Hi Pine,
2015-04-08 8:34 GMT+02:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
I was referring to the qualifications, benefits and limitations of the different kinds of grant programs. The way that they're structured provides some ups and downs for affiliates when we have the option to choose among grant types.
A quick recap of the existing grant programs is available here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start
In particular, a selected quote about the different types of programs: * Travel and Participation Support: travel funding to participate in mission-aligned events. * Individual Engagement Grants: comprehensive support for individual and small team projects focused on online impact. * Project and Event Grants: expenses related to organizing events and running projects. For individuals, groups and organizations. [The Grant Advisory Committee (aka GAC) works in the scope of these grants] * Annual Plan Grants: funding the annual budgets and mission objectives of affiliated organizations. [The Fund Dissemination Committee (aka FDC) works in the scope of these grants]
FDC/APG's structure recieved a lot of attention in the past few years. I think it would be good to take a step back and look collectively at the grants programs, and to think about how to engineer them with today's environment, goals and tools for affiliates, small teams and individual grantees in mind; and to think about transition points among grant types.
Katy has for sure more details, but the APG/FDC process has built-in from the start the fact that when the staff reaches out to a potential applicant there is an initial discussion and assessment to see if the APG is the best route for the given applicant to apply for funds. There have been cases in the past (on top of my mind, Wikimedia Hungary) of entities that have decided to go through the PEG/GAC instead of the APG/FDC after the initial discussions with the FDC staff and the committee.
So, possibly this is not completely formalized but as a process it exists and there are precedents.
I would love to talk with you more about this at the Wikimedia Conference if possible (:
2015-04-08 8:54 GMT+02:00 Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com:
The Advisory group to the FDC actually made that very proposal.
To have a body who would look At the grant system as a whole and not juste At one of its part.
Not sure if that would ever be implemented sadly.
It seems a most reasonable idea, my 2cents would be not to rehaul completely the structure of grants because having a structure that is stable enough (i.e. that is used for some years) is useful to compare data between different applicants and provide some historical analysis. (cfr. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Evaluation_at_the_Wikimedia_Foundation) and if I recall correctly up to date there have been the possibility to have just one general impact report so far (for this you need completed grants so we have those up 2013/2014).
C