Dear FDC Advisory Group (including Pavel :-)),

Here's the message I just sent Pavel and WMDE re the recent message about the FDC process (thanks, Richard, for flagging it to the group). As a reminder, we are still waiting to hear from you on your availability for the May meeting, and as you can see, it's more important than ever that we schedule this quickly, and plan it effectively. I'm very much hoping for enthusiastic signing up for a small sub-committee that will help me plan and facilitate the meeting. :-)

Katy will, unfortunately, be missing this as she's on maternity leave from March to June. But we look forward to another Wikimedia baby!

Warmly, Anasuya

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anasuya Sengupta asengupta@wikimedia.org Date: Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 3:48 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Extensive feedback from WMDE to the FDC process To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Hi Pavel,

Thanks very much for the thoughtful feedback from WMDE on the FDC. We certainly want to be (and hope we are) wiki in nature: a work in progress, with continued room for improvement. So I think the FDC, the FDC Advisory Group (of which you are a member, of course), the Board and the staff will all be considering these comments as we move forward.

I want to be equally thoughtful of the fact that we already have a number of processes in place that are part of the FDC Framework - and that the FDC and staff have expanded upon in the past year and a half - and that are designed to incorporate feedback of this kind. I'm also conscious that the FDC will be in the middle of reviewing Round 2 applications in April, and it would be difficult on them - and the applicants - if we were to do an intensive process of consultation with all 9 members and 2 Board representatives at the time. Most significantly, we have a meeting with the FDC Advisory Group (FDC AG) planned, as you know, for end May, in which we are scheduling a time to overlap with the FDC members, so that feedback in both directions can then be incorporated into the FDC Advisory Group's recommendations to the WMF ED and Board as per the FDC Framework.[1]

As a reminder, the FDC AG was meant to have had a meeting in March this year, to recommend the continuance of the FDC or not. On consultation with the AG late last year, we decided to move this meeting to May, so that it would be at the end of two years and four rounds of the FDC, and could have useful input from both FDC members and all participants. According to the Framework, this counsel from the AG will then feed into the WMF ED's recommendation to the Board, on the FDC's continued existence and its form (due, according to the Framework, roughly in mid-August this year).

The current members of the AG are Richard Ames/Ariconte, Ting Chen (former member of WMF Board), Jan-Bart de Vreede (WMF Board), Thomas d'Souza Buckup/TSB, Peter Ekman/Smallbones, Sue Gardner (WMF ED), Crystal Hayling (Philanthropy Advisor), Christophe Henner (WMFR), Kathy Reich (Packard Foundation), Pavel Richter (WMDE), Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR) and Stu West (WMF Board).[2] Since I replaced Barry Newstead, I will host and facilitate this meeting as he did the original FDC Advisory Group, with support from a small sub-committee of the AG.

I had originally planned to ask this sub-committee of the FDC AG if they would be willing to lead an on-wiki conversation post the WM Conference that would feed into the meeting in May, but this conversation pre-empts that, somewhat, so here would be my suggestion for a practical and constructive way to move forward:

* We have a full and frank conversation at the Wikimedia Conference - as we did last year - with everyone interested, on the FDC process and constructive suggestions for improvements. We do this with two FDC members and staff present, and take detailed notes. * This feedback will then be shared with the FDC Advisory Group when it meets in May. We are planning to have the FDC members overlap with the FDC AG for half a day so that there is collective sharing, after which the AG will consider all the different inputs that we have collected so far: feedback from the many F2F meetings, including site visits; the anonymised surveys we have conducted after every round of the FDC recommendations; the ongoing progress reports and program evaluations; and the many on-wiki/email/phone/skype/IRC conversations we have had with each organisation throughout the FDC process.

All of these suggestions could then usefully feed into the FDC Advisory Group's recommendation to the WMF ED and Board, and in time for shaping the next year of the FDC process. I'm hoping that the AG will be able to share its recommendations publicly, soon after its meeting, which can then continue this conversation much more constructively on-wiki.

It's worth all of us remembering that the FDC process - supporting the annual plans of Wikimedia organisations - is ultimately meant to have impact on our online Wikimedia projects. We are all shared stewards of movement resources, and having the contributions and thinking of different community members is therefore critical. I would rather not turn to Wikimania as the only place to have this conversation however, instead seeing it as the space at which we can perhaps present the recommendations of the Advisory Group, and include a broader conversation about the movement's goals and how all Wikimedia organisations can support achieving those goals better.

I'd be glad to hear your thoughts on this, both as WMDE ED and as a member of the FDC Advisory Group.

Warmly, Anasuya

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Framework_for_...

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/FDC_Advisory_G...

On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 8:36 AM, Pavel Richter pavel.richter@wikimedia.dewrote:

Hello everybody,

I have just posted an extensive feedback from WMDE on the FDC process here on meta:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/Comments/Extensive_fee...

The statement was drafted by WMDE's Supervisory Board and myself.

We are very much looking forward to a discussion and I would like to encourage everybody to share their thoughts. At the same it would be great if we could keep the discussion on meta so that we have everything in one place.

All the Best,

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Pavel Richter Vorstand

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Tel.: +49 - 30 - 219 158 260 Twitter: @pavel _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe