Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Free Knowledge Africa Development Support 2024/2025

Dear Access to Knowledge Africa Team,

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

• The committee appreciated the overall aim of the proposal, trying to provide access to free knowledge in Nigeria. We were grateful to see a range of planned collaboration with stakeholders that will have a big impact in giving the output to the community, and the advocacy and outreach program that trains librarians and sports professionals, as it will increase the overall number of ambassadors advocating for open knowledge. Furthermore, we identified strong values in the proposal, such as the diversification and inclusivity of different people, especially through the Wiki Tourism Education Program.

While elaborating on your proposed plans, the committee members made the following suggestions:

• Seeing that your strategic plan ends in 2024, and your work plan runs to mid-2025, an update on your strategic plan will be necessary. Please consider providing a Theory of Change as part of the strategy review, to explain how the different activities respond to the challenges in your context (see example here).
• Your team member's activities and related staffing costs could be consolidated into fewer positions (also less senior positions) and result in a better staff/program/operational cost ratio, the current staff ratio is too high. Please be so kind as to review the budget in this respect, and clarify the staff salaries per month (who receives what amount per month) and their distinct planned job descriptions.
• Instead of creating a new publicdomain.ng at a cost, please explore free services (e.g. on Wikibase, Toolforge) to achieve the same results at zero cost. With proper categorization, all media files could be also uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with the help of OpenRefine. (Tip: The WMF has recently launched a free course OpenRefine for Commons on WikiLearn (so far in English, but by June 2024 also in French, Spanish, and Portuguese). Affiliates are also welcome to arrange further translations.) We recommend you take advantage of these resources.
• In your timeline document, activities are mentioned for June 2025 in tab "Activities" while they do not appear in the main 2024 timeline tab. Please improve the consistency in this file.
• To improve your proposal, please consider exploring more ways to engage with the communities for larger impact, and condensing the information for conciseness (also please explicitly express the measurable objectives of the project, and name the potential collaborators for clarity).

It would be supportive of the Committee’s understanding of your plans if you’d be so kind as to elaborate on our following specific few questions:

• Programs:
• How will you approach your work in areas other than Nigeria (i.e.: in Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya)? What partnerships are in place to support your work there, and how will the work be organized?
• What informed your plans to run contests that you had paused in the past? Have you found solutions to mitigate past issues, and if so, what are those solutions/alternative ways?
• How would the digital infrastructure work as one of your key strategies be implemented to ensure the reuse of work in the public domain?
• We lack full understanding of your community engagement work. Can you please explain which strategy will be used to encourage local communities to contribute to open knowledge, and how is the community of volunteers involved in the planning, selection, and implementation of your proposed activities?
• How are you coordinating with other groups like the Yoruba WM UG on some of the partnerships planned (e.g. the Yoruba Academy and Centre for Contemporary Arts for the audiovisual project)?
• Budget: What is the reason for the digitization cost per item? ("Some of the items we wish to digitize are in the possession of GLAMS. This will cover the cost of engaging them to digitize these items.")
• Learning and Evaluation: Can you please let us know what informed your metric targets in the proposal (e.g. can you please share links to previous results, or did you have a partial evaluation that you based your targets on)? How will you evaluate your community health, the impact of your advocacy work and of your partnerships?

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

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

On behalf of the Regional Committee, Dnshitobu (talk) 12:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC).Reply

Hello @Dnshitobu

Thank you for the feedback, suggestions and questions.

Kindly find our response below. Timmylegend (talk) 04:57, 30 April 2024 (UTC) Reply

We have made updates to our strategic plan, extending it to cover the period from 2024 to 2026. As part of this review, we have included a Theory of Change to explain how our activities respond to the challenges in our context. This framework outlines the causal pathways through which our interventions lead to the desired long-term outcomes, providing a clear rationale for our approach.

Regarding staffing costs, we have reviewed the budget and clarified the job descriptions and roles for each team member. It's important to note that these details were initially added in the budget. While we understand the concern about the staff/program/operational cost ratio, it is important to note that our project is human resources-intensive due to its nature. However, we have consolidated activities where possible and optimized staffing to achieve greater efficiency.

In response to your suggestion about utilizing free services instead of creating a new domain, we agree that exploring cost-effective solutions is essential. We will leverage existing platforms such as Wikimedia Commons and Toolforge to achieve the desired results at zero cost. The domain name registration fee is minimal, and we believe it will provide visibility to the project for non-Wikimedians.

Regarding the consistency in our timeline document, we apologize for any discrepancies and have ensured that the activities mentioned in the Activities tab for June 2025 align with the main timeline for 2024.

Finally, we will explore additional ways to engage with communities for a larger impact while condensing information for conciseness in our proposal. We have explicitly expressed measurable objectives for the project and named potential collaborators for clarity, as outlined in the metrics section of our proposal. Thank you for sharing the OpenRefine courses, and we will take advantage of these resources to enhance our project implementation. Timmylegend (talk) 04:58, 30 April 2024 (UTC) Reply

1. Approach to Work in Other Countries: Our approach to work in areas outside Nigeria, such as Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya, relies heavily on partnerships with Wikimedia communities in these countries. We have previously engaged user groups and community leaders during initiatives like the Afrosports contests. Moving forward, we will consolidate these partnerships to support our work. User groups will assist with awareness, publicity, and language Wikipedia training, ensuring effective collaboration and community engagement.
2. Partnerships and Organization: Partnerships are essential to support our work in other countries. We will continue collaborating with Wikimedia communities, user groups, and local organizations to organize events, training sessions, and advocacy campaigns. The user groups will play a crucial role in organizing activities and facilitating community involvement, ensuring a coordinated and impactful approach.
3. Contests Implementation: The decision to resume contests that were paused in the past, such as the Explore Nigeria/Africa contests, was informed by solutions to mitigate past issues. For example, we have resolved on-wiki challenges on the English Wikivoyage and strengthened our capacity to manage and oversee contest activities as well as changing our reward/incentive system. Additionally, we are launching the Wiki Tourism Education Program, which will serve as a contest and intensive training program for tourism students, enthusiasts, and professionals, offering an alternative and sustainable approach.
4. Digital Infrastructure Implementation: Our digital infrastructure strategy aims to ensure the reuse of works in the public domain by promoting their accessibility and usability. We have catalogued digitized works and existing content on Wikimedia Commons, making them readily available for reuse. Through effective promotion and user engagement strategies, we will encourage individuals and organizations to utilize these resources, thereby maximizing their impact and promoting open knowledge dissemination.
5. Community Engagement Strategy: Our community engagement strategy focuses on empowering local communities to contribute to open knowledge initiatives. We have a dedicated community of GLAM professionals whom we train and support to enhance their capacity to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Their involvement in planning, selection, and implementation ensures that our activities are tailored to the needs and priorities of the communities we work with, thereby fostering collaboration and ownership.
6. Coordination with Other Groups: Collaboration with groups like the Yoruba Wikimedia User Group is essential for successful partnerships. While our engagements with specific groups may vary based on project needs, we will coordinate with the Yoruba WM group as necessary, leveraging their expertise and resources to support activities such as the audiovisual project with the Yoruba Academy and Centre for Contemporary Arts.
7. Digitization Cost: The digitization cost per item accounts for the engagement of GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) to digitize items in their possession. This cost reflects the expenses associated with digitization services, including labour, equipment, and materials. We based this cost on previous experiences with similar digitization projects, ensuring transparency and accuracy in budget planning.
8. Learning and Evaluation: Our metric targets in the proposal are informed by previous project monitoring and evaluation efforts. We have seen significant growth and impact in our work over the past three years, which has informed our target setting for future initiatives. We will continue to evaluate community health, the impact of advocacy work, and the effectiveness of partnerships through rigorous monitoring and evaluation processes, leveraging feedback from stakeholders and beneficiaries to drive continuous improvement.

Timmylegend (talk) 05:02, 30 April 2024 (UTC) Reply

Dear Free Knowledge Africa,

Thank you for submitting your application seeking General Support Funds - Wikimedia Community Fund. The MEA Regional Committee and Staff have reviewed, discussed and deliberated upon your application and made the decision to fund you in Local Currency Equivalent of 15,000 USD for the grant period of 1st July 2024 to 30th June 2025.

Here are a few points to note on the decision:

• We see an opportunity for the group to focus on public advocacy and especially after a few years of implementation of other programs and learning on the challenge of successful implementation e.g contests.
• We continue to see your interest in implementing contests beyond Nigeria [ East Africa], even after you have had challenges doing so. We advise working with other communities in Nigeria and beyond to implement such contests as you focus on your core area of work - public advocacy.
• It was unclear what the plan was in the engagement of communities in East Africa - the idea is there but we did not understand the how of actualising this idea.
• We lacked to see community engagement in the development of the proposal and will need to see it for any future requests in resources.
• We continued to see staff costs remaining high and recommend refocusing the majority of the resources on programmatic components of the work and with volunteer leaders in the community.
• We are funding with the condition that the organisation reviews their governance structures - we see the lack of clarity on roles held to support organisational accountability. For instance, who does the core team report to ensuring that the vision and clarity of the strategic program is upheld and well supported? We will take this into future funding requests.
• We see the need to begin thinking about a long-term strategic plan that speaks to the vision of the group, especially in relation to your core work on public advocacy.

Beyond this, we hope to continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Do set up a regular schedule to connect with your MEA Programme Officer based on your needs.

Once again, Congratulations! We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on a new year of project implementation.

Best regards from the MEA Regional Committee and Staff FElgueretly-WMF (talk) 06:07, 9 June 2024 (UTC) Reply