Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia Argentina/Staff proposal assessment

Comments by Wikimedia Argentina

First of all, thanks for the detailed assessment about our application to the FDC.

We agree with most of the things addressed in this assessment. For example, we acknowledge the difficulty to track the impact of our activities (as you can see in all our past reports to the FDC) and that is something we have tried to improve in the past months. However, we don't agree with the concerns regarding the rapid growth in the expenses (34%) and, especially, regarding the increase in the number of staff members.

In the past years, we have taken a sustainable and measured process to become moving from 0,5 FTE in 2011 to 1,5 FTE two years later. We understand that controlling and managing new professional staff is always a challenge and we certainly know the difficulties involved in the process. However, we have learnt a lot in the past years and I think we have managed to create a strong staff and defined the way the Board is involved. Is this security that has given us the courage to propose this increase. In our opinion, this increase in the staff is not unrealistic: we are moving our Communications Manager to a full-time position which is clearly needed given the level of activity she is doing currently, we are including an administrative officer to be in charge of the bureaucreatic and rutinary work that me and María are doing currently (and then, not being able to work fully in our role) and a part-time Education Manager for the new opportunities that have opened in the past year but, given we are not experts, we have not been able to take the most of it.

Wikimedia Argentina has grown enormous in the past two years and new opportunities have been given, but with our current staff it is impossible to take all of them. We understand it is complex to increase staff when you are beggining, but we believe we have proven in the past our level of responsability and success when confronted with these challenges. --Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR) (talk) 22:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)