Grants:MSIG/Examples/Skill Development Activity

Before you apply

In November 2021, Skill Development was selected as a priority for Movement Strategy implementation. In partnership with the Community Development Team, several tracks have been identified to start implementing the initiatives of “31: Global approach for local and skills development” and “32: Leadership development plan”.

You are not obliged to follow any of these three tracks in your application, but they are meant to help you formulate your approach to implementing these initiatives and to structure the review process. Additionally, there’s an example provided to each track to help guide your grant proposal.

Tracks

The proposed three tracks are as follows:

Needs Assessment for Skills Development. Assess and define the skill development needs of a community or region. This involves conducting needs assessment research to understand learner profiles and needs. Based on the research, the grantee should be able to identify and define the priority skills of a community or region.
Translation of a Learning Resource. Translate, localize and re-launch an already existing skill development resource for your local community. The grantee will need to find and outline the skill development resource they plan to adapt for their community. The grantee’s responsibilities include finding the suitable resource, translating the material and localizing or adapting it for their audience.
Creating a New Learning Resource or Activity. Create and deliver a skill development activity that helps learners develop skills needed to sustain and grow our movement (for more information, see the sections: Skill Development Activities and skills). This may involve some research into previous resources or activities to understand their impact and how they have been used in the past. It also includes fully planning and launching the new resource or activity in a community. You can refer to the extended guidance and tips for creating a new activity.

Examples

statusdraft

Movement Strategy

xx.wikipedia.org

This is a made up example of a well-organized grant proposal on creating a new skill development activity.

targetThe Hobbitish Wikipedia community

start date15 November

start year2021

end date15 March

end year2022

budget (local currency)(N/A)

budget (USD)(N/A)

grant typeOrganzation

grantee• Frodo Baggins

contact(s)• SGamgee

hobbiton.org• Merry

hobbiton.org

organization (if applicable)• Wikimedians of the Middle Earth

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Share your results

Applications are not required to be in English. Please complete the application in your preferred language.

The following is a made-up example of what a well-structured grant request for skill development may look like. There’s no requirement to follow it: it can be a starting point or a reference to help you formulate your own grant request. Your grant request should both meet the grants criteria (which are practically shown in this example), as well as your own unique goals.

Summary

This project aspires to create an unprecedented learning resource for the topic of affiliate development and management. This resource will be created by experienced Wikimedians with the necessary skill set to deliver, as well as with reference to appropriate external resources. The materials will be created both in English and in a regional language. The goal will be to help the large number of small communities in our region to walk through the process of creating, maintaining and developing a successful user group that can gather funding, capacity and support for their future growth.

Project Goal

What will be the outputs of your project and how will those outputs contribute to advancing a specific Movement Strategy Initiative?

What specific Movement Strategy Initiative does your project focus on and why? Please select one of the initiatives described: 31. Global approach for local skill development - gathering data, matching peers, mentorship, recognition. In November 2020, we selected the Skill Development recommendation as our top priority for Movement Strategy implementation. Skill and capacity is really needed due to the large number of small communities in our region, which makes the sharing of the limited amount of precious expertise that each of those communities has a serious need. We would like to adapt the global experience for skill development with learning materials tailored to our community’s own needs and context.

Project Background

When do you intend to begin this project and when will it be completed?

Start date: November 2021

End date: January 2022

Where will your project activities be happening?

Both in-person in our local country and on the online platforms of Wikimedia projects and learning platforms.

What specific challenge will your project be aiming to solve? And what opportunities do you plan to take advantage of to solve the problem?

The challenges that this project aims to address:

Relevant resources: Even though some resources can be relatively easily utilized by translation to our language, some resources that we need seem completely lacking. For example, most English-language learning materials seem oriented towards an advanced audience, whereas we would like to provide our community, especially newcomers, with more basic and introductory materials that tackle the primary issues of managing and launching affiliates.

The opportunities that this project aspires to seize:

Online learning: Learning resources have become more abundant and on-demand since the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted many new people to use online resources and to become comfortable with them. This can be used to the advantage of Wikimedia activities.

Does this project aim to apply one of the examples shared in the call for grants and if so which one?

N/A: This, itself, is an example.

Project Activities

What specific activities will be carried out during this project? Please describe the specific activities that will be carried out during this project.

Our project will be conducted through the following steps:

Surveying existing material: We will start by looking at the existing material about affiliate creation and maintaining which, although not on the level that we desire, can be an important source to get inspiration and define the topics for our learning course.
Gathering a team: We will gather a team of local Wikimedians who are experienced with affiliate management and who are willing to collaborate on the project. The team will include: Content/material creators, presenters and filming experts.
Designing the project: The team will meet together to agree on the following: 1. The tools that will be used in creating and presenting the learning materials, including any unique requirements (e.g. studio filming, learning platform), and 2. An outline for the learning materials that assigns the creation of each part to a certain person.
Budgeting: Ideally, the previous three steps would be complete by the time of submitting this grant request. Accordingly, a budget can be planned based on the project design and specific needs.
Content creation: Content creators will work on their assigned parts according to the timeline. The content can be both a text or a script for videos.
Filming: If applicable, the scripts will be used to film videos and presentations that will be collected later and uploaded to the learning platform.
Sharing: We will share the initial material with a limited audience to receive feedback. Once the learning course is complete, we will distribute it as widely as possible among the community.
Learning group: We will create social groups for learners and those interested in Wikimedia affiliates management and creation to keep working together.

How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project? Please add the names or usernames of these individuals responsible for updating the community

We will announce the grant request to our community in its planning as well as the approval decision, if we receive it.
Due to the large scale of this project, we will be offering chances for volunteers to learn about the project and join as collaborators at different stages.
The initial content of the learning course will be shared with a limited number of community members who show interest, in order to receive their feedback and impressions.
The final learning course will be shared through the different community channels, including: the village pump, IRC, mailing list and social media.
Learning groups will be created on social media and mailing lists to allow learners, as well as those interested, to connect together and keep communicating.

Who will be responsible for delivering on this project and what are their roles and responsibilities?

This is a large project that requires several paid roles as well as committed volunteers. We expect the following roles and responsibilities:

Project manager: In charge of setting up the timeline, organizing meetings, distributing the work and ensuring the delivery of the work. Likely to be an affiliate staff or a temporary contractor.
Content creators: Responsible for planning and creating the content of the learning course. They are expected to be Wikimedians, probably volunteers, with experience in the area.
Presenters: Responsible for presenting the materials and explaining them in front of the camera. Can be a freelance or a volunteer, according to the availability.
Filmmaker: Responsible for directing, filming and editing the materials. Can be a freelance or a volunteer, according to the availability.

Additional information

If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive? Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions.

The Wikimedia Foundation’s friendly space policy will be applied.

If your activities include in-person events or activities, you will need to complete the steps outlined in the Risk Assessment protocol. Please provide a link to your completed copy of the risk assessment tool.

(N/A)

If your activities include the use of paid online tools, please describe what tools these are and how you intend to use them.

We will use the following tools:

Google Classroom or Open Edx are the tools we are aiming to use for presenting our learning materials. The tool, however, may change according to the planning and discussing of the project and its needs.
Sony Vegas will be used to edit and direct the video material for the learning resources.
Books and sources will be bought and shared with the content creators to help inform their work, such as The Art of Community by Bacon and similar references.

Do your activities include the translation of materials, and if so, in what languages will the translation be done? Please include details of those responsible for making the translations.

We will translate the learning materials into five of the local language communities that lack existing affiliates to support them.

Are there any other details you would like to share? Consider providing rationale, research or community discussion outputs, and any other similar information, that will give more context on your proposed project.

(N/A)