Dear Members and Community,
In the last few days many of you have given your valuable feedback and suggestions on our FDC proposal. We sincerely thank everyone for their input.
We have tried to build a balanced proposal keeping everyones requirements in mind. This has been a particularly tough job as the initial ideal budget calculating all requests went over INR 2 crore. We have had to sadly cut down on a lot of items to make it a more viable proposal. Though our initial letter of intent was for $200,000, our goal was to submit a request for around $100,000 so as to grow at a sustainable pace. However this has been an extremely difficult task and in the end we decided to keep the proposal to just under $150,000. We feel that we have included the needs of the movement in India to a fair extent and at a sustainable level. We would have loved to include a lot more, however we have had to restrict ourselves with a heavy heart.
Kindly go through the link below and give your comments on the talk page (Please DO NOT edit the budget itself).
Link: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget
Regards, Karthik Nadar. Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter. http://wiki.wikimedia.in
Participate in world's largest photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments: www.wikilovesmonuments.in
Karthik,
Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities.
I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups.
Please also see my feedback at
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_fo...
Thanks,
Ravi
There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities & indeed very little on community activities.
For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania & Chapters conference?
You have asked for money for 3 regional & 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies & one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments.
There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general events.
The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above & more allocation to activities & communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best & misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew!
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Karthik,
Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities.
I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups.
Please also see my feedback at
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_fo...
Thanks,
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Hi All,
I sense the budget is little beyond the line. I understand the tentative events planned will mean an aggressive growth plan, but do we have the resources to handle it? More so, can someone explain the status of our FCRA and how exactly is the fund routed into our account? An amount of this magnitude will need a reflection of our previous spend/ failing which we will attract unnecessary scrutiny. This will mean we will need to have full-time support staff - additional expense. For Wikimania, I support and wish to see a transparent call for interests and a due process for selection of travel/scholarship awards: more Indian representation at Wikimania is worthy and called for. For a national conference/4 regional conferences - I understand it will be an overstretch, it is best to have a single conference, through rotation in different cities every year to ensure good participation in the long run. Most of the attendees are volunteers, 5 conferences in total is a bit heavy on schedule.
- Abhijith Jayanthi
________________________________ From: Ashwin Baindur ashwin.baindur@gmail.com To: Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia Members List wmin-members@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, 24 September 2013 1:00 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Chapter: FDC Proposal Review Request
There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities & indeed very little on community activities.
For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania & Chapters conference?
You have asked for money for 3 regional & 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies & one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments.
There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general events.
The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above & more allocation to activities & communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best & misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew!
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Karthik,
Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities.
I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups.
Please also see my feedback at
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_fo...
Thanks,
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
I am responding here this once, from now ahead please post your comments on the chapter wiki so we dont spam peoples inboxes.
Abhijith, I think I answer most of your points here. The one about FCRA, we have prior permission upto $100k. Next Jan we complete 3 years and we can apply for a prior permission waiver. This has been taken into consideration.
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 1:00 PM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.baindur@gmail.comwrote:
There is a very serious amount of money being spent on bureaucratic necessities & indeed very little on community activities.
About 70% of the annual plan roughly is programmatic activities. This is in line with good NGO standards where admin activities are kept under 1/3rd of the cost.
For example, why do 6 people need to go for Wikimania & Chapters conference?
Earlier years 2 board members have been attending chapcon which WMF funded. We are adding the chief employee as this is an excellent opportunity to interact with the larger movement, learn from others and collaborate. I think almost all chapters having employees do this. Same with Wikimania. We need to remember we are a global movement and this interaction is extremely important. Even A2K sent 2 employees to Wikimania last month. Its only because we cannot ask for any separate program funding that its now included here.
You have asked for money for 3 regional & 1 national conference. Does anyone actually believe that the Chapter has the wherewithal to organise/conduct 4 conferences in a year? Add to that x number of academies & one devcamp. Plus a whopping Rs 6 lakhs for Wiki Loves India/Monuments.
This year there have been two conferences - Telugu and Tamil. We planned for 3 keeping in mind next year Bangla Wikipedia completes 10 years, the Gender Gap SIG put up some request and Im sure atleast one other community will have a regional event - that makes 3. Next year will be 3 years since the last national event, we feel it is time for another national event, maybe not as large as the last one but large enough to be a catalyst for the movements next step forward in India. 12 academies which cost money (apart from those to which there is no cost) - we did 15 academies last year, you still think its too much? Devcamp - our commitment to do a tech related event, some members have been requesting this. We will have 3 employees who will support all this.
There are also a huge grey areas - Event Participation, Unspecified general
events.
Event participation is for external events, more of networking and building chapter profile, making people aware we are around. Last year we participated in a FICCI event as well as The Fifth Elephant. I'm sure your well aware we cannot plan for everything so we need a general budget for events which spring up in different parts of our diverse country.
The amt 150,000 $ is not at all small. This is an extravagant budget and needs pruning down in the issues mentioned above & more allocation to activities & communities. My suggestion is to keep it much smaller but doable. Such huge amts demanded without any clear cut idea of whats to happen will only lead to non-utilisation at best & misuse at worst. Dont bite off more than you can chew!
I respectfully disagree. Unlike most other chapters, WMIN caters to 40+ language communities, including incubators. Have a look at suggestions from various communities, people are raring to go. We will do all we can to support them. We have carefully considered the figure so as to make sure we are not growing too fast. In the last two years we have received WMF grants of aprox $80,000 in total apart from local funding. No doubt this is a big leap, however we need to take this big leap in order to set up our own office, become more professional and live up to community expectations. The office is not being added just for adding admin expenses but so that the community benefits by its support.
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 11:11 AM, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.comwrote:
Karthik,
Except for allocation for Innovative projects, GLAM acdtivities and Digitisation (Budget items 3.5.1, 3.5.4, 3.5.5), I don't see any other budget item that directly sustains any measurable impact on the growth of language communities. Even this fund allocation will prove miniscule when distributed for all the language communities.
I strongly recommend to extend the budget proposal to make use of the full $200,000 that you proposed in your letter of intent and allocate a good budget for language communities and special interest groups.
Please also see my feedback at
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Talk:FDC_Proposal_2013/Budget#Funding_allocation_fo...
Thanks,
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
-- Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org