Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Shani Evenstein/UNESCO's Mobile Learning Week

Not Funded

Hello Esh77 thank you for submitting an application for UNESCO Mobile Learning Week. We really appreciate the work you do on Wikimedia projects. Unfortunately, your proposal was submitted on February 20th and you can see on our Guidelines and Criteria that we're only accepting requests between the 1st and 15th of the month. Given that you submitted this request after the deadline and your conference is taking place at the beginning of next month we will not be able to fund this request at this time. Hope we will be able to partner with you on other projects in the future. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 23:17, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, WJifar (WMF). I understand that there are procedure and I respect them, but I was unable to submit a request before that date. The invitation to present only arrived from UNESCO on Feb 18th, as user:NSaad (WMF) could attest (as she was CCed). I immediately acted to secure a flight and hotel and as soon as I had details, I have submitted this grant request. This is not just another conference, but a huge opportunity for all of us. It seems that this was rejected for a technicality, not other reasons of incompatibility to the type of grant. In fact, this grant was created for exactly these types of occurrences. So I am kindly asking you to reconsider. I am a long time contributor to our community, Chair of 2 User Groups, contributor to the strategy working groups (partnerships) and a long time outreach leader. It does not seem right to reject supporting this conference attendace for something that was completely out of my hands. So I kindly ask that you reconsider due to the extraordinary circumstances involving this invitation. Thank you. Sincerely, Shani Evenstein. 23:36, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Hello, WJifar (WMF). I would appreciate an answer to my query above. If there is no reply in the coming days, I will have to escalate - this means approaching your managers and working to change the rules of how rapid grants work. Respectfully, Shani Evenstein. 20:24, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello Esh77, my apologies for the delay in response. I have been in a week long team retreat that has affected my response rate. Now that I'm back I'm working through my email backlog.I'm sorry that you were not able to hear from the organizers earlier about your invitation to present. Unfortunately, we're still unable to reverse this decision regarding your travel grant. If it helps in further understanding our reasoning for rejecting it on this technicality, please read below:

• We have restricted our application window from the 1st to the 15th of the month so we can give timely responses to grant requests. The rolling basis had caused a backlog in our system and this was a move to help our program be more responsive to grantees. In order to be able to do that you can appreciate that we need to prioritize and respond to grantees who have submitted their requests within the deadline.
• Because your grant request came in after the deadline, even if we were able to consider it, we would not have been able to fund your request before the event took place. This goes counter to our grant program where we are set up to fund projects that are set to happen in the future as opposed to reimbursing applicants for projects they've completed in the past.
• Lastly, even though I can appreciate that your reason for applying after the deadline was out of your control, I think you as a long time contributor understand that we need to be fair to our community in respecting the boundaries we've set for everyone by not making exceptions.

If you don't find this response satisfying and would like to reach out to my manager, you may contact AWang (WMF) at <awang@wikimedia.org>. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 23:58, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello, WJifar (WMF). Thank you for your answer. I would like to be very clear -- I have all the respect for the procedures and timelines and am not looking for any "special treatment". But I am trying to find a solution to a situation that at least from my end as a volunteer does not make sense. Reading both your response and the guidelines for rapid grants application here carefully, I'm wondering -- if I resubmit before the 15th this month, will you be able to consider this request again? In the page I linked to, under "Application timeline", it is mentioned that is is possible to resubmit a request that was denied before. In addition, I could not find any place in the criteria that says the rapid grants are meant for events only in the future / before they happen. In fact, in the only time in the past when I have applied for a rapid grant, the reimbursement process happened after I got back from the conference and could submit all the receipts. Have I missed anything..? If I have, then please direct me to the right place. If not, then this could be a solution that both supports my efforts and follows your procedures. Due to the sensitive timeline, I would appreciate your quick answer, so I will be able to submit again before the 15th. Respectfully, Shani Evenstein. 01:19, 14 March 2019 (UTC)