Hello, everyone.
==TL;DR==
I am pleased to announce that we have completed the transition of the Foundation's contractor-based efforts in Brazil to a 10-month ~$500k partnership grant to a Brazilian non-profit named Ação Educativa.
==Details==
As announced in the "Narrowing Focus" plan approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in October 2012,[1] the Foundation has been moving away from the model of catalyzing growth in the developing world via teams of contractors working for the Foundation, toward a model of partnering with local non-profit organizations interested in carrying out mission-aligned work, with funding from WMF via a partnership grant.
This was done in India, where the partner chosen was the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). While this was, and continues to be, the best possible choice we could have made, the process did not have the extensive community consultation we would have otherwise preferred.
With the WMF Brazil team led by Oona Castro, we took care to be much more thoughtful and measured, with a full community consultation process. After several months of initial mapping of potential and likely local partners, we identified two organizations in February 2013[2], one of which was Ação Educativa[3] (literally: educational action), an established and respected Brazilian non-profit dedicated to promoting education -- including the right to education -- and youth in Brazil.
After a series of discussions over March and April between the WMF team, and Ação, some of which were also attended by Brazilian editing community representatives,[4][5] Ação was determined to be the most promising local partner, and work began on designing a vision and a work plan to be presented to the WMF as a basis for a partnership grant.
The plan was developed, alongside the Brazil team's ongoing work (primarily on the Education Program and data analytics and research), over the next few months, and in late August was ready for community review (in English[6] and later in Portuguese[7]).
Starting September 20th 2013, community feedback was officially solicited on-wiki at the Portuguese Wikipedia, on mailing lists, and on Meta.[8] Much feedback had been given in the preceding months, in face-to-face or verbal conversations via teleconferences, and has not been captured on-wiki, but has been worked into successive revisions of the proposal.[9]
In mid-October 2013, taking into account community feedback and WMF's own review of the proposal (itself carried out on several successive drafts of the proposal), WMF decided to award the grant to Ação, which agreed to hire the Brazil contractors.[10] The grant period is 10 months, from November 1st 2013 to August 31st 2014. The team at Ação will be reporting publicly every three months for a total of three quarterly reports, and at the end of the grant period, will provide a final impact report. The grant does not carry a promise of future funding, although under the partnership grant model, Ação could apply for another year’s grant before entering into the FDC process for annual plans. From the Wikimedia Foundation's side, the grant and the relationship with Ação will be managed by Asaf Bartov, who is also managing the partnership with CIS in India.
The Brazil team -- Oona Castro, Henrique Andrade, Celio Filho, and Rodrigo Padula de Oliveira -- are no longer WMF contractors, and have been working for Ação Educativa since the beginning of November. Oona has shared a draft of a retrospective report about the team's activities in the past year.[11] As of this writing, some of it is still only in Portuguese.
I’d like to thank the team (including Everton Zanella Alvarenga, the former Education Coordinator) for their continued commitment to the Brazil community and to the Wikimedia movement. I’d particularly like to appreciate Oona, for her skilful and transparent leadership throughout the transition, and her dedication to Wikimedia principles and goals.
We are very excited about the prospects of this partnership with Ação Educativa, a truly like-minded organization dedicated to spreading knowledge, and look forward to a fruitful relationship with excellent impact on our strategic goals.
Please join me in congratulating the team on their successful transition, and wishing them, Ação Educativa, and the Brazil Wikimedia community the very best.
Anasuya
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_February_2013#B...
[3] http://www.acaoeducativa.org.br/
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_March_2013#Braz...
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_April_2013#Braz...
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento_...
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento_...
[8] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-September/128205.html
[9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_September_2013#...
[10] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_October_2013#Br... [11] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Program/Reports/2012-2013/draft