. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 11:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Comments from the committee should be rolling in next week, so it would be good to address these issues as soon as possible.

Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 22:58, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Bojan. What you're saying here makes sense.

1. I'm adding the global metrics data submitted to the applications today or tomorrow. I have still been discussing these numbers with some applicants, hence the delay. Once those are up, we can work together on mapping those to your objectives, so that I can make sure the committee clearly understands your objectives.
2. Regarding program groupings, it might help just to add a sentence or two for each program above your objectives that briefly explains how the activities in the program are linked.

Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:24, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@Bjankuloski06: I added the global metrics to your proposal, but I'm still not sure how these metrics map to your program objectives. It's unclear how you plan to measure any of your program objectives, or how / when you will know what you have achieved. Most organizations include 3-5 objectives at the program level. Your GLAM program includes almost 30 objectives right now. If you like, we can set up a google document to work together on your specific program objectives. I can offer more detailed advice that way.

Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:17, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Outstanding work, Bojan. I've gone ahead and added the revised program level objectives to the application form. Please go ahead and edit them from here. We really appreciate the good work you did. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 22:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Bojan. I made some more changes to the proposal today, to use your old activity-level program objectives to show how you plan that your activities will lead to results. I also added in some numbering for the activities, since there are a great many. I think this might make your application a bit easier to follow. Feel free to change or edit if you don't like this approach. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Redundant items in conference participation budget

Hello, Shared Knowledge colleagues! Participation in the Wikimedia Conference and CEE is included as part of those conference grants, so please remove it from your Simple APG budget. Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 20:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Winifred. We are going to remove this item in order to avoid double counting. Best regards..--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 13:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

More ideas for reducing your budget

Hello, Shared Knowledge colleagues. You can use some of these ideas to reduce your budget before the committee makes a final decision. It seems like there are some areas where you can make your budget more efficient, or provide us with some more details about your expenses so we can better understand them. This will help you get your budget more in line with what you are expecting to achieve.

• Reduce number of Wikimania scholarships. Considering that you made one scholarship this year and your active editor community is around 40 people according to stats, 10 Wikimania scholars would represent about 25% of your active editing community. I'd strongly suggest reducing the number of scholarships to 2-3 scholars (instead of one, since we agree you should take advantage of the proximity of the event this year). Also, it would probably be best not include this as a separate program, but include it as a part of your Community program or simply as a part of your operational budget. If you receive funding for sending 2-3 scholars, we'll also help you coordinate your process with the scholarships team.
• Reduce prize money. As Ido's pointed out, almost 10% of your budget is devoted to prize money. Your prizes are high compared with other similar activities around the movement. We've said as part of several past grant discussions that we think these prizes are too high. We're glad to learn you're doing a cost analysis. It would be good to apply that learning to the current budget before the committee makes a final decision.
• No budget for bike parts. 100 EUR for spare bicycle parts seems excessive. Presumably, participants with their own bicycles can bring a few spare tire tubes and parts. 100 EUR would buy quite a few tire tubes in any case!

Comment@Wolliff: This is not only budget for tire tubes and this is our mistake not to give a broader explanation about this part of the budget. I`m organizer of the Wikiexpeditions and like you can see here with our first Veloexpedition this year (of course then part of the Wikiexpeditions), but the idea about organizing Veloexpedition next year begin with this pilot-project in Mariovo. From this first experience we conclude that we necessarily need bicycle equipped with front and rear racks, fenders/mud-guards, water bottles in cages, panniers and a handlebar bag. If you need more details about Wikiexpeditions in general please write me. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 10:19, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Ehrlich91. Nice meeting you, and thanks for the details. Is this fee going toward renting properly equipped bicycles? Or are you buying equipment to install on participants' bicycles? If so, what happens to the equipment after the expedition? Does the user group hold on to the racks, cages, and bags, to use for future expeditions? Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Like our purchase for tent this year, which we are planning to use for future expeditions, this bicycle parts also we are planning to install on participants` bicycles and then to reuse on future expeditions. This is better solution, especially in our country, where we don`t have so many options for renting well equipped bicycles. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 23:59, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Great! In light of that, this does seem like a fun and economical format for a Wikiexpedition and this seems like a necessary expense. Thanks for clarifying, Ehrlich91. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 22:08, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Reduce expenses for certificates. You are spending nearly 5 EUR per certificate for students in the education program who complete articles, totaling 546 EUR for 125 certificates. This expense for certificates is excessive, especially considering certificates for edit-a-thons cost about 0.25 EUR per certificate and 0.50 for Wiki Loves Monuments.

Hello Winifred. The amount actually refers to two things, one of which was omitted by mistake. Now there are two separate rows for it. One is for certificates (significantly lower amount) and the other is for the award event. --Иван Ж (talk) 11:26, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Иван Ж. That makes a lot more sense! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Use volunteer jury members. Compensating jury members for photo competitions is not a usual practice and we note that 100 EUR is a significant amount to compensate each jury member. How many hours of time do you expect each jury member to devote to their contest work in return for this 100 EUR? What options have you explored for volunteer jury members?
• Reduce amount of giveaways (e.g. stickers, mugs, pens, etc.). For example, for WLM you are already offering notebooks and pens. Offering mugs as well seems excessive.
• Reduce catering costs for edit-a-thons. Last year, edit-a-thons typically had 5-7 participants. That would amount to almost 20 EUR for catering per participant, which seems like a lot!

Yes, last year we have a problem with our edit-a-thons, so this year we decided to organize also and editing days, like pilot project in addition with the edit-a-thons. Also, problems with edit-a-thons were that we don`t have a contacts with GLAM-institutions for organizing edin-a-thons in their institutions, so we make a significant costs for locations, but this year we plan to make edit-a-thons in premises of the GLAM-institutions (like MANU, Faculty of Economics, etc.) so we can lower budget for this edit-a-thons, because we don`t need money for locations. Like Board Member, this question I`m gonna propose tonight and we`ll be report about decision. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

• Reconsider your office. At this stage, investing in an office will be a significant expense in terms of your organization's time and energy as well as your budget. Start up costs for this seem to be approaching 6,000 EUR. It may not make sense to prioritize establishing an office over program activities, especially considering that your administrative overhead is already burdensome.
• Reconsider WiR model. You are budgeting 5,000 EUR for a Wikimedian in Residence in addition to purchasing equipment. As part of your last grant, you spent 3,000 EUR on the residency at DARM and achieved around 90 images and 20 articles created or improved.
  1. Why have you decided to expand this program?
  2. How have you improved this costly program to make it more cost effective than last year's?
  3. What are your specific content goals for each residency?
  4. Which of the Wikimedians in Residence are being compensated, and which are not?
  5. How were these Wikimedians in Residence selected, or how will they be selected?

Comment@Wolliff: Dear Ms Winifred Ollif, first of all i would like to thank you for the very useful and insightful comments and ideas. As a person who is officially appointed and works as a Wikimedian-in-Residence at MANU on a daily basis (simultaneously creating and editing articles with the processed and uploade materials) i would like to point out some facts about the characteristics, achievements of our project as well as the prospects for its future development.

1. Due to the regular work duties and involvement in other projects of Shared Knowledge we had to reduce the paid residency in DARM to only 3 months, but however since 1st of October we have signed a memorandum and 12-months contract with the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) which has a library fund that includes more than 160.000 units of which 56.310 books and 110.000 volumes of journals from different fields of sciences and arts. Considering this fact, for a period of only 2 months in which only in the last week we have provided a scanner, up to this point while I am writing you, there are:
2. 135 files uploaded (including 10 books with multiple pages - the largest has 103 pages) with a usage of 90.37% in 122 articles edited or created (for more detail see: GLAMorous tool or Category:Files provided by MANU). You can also visit the project page of Wikimedian-in-Residence at MANU where you can see all activities and contributions to the article which besides in Macedonian also include improved and edited articles on Wikipedias in English, German, Italian, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Croatian etc.
3. Moreover, project of the Wikimedian-in-Residence at MANU has a great (almost cruicial) significance of providing materials necessary for the projects of "Shared Knowledge" such as Wikiexpeditions, Archaeoexpeditions, Educational Program etc. not only electronically but also in hard copy publications (books) from MANU. Also the cooperation with the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) provides us great opportunities and prospects for future development of all projects and Wikipedia Movement, through place and materials for organization of marathons, edit-a-thons and other competitions of editing articles and organization of training and education of people interested in editing and contributing to Wikipedia. Finally, due to the personal contacts that i have with members of the Presidency of MANU there is an idea for providing a special place and status for Wikipedia/"Shared Knowledge" in the future Multimedia Center of the Academy which is projected to be founded in the Academy's reform process.

Best regards, Македонец (talk) 10:46, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for this background, Македонец. That's very helpful to answering my first two questions. I'm hoping someone else will also come along and clarify 1) the content goals for each residency for next year; 2) which Wikimedians in residence are paid and which are volunteers; 3) how the paid Wikimedians in residence are selected. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

• Explain photohunt expenses. How many photo hunts are you planning to reimburse volunteers for? How did calculate the amount of 300 EUR for this area?

Comment@Wolliff: Like I said before, that I`m responsible about Wikiexpeditions, this is partially connected and covering similar scopes. This is project where we intend to include more of our active editors to visit some areas which will be not included in our expeditions and encourage some new members to visit some areas (like monasteries, protected nature reserves, castles, etc.). Costs in this project is similar with the expeditions and will be reimbursed after the participant come back from photohunts. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 11:47, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Ehrlich91, if I'm understanding correctly, this 300 EUR is a general budget to cover reimbursements and there is not a specific target for the number of expeditions it will cover, since that will depend on the requests you get throughout the year. Sort of like a microgrants program for expeditions. Is that right? Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 23:27, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that`s right. Our plan is with this photographic hunts to attract new members from community to take a chance and explore some new areas (preferably some remote parts of Macedonia) and bring pictures and also write (if they want) some new articles about that places. It will be like microgrants program, but in this case only for expeditions; we are planning to make calls about this hunts on our Village Pump and with Sitenotice on our local page on Wikipedia. --Ehrlich91 (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

• Equipment. It seems like you've budgeted for a scanner for the WiR budgeted for in this grant, but that's already included in your reallocation from the 2014-15 grant. Is this a redundant expense or are you buying two scanners for two different institutions? Do you have a list of equipment purchased by the user group anywhere on Meta? Given the significant investment in equipment purchases, I think this would be a good idea.

Comment Hello Winifred. The scanner was put together with the laptop when were working on this financial plan some time ago. In meantime however, we decided to supply the scanner from the present remaining budget and we got an approval for that, so it is simply that this row has not been removed. Now it is deleted, and the numbers are adjusted accordingly. As for a list of what we have, see Shared Knowledge#Equipment. Cheers. --B. Jankuloski (talk) 09:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 02:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Committee assessment and decision

The committee will make an assessment and Wikimedia Foundation will make a final decision by 15 December.

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: The Simple Annual Plan Grants Committee recommends that Shared Knowledge receive a grant of 29,000 Euro (corresponding to 60% of the funds requested, or an amount similar to what was spent during the first 12 months of their 2014-15 annual grant) for their 2016 annual plan. We recognize the work that Shared Knowledge has done on well-organized and successful programs like Wikiexpeditions, as well as the significant progress they are making with building on their small core community of volunteers in Macedonia. We also appreciate their ongoing commitment following a turbulent period for their organization. On the other hand, the committee has concerns about Shared Knowledge’s capacity to do this plan because of the large number of activities in this plan and because of concerns around capacity during the current year. Shared Knowledge is requesting a large budget increase as well as a significant increase in program activity during a period where the organization is still stabilizing. We appreciate that Shared Knowledge has responded to the committee’s concerns on the discussion page by adjusting the budget and presenting a prioritized list of program activities. We encourage Shared Knowledge to use this list to prioritize its most important activities and reduce the scope of or eliminate less important activities in order to increase their focus on the most impactful programs and give their organization enough capacity to also focus on learning and organizational health. The committee is concerned that there is not a clear link between some expenses and program impact: for example, there is a significant amount of staff time spent on administration as well as very expensive prizes for contests. We encourage Shared Knowledge to reduce operating expenses that are not clearly linked to impact, for example by cutting office expenses entirely and reducing the amounts allocated to expensive prizes.

Strengths identified by the committee: Organizational effectiveness After facing a serious reorganization, Shared Knowledge is committed to working through many of its internal challenges, and has shown a strong commitment to growing its programs and its community of core volunteers. The organization partners with an active and committed group of core volunteers, who are working to collect and generate content relevant to the organization’s goals. Program effectiveness There is a rich variety of programs included in this detailed application, which also includes timelines for activities and is supported by an annual plan. We appreciate the effort and professionalism that went into creating this application. The organization has a history of planning and executing past activities successfully. Community support and GLAM programs include some impactful activities. Projects, like Wikiexpeditions, are interesting, based on past successes, and achieve good impact in terms of generating media with very high rates of use. Research work, including a survey of contributors, is a positive step, since it will help the organization better understand their context and their community.

Concerns identified by the committee: Organizational effectiveness It is not clear that expenses are directly related to overall impact. For example, staff growth does not seem to be commensurate with the impact proposed. Several budget items can be reduced, such as expensive prizes, office expenses, and Wikimania travel, while achieving similar impact. The organization is expanding rapidly during a period following some serious internal issues and has had some challenges managing staff effectively, and so may need more time to stabilize before growing its program activity and budget at this rate. While working hard to do many activities in 2014-15, the organization has not had time to focus on adopting good practices and evaluating and reflecting upon its work in order to achieve better results at this level of funding. The organization has had success growing its community of core volunteers in the past year, but we have not yet seen a coherent strategy around community health emerge. For example, many programs in this plan seem to rely on contests with expensive prizes and reimbursing travel to build community among a small group of contributors. We have hopes that research work may lead to more innovation in this area. Program effectiveness Some targets do not seem realistic or achievable. This also makes it difficult to draw links between specific activities and overall program objectives. For example: The goal of more than doubling active editor count seems too ambitious. Retaining active editors is hard; there isn’t yet sufficient evidence of success to make these goals seem attainable. The number of articles improved through the GLAM program seems high, and without a number of bytes added it is difficult to assess if there is sufficient emphasis on quality and not only quantity. Furthermore, it is unclear which specific programs under GLAM are to lead to achieving most of the goals specified. Relatedly, there are many activities in this plan and activities do not seem logically grouped into programs, which makes this plan seem unfocused, and may make it difficult to execute and evaluate. For example, many programs in the GLAM program do not seem to relate to GLAM partnerships. The organization is building its expertise in generating quality content rather than focusing on large amounts of content, yet contests and expeditions may not be the only ways to focus on quality. For example, use of experts and partner organizations is not a major focus of this plan, and could generate more quality content than these other activities. We encourage the organization to continue to deepen their thinking in this area. Most of the programs in this plan are good adaptations of programs being done by other organizations, and a few programs in this plan have the potential to be innovative; however, at the level of funding requested, we would like to see some experimentation with new ideas that may benefit the wider movement.

On behalf of the Simple Annual Plan Grant Committee Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 19:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Decision from WMF

Funding decision: Many thanks to Shared Knowledge for your work during the application process, and many thanks to the committee for this recommendation. WMF will fund this grant as recommended, in the amount of 29,000 Euro, and we will work with Shared Knowledge to implement the committee's recommendations and agree upon an approved budget. Shared Knowledge, here is how you can reduce your budget to the amount recommended by the committee: We will not fund office costs. This will reduce your administrative expenses from 6,917 EUR to 977 EUR and equipment expenses to from 1,910 EUR to 600 EUR, and supplies from 875 EUR to 575 EUR. Reduce your Wikimania budget from 5,800 EUR to 1160 EUR to cover two scholarships. Archaeological museum of Macedonia. We would only consider funding this program if the museum were making a significant contribution toward QR plaques and promotional materials. This would be a good item to remove from your budget at 1,750 EUR. Partnering with the museum staff on content-related activities is an interesting idea that you may want to explore in the future. Reduce the value of the prizes for your editing competitions by half, from 4,000 EUR to 2,000 EUR. You have about 2,500 EUR left to reduce. Here are some ideas for scaling back the number of activities you are planning: Cut the photohunt budget so you can focus on your most impactful programs rather than administering reimbursements. Reduce the number of expeditions you are running. This would be good because it would also free up staff time involved in planning and administering each expedition. Focus on the expeditions you think will be most interesting and impactful. I think this is a good option because reducing your total number of activities fits well with the spirit of the committee's recommendations. Consider running editing competitions twice annually instead of four times. I think this is a good option because reducing your total number of activities fits well with the spirit of the committee's recommendations. Scale back the Wikipedian in Residence project. At 5,000 EUR this is a significant portion of your budget, so it is worth considering whether a part-time residency could be an option. Receiving a grant for 29,000 Euro and 1.0 FTE for continuing your Wikimedia work in Macedonia is a significant accomplishment, and we are looking forward to your work in 2016. It's been a pleasure working with you throughout the application process, and we appreciate your willingness to engage at every stage, and the involvement of your active volunteers on talk page discussions. We are excited about many aspects of your work, especially the high use rates achieved through WikiExpeditions and the impressive growth you've achieved in your volunteer base. I realize that reducing your budget and eliminating activities that are important to you and your community can be a painful process, and I would like to discuss the committee's recommendations with you in greater depth and talk with you about how to best move forward together. All the best in 2016. Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 05:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Request for funds re-allocation for Annual Minicipal Business Tax

Hello Grant Administrators. We would like to request re-allocation of 113.82 EUR for the Annual Municipal Business Tax that came up for payment by the City Government of Skopje. We had no budgeted for this as we thought that it does not apply to non-profit organisation, but now it transpired that it does. We will know to plan for this in future. We intend to pay it with the 89 EUR saved when purchasing the laptop for the WiR and the other 24 EUR that will be covered by future savings or the unallocated remainder of this grant. Thanks a lot! --Иван Ж (talk) 10:22, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. This change is approved (reallocating 113.82 EUR from the funds budgeted for the laptop and 24 EUR additional funds to pay the municipal tax). Can you please update your current budget document using strikethrough to show a change was made? Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 16:03, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Midpoint report received

Hello, Shared Knowledge team! Thank you for completing your midpoint report before the deadline. We've received your report and your updates to the global metrics worksheet. Thanks also for providing some detailed spending reports for the first two quarters, and linking to them from your report. We can discuss this report more at our meeting in August, and address any questions then. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:30, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Budget change approved (shared office space)

At the request of Shared Knowledge, we have approved 360 EUR to be moved from the current "supplies" budget of 575 EUR toward funding both employees to work from a shared office space for the remaining 6 months of the grant period (August - December 2016). The office space at Seavus has a fee of 30 EUR per month per person, and Shared Knowledge has two employees. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 16:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Three budget changes approved for 2016 grant

Noting here that we have approved three more budget changes for 2016:

• 150 EUR of unallocated funds toward paying employee regres.
• 150 EUR of funds designated for awards ceremony for purchase of t-shirts.
• 300 EUR of unallocated funds toward chemistry experiments, approved retroactively despite reservations on WMF's part about this project's efficacy, so that Shared Knowledge can meet their commitment to the videographer.

Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)