Grants:APG/Board decisions/2015-2016 round 1

The financial funding in the FDC recommendation was approved by the Board of Trustees on December 9, 2015.

As usual the Board is extremely grateful for the work done by the FDC volunteers in reaching their recommendations. The thoughtful and detailed discussion renews our enthusiasm for the process in which the community has strong input into the funding levels of different affiliates.

As noted above we have approved the committee's financial funding recommendations, and asked the Executive Director to proceed within her authority and discretion.

At the same time the Board has two additional comments which it would like to make.

With regards to the request for more community input in strategic and annual planning of the Wikimedia Foundation, the Board and the Executive Director agree that this is an important priority. Some steps have already been taken and some are likely to still be worked out in partnership with the FDC.

With regard to the funding of the WMDE restricted grant, we feel that the FDC has several legitimate points. The Board approves the total recommended allocation for WMDE, but does not approve the additional requirements recommended by the FDC, as conditional to installments deployment. In particular, the Board does not approve the conditions to be applied as conditional to the second part of the financing. The Board believes that approving such conditions would risk applying similar restrictions to entities that request [unrestricted] annual grants in the future, and does not believe that such restrictions are necessary, as evaluation of past results should take place when the entity applies for their next annual plan grant. However, the Board suggests that entities follow the FDC's guidance regarding providing information.