Greetings, friends,
As you all know, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) meets twice a year to help make decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve the Wikimedia movement's mission, vision, and strategy. [1] We recently met in San Francisco to deliberate on the 11 annual plan grant proposals submitted for this round of review. [2] We thank these organizations for their hard work on their annual plans and proposals.
The FDC has now posted our Round 1 2014-2015 recommendations on the annual plan grants to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees: http://goo.gl/Ea7d4I . [3]
With the support of the FDC’s two Board Representatives (Bishakha Datta and Frieda Brioschi), the WMF Board will review the recommendations and then make their decision on them by 1 January 2015.
This round, proposals came from ten chapters and one thematic organization, totaling requests of roughly $4.7 million USD. Before our face-to-face deliberations, which were held from 15-18 November, the FDC reviewed the proposals in careful detail, aided by staff assessments and analysis on impact, finances, and programs, as well as community comments on the proposals. Our conversations were intense and the decisions were not easy; each proposal was carefully considered both in its own context and environment, and strengths and concerned were discussed. We are recommending grants totaling roughly $3.8 million USD.
Now that the recommendations have been published, there is a formal process to submit complaints or appeals to the Board. Here are the steps for both:
Any organization that would like to submit an appeal on the FDC’s Round 1 recommendation should submit it to the Board representatives to the FDC by 23:59 UTC on 8 December 2014 in accordance with the appeal process outlined in the FDC Framework. A formal appeal to challenge the FDC’s recommendation should be in the form of a 500-or-fewer word summary directed to the two non-voting WMF Board representatives to the FDC (Frieda Brioschi and Bishakha Datta). The appeal should be submitted on-wiki, [4] and must be submitted by the Board Chair of a funding-seeking applicant. The Board will publish its decision on this and all recommendations by 1 Jan 2015.
Complaints to the ombudsperson about the FDC process can be filed by anyone with the Ombudsperson and can be made any time. The complaint should be submitted on wiki, as well. [5] The ombudsperson will publicly document the complaint, and investigate as needed.
Please have a look at the calendar [6] to see other upcoming milestones in the annual plan grants / FDC process.
Again, we offer our sincere thanks to the 11 organizations who submitted annual plan grant proposals to the FDC.
On behalf of the FDC,
Dariusz Jemielniak ("pundit", FDC Chair)
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round1
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/20...
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Appeals_to_the_Board_on_the_recom...
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Complaints_about_the_FDC_process