Grants talk:APG/Simple/Application form

Some comments:

• "Grant information"—isn't the whole page grant information? Perhaps "Basic information"?
• "Start and end dates"—a reminder "start date is normally at least four to six weeks after your application goes live"?
• FTEs—not sure this will be clear. Link to grantmaking glossary? How is this "table" different from the spreadsheet or table below? Should "FInancial information" be "Detailed financial information", and the previous No. 3 be labelled "Summary financial table"? Is the detailed table required in all cases? And why two tables and not one anyway?
• "movementwide"—could be hard for second-language speakers. "events held in a region or involving Wikimedians more widely"?
• Story: some idea of length? As an applicant, I'd wonder what the implications were of not including one, when I read "optional".
• Section link to the learning patterns you're referring to within the global metrics page? I initially though this meant the LPs more generally.
• Why ask for a links to annual and strategic plans if it's optional? The "if available" is a different matter. I'm confused.
• I don't like the opening instruction for "Programs: upcoming year's annual plan". Befuddling to natives; what must it be like for non-natives ...
• "please do not include these activities here as programs"—it's written twice, virtually.
• Having ordered them with "must" at the top, now the tone is repetitively polite: "please" again and again. I'd be inclined to write it just once to establish the tone, then do everything possible to slim down the verbiage.
• "specific, measurable, attainable and relevant, and include time-bound targets"—putting myself in the position of a newbie to this, I'd be wondering: specific in what way? Attainable may not be clear in some cultures. Time-bound targets could be more simply put. Will there be accompanying advice for applicants (with a few examples of what these words mean)? What is a logic model? "Review the assessment so that you know what information will be important to the committee"—I don't know what that means.

Programs: upcoming year's annual plan

• If there are four programs, that means they'll have to go through each of the four twice, in questions 1 and 2, right? It's a little disjointed for writers and readers. Why not lay it out program by program?
• Could "Include each program title as a subheading by using "=" signs on each side of your title ... Then add your content below" be more instructive? This is where they briefly explain the background, rationale and activities for each program, is it? The instructions say "program is a defined set of activities". Where? Provide an idea to them of how much detail? Examples in an "Advice to applicants" would be helpful.
• Please clarify on the form that not all global metrics need to be satisfied—only the relevant ones to each program.

For organizations with staff

• Employee percentage breakdown: suggest you clarify that these components should be expressed as averages over the whole grant period; e.g. WLM could take 50% for three weeks, 10% for another five weeks (150+50 = 200 / 52 = 5%, if employed for a full year).
• As I mentioned on the explanatory talkpage, for employees, on-costs like tax, insurance, and medical overheads should be specified, and to be professional, could we know the weeks of annual and pro-rata leave too (most countries have legal minimum requirements)? These are basic to employment arrangements for any organisation.
• Job description: if this should include essential and desirable skillsets, could that be specified?
• "Permanent, 6 months"—I don't think "permanent" is the right word, and will be misunderstood by some second-language speakers. Don't we just need to know the F/T or P/T fraction? And "contract vs casual vs staff person" should be distinguished in the glossary to avoid cross-jurisdictional misunderstandings, if you really want to make those distinctions (I'm wondering why you would ... a job is a job).
• "detailed job description"—a few examples could be given somewhere (not just one example). I wonder whether this should precede the percentage breakdown question. They're rather similar.

Tony (talk) 13:27, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Tony1! Great suggestions, I'll implement some of these soon. Some things were pulled directly from the APG form to get me started, and I agree they need to be adjusted and we need to work a lot on simplifying the language.

One note: the distinction between permanent and temporary staff is actually pretty important to us. I do think there's a difference between bringing someone specifically to work on a project and having an ongoing commitment or expectation to employ that person. I can imagine cases where we might want to fund staff to work on a time-sensitive opportunity but don't think the organization is ready to increase its staff capacity in an ongoing way.

Also, once the form is firmed up we plan to create an example form, which I think will help people a lot with some of the areas that could be confusing.

Thanks again for taking such a close look at the application form. I'll check out your comments on the other page too. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 01:08, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Finding ways to make it easier for applicants to give high-value responses

Winifred, you're most welcome. A couple of further points that arise partly from PEG applications, which have bothered me for more than a year. I think it's a useful thought experiment in designing an application form to go through each question (especially the more qualitative ones) in a negative frame, asking: "How could applicants take this the wrong way?", and "How might they respond in ways that aren't very useful for reviewers/staff?" This might suggest ways of building brief pointers into the advice for applicants, and possibly the examples—or even changing the wording of questions. Here's an example:

"How will this staff person help your organization achieve more impact?" Low-value answer: "By [performing x, y, and z]", where x, y, and z are just the summary things in the job description. I presume we don't want mere repetition, but to encourage applicants to think ahead to the goals, the results, in terms of our key stakeholders (readers of WMF sites, etc). Requires deft wording to corner-out low-value responses! (And I can't quite think how at the moment.) I'm mindful that most people are not skilled in the particularly anglo-centric culture of competitive application forms, and how to maximise value. Big organisations can afford to buy help in this respect (like mine), but WMF grantmaking, of course, should be made as open as possible for those not used to reverse-engineering the effects of their responses on judgemental readers.

One further example: I'm finding that some PEG applications answer the question on "measures of success" by simply restating the activities they're seeking funding for. This is not a good use of their time, or that of reviewers/staff; I'd rather not ask at all unless it both improves applicants' planning and targeting in the conception of programmatic activities, or helps reviewers/staff in assessing and providing feedback on applications. Here's an example (in a live application by good-faith Wikimedians that has quite a few things in its favour). This, I think, is a weak benchmark: "Capacity building of the board (Part #3): organisation of 3 public board meetings". I'd like them to think through what the purpose of the board is, how it can be optimally developed at this early stage, and how it could perform poorly or very well in the medium term, and state a couple of qualitative benchmarks/wishes. Not three workaday meetings happened, but over three meetings the board will decide on member responsibilities, strategies for community involvement and liaison, and ....". Same for the three "outreach efforts"—not just that they'll occur (and what is "well organised"?), but that they'll involve x numbers, x speakers, generate reports to members at large, and most important, determine the basis for the chapter's strategies and planning over the next x months/years, or address issues a, b, and c. The results of a participant questionnaire would be useful, but of course it's not mandatory. That would make me more confident, and might marshall the BE community with more expectation of focus.

Possibly, somewhere, applicants might find it useful to see low-grade examples and improved/strong examples (several, I think, because of the variety of contexts and the need not to funnel applicants down the road of a single example). I think measures of success should be a fun thing for applicants to write—it's where they can think through their vision, their hopes, and pare them back to what they think might be achievable. Pinging User:KHarold (WMF) for her informaiton, and would ping Alex but for her leave. Tony (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Questions and doubts

When in doubt, where should I address to ask for help?

B25es (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Hours vs FTE

When the number of hours exceeds a few weeks, please consider asking for FTE's instead. As a practical example: applications asking for 1,000 hours of staff time is a lot less understandable than one asking for 0.5 FTE. For shorter periods, numbers of hours make sense, but for longer periods, it's much better to ask for full-time equivalents. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:04, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Planned engagement

It's not obvious what "planned engagement with your organization" means - if this is related to the duration of their contracts, then please say that more directly! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2015 (UTC)