Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Jamie Tubers/Wikipedia 20 Conference in Ilorin

Comments from WMF

Hello Jamie Tubers, thanks for submitting this comprehensive proposal. Your project is really well planned and exciting — thanks for running this conference in Ilorin! I have reviewed your request and have the following comments:

• Could you please confirm that you are requesting this grant on behalf of Wikimedia User Group Nigeria?
• Thanks for providing a detailed breakdown of the budget. The only expense item that we cannot fund is the DJ expense. It is considered as a compensation for time, which we currently do not fund in terms of the Rapid Grant program. I kindly ask you to remove this line from your budget and update the total requested amount.

Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 10:22, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi DSaroyan (WMF)

Thanks a lot for your response. Here are my answers to your questions:

• No, this is an individual grant and it is not being requested on behalf of the Wikimedia User Group Nigeria.
• I have removed this detail from the proposal. Hopefully, we can find other ways to have fun at the party.

Thank you again!--Jamie Tubers (talk) 12:37, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Comments from I JethroBT (WMF)

Hi Jamie Tubers. Thanks for proposing this conference to engage communities in Ilorin. I first want to confirm that we will be funding it, but that I am requesting that future funding requests for multi-day conferences with a large number of expected participants be requested through Conference and Event Grants instead of Rapid Grants. There are a few reasons for this request:

• Conference & Event Grants is better suited to both provide many of the funding needs associated with larger conference-style events, even if they are not international or even national in scope (for example, physical space for the entire conference period as opposed to one day, communications and outreach support, local travel, compensation for project management). My feeling reading this proposal is that while ~2,000 USD covers many conference-related expenses, the budget is thin and effectively boxed into Rapid Grant's funding limit as opposed to the resourcing you would ideally want based on your stated goals around awareness building, training, creating partnering opportunities, etc.
• The program officers in that grant program are positioned to and routinely provide direct guidance to grantees and their conference organizing teams. They work closely with organizers to do problem solving and help them lead successful events. They have important expertise in general event organizing as well as observing what has worked well (and not worked well) in Wikimedia movement events. Unfortunately, we do not possess this kind of expertise or resourcing in the Rapid Grants team.

However, I have decided to fund the proposal in this case because:

• your experience with coordinating Wikimedia programs is extensive,
• you and your team have conducted sustained community engagement in Ilorin through past Rapid Grants and other efforts through the Ilorin Wikimedia Hub,
• this event is somewhat time-sensitive, the schedule for Conference & Event Grants precludes you from requesting funding at this time, and the next application round for the program is too far off to sensibly run Wikipedia 20 themed event as you have proposed, and
• the activities you have planned to coincide with this Wikipedia20 event are imaginatively varied, and seem likely to be effective in bringing participants with different kinds of interests and experience levels with Wikimedia projects that are necessary to meet your goals.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments. In terms of next steps, if you are open to it, I would like to see if the Conference and Event Grants team may be able to provide some support around the planning or implementation of your conference. Let me know if that would be helpful. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 07:35, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

• Hello I JethroBT (WMF)

Thank you for approving the grant and thank you so much for these comments. I flirted with the idea of organizing this through the conference grants for a bit (most especially because it would allow for bigger funds and opportunity for a more grand event), but like you pointed out, I figured that the timeline just doesn't align and I'm a bit worried about the closeness of the event as well. But this is certainly something to keep in mind, most especially for conferences that can be planned well ahead of time.

With regards to support, for now, the planning of this conference is being envisioned to follow how previous workshops/events have been organized in the city. However, we are certainly open to getting relevant advices from the conference grants team, most especially in terms of learnings from similarly sized conferences/events in other places. Thank you again!--Jamie Tubers (talk) 01:03, 28 November 2020 (UTC)