As you may know, a number of us are trying to get a two-year NEH grant for the Wikimedia Foundation. This is a grant for anything from $80-700,000 for the development of resource materials. Gentgeen has spoken with them, they are familiar with Wikipedia, and they encouraged us to apply for the grant.
We are asking for $500,000. This is a lot of money, but we believe that it will cover our operating costs for 2 years, including the purchase of new servers, etc. We can do some amazing things with half a million dollars, and really help Wikipedia and the other projects to soar.
To do this, however, requires a lot of help. The grant deadline is July 15, and it is already July 3. It must be in their office by then, so that means it will have to go out by Fedex from somewhere by July 13 at the latest. The proposal is complicated, and requires all sorts of documentation. No one will just give us money for the asking, and the complete proposal has to be written and approved by the community.
That said, I appeal to everyone to give us a hand with this. Pick a section you want to write or edit, submit ideas, help Mav with the budget, argue about it, discuss it. This is a chance to take Wikipedia to an exciting new stage, and it is one that we should not miss.
For more information, a good place to start is: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEH_Reference_materials_grant_application
Looking forward to your insights and contributions to this effort,
Danny
--- daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
As you may know, a number of us are trying to get a two-year NEH grant for the Wikimedia Foundation. This is a grant for anything from $80-700,000 for the development of resource materials. Gentgeen has spoken with them, they are familiar with Wikipedia, and they encouraged us to apply for the grant.
We are asking for $500,000. This is a lot of money, but we believe that it will cover our operating costs for 2 years, including the purchase of new servers, etc. We can do some amazing things with half a million dollars, and really help Wikipedia and the other projects to soar.
To do this, however, requires a lot of help. The grant deadline is July 15, and it is already July 3. It must be in their office by then, so that means it will have to go out by Fedex from somewhere by July 13 at the latest. The proposal is complicated, and requires all sorts of documentation. No one will just give us money for the asking, and the complete proposal has to be written and
approved by the community.
That said, I appeal to everyone to give us a hand with this. Pick a section you want to write or edit, submit ideas, help Mav with the budget, argue about it, discuss it. This is a chance to take Wikipedia to an exciting new stage, and it is one that we should not miss.
For more information, a good place to start is: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEH_Reference_materials_grant_application
Looking forward to your insights and contributions to this effort,
I'll work on a 2 year budget as soon as I return from Twin Falls, Idaho on July 6. It will be tight but I think it is doable. In the meantime the community can work on some additional notes at http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_budget
-- mav
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The recent interest in grants is super!, as is the enthusiasm to apply for our first grant as soon as possible. Moreover, the requirements for serious grants tend to be good metrics for the successful and organized completion of subprojects, so the effort required to fill out these applications is not wasted. I am excited for the near future.
That said, please let us not use this particular grant to get our feet wet. It would require multiple heroic efforts to submit an application in time, and this grant isn't designed for projects at our stage of development. We need to pace ourselves for the long haul, not burn out our grant enthusiasts in the first sprint. (perhaps others agree, which is why this thread died?)
Remember also that these organizations have personality and memory (despite their assurances that if you apply for two different grants, you must resubmit all materials the second time) -- submitting an inappropriate or hasty application to an organization is not only embarrassing; it can damage our chances of persuading them of our seriousness in the future, when a grant suits us perfectly. The NEH is large and generous; that would be a shame.
Our ideal first grant application would be + a simple descriptive application, + for a small and specific grant, + after consultation with the granting institution or with expert advisors, and + for a project which is *already* being coordinated by a few wikimedians, + who know how they aim to accomplish it.
The NEH /reference materials/ grant is none of these things.
- It requires a complex, persuasive application - fifty pages long, with background, general budgeting, and personnel information, none of which have ever been drafted for Wikimedia before. - It is for a large and general grant, not specific to any of our previously-discussed subprojects [say, wikifamily or slotipedia or WP 1.0]; we came up with a new and vague project on the fly -- 'develop ten Humanities & Arts Wikireaders, in subjects with good WP coverage' -- to complete the application. - Wikimedia has no consultants or relevant advisors yet, and is two weeks too late to have the recommended draft-review by an NEH officer. - As we had no project in motion which meets their grant requirements, we have no obvious choices for key qualified project staff -- in this case, subject experts, print professionals and executive editors -- with resumes on file and time to devote in earnest to such a two-year effort. - Moreover, we have no draft timeline, implementation plan, or comparative analysis of the benefits of our proposed project over existing alternatives.
Finally, as Wikimedia grant-writing is still in its infancy, there is no accepted rhythm to the collaboration on grant writing -- on- and off-wiki, and over this mailing list; with the board and community for content approval; or with prufers and copyeditors (for wiki drafts, layout drafts, and print proofs) for quality control. For a 50-page application, each of these steps is a significant effort.
A few specific comments:
On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 11:47:42 EDT, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Gentgeen has spoken with them, they are familiar with Wikipedia, and they encouraged us to apply for the grant.
My impression was that they knew WP well enough to know we were an encyclopedia, and respond with appropriate materials, not that they had any idea for what project we would be applying, nor that they particularly encouraged us to apply.
We are asking for $500,000. This is a lot of money, but we believe that it will cover
This is a huge sum, as much as I estimated a few months back for printing *and distributing* 100,000 copies of Wikipedia 1.0. Why so much? What kind of distribution are you envisioning? Note that the grant requires that we share at least 33% of projected costs.
We can do some amazing things with half a million dollars...
In particular, we can get completely wrapped up in one subproject for the next two years. If we budget for $500k, they will give us at most $340k and expect us to raise (and spend on this project) the rest. Is developing ten humanities-related WP-subsets how we want to spend our time and effort and other fundraising over the coming months?
Perhaps we can apply for probe grants to help us gather usage statistics and publish wikimedia collateral, acquire advisors, and investigate new project options, before deciding to invest in a specific project*.
hoping we move patiently from strength to strength, without overextending or overselling ourselves, +sj+
* A suitable 5-10 page, $5-$10k NEH grant, due at the start of September, requires we be an official 501(c)3. Are we in the middle of our waiting period for approval, or still processing paperwork? I know that can take a year or more; how far along are we? This smaller grant may be flexible on the matter; we should inquire and explain our circumstances.
Sj wrote:
The recent interest in grants is super!, as is the enthusiasm to apply for our first grant as soon as possible. Moreover, the requirements for serious grants tend to be good metrics for the successful and organized completion of subprojects, so the effort required to fill out these applications is not wasted. I am excited for the near future.
That said, please let us not use this particular grant to get our feet wet. It would require multiple heroic efforts to submit an application in time, and this grant isn't designed for projects at our stage of development. We need to pace ourselves for the long haul, not burn out our grant enthusiasts in the first sprint.
I hesitated to comment when I first read of this proposal. A number of the strong supporters of this are also among the Wikimedians that I most respect, so I was not about to dump ice-water on their vision. Sj is right in his criticism, and for the best of reasons.
I fear that this quest for $500,000 is based more on wishful imaginings than on any kind of coherent plan. I don't think that it is very productive when an organisation begins to adapt its approaches simply for the sake of obtaining a grant. The idea should come first; afterwards we can ask for grants that further those ideas. We've only begun to think of topics like budgets and financial management. Mav's proposal that we follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) is a perfectly sound one, but I don't know how many of us are that familiar with even the most rudimentary accounting principles. What internal audit procedures do we have in place?
The application asks about resumés and expertise and credentials, etc. Some of us may have very fine resumés, but that's not what the wiki is about. The lack of credentials is not an impediment to editing; we have had excellent efforts from 12-year-olds who deserve the same respect as PhD's. That point needs to be sold to grant reviewers who have gotten to where they are through traditional hierarchical means. The idea of an encyclopedia that anybody can edit at any time is completely counterintuitive to a system of thinking that has been developing since the time of Aristotle. It also butts heads with prevailing ideas of intellectual property, and other proprietary interests in the development of electronic media. Who among us has given throrough thought to this?
The 1.0 project is a more achievable venture at this stage, but after a flurry of discussion a few months ago it ended up on the back burner. The conversation at the time lapsed into a lot of unproductive fears over what should or should not be included. It certainly failed to consider that a faulty 1.0 would preferably be followed by an improved 2.0. A coherent plan to deal with this could lead to funding opportunities. The sales that such a project might generate could also become the basis for dependable funding of routine administration.
Ec
I too wish to express my misgivings at getting the grant. There's always strings attached, and targets have to be met, and so on. Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna keep track of the money, the milestones, etc...
I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the front page, like this:
This month, we need $4000 to meet expenses. So far, users have contributed $2800. Thank you!
If budget is met, then you write:
This month's budget has been met. Thank you!
It needs to be updated daily.
I think we can raise more money that way than through grants
Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be able to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.
I say: we all swim, or we all sink.
Once we start taking outside money, I guarantee there will be some corruption of the wiki process, at least because the board will want to cater to its donors, at least subconsciously. I'd rahter they catered to the wikipedians than some once-a-year grant organization.
To those who say that the US government would not care to get involved in the day-to-day, I reply that it would damange the reputation of the W for foreigners.
For example, voice of america does fine programming, yet is seen as a means for western propaganda in foreign countries because it is funded by the US gov.
Just some ramblings.
Again, we need complete transparency of the books.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:28:46 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com wrote:
I too wish to express my misgivings at getting the grant. There's always strings attached, and targets have to be met, and so on. Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna keep track of the money, the milestones, etc...
I think these are all surmountable problems. Each grant will have to have someone in charge of running it, recruiting active contributors, and maintaining the schedule (how do Article-of-the-Week and Pic-of-the-Day work?), Mav will help that person keep track of the money, and everyone involved will try to keep to the schedule with all their might.
But we should start small... Pic-of-the-Day is one thing; getting a thousand deep articles translated and reviewed is another.
And we should renew our efforts to get support through donation, no matter what. Demonstrating a strong ongoing base of community support will help overcome the obstacle of not yet being a proper 501c3.
I agree wholeheartedly with this:
I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the front page, like this:
We should spur donations right away. I hope we are planning to get new machines in the coming week(s?); we need to replace the money we are spending. $2500 a month sounds like a reasonable budget estimate for the rest of the year, and I think we could easily meet that need through contributions.
+ Encouraging recurring donations is a good start; + Updating the main page with monthly budget info is another; also + Making donation easier (a PayPal button next to the 'donation' link, direct credit card processing, etc.) + Providing an opt-in way for one-time WP contributors to find out about new initiatives we need a low-traffic alternative to the mailing lists which announces new projects, board selections, major grant and project drives, and infrequent press releases); + Having contribution drives for specific uses + ..and much, MUCH MORE! all yours for only <s>79.95USD</s> <s><font color=red>59.95UDS</font></s> 29.97CAN !! <small><small>(payable in three easy installments of C$9.99. taxes, tarriffs, and international S&H not included)</small></small>
-/-sj-/-
--- Sj 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 14:28:46 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Mahan And we should renew our efforts to get support through donation, no matter what. Demonstrating a strong ongoing base of community support will help overcome the obstacle of not yet being a proper 501c3.
I completely agree.
I agree wholeheartedly with this:
I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the front page, like this:
A monthly budget will require a monthly trustee meeting to approve such a document before posting. But doing so on the front page of any Wikimedia website seems to be like begging to me (or at least too much emphasis on financial matters). A permanent link and/or mention on the fundraising page along with a temporary mention on every page during fund drives seems to be enough, IMO.
We should spur donations right away. I hope we are planning to get new machines in the coming week(s?); we need to replace the money we are spending. $2500 a month sounds like a reasonable budget estimate for the rest of the year, and I think we could easily meet that need through contributions.
I have forecasted that we will need to spend between $25,000 to $30,000 on hardware this quarter to keep up with the projected increase in traffic over last quarter. If our growth rate continues at 90% compounded quarterly, then we should expect to have to spend a bit less than twice that amount in Q4.
Things get a bit scary after that if we continue growing at the same rate (I'm still working on mitigating factors such as Moores law and still need to check with the developers to see if page requests, visits, or something else are a better measure of traffic - I've been using page requests).
In short - $2500 per month will not be enough.
Also, with all those servers the need for a full time on-site server admin increases.
Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO
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Christopher Mahan wrote:
I too wish to express my misgivings at getting the grant. There's always strings attached, and targets have to be met, and so on. Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna keep track of the money, the milestones, etc...
I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the front page, like this:
This month, we need $4000 to meet expenses. So far, users have contributed $2800. Thank you!
If budget is met, then you write:
This month's budget has been met. Thank you!
It needs to be updated daily.
I strongly disagree with this. A budget is not something you balance week per week or even month per month. We must plan it. In advance. A budget is something you have to organise, to take into account structural needs, contingencies, and see how to best use the remaining.
This month, we will spent about 12000 dollars in hardware. I think the best way is to have this money available in advance, and plan spending it on time. Not to call for donations during two weeks, then wait 2 weekds for shipping.
I also am not very motivated by the idea of asking money all the time. That is just showing we do not manage well our funds. I think it much more positive that we make a call for donation just a couple of time a year, that donations are set in such a way that they can be monthly donation, and that the call for donation is made in parallele to a nice press release.
I think we can raise more money that way than through grants
Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be able to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.
But asking money all the time will make them think we are heavy, and do not know how to manage money.
------
Okay, donations is one way to raise money, and we should use it. It is best that donations calls are made during a special event, when we can see we are just great.
In about 2 to 3 months, Wikipedia will be 1 000 000 articles. This is a very serious milestone. We should at this occasion make a third global press release (this is a global milestone).
This press release should focus on hardware and software issues and needs. In short "We have reached an amazing size, but this amazing size requires a lot of technical resources to go on working. Please help us". We should focus in particular on potential technical help, and send it to any hardware magazine (without forgetting more general networks of course).
2 months will be there very soon. I suggest that we start working on that press release very soon.
Part of it could be quite general (and this part could be sent to general networks), but a good deal of it should insist on our current technical situation. In short, what we are using, how we are organised for maintenance, what is needed in terms of software developement, which skills would be most needed, what hardware could help etc...
It would be nice to add to the general part, information such as relevant figures or evolution graphs, so that people can gap in amazement
* number of hits per day * number of pages visited per day * number of contributors * size of the database across the ages (well...) * part of the different wikipedias compared to the whole project * etc...
Have these all automatically generated as small graphs in as many languages as possible in one new statistical page. Then, any press release can use them (include them) in the press release. There are few things less meaningful than a nice graph.
When we reach the 1 000 000, we send the press release. And put up the donation banner, plus links for anyone willing to bring help in more "physical" manner.
--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Christopher Mahan wrote:
I too wish to express my misgivings at getting the grant. There's always strings attached, and targets have to be met, and so on.
Who's
gonna run it? Who's gonna keep track of the money, the
milestones,
etc...
I would rather mav publish a monthly budget and post that to the front page, like this:
This month, we need $4000 to meet expenses. So far, users have contributed $2800. Thank you!
If budget is met, then you write:
This month's budget has been met. Thank you!
It needs to be updated daily.
I strongly disagree with this. A budget is not something you balance week per week or even month per month. We must plan it. In advance.
That's why you make a budget. You forecast your expenses into the future, then figure out how much to bring in on a monthly basis not to get int the red on any single month :)
A budget is something you have to organise, to take into account structural needs, contingencies, and see how to best use the remaining.
Absolutely. It's called a reserve (for emergency) and for known future capital expenses you plan accordingly (need to spend $10K in 5 months? collect $2K/month for 5 months)
This month, we will spent about 12000 dollars in hardware. I think the best way is to have this money available in advance, and plan spending it on time. Not to call for donations during two weeks, then wait 2
weekds for shipping.
Absolutely.
I also am not very motivated by the idea of asking money all the time. That is just showing we do not manage well our funds.
If it's budgeted, then it won't look that way. You're right, if it's always an emergency, then it looks bad.
I think it much more positive that we make a call for donation just a couple of time a year, that donations are set in such a way that they can be monthly donation, and that the call for donation is made in parallele to a nice press release.
We are not national public radio. I think that people are less likely to respond when you say: We need a million dollars this week! instead of "this month, 5 thousands. and next month, 5 thousands. It seems much more manageable, plus you feel your $50 is more appreciated.
I think we can raise more money that way than through grants
Ok, you may be right. But if there's more burden because of it, then I don't know if it's that good.
Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be
able
to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.
But asking money all the time will make them think we are heavy, and do not know how to manage money.
Well, asking for money after we get the grant, people will ask: What the hell happened to the grant money?
Okay, donations is one way to raise money, and we should use it. It is best that donations calls are made during a special event, when we can see we are just great.
In about 2 to 3 months, Wikipedia will be 1 000 000 articles. This is a very serious milestone. We should at this occasion make a third global press release (this is a global milestone).
I wish we would stop making a big deal out of milestones. People don't care that google indexed 5 billion pages. All they care about is that they find what they need in the top 10. Likewise, we should emphasize quality and completeness rather than quantity, with user-friendlyness thrown in. Ever tried doing a keyword search in a paper encyclopedia?
By the way, what are you still doing up? heh :)
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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--- Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
It needs to be updated daily.
I strongly disagree with this.
As the person who would have to do daily updates, I also strongly disagree as well. :) But I could manage daily updates during a quarterly fund drive.
Aside: I guess a bot could be used to grep these data from our PayPal and MoneyBookers accounts and display it on our donations page, but there are potential security issues with that (not to mention the lack of a developer volunteering to code such a thing).
A budget is not something you balance week per week or even month per month. We must plan it. In advance. A budget is something you have to organise, to take into account structural needs, contingencies, and see how to best use the remaining.
The budget needs to be be adjusted at least once a quarter and most books I've read subject suggest once a month adjustments. But since we are just starting, once a quarter seems to be enough for now.
... I also am not very motivated by the idea of asking money all the time. That is just showing we do not manage well our funds. I think it much more positive that we make a call for donation just a couple of time a year, that donations are set in such a way that they can be monthly donation, and that the call for donation is made in parallele to a nice press release.
I was thinking along the same lines.
I think we can raise more money that way than through grants
Furtehrmore, once grant moeny starts rolling in, users will be able to say: they're funded by grant money, so I'll not contribute.
We can simply build into the budget a certain percentage of the server fund, for example, that has to be raised through individual donations. IMO, such a percentage for that fund should be set high (<50%).
But asking money all the time will make them think we are heavy, and do not know how to manage money.
Nod.
Okay, donations is one way to raise money, and we should use it. It is best that donations calls are made during a special event, when we can see we are just great.
That is true, but in order to balance the quarterly budget we would need a fund drive each quarter. Could we manage 4 special events each year? A meet-up each quarter could be a standing special event (hint: my idea of having the quarterly board meeting in a different part of the world and fly the trustees there).
In about 2 to 3 months, Wikipedia will be 1 000 000 articles. This is a very serious milestone. We should at this occasion make a third global press release (this is a global milestone).
I agree.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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I am just now getting back into the swing of things. Are there people who may agree or disagree with SJ's opinions here.
Keep in mind that I have not yet reviewed the proposed grant application, nor the requirements of the grant, etc.
--Jimbo
I am 100% fully back at work. I stand ready to do whatever I need to do to assist with this.
--Jimbo
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
As you may know, a number of us are trying to get a two-year NEH grant for the Wikimedia Foundation. This is a grant for anything from $80-700,000 for the development of resource materials. Gentgeen has spoken with them, they are familiar with Wikipedia, and they encouraged us to apply for the grant.
We are asking for $500,000. This is a lot of money, but we believe that it will cover our operating costs for 2 years, including the purchase of new servers, etc. We can do some amazing things with half a million dollars, and really help Wikipedia and the other projects to soar.
To do this, however, requires a lot of help. The grant deadline is July 15, and it is already July 3. It must be in their office by then, so that means it will have to go out by Fedex from somewhere by July 13 at the latest. The proposal is complicated, and requires all sorts of documentation. No one will just give us money for the asking, and the complete proposal has to be written and approved by the community.
That said, I appeal to everyone to give us a hand with this. Pick a section you want to write or edit, submit ideas, help Mav with the budget, argue about it, discuss it. This is a chance to take Wikipedia to an exciting new stage, and it is one that we should not miss.
For more information, a good place to start is: http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEH_Reference_materials_grant_application
Looking forward to your insights and contributions to this effort,
Danny
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