Dear national organizers,

I'd like to make all national organizers aware of the altered deadlines and process for rapid grants. Unless exceptions are made for Wiki Loves Monuments, please note the following:

- Timeline: the submission timeline for rapid grants is very limited this year. You can only submit before 11 May (4 days from now) or between 1 and 15 July! Do not plan to submit after 1 August, there is no guarantee that it will be processed in time. 
- Expect delays: Given the altered timeline, I expect a high number of applications in the limited timeframe. Please assume delays in review and approval, although the WMF undoubtly does their best to process requests timely. 
- Amount: Rapid grants have a maximum of USD 2000, as usual. Starting 1 July, the WMF introduces a minimum amount of USD 500. This means that if you're planning to submit a rapid grant below that amount, you have to submit it before 11 May, or come up with ways to spend more money. 
- Submit a grant request & more information: Submitting a grant request is supposed to be fairly easy through this process. You can find more information about submitting a grant request here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid 
- Get help? If you're new to our movement, you may be a little overwhelmed by some of the process (it's designed to be as easy as possible - but is optimized for experienced Wikimedians). Please feel free to ask for help on our public mailing list wikilovesmonuments AT lists.wikimedia.org or by emailing me or another member of the international team. Please don't feel shy about reaching out for help!

Below, you'll find the official message by the grant officer Woubzena Jifar - above I tried to summarize what I see as likely implications for Wiki Loves Monuments. 

Warm regards,

Lodewijk

On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 1:30 AM, Woubzena Jifar <wjifar@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hello all! 

Hope this email finds you well. We are sending this message to select community mailing lists and all previous recipients of a Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grant. 

We have an announcement regarding the closure of the Rapid Grants [1] program between May 14 - June 30, 2018. This year we've received a lot of interest in the program and this quarter we've almost doubled the amount of grants offered to the community compared to last year's quarter. You can look at our spending analysis [2] for reference. Unfortunately, this means we've expended our funds for this fiscal year. The last date we will be receiving an application for a rapid grant before the closure will be Friday, May 11, 2018. 

We encourage Wiki Loves Earth participants to apply for a Rapid Grant by May 11, 2018 to receive support for their project.

The grant program will be open again to receive grant requests starting July 1, 2018. At this point we will be implementing the following changes: 

1. There will be a minimum of $500 USD for grant requests 
2. Applications will only be accepted between the 1st - 15th of each month. This is to help with our current workflow and to allow us to be more responsive to your requests.

If you have any questions, please email us at rapidgrants@wikimedia.org. 

Best regards, 
Woubzena 


Woubzena Jifar
Program Officer
Rapid Grants 
User: WJifar (WMF) 

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