Grants talk:Project/Summer Wikicamp 2018 Azerbaijan

• The project is good. But if Fond allocates money to the project, does this money go entirely to the project, or do some people know if it is imposed or not? I'm not sure about that. (Google Translate).

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2018

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2018 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through March 12, 2018.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2018 will occur March 13-March 26, 2018. New grants will be announced April 27, 2018. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 02:21, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Unable to issue funds to Azerbaijan

Dear Wertuose,

I am writing to let you know that the Wikimedia Foundation is still unable to issue funds to Azerbaijan, for the same reasons given when your previous Rapid Grant award was withdrawn. We are continuing to look into ways to make funding work, but today our Legal Department confirmed that we are not yet able to do so.

For easy reference, I will repeat the reasons previously given here:

As we communicated via email, NGOs in Azerbaijan face difficulties in registering grants, donations and service contracts from foreign donors. Only foreign donors that have an office in Azerbaijan, signed an agreement with Ministry of Justice and have Ministry of Finance’s opinion on financial­-economic convenience of a grant can give grants to NGOs in Azerbaijan. Since WMF does not have a local office in the country, we are unable to fulfill this requirement and to safely send funds while complying with Azerbaijani law.

This is disappointing for us, as I imagine it is for you. We regret very much that we cannot fund this proposal.

With regret,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 01:18, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Marti (WMF). Thank you for reviewing our grant proposal and for your answer. After last year's fail we learned many new things about registering foreign grants in Azerbaijan. We searched all grant legislation and contacted with Ministry of Finance. As we learned from legislation and from the Ministry, there are no strict limitations for foreign donors to give grants to NGOs in Azerbaijan. But the procedure is a bit complicated. It is as follows:

1. to get Ministry of Finance’s opinion on financial-economic convenience of a grant (nevertheless donor has an office in Azerbaijan or not);
2. to sign an agreement between donor and recipient after getting a positive opinion from the MOF;
3. signed agreement must be sent to the Ministry of Justice for registration.

To get MOF’s opinion on financial-economic convenience of a grant, donor attaches following documents to its petition:

• project of the intended agreement between donor and recipient covering aims, amount, name of the recipient, the time range of the event and other documents prepared for the agreement (project, program, budget);
• financial-economic rationale of the grant;
• copies of: document proving establishment of foreign donor, Bylaws and official registration document;
• power of attorney proving competency of the person who signed the petition to do so.

If the documents mentioned above are in foreign language, their notarized translation into Azerbaijani must be added. Documents prepared in foreign countries must be legalized or they have to get an apostille.

Best.--Wertuose (talk) 13:29, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi again, Wertuose,

Thank you for sharing this research. It sounds like your findings indicate there is no requirement that the grantor have an office in Azerbaijan. This is contrary to what our own research has indicated, so we need to investigate further to verify the requirements. Because of the complexity involved in this investigation, we cannot change our policy of not funding grants in Azerbaijan during the current round. However, we are committed to looking for a solution to sending grants to Azerbaijan. Unfortunately we can't guarantee that a solution will ultimately be feasible, but we will continue to look for one.

I'm so sorry that we are not able to fund this proposal.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 4 April 2018 (UTC)