Grants talk:PEG/WM RS/Annual plan 2012-2013/Report/Q1

A few questions from the interim reporting form

Hello, Mile: Here is a summary of some of the information contained in the interim grant report form.

Your grant agreement requires you to complete an activity report, but we would appreciate if you could provide us with brief answers to the following questions. As we mentioned, financial information is optional, but appreciated.

1. Are you complying with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement? Answer YES or NO.

   • Yes

2. Do you expect this project to be completed by the date specified in the approved grant submission? Answer YES or NO.

   • Yes

3. Did you use any of the grant funds? Answer YES or NO.

   • Yes

4. Was this interim report requested by WMF? Answer YES or NO.

   • Yes

5. What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects, or that may change the way you are doing this project?

   • Financial responsibility: After a few minor setbacks we established a strict expenditure policy (most of it not in writing, but through board decisions). For example, in our Travel policy, the only valid forms of documenting the expenses are receipts. That makes our Travel policy even harsher than the Travel policy of Wikimedia Foundation.

     Motivation: We found out that current economic crisis made almost impossible to motivate people to work for free, even with the cause as altruistic as ours. So, we are working on improving our image in public in order to make our organization known and attractive. Having an office helps a lot. Office means that we are serious and that we are here to stay. It also means that we have to offer our volunteers something in return. A place to gather and exchange thoughts, a place for different workshops, a place with free Wi-Fi where they can work on Wikipedia, a place where they can meet Wikipedians from all around the world, or just a place to come by when they are in the neighborhood.

     Transparency: We are trying our best to make our work as transparent as possible. Our financial report and all the board decisions are online and available to the public. Also our board meetings are open for the public and after all the items on the agenda are discussed, everyone present may ask questions to the board members.

   What went well, or is going well?

   • The utilization of the office is going very well (level of utilization is higher than expected)

   What did not go well, or is not going well?

   • Some of the projects are a bit behind the schedule.

   From your answers above, do you plan to change anything you are doing as your project continues?

   • We will try to improve the flux of information in the organization. Two concrete measures for that are electing new board members (they’re already elected), and improving the transparency of the board (by holding board meetings open to public).

6. Do you expect to reach your project's goal? Why or why not?

   • Yes. This grant is consisted of many projects, and some of them are already well under way.

   Provide an overall assessment of how your project is going according to the measures of success present in your grant submission (if applicable).

   • As mentioned above, some projects are a bit behind schedule, which should be attributed to the winter period (mostly January), because in Serbia, there are a lot of holidays in January, which people use to take longer vacations. Other than that, the projects that have been started are going according to our measures of success, at least as far as we can tell, since measuring success can only be done after all the projects have ended.

   While doing this project, have you decided to track any other measures of success not listed in your grant submission? If so, please list them here.

   • No, we think that the measures of success presented in the grant submission are quite sufficient and suitable for our projects.

Please let me know if you have questions about any of the above, and thank you for the report. Regards, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 23:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your questions. Please let me know if you need some answer more. --MikyM (talk) 11:26, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses, Mile! Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Report accepted

We enjoyed this report: thank you for the details about WMRS's activities. We're excited about WMRS's progress with its education program and would encourage others reading this report to also read the Academy Board report linked to from this report. We also found that the bilinugal format made it easy for both English and Serbian speakers to comfortably read the report. Cheers, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 18:53, 20 March 2013 (UTC)