Hello, WLM organizers,

I am writing with two points to share with you today.

1. I have noticed that many of the grants rely on social media advertisement for contest purposes. We will take these on a case by case basis during grant review, but I wanted to give you a heads up that it is unlikely you will receive funds early enough to pay upfront for advertisement, even if your approval happens early, because 1) Wikimania and 2) paperwork, agreement signatures and then coordination with the Financial office take time.

On that note, I also wanted to open the conversation on this point to hear from people who have successfully promoted the contest with or without social media ads. Any words of wisdom/advice?

My personal experience with Wiki organizing outside of the WMF: we never paid for ads; partnerships with different communications channels and organizations helped us spread the word much more effectively than if we had had an ads budget.

2. In about an hour, I will be at this Google Hangout to answer any questions or address any concerns you may have about your proposals:

Friday August 9th -- 3pm UTC (8am SF, 12pm Sao Paulo, 6pm Nairobi, 11pm Manila) http://meet.google.com/kon-wwtg-jxp

If you want to join the conversation but are unable to meet this Friday, please message me privately with times that would work for you on Monday, August 12. I'll send a follow up message to this list if a second hangout is organized

Good Friday to you all,