Grants talk:PEG/FF portal

WMF feedback on Feb IRC meeting

Having read the February IRC meeting minutes, I would like to offer the following comments. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Asaf, thanks a lot for sharing your comments here on Meta. It is great to have on-board someone like you, who is very thorough and clear, but also can share constructive criticism. I hope many flow funding members have the opportunity to share their opinions here too. TSB (talk) 15:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Reactive vs. proactive

The minutes suggest that the flow funders perceive their role primarily as a reactive one, i.e. inviting people to approach them and ask for funding, or (as Poupou suggests) relay ideas from a given community to Meta and the FF program. This surprises me and contrasts with my original understanding (and therefore expectation) of the flow funders: I was thinking the great promise of the program was that individuals empowered to make a funding recommendation would proactively look for and find low-visibility opportunities in their respective communities, languages, regions, interests, etc., and bring those opportunities in for funding.

The "what is it?" page in flowfunding.org, which was used to advocate for the program in the first place, suggests

Once a Flow Funder has been chosen, they then disperse funds of their own initiative. The gift moves spontaneously as needs and opportunities arise. There is no application process, so no one is approached for money. [emphasis mine, --AB]

Now, admittedly, we are doing an unusual flow funding program, in that we haven't actually given the flow funders the money, but instead are asking them to recommend grantees to us, and, if the grantees are eligible, the money would be wired to them without any further process or discussion. However, the expectation is still for flow funders to proactively look for and identify fundable opportunities (if they can).

If we create a portal for requesting funds, we are essentially replicating the already-existing grant programs (e.g. WMF's, WMDE's), on a smaller scale and without some of the benefits of those programs, so the added value of the Flow Funding idea is, to my mind, greatly diminished.

I am happy to hear your thoughts on this. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Asaf, you are right that the Pilot Project was designed with the expectation that flow funders would be very proactive. So far, we have noticed that a few flow funders decided to create portals and ask their local communities to send fund requests for them to evaluate and select (or not) to fund. I believe it is still too early to predict how the majority of the flow funders will prefer to act, either in a more proactive or reactive way. But as far as I can tell, the flow funders that decided to be more "reactive" have very interesting reasons to do it that way. I will ask them to share their point of view here. Anyways, the beauty of a pilot project is exactly to test expectations and learn how things work in the real world, in this case the Wikimedia Movement. Before any intervention, I suggest we give another month to listen and observe the selected flow funding participants. TSB (talk) 15:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Some more thoughts on the question proactive vs reactive:

There are two issues that hinder me from a more proactive approach:

1. Transparency. The German community is supersensitive regarding the way money finds to reach its recipient. If I would fund only such people that I chose proactively this might look like I support only my buddies and actually one of the first reactions that came up today, when I announced the Flow Funding Project in the German equivalent of the Signpost was "this is institutionalised nepotism". Certainly I will also approach people directly, who have mentioned at some point or other that they would need funding for something and I would encourage them to apply for Flow Funding and try to make everything as easy as possible for them. But I will definitely rely on an official page for applicants where all ideas or proposals are liste, those that come from themselves as well as those which I may have encouraged somewhere, in order to demonstrate that this is no mumbo-jumbo between best buddies, but an open and transparent institution. What I have said on the "proposals" page in German is mainly: tell me what you want to do, and I will translate it into English and get all the paperwork with the foundation done for you, so you have as little hassle as possible and receive the money.

2. The minimum grant of 500 US-Dollars. In my view this is way too high. Most unfunded wishes that I just stumble upon rank in the range of 25-200 US-Dollars. It is about simple stuff, such as entrance tickets, fees or pieces of equipment. Actually, if the Foundation would have allocated 500 US-Dollars in total on me with a minimum grant of 50 Dollars, this money would probably have gone already. Yet I have to bear in mind that the German situation is specific, as there are already several mechanisms in place where you can apply for grants.

Best regards,--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 20:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Asaf has expressed a key issue very well. Poupou, two responses: first, supporting "buddies" can occur whether the model is reactive, proactive, or both; second, I wonder whether FF should be a petty cashbox for individual entrance tickets and taxi fares. This kind of scattered micro-expenditure seems difficult to justify and audit for success in terms of the Foundation's strategic aims. A bigger "bundle" of small expenses, all directed towards a goal under a single theme, is easier to justify, to improve on, and to provide "lessons" for the movement. Tony (talk) 07:19, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually meanwhile I have the first project with a volume of 950 US-Dollar coming up, so maybe I should modify what I have been saying above. Given that none of the other flow funders had funded any project so far, I had assumed it would be difficult to find suitable funding opportunities, but I amy have been wrong. And I am happy to have assumend wrongly in that respect! However I do believe that there is also a need for "micro-funding" which is currently not addressed by the WMF's grant schemes as far as I can see. (I am not an expert in WMF grant policies...). Best, --Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 10:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That's correct. Since the WMF is trying to serve a global constituency, micro-grants are not a scalable focus for the WMF's work. We are glad to see that some local chapters are running microgrants programs to support their local communities, and we encourage that and, indeed, fund such programs in the (larger) grants we give chapters.

That said, we do want to challenge our assumptions and explore possible innovation, and so we are running the Participation Support Program (in partnership with WMDE), and we did decide to engage in this (FF) experiment. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Casting a wide net

Another aspect that surprises me is that the only proposals submitted so far were about the flow funder's own institution. I must repeat that my expectation of flow funders is to look beyond their own organizations (or families), to avoid Conflict of interest, as the promise of Flow Funding is the (presumed) advantage of a diverse group of trusted individuals to recognize opportunities that lie outside the network we are already reaching or working with. People's various circles, of language, culture, hobbies, alumni networks, etc., are all potentials to draw upon, to find good mission-aligned work that can be meaningfully supported with a lightweight point-and-fund grant of up to $2000. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Asaf, again I think it is a little to early to reach any conclusion, but I agree that the flow funding process should reach "outside" initiatives whenever possible. Flow Funding is a very innovative process and the select flow funding participants are in a very complex position in this pilot project. They are the first group of individuals to have autonomy to fund "outside" initiatives and they feel very responsible for this allocation of funds. I believe they first want to fund initiatives that are close to their own network so that they can test the flow funding process and guarantee the results. Perhaps with time we will reach all the "outside" initiatives we are looking for. TSB (talk) 15:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Certainly, the funded initiatives don't need to be totally unrelated to anything the Flow Funder ever cared about. I did explicitly say people's own circles of culture, hobbies, language, networks are fine. But the Flow Funders's own projects, organizations, employers, and families really must be out of bounds. Remember, we need to not only avoid a conflict of interest, but also, to the extent possible, the appearance of a conflict of interest. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

(to clarify, since at least one person misunderstood -- the heading of this section is meant to express the desired practice, not a complaint. That is, I think Flow Funders should cast a wide net.) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Matching expectations

I am curious what you (all) think about these expectations -- are they unreasonable? Am I misunderstanding the potential or promise of the Flow Funding idea? Let's try to match our expectations through open discussion on this page. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you will simply have to be patient. None of us is doing this a full time occupation, but we have to fit it in with what we already did before this came up. For the German community I can say that whenever money is involved, there is a climate of general mistrust and people are very critical about any initiative (which is not a bad thing at all!). But it makes it time consuming and sometimes nervewracking to answer all the questions and try and sort out misunderstandings or misrepresentations. But I am confident that it will work sooner than later and in any case there will be a lot of lessons learned in the end. Best,--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

A proposal

Since no eligible proposals have been made so far (and only one flow funder has made any proposals at all), perhaps additional flow funders should be recruited? We can now safely assume that some flow funders just won't find interesting opportunities, and if we'd like to increase the chances of a meaningful pilot by July (prospective date of this pilot program's end), we should perhaps increase the pool of potential flow funders.

An advantage of the fact we did not give the funders the money is that the program can be run until the money in the central pool runs out, where whoever makes eligible funding recommendations while there's money left gets to play. :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 03:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Asaf, although I suggested above to give the pilot more time before making any alteration, let's start to explore your very interesting proposal here on Meta. Do you have any suggestion on how and where to find more candidates? TSB (talk) 15:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

one candidate has already put his name on FF portal/Candidates. this is a (positive) side effect of the ongoing debate in the German wikipedia. Best,--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 21:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Two candidates by now, both from the German community! @TSB, I wish you would respond to their applications in some way. I don't feel competent to react. Best--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 10:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no specific recommendations, other than defaulting to an open process. I guess a call for volunteers is one way to go about it. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Questions raised by the German community

Hi there, some questions from the discussion about Flow Funding in the German community, which I would like to refer to you:

1. How exactly were the Flow Funders selected and why was there no election process?
2. What is the role of User:TSB? Is he a wikipedian? Is he doing this professionally or is he a volunteer?this has ben answered in the meantime--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 10:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Best,--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 21:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Answer 1) I have personally contacted all of the 2012 Wikimania Scholarship recipients (130 individuals from 57 countries) and the GAC members (13 volunteers in May 2012) to assess their interest to become flow funders. Out of this pool of highly engaged volunteers 16 showed interest, but only 10 agreed to become flow funders in the pilot project. Please find more details here.

Answer 2) I am volunteering to help coordinate the Flow Funding Pilot Project, which I suggested while participating as a member of the Funds Dissemination Advisory Group. I am a Wikimedia contributor since 2008 and I served as Wikimania Scholarship Reviewer four times

TSB (talk) 11:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Disclosure of private information

According to he FF template recommendation form, the legal name of the grantee is to be publicly disclosed on meta. In my view this is in contradiction to the WMF's eligibility criteria, where it says: "All grantees, including individuals, will be required to disclose their legal names, addresses, dates of birth to the WMF Grants Program, but are not required to do so publicly." In order to respect the privacy of potential grantees I therefore propose that this requirement should be deleted from the recommendation form and that the legal name should only be disclosed to WMF via email.--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 13:31, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

+ 1, except the grantee agrees. --Alupus (talk) 14:00, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Anonymität muß möglich sein, da zum einen meiner Erfahrung nach diverse User bereits ein Problem damit haben, ihre u. U. gut verborgen gehaltene private Identität gegenüber der Foundation oder ihren Chapter gegenüber zu offenbaren, weil sie zum Beispiel aus beruflichen Gründen ihre Mitarbeit im Projekt nicht öffentlich machen wollen, aber Zweifel haben, ob dies gewährleistet ist, wenn sie diese dem doch schon großen Apparat der Foundation darlegen. Beispiele kann ich gerne eines nachreichen. Da auch Projekte denkbar sind, bei denen es nicht erforderlich ist, in die Öffentlichkeit zu treten, sollte man versuchen, diesen Wunsch zu respektieren, um möglichst vielen Interessenten den Zugang zu einer Förderung offenzuhalten.

Ein anderer Grund liegt in den gerade in der deutschen Community regelmäßig kritisch gesehen Entgegennahme von Spendengeldern. Leider handelt es sich manchmal nicht um um ein noch so hartnäckiges und tiefschüfendes sachliches Hinterfragen oder begründete Kritik, sondern um von Unterstellungen, Mutmaßungen und persönlichen Anschauungen geprägte Angriffe auch außerhalb des Projektrahmens und seiner Regulationsmechanismen auf Mitarbeiter. --Alupus (talk) 14:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

That's correct. It is not required to disclose the grantee's legal name in public. We'll fix the form. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:47, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

fixed. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

thank you!--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 10:08, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for catching the mistake, Poupou. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 15:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

email flowfunding at wikimedia dot org is not working!

Hi there,

I have submitted my first recommendation today and have send it as advised to the abovementioned email address. It was returned with failure notice saying that the email address would not exist. Could you please sort this out and provide me with a valid address?

Thx,--Poupou l'quourouce (talk) 15:36, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, this issue was resolved quickly at the time, and the above address does work. :) Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:13, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Publicity

The page doesn't state that the project is active, only that some months ago the WMF decided to start it. However, from hearsay it seems that it's indeed active. I see it wasn't announced anywhere (nothing on mailing lists except two non-announces buried somewhere[1], no links to this page except from other FF pages and one meeting log). I'd like to know more about this "dark launch" strategy: I suppose you prefer to involve people personally instead of having the usual general-public "spam"? --Nemo 08:03, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Nemo, the flow funding project is active, but still in pilot phase. Everything is done by volunteers with limited time available. The only exception is the transfer of funds, which is done by the WMF. If you search for Flow Funding [2] you will find more announcements, including those in other languages done by the flow funders themselves. But there is always room for improvement and you are more than welcome to help and/or share suggestions where the pilot project should be communicated. Best, TSB (talk) 16:02, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, while this is indeed far from a "dark launch", as Thomas shows, see also my comments above on my expectation that this be a proactive effort by flow funders rather than an open offering that people need to be informed about. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:51, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Why far from a dark launch? There's not been any general announcement whatsoever. It's not hard to add a line to FF portal just saying "this thing is active, you're encouraged to submit proposals" (assuming it's true) and to copy it on WikimediaAnnounce with a link, so I assume it was intentionally not done. Thanks Asaf for the link; I had read that section, but my point stands: the status must be clarified on the page and an announcement should happen, even if without the "you're encouraged to submit proposals" bit. --Nemo 08:54, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The pilot program was announced like all other grants, in the WMF's monthly report, and see the link Thomas gave above. I'm not sure what would make someone think the FF portal is not active, but I'll point out the portal was built and is maintained by Thomas and the Flow Funders themselves. WMF only provided the text for eligibility and the procedural side. As for encouraging proposals: as my comments linked above indicate, I think the promised benefit of this program lies in engaged individuals' being able to identify opportunities for impact that would not have otherwise been noticed, or that would not have reached out to our existing funding channels, for whatever reason. Therefore, I don't think inviting proposals is the way to get added value through this pilot, and hence I have no interest in encouraging it. Every flow funder, however, is empowered to find funding opportunities in any way they see fit, so they could, if they chose, draw more attention to the program. Indeed, so could you, if you feel strongly about it. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Not like all others, see for instance "[Wikimedia Announcements] Announcing the Individual Engagement Grants". I know that it's not the WMF managing the portal etc., in fact I didn't expect you to answer my questions, although your answers were helpful and indirectly suggested what the answers could be from Thomas. --Nemo 20:51, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Precisely like the others. NB: like other grants. The IEG is a new grants program, not another grant. The FF experiment is, from WMF's perspective, a grant, not (yet) a grants program. If and when it is shown to be a useful way of grantmaking, i.e. if the pilot succeeds, and if we decide it's a good idea for WMF to engage in that kind of grantmaking, you may be sure we will announce it like we did the IEG. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:56, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Again, I'm not talking of the "WMF's perspective". I am not saying that the WMF should have done it. I am not comparing to other WMF grants. --Nemo 10:51, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Namespace for FF pages in Wikipedia and the criteria for funding

I am not quite sure whether the aspect of where FF is located in Wikipedia has already been mentioned. In German Wikipedia poupou has placed the pages for the current round in her personal namespace for now. They may well remain there for the time being, but I think in the future those pages should be moved within the Wikipedia namespace. This is not a private project done by a Wikipedian. Rather, we distribute community funds to community members. Hence, the WP namespace is the proper location for this.

I also think that the criteria applied by a community member should be disclosed both in general, and for each fund provided so as to make the process more transparent to applicants and to other community members.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

From the Foundation's perspective, Flow Funders are empowered to reach their recommendations however they choose. This means they are free to reach out to potential grantees privately or publicly, and to host interim pages and discussions wherever they please (so this is just one Flow Funder's choice). Once they decide to make a funding recommendation to WMF, that recommendation is required to live on Meta, under FF portal/Recommendations, which is where the little inputbox will create the pages if the procedure is followed, and does need to include a public statement about the fit with our mission and the expected impact. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

FF portal/Proposals/Pilot/Training Librarians to become campus ambassadors

Can someone please categorize this page as needed? PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:46, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

• Since the above proposal has never been submitted, I linked it to the discussion held by flow funders here. TSB (talk) 15:30, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

  Since it was not categorized for a while, I just added it to the main FF portal cat. Feel free to fix. PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:17, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Flow Funding Pilot Evaluation

Please add below your personal evaluation of the Flow Funding Pilot Project. What have you experienced as positive and negative attributes of the flow funding experiment ? TSB (talk) 18:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation of a flow funding benefiary

• Link to the evaluation of a flow funding beneficiary (in german)

Evaluation by flow funder West.andrew.g

Who I am -- I am Andrew G. West, or west.andrew.g on en.wiki, or this guy in real life. I completed my PhD dissertation on Wiki security, which provided exposure to the academic funding process. I was recruited to be a flow funder by virtue of being a Wikimania 2012 scholarship recipient. Going in, I hoped to be able to fund and mentor technical research projects.

My actions as flow funder -- As a flow funder I was among (if not) the first to establish an individual recruitment portal (once we decided to go the "highly distributed" approach). I advertised the funding opportunity on the "Village Pump" and via several mailing list pertinent to wiki research. I also made several individuals aware of flow funding via talk page conversations.

In total, this produced two proposals: (1) A very well thought out proposal for a research project involving intra-language Wiktionaries. Unfortunately, this had to be rejected because the primary funds request was for human labor (which appears to be a prohibited use). (2) A proposal to to create tutorial screencast videos for popular anti-vandalism software and other semi-automated tools. I was unable to fund this proposal due to a COI (I coded one of the tools the proposer wanted to make a tutorial for). However, I still consulted on the idea -- and the proposal's merit was ultimately validated when the project was funded via a more typical grant.

Reflections on process -- Several points here:

• Participant sourcing: Inviting Wikimania scholarship recipients to be the initial flow funders was a bit of a peculiar choice. While this did produce a diverse set, it does not necessarily produce an engaged one. The fact we never heard from (by my estimation) about half of those who enrolled was a serious detriment. I suspect many of these individuals we're expecting a very "judiciary" role (myself included) where they would review proposals that arrived in their inbox. Instead, much more of an activist role was needed. The ideal flow funder would have volunteer interest, be aware of what they are getting in to, and have a broad group of contacts/communities from which to source funding proposals.

• Avoiding COI: I personally ran into a COI in trying to fund one of my projects, and I think borderline COI is an inherent part of the FF process. If one knows of projects a priori that need money, they are likely to be in the communities and interest areas of the flow funder. Close contacts are the natural individuals to solicit projects from. So long as we expect flow funders to independently cultivate project ideas, I think codifying COI rules is an important step.

• Initialization lag: The flow funding pilot was admittedly slow to get started. We seemed to have some different ideas about organization that were eventually resolved in an IRC meeting. For me, the primary issue was "centralization". Do we have a centralized portal for the application and discussion process? Or do we let flow funders do this in an individual and decentralized way? The pilot went the latter direction. While this has benefits for localization, it also means more work for individual flow funders, the fact this work will need to be repeated when new funders are onboarded, and the lack of a unified discussion portal and advertising gateway.

• Culture of giving: The notion that funders "may give away $X by date Y" could create gamesmanship and poor discretion. Flow funders that have money left near the end of their terms would be easy targets for those without cohesive proposals. If anything, a funder's ability to serve continuing terms should be merit-based. I personally was a bit disappointed in my inability to distribute funding, but "merit" should not necessarily be defined along such binary terms.

• How to advertise: An overall lack of funded projects was a shortcoming, begging questions about how we can make deserving parties aware of the funding opportunity. Quarterly advertisements on village pumps (of all projects/languages) and mailing lists seem like a good start. I think there needs to be a centralized coordination effort in addition to the more nuanced and grassroots work of individuals. The more projects we have to choose from, the better the projects that are chosen, and the more positively this reflects on the funding scheme.

• Closing thoughts: I've enjoyed my tenure as a pilot flow funder, even if dramatic real-life changes have curbed my participation more than I would have liked. I would like to continue to serve if the opportunity remains available. Some continuity should allow us to translate this feedback into practice, and regardless, I look forward to seeing how the initiative evolves.

Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 04:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation by flow funder Solstag

At FF portal/IRC meeting 15May13 Thomas carried out an interview with me where I first explain the project I funded and then cover some evaluation. (In fact all FF chat logs have valuable evaluation.)

Nevertheless, I'll add a bit more. After this experience, I'm more convinced the program has potential, and we learned many valuable things. Below are some observations.

Being a flowfunder takes a lot of time and effort.

Early on in the pilot there was a big setback as it took longer than anyone had foreseen to start, and once it did the people selected no longer had the time they expected.

Flowfunding means inserting yourself in a rich context and engaging projects, not fishing for them.

This gets affected by the grant's value limits. The specific limits we had to work with made it hard to assist small projects of low complexity that would be easy to fish for, and hard to attract larger, more complex projects that would require overhauling to fit within Wikimedia, and therefore are not easily interested by just a very small addition to their funding.

The Flowfunder must be knowledgeable and judicious about the mission.

There is a constant temptation to fund amazing projects that are all about free culture, but that won't specifically promote collaboration in its production.

The Flowfunder must be creative and help the proponents think how to adapt their work to Wikimedia.

Wikimedia's mission is easy to grasp, but its execution can be quite hermetic. It is most unlikely that the more interesting and highest potential projects are going to spontaneously fall within the Wikimedia scope. The Flowfunder, beyond arguing for it, will have to work with the people to restructure some or all of their project so it clearly serves the mission.

=) Thank you, --Solstag (talk) 02:56, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation by flow funder Kiril Simeonovski

My name is Kiril Simeonovski. When I heard about the flow funding initiative about one year ago, I found the idea very familiar to my experience and that's the main reason why I decided to join the pilot project. The most important observations I'd like to make regarding the project's first year are the following:

• Time frame: One year is enough time to search for projects and should not be changed. It is also suitable to match the funds needed to execute a project in a period that is shorter than a year.
• Maximum amount: The maximum amount of $2,000 may be enlarged to $3,000. A reason for doing this would be to give the flow funders larger freedom in distributing funds to larger initiatives and encourage them to support more than one project. Most of the projects can be carried out with even less then $2,000, but the remaining funds in combination with the rest of money that each flow funder can grant are hardly enough to support any other project. If the maximum amount increases, this could be done with more ease.
• Number of flow funders: This is something that ought not to be changed. I find the current structure pretty good and promising for future development.
• Conflict of interest: Problems with conflict of interest may occur in any time, but it mostly depends on the flow funder and his involvement in the project activities. In general, the conflict of interest is not a serious problem and can be easily circumvented.
• Problems: The only significant problem arising from the project I recommended is the necessity to pay income tax on the amount received by the grantee. Fortunately, the income tax rate in Macedonia equals 10%, which is far less than in many other countries.
• Advertisement: The advertisement of the pilot project was on a decent level, allowing an open and transparent participation from other interested parties. It was even mentioned and there were some talks about it at the Wikimedia Conference 2013 in Milan. To trim the advertisement process will be not an easy task, provided that we have to keep it in line with the other initiatives supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, but a thing that can be useful to advertise it more deeply is to encourage the flow funders to do it at the best they can.
• Future plans: I really think that the idea beyond the flow funding is a good starting point for developing a structure that can be easily used for different types of funding in a much easier way. Since the flow funding is a classical example of a community-wide initiative, any support from the community should be welcome and the changes we're going to made should answer the needs of those who really care about it.

Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:26, 23 July 2013 (UTC)