Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Canada/2020

Simple APG Committee recommendation

We recommend that Wikimedia Canada receive a grant of 122,850 CAD, for one year.

We recognize that some of the concerns we had last year, such as making sure that work with indigenous communities was done with them and directed by them have been somewhat alleviated, but understand that this is still a challenge. It is still difficult to see the real impact of this work although we understand that this is important work. We commend Wikimedia Canada for its parity on the board and encourage to continue to increase focus on gender gap activities. While Wikiclubs might be a good way to do impactful outreach to local communities, the existing Wikiclubs are located mostly in Ontario and Québec, concentrated in the Eastern part of the country. This raises the question of whether Wikimedia Canada should maybe change its scope to focus on some regions, which is something for the movement to discuss at a strategic level, on the topic of structures that could best work in countries with a large geographical span and a diverse set of languages. We recognize Wikimedia Canada's efforts to work across the country and how this might be challenging in their context. We commend their work with various GLAMU's to increase the presence of Canadian content and their focus on missing content in Wikimedia projects identified by communities.

While we appreciate the value of volunteer-led events that the microgrants program funds, we encourage Wikimedia Canada to avoid funding activities with unclear impact and to consider creating a separate budget for commonly-funded activities, such as meetups. We are impressed by the work Wikimedia Canada did that resulted in securing an external grant, and are looking forward to see how the work on this topic of "Weather Observations of the meteorological Service of Canada in Wikimedia Projects" develops. We are also looking favorably at Wikimedia Canada continuing to explore ways to support good projects with external funds.

For the committee, Alleycat80 (talk) 15:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks to the committee for the work done in analyzing our budget request and especially for the constructive comments that accompany the recommendation. On my own behalf, but also as President of Wikimedia Canada, I wanted to let you know that your comments were heartfelt. We have worked very hard to improve Wikimedia Canada's presence across Canada and Sarah Severson's arrival on the Board will certainly help to improve Western Canada's representation. In addition, projects with indigenous communities, GLAMUs and under-represented communities (women, LGBTQ+ and others) will reach even more potential contributors.

Once again, thank you very much! Now we cross our fingers. Lea-Kim (talk) 06:39, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I echo my colleague Lea-Kim (talk) Thank you for this recommendation and helpful feedback. 13ab37 (talk) 15:31, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I would also like to thank the committee for its detailed feedback. I want to assure the committee and the WMF that I will personally make sure that the feedback are brought back to the Board of Directors and the Programs Committee of Wikimedia Canada and implemented. Thank you again, JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Canada sAPG approved in the amount of 100,000 CAD

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 100,000 CAD, with a grant term starting 1 January 2020 and ending 31 December 2020.

Wikimedia Canada has a very detailed strategic plan that they have been developing for the past two years. It has good objectives but lists a very high number of tactics to attain those objectives that read more as a list of potential activities and seem a bit complex to make happen. It might be fruitful to try and cluster and prioritize the possible activities under those objectives to come to a more focused breakdown of potential paths of development. Wikimedia Canada's annual plan gives good context to their activities and explains how programs and activities tie into each other.

In the Content development program, it is good to see Wikimedia Canada use feedback from members to make decisions about what gaps to address (health sciences, biographies of women) in their contribution workshops. The chapter clearly has shown a lot of effectiveness in working with cultural institutions, as shown through their regular activities with partners such as the Bibliothèques et Archives nationales du Québec. As they are working to deepen their relationships with existing GLAMU to promote freely licensed collections and material, it would be great to see that captured in their metrics. Number of partnerships does not capture this essential piece of partnerships.

In their program around Developing communities, we can see that their microgrant program is well defined in scope: photography events, outreach, and purchasing reference material. We want to echo the committee's warning about making sure that those microgrants do have impact and we find that evaluating the impact of these activities along several measures (participation, new editors, content pages) is a good way to ensure real impact. Wikiclubs are a proven way in many geographies to do effective outreach, it will be interesting to see how they fare in Canada. While the program objectives state a focus on the gender gap, it is not clear in the activities depicted where exactly this is going to happen. Perhaps through recipients in the microgrants program, or in selecting volunteers for participation in movement events?

The Wikimedia projects in indigenous languages program is both fascinating and in some places concerning. When looking at the SWOT analysis, it is clear that while there is engagement from the indigenous communities, there is also some resistance. We have witnessed the involvement of community leaders in those programs and understand that they are both extremely important to tackle the culture of Canada and difficult because of the various political and cultural implications that this kind of programs may have. Our concerns are more about the long term sustainability of any new Wikimedia project when the critical number of active community members is difficult to attain. This is not specific to Wikimedia Canada, but is something that we need to understand better and put resources towards, in order to be able to assess how an entire Wikimedia project can purposefully serve a community and where it might take away energy that would be better used elsewhere. In this program, we find the metric around capturing words recorded in indigenous languages using Lingua Libre to be interesting, especially because the output using Lingua Libre is less resource intensive and serves both our projects and the communities.

While the committee has recommended full funding, we are approving this grant in the amount of 100,000 CAD. Following the above analysis, we believe in the value of WMCA's programs and the rationale presented for their development. However, because we are working with a limited budget, we cannot fund all requests fully. Wikimedia Canada is asking for an increase of about 30,000 USD in comparison to last year's grant. We understand the complicated situation in which it finds itself, needing to act as a (big) country chapter while being supported by the tireless work of volunteers who only have so many resources. We think that the staff time increase and focus on finding new sources of funding is a good strategic decision, but it is our responsibility to look across the entire portfolio of proposals and make difficult decisions regarding prioritization. In order to move towards a more equitable and diverse funding model across the movement, we are prioritizing support for emerging communities where annual plan funding will support organizational stability and put them on a path towards more sustainable programs.

We are looking forward to working with Wikimedia Canada in reviewing their budget and plan to accommodate the lower amount of funding and planning next steps.

Best regards, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 20:03, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much I JethroBT (WMF) and the team at the WMF. We really appreciate your feedback and comments, and will make sure to take them into consideration and implement them. We understand that the WMF is working with a limited budget and have to manage different priorities. We will review our APG 2020 Budget for the approved amount and submit it for your review shortly. Thank you very much again, JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 16:06, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Good day I JethroBT (WMF), you will find our revised APG budget at the following link [1] for your review and WMF approval. Thank you, JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 15:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@JP Béland (WMCA): Thanks Jean-Philippe, I'll follow-up over e-mail regarding the revised budget. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Midpoint Report Accepted

Hello JP Béland (WMCA) and Wikimedia Canada Colleagues, thanks for submitting your midpoint report. We have reviewed the metrics, budget, and report and marked them as accepted. Thank you for your work for the Wikimedia Movement! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you DSaroyan (WMF). JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 18:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Final report

Good day, I just wanted to update the sAPG team that the final report for WMCA's sAPG 2020 was submitted to the Board for review earlier this week and will be published in a few weeks. Thank you for your understanding, JP Béland (WMCA) (talk) 20:10, 20 February 2021 (UTC)