Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2012-2013 round1/Wikimedia Sverige/Proposal form

Wikimedia Sverige received a funds allocation in the amount of 341,570 in 2012-2013 Round 1. This funds allocation was recommended by the Funds Dissemination Committee on 15 November 2012 and approved by the WMF Board of Trustees on 1 December 2012.

Please note that the proposals are now closed to community response. Thanks to all for your engagement with the Community Review process, and for your questions. FDC members, FDC staff, and entity representatives will still be communicating on these discussion pages over the next few weeks, but entities will not be responding to questions from anyone other than the FDC or FDC Staff.

This page should be used to discuss the entity’s submitted proposal. This includes asking questions about the content of the proposal form, asking for clarifications on this proposal, and discussing any other issues relating to the proposal itself. To discuss other components of this proposal please refer to the discussion links below.

• This proposal has not yet been created.
• This proposal form has not yet been created.
• Staff proposal assessments have not yet been published for this round.
• FDC recommendation discussion page: discuss the recommendation that the FDC gives to the Board regarding all requests.
• Board decision discussion page: discuss the board's decision.
• An impact report has not yet been submitted for this funds allocation.

Clarifying questions from FDC staff

Please confirm the following information (amounts are approximate since they are quoted in USD):

1. Current year budget: USD 418,588
2. Proposed year budget: USD 683,140
3. Current year grants received from WMF (includes annual grants and project grants): USD 297,847
4. Proposed year funds requested (from FDC): USD 341,570

Yes. --Prolineserver (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Please explain WMSE's cash reserve position.

1. How much do you have in your reserves now?

   In cash on the bank account about SEK 1,400,000 (USD 200,000). --Prolineserver (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

2. How much do you expect to have by the start of the planning year period?

   In the balance less than SEK 500,000 (USD 75,000) including reserves for the EU projects and Chelha. In cash it is hard to predict as there are some advance payments (e.g. office rent for half a year, but probably also grants). --Prolineserver (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

   Please explain here how WMSE defines "cash reserve". Thanks, Wolliff (talk) 21:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

   I'm not sure about the definition, you started using it but it is neither defined in the glossary nor on Wikipedia. I interpret it as the total cash on all our bank accounts at a certain date not including any deductions/adjustments for liabilities, receivables or reserves for projects spread over two fiscal years etc. --Prolineserver (talk) 06:19, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions from FDC staff about the content of WMSE's proposal form

Questions about WMSE's budget and staffing plan

1. You mention that staffing and recruiting has been a challenge. How will you manage to more than double your staff over the next year, and how do you think you be able to recruit the talent needed to do that?
   1. We have already started the process since we have learned it takes time to recruit. We are starting to interview for the finacial administrator next week and the work description for the CEO is already drafted. The only position to be filled after that is the Volunteer support program manager and the work description for that position will be drafted ASAP. Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
   2. In the first hirings we had to learn how to set up work descriptions, register us as an employee, pay salary and tax, do job interviews, set up working contracts, how to handle labor union questions etc. which took several weeks. Instead of figuring out what to do next we now know how to do the process much more efficient and what to discuss with the board in advance, which worked out pretty well with our last hiring of the education manager (and so far seems to work for the financial administrator as well). The key position for education and GLAM is filled (GLAM has currently two very experienced Wikipedians). Finding a volunteer program manager might be hard, but in principle both of our GLAM responsibles could, in the worst case, fill this up. Other positions could/will be filled with more junior staff or interns. --Prolineserver (talk) 20:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
2. Please clarify what the "Amount of FDC funds allocated to entity last year" amount is: since the FDC did not exist last year, this field should have been blank.

   Agreed, a bit of confusion here. We discussed if we should have left it blank but decided to fill it in since it did not make sense to include a field in the form that everbody should leave blank. Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

   It is the amount of our last grant agreement which we considered as "last years FDC", we did not expect a needless field. --Prolineserver (talk) 20:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

   It's included since it will be relevant in future years, but we can understand why that was confusing during this round. Would you please edit the proposal form by striking through this amount so that WMSE's proposal is consistent with the other proposals? Thank you, and sorry for the confusion! Wolliff (talk) 22:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

3. It is mentioned that a surplus of SEK 500K will be applied to the 2013 budget. Why is this not included in the revenue outline?

It is not a revenue but a reserve which we are not planning to spend, and there are no other reserves included in the budget. It corresponds to 10% of the next years budget, and follows an advise from our external auditors.

The cash-flow calculation is the following:

• Cash at beginning of year: 500,000
• Inflows: 4,700,000
• Outflows: -4,700,000
• Cash at end of year: 500,000

As written above, advance payments may reduce the ingoing cash and decrease the outflows, while possible grants payed already in 2012 may increase the ingoing balance and decrease the inflow. In fact, about 100,000 of the total reserves are actually committed reserves that have to go into next years activities (more specific: Europeana Awareness, Wiki Skills, volunteer support), which will be cancelled by other grants going over to the next fiscal year. --Prolineserver (talk) 20:12, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! Wolliff (talk) 22:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions about activities mentioned in WMSE's budget and key initiatives

1. Question about activities: Please explain what "Wiki Skills" is.

   The WikiSkills project aims to analyse and apply benefits of using the free software tool wiki for lifelong learning programmes, thus empowering civic behaviour, social inclusion, employability, cultural understanding and abilities to learn autonomously. Wikimedia Sverige's role in the project is to bring in expertise on Wikipedia and how they are/can be used in learning scenarios. More information on: http://wikiskills.cesga.es/ Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

2. Question about activities: What do you mean exactly when you mention you want to target "underrepresented groups"?

   By that we mean that we want to address the groups that the editor survey has identified as not being the largest groups contributing. That means we will focus on women, languages not native to the 'Global north' and senior citizens. Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

3. Question about activities: How will you reach out to underrepresented groups, and how will this be different from other outreach to editors that you already do?

   We will start working together with different groups that focuses on women, for example Geek girl meetup. We have already established connections with Svenska För Invandrare (Swedish for immigrants) where we hope to integrate article writing as a tool for learning Swedish by translating articles into the native language. The Education program is also expected to have an effect on the distribution on demographcs on editors. In general, we will start work by first reaching out to organisations with already established networks. Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

   Thank you for the link and for clarifying your definition of underrepresented groups. Would you please provide some specifics about how you plan to "give opportunities to underrepresented groups to become active contributors to the projects"? Thanks, Wolliff (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

   Our plan is to do more hands-on teaching with other interest groups (eg photo hunts and uploading meetings, edit-a-thons and workshops). For example, on Ada Lovelace day we worked with Feministiskt perspektiv (Feminist perspective) who managed to get women who were interested to an edit-a-thon. By having both staff and several volunteers available it was possible to give high quality training. In the future, we are planning to do a more formal teach-the-teachers program with Wikifem, an initiative from Sveriges kvinnolobby where the aim is that they can continue teach each other within their network. Especially for women it is certainly worth to focus more on a social/offline aspect, especially museums often complain that they have mainly women who volunteer. Working with established women's groups utilizes their social/offline network and reputation to drag in prospective participants. We will actively try to make PR directed to this groups with the goal of first making them aware on what a powerful resource they have and also on that this is a good way to get active and participate in the society. Similar activities are planned for other groups that we have already established connections with, like SFI (mentioned above) in the Wikipedia education program, the Saami museum, Seniornet and Geek girl meetup. Ainali (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   Thank you. Would you consider this outreach to underrepresented groups to be a new area for WMSE or something your organization is already experienced with? Also, have you been consulting or partnering with other organizations in Sweden already working with these groups? Wolliff (talk) 22:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

   We do have some experiences, but so far it has not been a main focus, nor was it in last years program plan. That means our employees have not had the time or resources to focus on those issues this year, and all work has been driven by volunteers. What we are doing now is to explicitly aligning our strategy with the larger movement, especially to increase participation by achieving greater global diversity. As written above it is our tactics to work with other organizations experienced in this field, we are already both consulting, partnering and fundraising/planning fundraising with several organizations.

   Examples of previous and/or ongoing activities:

   We are working together with Wikifen, and had a pilot workshop with Wikifem. Wikifem is an initiative initially launched by Sveriges kvinnolobby (umbrella organization for the Swedish women's movement) to inspire more women to write on Wikipedia. See also w:sv:Sveriges_Kvinnolobby#Wikifem.

   On Ada Lovelace day, we worked with Feministiskt perspektiv (Feminist perspective).

   We have had meetings with Geek girl meetup to find out how we could collaborate, one of their members joined our board in February to drive women questions.

   We have been initiating talks with SFI. More meetings are coming up this year, and some of our grants in the budget will we try to find together with them.

   We had had meetings and are having another one with a Saami museum next week.

   Last year we had a booth at MedborgarExpo, a fair for encouraging diversity in participation in the general society in the suburbs.

   To come in touch with the hembydgdsrörelsen (home region movement), mainly retired persons interested in local history, after earlier contacts, this weekend we joined “Hembydgens Helg”

   Ainali (talk) 19:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

   Thank you for providing those details! I will be adding a related question below regarding outreach outside of Stockholm. Would you be able to provide a few more details about your strategy around targeting non-Swedish language groups that might fall into the category of "underrepresented groups"? For example, could you share a little more about how you see WMSE's strategy aligning with SFI's work and with the work of the Saami museum? Wolliff (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

We have several ways to go about this. In Sweden we have large groups of immigrants which actually can be seen in the statistics on Page views per Language.

Page views from Sweden

• Somali 11,1%
• Persian 0,9%
• Arabic 0,6%

So there is a large potential base for finding contributors here. Only Arabic show up on the Page Edits per language out of these, so there is many readers to convert into editors in those languages in Sweden. For the Saami language, it is an official minority language in Sweden and there is good chances for cooperation with other organisations just because of that. Ainali (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

1. Also, would you please elaborate upon the types of resources you would like to provide your larger editing community with as part of your Community support initiative? Wolliff (talk) 00:18, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   As seen in the budget, this program will get most resources for non-personnel costs. This includes the technology pool, support for reference literature, the community project budget, travelling/micro-grants etc. For the community support manager, one of the key activity will be to listen. There is a lot of needs, ideas and discussions on various places but there is no one pick up the ball. This role will monitor discussion forums and help out where needed, e.g. filing bugs at bugzilla, pushing for translations, contact legal expertise if necessary and be a guide to resources like the chapter technology pool or reference literature access. He or she manages and maintains the technology pool, takes care of media accreditations, and administers the financial support. The manager will also conduct a more systematic approach by user surveys to find out more of the hidden needs of the community. Ainali (talk) 21:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

   Thanks for elaborating! Would you be able to explain in more detail the statement in your 2013 Program Plan that "special attention is paid on making known our projects to the community, and to get feedback on our activities" by telling us how you are gathering this feedback regarding your community support programs and using it to inform your current plans? If you could link to some of that feedback here (in Swedish is fine), it would be informative. (From the statement above I understand that you are planning to conduct a survey in the coming year, but that this has not yet taken place.) Regards, Wolliff (talk) 22:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

   On the village pump we asked for feedback twice during this planning session. First for a larger discussion on strategy and then a more specific on the program plan for 2013. For the two full day IRL meetups, we offered to pay for travels to anyone from the community to come if needed.

   • Invitation to strategy
   • Input
   • Invitatation to program plan
   • Input

   Furthermore, we promote all our projects on the village pump, mailing lists etc.. However, some of the most active/valuable authors who might be interested in support like reference literature, technology or community budget are not taking notice of most of the meta discussions and don’t get informed about our activities, and we started to identify and contact potential prospects directly, with a quite good result. However again, this is quite work intensive for volunteers only. Right now, we don’t have much feedback (nor have had the resources to ask for/systematically investigate, this is a goal for next year) except for arbitrary feedback at e.g. meetups. When it comes to the distribution of resources for the community driven projects and the technology pool, we have two committees consisting of one board member and several community members who are naturally listening to the community. --Ainali (talk) 19:05, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

   Thanks for the clarifying! Wolliff (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

2. New question: Beyond increasing participation by these underrepresented groups as defined in the context of the global movement, are you also as part of the community support initiative or any other initiative working actively to encourage more volunteer participation outside of the Stockholm area? (You mentioned concerns about your volunteer base being very centralized in your SWOT analysis.) If so, would you provide a brief description of your efforts in this area or provide a link to more information? Wolliff (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Here are a few things from our plans:

• The SFI pilot will be in Västra Götaland region, the western part of Sweden. This also means there is a good opportunity to reach out to volunteers in that area.
• We have plans for a Wiki meetup tour, which means going around and being a catalyst for the local community. This will take place outside of Stockholm and Gothenburg.
• The Wikipedia Education program will not focus on Stockholm, but try to find the most dedicated professors, which most probably will have a few outside Stockholm.
• We are considering a QRpedia cooperation, this will be a cooperation with a lot smaller municipality.
• We will start reaching out to regional GLAMs.

Ainali (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to our comments. Please let us know if any of the questions above are unclear, and we will be happy to clarify. If any changes to WMSE's proposal form itself are required, please let us know so that we can make sure any changes to the form during this stage of the process are properly documented. Regards, Wolliff (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I discovered that the dates in Table 1 is wrong for Timeframe of funds currently requested (mm/dd/yy–mm/dd/yy), it should obviously be 01/01/13-12/31/13 and not 01/01/12-12/31/13. Ainali (talk) 21:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! Please correct it in the proposal form itself by striking through the incorrect text and adding the corrected text. Regards, Wolliff (talk) 22:41, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Question about volunteer participation

Hello WMSE, These are some general questions that I am asking to all the EEs regarding volunteer participation. All the entities have stated in their proposals that low turnover of volunteers in both online and offline activities have been a major obstacle for them. Most of them have also expressed concerns that reducing number of volunteers is a threat to their organizational effectiveness and to the movement as a whole. I feel we need to have short term, midterm and long term plans to tackle this problem.

Does your organization have -

1. Any short term plan to recruit new volunteers for both online and off line activities?
2. Any midterm plan to train, motivate and convert them into regular contributors?
3. Any long term plan to retain them and continue the growth?

If you already have any such plans, please mention them and elaborate how your plan/s is (are) going to achieve the goal of recruiting new volunteers, converting them into regular contributors and retain the volunteers as well as maintain the growth? - Ali Haidar Khan (Tonmoy) (talk) 17:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your questions! Here are some of our plans, in no particular order:

• For off-line activities we have started using Volontärbyrån (the Volunteer bureau) which is a network for volunteers in Sweden. It is quite active and we have already getting in contact with new volunteers that way. We plan to expand that in the near future to try to get volunteers to more or less all our events.
• We are hiring a volunteer support manager, which is both a short and long term plan. This person will actively engage the community and listen to figure out what their needs are and what the chapter can do to help them. In several of our activities for the next year we have already ideas on how we can be more inviting and this role will put that into action. With our staff in place it will also be easier to sign up as an volunteer. You don’t only have the option to organize a large event, we will also create ‘bite sized’ tasks.
• By reaching out to underrepresented groups and working within education we expect to meet a lot more potential future volunteers, both for offline and online activities since it will be a natural working environment after they have received initial training and experience.
• We also want to focus more on focused interest organizations, for example private pilot associations whose members may have aerial photos, hembygdsföreningar (“local heritage societies”), etc.
• We are aware that the yield of volunteers who stay longer (both online and offline) after getting first in touch with us may be low, and we don’t want to drag dead horses. On the other hand we see good funding resources for e.g. adult education (“folkbildning”, “studiecirkel”) for just workshops or questions concerning any kind of equality. And quantity makes again less efficient approaches effective.
• With CiviCRM (our member register system) we have the possibility to do geo-targeted mails, which we have started to experiment with, for giving focused information about local events with good success. We will continue to use this as tool to give as relevant information as possible to the volunteers.
• For longer terms we plan to more actively get people to become member in the association or just sign up for the newsletter. It is a low threshold of entrance and by making them inviting on events and activities there is a chance to convert them into active volunteers.
• On the long run, it is presumably mainly the climate in the community that determines if a volunteers like to continue contributing or not. Here social events like offline meetings or any kind of edit-a-thons (workshops, photo hunts, competitions) may be a tool. Last year we experimented with a project called “Skattkistan” where we actually gave physical presents to people who were engaged or won smaller competitions on Wikipedia.

Ainali (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Questions about current cash position and monthly spending patterns

Please clarify WMSE's cash position and usual monthly expenditures.

1. What is WMSE's current cash position (as of 30 September 2012)? In other words, what is the total balance in all of WMSE's accounts (including operating reserves and cash for WMSE's programs and operations)?

About SEK 1,500,000 (220,000 USD) --Prolineserver (talk) 07:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

1. What are WMSE's typical monthly expenditures? We would like a sense of about how much money WMSE spends in an ordinary month during the current fiscal year.

Let us know if the questions above require any additional clarification. Thank you, Wolliff (talk) 21:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

There is no ordinary month as we went continuously from zero to now 8 employees (fulltime: 1 secretary, 1 GLAM, 1 Europeana, 1 Education, parttime: 2 Wiki Skills (total 25%), 1 admin (50%), 1 communication (50%)). The salery sums up to about SEK 140,000 per month during the last quarter. On top of this we pay 33% tax, some minor percentage of insurance, and 4-5% of pension, summing up to about 200.000 SEK/300.000 USD. The pension for the whole year is currently accumulated and has to be payed at once at the end of the year. Our office rent is about 16,000 SEK per month, but payed half a year in advance. All other expenses are probably summing up to at least 100,000 SEK in average, but varying a lot. So about 50,000 USD per month during the last quarter. --Prolineserver (talk) 07:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)