Grants talk:Conference/WMCL/Iberoconf 2019

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

@Warko: Hi Marco! Thanks for completing this submission for Iberoconf 2019 in Santiago, Chile. I've had a chance to fully review the proposal, and have the following comments and question to offer as a part of staff review:

Comments / Observations

• This year’s conference is most focused on the following themes:
  • Building trust + cooperation between organizations of the region
  • Building skills related to reporting, fundraising, and strategic planning
  • Building plans related to the 2030 Movement Strategy

Based on some of the articulated needs from the community survey, these general priorities seem like a good fit for the event.

• Thank you for providing clear plans based on outcomes and discussions from Iberoconf 2017.
• Thanks also for describing the general area for the hotel venue-- it sounds like there are several possible options, none of which require long or complicated transportation plans.

Questions / Requests

• I am unsure whether we can fulfill the health insurance request, and I will need to check further, but I'm not confident this need can be met by the Wikimedia Foundation. I will follow-up with you once I can confirm this. In the meantime, please amend your budget if this is something you wish to budget for.
• In terms of support from the Travel Department to send tickets, I am also not confident that the Travel Department can provide this, but I will check to confirm this. In the meantime please look into a travel agencies and adjust your budget accordingly.
• There appears to be some overlap between priorities relating to affiliates. Can you provide some more definition for the terms “affiliates professionalization” and “affiliates coordination”? What are the differences between these two topics?

These two concepts could be defined as follows:

1. Affilates professionalization: Some affiliates have needs for staff, and there is only one current chapter with WMF-funded staff in South America. Wikimedia Chile just selected its first staff, so we are in a transition stage to professionalization. This topic is about sharing knowledge around staff selection and management, as one of the goals set in Iberoconf 2017.
2. Affiliates coordination: Related to both methods of communication and opportunities for projects/events where Iberocoop affiliates can work together. A main problem here is that affiliates do not currently spend a lot of time around working on Ibero-level activities (e.g. making a meeting, writing a report), because each chapter has a lot of its own work.

• There is also some overlap in priorities related to partnerships -- e.g. “partnership promotion” under strategic discussions and “regional partnerships” under working groups (medium). Can you explain the difference between these two?

These two concepts could be defined as follows:

1. Partnership promotion: Highlighting current projects and organizational relationships within Iberocoop. Much of the Wikimedia movement isn’t aware of what our regional initiative is doing.
2. Regional partnerships: This relates more to work of actually making initial connections with institutions outside the Wikimedia movement, such as libraries and cultural institutions.

• How many WMF staff are you considering inviting to the conference? Is there anyone specific you wanted to invite at this point, or specific kinds of expertise needed?

About 5 WMF staff members (of a ~45 total attendance). We would like to have people which could help us to build skills related to reporting, fundraising, and strategic planning. Also, we hope those WMF employees could speak in one of our languages (Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) -- we try not to speak foreing languages (with very few exceptions) in order to include everyone in the conversation.

• In the proposal, you mention the event is focused on people who are already involved in the movement, with the exception of some experts. What sort of outside expertise are you considering bringing to the conference?

We would like to invite someone with experience with administration for NGOs, or someone from a GLAM organization with expertise in digitization or using Wikimedia as a tool. --Warko (talk) 17:02, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• Of the venues you have been looking at for the conference, can you provide a few that are possible candidates on the proposal itself? It is understandable if this needs to change later on, but it would helpful to get a sense of what kinds of venues you are considering.

We have requested budgets for several hotels. The ones that we are considering seriously are the following:

• Hotel Neruda
• Hotel Fundador
• Hotel Plaza San Francisco

The first two hotels are in Providencia, close to the Pedro de Valdivia and Los Leones subway stations (Line 1) and Costanera Center (one of the largest commercial center in Southern Hemisphere). The last one is in the historical Downtown Santiago, close to the Universidad de Chile subway station (Line 1). --Osmar Valdebenito, B1mbo (talk) 02:08, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

When you're able, please respond to the questions above and revise the proposal as needed. These revisions will be due by 21 September 2018, after which the Conference Grant Committee will begin formal review of the proposal. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 12 September 2018 (UTC)