Hello Wikimedians,

Round 2 of the Annual Plan Grants program [1] is underway, and the Community Review process is open for your comments and questions. In this round, six proposals were submitted to the Funds Dissemination Committee, by the Centre for Internet and Society, Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimédia France, Wikimedia Italia, Wikimedia Norge, and Wikimedia ZA -- with total requests of USD $1,531,687. [2] These six proposals, developed based on the organizations' annual plans, include programmatic and operational costs, and are requests for general funding.

This year (2014-2015), the FDC has USD $6 million to allocate to movement organizations to help advance our strategic goals. In Round 1, $3,817,956 was allocated to movement organizations, [3] leaving $2,182,044 for Round 2.  In mid-May, the Funds Dissemination Committee will meet face-to-face, prior to the Wikimedia conference, to deliberate on and then make recommendations to the WMF Board of Trustees about how to grant funds to these organizations, in order to achieve mission-related impact.

We invite you and all other community members to review any or all of the proposals, and to share your thoughts and ask questions on the discussion pages of the proposals. General questions or comments can also be made in the General comments section. [4] The community review period lasts until April 30, 2015. Applicants are also expected to respond to comments and questions during this period, although they are not able to change the proposal form itself after the submission date. The FDC will review the discussion pages and will use the questions and comments as one of their many inputs into the decision-making process. To join other community consultations, visit the noticeboard. [5]  

You can join in by reviewing the proposals [2] and adding your comments on the discussion pages. Proposals are available in English, but comments and questions can be made in any language. As a member of the Wikimedia community, your review helps make the grantmaking process more transparent, collaborative and robust. Feedback and questions from the community are an important input into the proposal review process, and the FDC considers them seriously.

The major milestones for the rest of this round is as follows: [6]

* Community review: 1 April 2015 - 30 April 2015
* Staff assessments published: 8 May 2015
* FDC deliberations: 12-14 May 2015
* FDC recommendation published: by 1 June 2015
* Appeals or complaints submitted: by 8 June 2015
* Board of Trustees decision: by 1 July 2015
* Start of new grant terms: 1 July 2015

Please let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or feedback about the process. You can reach the FDC staff at FDCsupport@wikimedia.org

Warm regards,

Katy Love

Senior Program Officer
Funds Dissemination Committee
Wikimedia Foundation

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Too_long;_didn%27t_read
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Information
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2014-2015_round1
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2/Community_review#General_comments
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Current_community_consultations
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Information#Calendar