Greetings, Wikimedia community, I am happy to announce that 2013-2014 Round 1 of the Funds Dissemination Committee’s (FDC) annual plan grants process has begun! Eleven Wikimedia-affiliated entities submitted proposals based on their annual plans (which include programmatic and administrative costs) for funding requests totaling nearly US$6 million. I want to thank them for their time and effort in submitting these annual plan grant proposals to the FDC. We now launch the community review period to help the FDC strategically allocate movements funds. From now until October 31, we invite you, members of the Wikimedia community, to review the proposals, provide thoughts and ask questions on the discussion pages of the proposals. [1] More about community review: The FDC proposal submission deadline (October 1) is followed by a 30-day open comment period when community members are asked to provide input on and ask questions about specific proposals. During this period, entities that submitted proposals are asked to respond to input and questions about their proposals on the discussion pages. Entities are not able to change the proposal itself after the submission deadline. All community input and entity responses are submitted with the proposal submitted to the FDC. While the community may comment on proposals after the open comment period closes on October 31, the FDC may not be able to take comments made after this period into consideration. How to join in the review: To take a look at the FDC round 1 proposals, please visit the community review page [1], which links to the submitted proposals. While the proposals are unfortunately only available in English, we hope that the 30 day review period will help address this challenge. Your comments on the discussion pages do not need to be in English, however. *Why your feedback matters: *Community review can help to bring an in-depth and robust review to each submitted proposal. The FDC seriously values the input and feedback of the Wikimedia community. Therefore, they ask for your comments and questions on these proposals in order to consider the potential impact of movement funds. Also, the community review process helps to ensure that the grantmaking is a transparent and collaborative process. Finally, here are a few milestones to keep in mind with the FDC process [2]: - 2-31 Oct 2013: Community review period of Round 1 proposals - 8 Nov 2013: FDC staff assessment of Round 1 proposals published - 8 Nov 2013: Letter of Intent deadline for 2013-2014 Round 2 - 17-21 Nov 2013: FDC face-to-face deliberations on Round 1 proposals - 1 Dec 2013: FDC recommendation on Round 1 proposals published - 1 Jan 2014: Board decision on FDC's Round 1 recommendations published Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback on the process. The FDC support staff can be reached at FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org Warm regards, Katy Love [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposals/Community/Review [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Timeline -- Katy Love Senior Program Officer, Funds Dissemination Committee Wikimedia Foundation