Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/WikiWomenCamp 2023

WMF review and feedback

Hi @Chinmayee Mishra and @Manavpreet Kaur,

Thank you very much for submitting this conference proposal. The need for a WikiWomen event is clear and I admire your initiative and leadership. I have reviewed your proposal and have a few questions:

• Scholarships - can you please clarify HOW will scholarship recipients be selected? Meaning what will be your scholarship criteria and process for selecting them? What will you consider as eligibility criteria?
• Roles and responsibilities - I understand that IIIT will be your fiscal sponsor. Can you please explain what will be the roles and responsibilities between the FS and the organizing team? Will IIIT take an active part in the planning and executing, or will they only act as the financial management?
• On the same topic - please provide more details on the organizing team capacity - how many organizing team members do you have at moment? Who will take the lead on initial planning? who is currently on the team other than both of you? I know you are very capable and experienced community members and you are also planning on hiring paid event coordinator, but we must make sure there is an actual logistic and in-wiki capacity to support the planning of such a big event. even with paid staff, 3 people is not enough. Team capacity is key when assessing conference fund proposals.
• Thank you for your thorough analysis of the risks. Highly appreciated.

Budget:

• what is the 'Guests + Staff' category? Is it for the organizing team? if you are referring to WMF staff, please mind that their accommodation will be covered by the foundation. But for catering and food during the conference - ALL participants should be included in the grant budget (maybe potentially other than breakfast at the hotel for WMF staff).
• Following the same note - i'm a bit confused about the food costs breakdown as each meal seem to have a different number of units. Please make sure you are budgeting and including all conference participants for meals and refreshments. scholarship recipients, partial scholarships, volunteers, staff etc.
• Projector & screen + podium & other equipment - those are usually provided by the venue. isn't it the case?
• I see many duplication in the preparation costs (meals, travel, meetings, accommodation, communication costs, allowance, Local logistics expenses) which all sums up to quite a large budget. And that is on top of the $4,243 for the Pre-conference meeting + Prior to event attendance. So if you already have all the preparation meetings, why do you require additional pre-conf meetings? I am not clear on the purpose for all. I recommend re-assessing the needs and number of people you need to cover for each of those items. If you already budgeted to all preparation meetings and expenses,
• I just want to note the travel booking assistance in not a WMF policy. You are not obligated to have a travel agency if you prefer not to or if you have that capacity in house. That is just a general recommendation we have for teams who do not have that capacity, so they can focus more on the Wiki elements of the events, and to outsources such services.
• Please know that you do not need to budget for health insurance, as all participants traveling outside their home country are covered by the WMF health insurance. So this can be removed.
• Miscellaneous $1,818 - please remove this as you have already added 10% Unforeseen expenses to the whole budget.
• SWAG - we ask that organizers will avoid too many swag and handouts mostly for environmental responsibility reasons. But also - what is the difference between Brochures; Information handout and Notice? Regardless I highly recommend avoiding all together from printing agenda and other handouts and relying more on online resources. especially as the schedule and agenda can change frequently even during the event, so printing those becoming redundant.
• Why do you have travel reimbursement if you have a travel agency to book the tickets? Do you mean this is the travel costs for air fare? (not reimbursement).
• I'm sorry, but I am really unclear as to the travel expenses breakdown - it is far too detailed and confusing. What portion of it is international flights, what portion is for local flights, and what portion is for ground transportation?
• What are 'Institutional charges'?

Thank you again for the detailed proposal. I appreciate your efforts to be informative and transparent, but I'm afraid it resulted in an unclear budget. I don't understand what's the different between the 8 types of travel expenses, and I don't understand the costs allocation for flights, local travel, domestic scholarships etc. I'll appreciate a simpler breakdown, or more clarity on the types of budget items.

Looking forward to hearing from you. best CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much CAlmog (WMF) for reviewing the proposal and coming up with these feedbacks. Here (Italic contents) are the answers and updates you have asked for.

• Scholarships - can you please clarify HOW will scholarship recipients be selected? Meaning what will be your scholarship criteria and process for selecting them? What will you consider as eligibility criteria?
  • The scholarships team has been formed with representatives from diverse languages. The team will review the previous methods, evolved needs and create an updated scholarship criteria.
• Roles and responsibilities - I understand that IIIT will be your fiscal sponsor. Can you please explain what will be the roles and responsibilities between the FS and the organizing team? Will IIIT take an active part in the planning and executing, or will they only act as the financial management?
  • They will extend the same support as they are extending for WCI 2023, the supporting team is different and being led by Dr. Ramesh. They will extend their accounts staff, and the support of their vendors.
• On the same topic - please provide more details on the organizing team capacity - how many organizing team members do you have at the moment? Who will take the lead on initial planning? Who is currently on the team other than both of you? I know you are very capable and experienced community members and you are also planning on hiring a paid event coordinator, but we must make sure there is an actual logistic and in-wiki capacity to support the planning of such a big event. even with paid staff, 3 people is not enough. Team capacity is key when assessing conference fund proposals.
  • The initial discussions are being done by me, Manav, Chitraparna & Praveen given our diverse backgrounds. In the 2020 proposal, we had a team of experienced Wikimedians and we have received similar support in this iteration with members joining us from various languages/regions/projects.

Thank you for your thorough analysis of the risks. Highly appreciated.

Budget:

• What is the 'Guests + Staff' category? Is it for the organizing team? If you are referring to WMF staff, please mind that their accommodation will be covered by the foundation. But for catering and food during the conference - ALL participants should be included in the grant budget (maybe potentially other than breakfast at the hotel for WMF staff).
  • The guests are the invited experts, while staff is staff of WIkimedia Foundation. We understand this financial ownership and have planned accordingly..
    
• Following the same note - i'm a bit confused about the food costs breakdown as each meal seems to have a different number of units. Please make sure you are budgeting and including all conference participants for meals and refreshments. scholarship recipients, partial scholarships, volunteers, staff etc.
  • We have considered the participation thoroughly. The only change in numbers is where we have invited guests joining us during the day. The numbers are also different on Day 01, as the participants will be arriving at different times.
    
• Projector & screen + podium & other equipment - those are usually provided by the venue. isn't it the case?
  • These services may or may not be provided by the venue. Even if it is provided, it is usually a charged expense..
    
• I see many duplications in the preparation costs (meals, travel, meetings, accommodation, communication costs, allowance, Local logistics expenses) which all sums up to quite a large budget. And that is on top of the $4,243 for the Pre-conference meeting + Prior to event attendance. So if you already have all the preparation meetings, why do you require additional pre-conf meetings? I am not clear on the purpose for all. I recommend re-assessing the needs and number of people you need to cover for each of those items. If you already budgeted to all preparation meetings and expenses,
  • The pre-conference budget was reserved for some activity while the other were organizational expenses. Removed the pre-conference expenses.
    
• I just want to note that travel booking assistance is not a WMF policy. You are not obligated to have a travel agency if you prefer not to or if you have that capacity in house. That is just a general recommendation we have for teams who do not have that capacity, so they can focus more on the Wiki elements of the events, and to outsource such services.
  • For international travel bookings, its hard to manage without professional support as travel is unpredictable and small shifts can largely impact the budget.
    
• Please know that you do not need to budget for health insurance, as all participants traveling outside their home country are covered by the WMF health insurance. So this can be removed.
  • Ok, removed.
    
• Miscellaneous $1,818 - please remove this as you have already added 10% Unforeseen expenses to the whole budget.
  • Ok, removed.
    
• SWAG - we ask that organizers will avoid too many swag and handouts mostly for environmental responsibility reasons. But also - what is the difference between Brochures; Information handout and Notice? Regardless I highly recommend avoiding all together from printing agenda and other handouts and relying more on online resources. especially as the schedule and agenda can change frequently even during the event, so printing those becomes redundant.
  
  • Brochures- for agenda, information handout would be a general handbook for the event describing the do’s and don’ts, expectations and other relevant information, notices are to display CoC and other guidelines on the venue. We will review and reduce the budget.
    
• Why do you have travel reimbursement if you have a travel agency to book the tickets? Do you mean this is the travel costs for air fare? (not reimbursement).
  • Travel reimbursement is for local commute (Bus, taxi, car, auto)
    
• I'm sorry, but I am really unclear as to the travel expenses breakdown - it is far too detailed and confusing. What portion of it is international flights, what portion is for local flights, and what portion is for ground transportation?

Please check as I have clarified the headings now.
What are 'Institutional charges'?

• The amount the institution charges to co-host the event. This has been described for WCI as well.
  

Thank you again for the detailed proposal. I appreciate your efforts to be informative and transparent, but I'm afraid it resulted in an unclear budget. I don't understand what's the difference between the 8 types of travel expenses, and I don't understand the costs allocation for flights, local travel, domestic scholarships etc. I'll appreciate a simpler breakdown, or more clarity on the types of budget items.

• Please check as I have clarified the headings now.
  

Tried my best to keep the responses clear and transparent to the best. Let me know if anything else needs to be done from my end.
Regards, Chinmayee Mishra (talk) 09:08, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Samuel Man Barfield III, Net Worth?

https://www.samuelsamuelbusinessofinformation.enterprises Barfieldsamueliii74 (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2023 (UTC)