Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia New York City/2019-2020

Grant approved (US$46,000 for 12 months)

We are approving a grant of US$46,000 for 12 months. WMUSNYC’s plan includes partnerships, content, and outreach, with a diversity lens. WMUSNYC is powered by a community of active volunteers and centers the community in all that they do. They continue to maintain impressive levels of activity and continue to engage a large number of prominent partners in the New York City area. WMUSNYC has helped incubate two of the movement’s prominent initiatives promoting diverse content and participation, AfroCROWD and Art+Feminism. They are now targeting communities working in languages other than English, and LGBTQIA communities.

We are not funding any requests for contractor fees for web development or strategy. We are improving their program and operational budget as written, without the additional expenses for contractors over the approved amount. This is because we are limiting their grant to the maximum amount they are eligible to apply for within the limits of the transition year. Furthermore, WMUSNYC has been underspending year after year since entering APG. Since they have difficulty closely tracking their spending, they have been unable to reallocate excess funds toward relevant activities in past years. We encourage them to do this in the current and upcoming years, so that they can fully utilize the funds they are receiving, before requesting an increase. We are open to reviewing a reallocation request at any point of time during the next grant period if WMUSNYC would like to reallocate some of their budget to a smaller scale focused initiative around strategy or web presence, for example.

WMUSNYC has struggled with volunteer burnout, good governance, and effective financial management in the past, but is taking steps during the current and upcoming year to address these gaps. We encourage WMUSNYC to focus on strengthening their organization in the upcoming year, even if this requires a temporary shift in focus from their program activities.

We recognize that WMUSNYC is taking important steps to improve their governance, such as discussing and defining roles and responsibilities on the board, holding structured strategic planning discussions, and switching to a professionally-managed accounting system. While these important steps have been initiated, progress in these areas is still ongoing. We encourage WMUSNYC to continue to address the issues identified in the June 2018 financial review exercise. We encourage WMUSNYC to carefully consider how to make their organization more robust, and ensure that there are no single points of failure, for example by strengthening board engagement and evenly distributing administrative tasks, or by recruiting more experts to join the board.

We realize fundraising is a major challenge for a number of reasons (including a lack of expertise within the organization, and the WMF’s presence in the US), but we would like to see WMUSNYC actively investigating fundraising in their local context. We urge WMUSNYC to prioritize recruiting board members with expertise in fundraising and related areas, to complement the strong community representation in their leadership. Allocating some funds to securing paid expertise in this field may also be helpful in the next funding period (or as part of the following grant).

Last year we praised WMUSNYC’s support of several innovative and effective movement initiatives, including Art+Feminism and AfroCROWD. We continue to appreciate their acting as fiscal sponsor to support AfroCROWD.

We know that the WMUSNYC chapter and community have huge potential, and we are thrilled to be able to continue to support their work. We look forward to working with WMUSNYC in the upcoming year. Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Reallocation request

As detailed in the annual plan associated with this grant, Wikimedia NYC embarked on its first strategic planning process in 2017, facilitating and focusing its work for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 fiscal years. The Chapter and the Wikimedia movement as a whole are in a period of growth and change, and, recognizing this, the Chapter requests a reallocation of $15,000 USD to work with a consultant on a strategic planning process. Working with an experienced consulting company that specializes in strategic planning will allow Wikimedia NYC to effectively plan what it wants to build on top of the infrastructure it established out of the 2018-2020 strategy process. The Chapter is adept at establishing a vision for its role in New York and the global Wikimedia movement. However, it struggles to balance that vision with the resources of its volunteer community, and this ultimately impacts effective implementation and growth. At the recommendation of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia NYC worked with the consultants to revise the original proposal to include a governance and operational review to uncover any issues that would prevent us from achieving our goals. If approved, the costs will come out of the following line items:

• 1.1.1 Venue for WikiWednesday ($2,000)
• 1.1.2 Food for WikiWednesday ($500)
• 1.1.3 Wikipedia Day 2020 ($4,000)
• 1.1.4 Speaker Travel ($1,000)
• 1.3.1 Subsidized Trainfare to WCNA ($4,500)
• 1.3.2 WMNYC rep to Chairs meeting ($1,500)
• 1.4.1 Food for edit-a-thons ($1,500)

Thank you for your consideration. Megs (talk) 00:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Approval of reallocation request

Hello Megs, I am approving your reallocation request. Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Extension request

Due to the global pandemic, Wikimedia NYC is requesting a two week extension on submitting its final report for sAPG 2019-2020. The new proposed date is Monday, August 17th. Thank you for considering, and apologies for the late request. Megs (talk) 11:32, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Extension request approved

Hello Megs, thanks for posting your request, I'm approving it and granting you a two week extension on submitting the final report. Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 07:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)