[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] 2012-13 Annual Plan of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com]

On Jul 27, 2012, at 10:58 PM, Tilman Bayer <tbayer at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> the Wikimedia Foundation's 2012-13 Annual Plan has just been published at
> 
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:2012-13_Wikimedia_Foundation_Plan_FINAL_FOR_WEBSITE.pdf
> 
> accompanied by a Q&A:
> 
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
> 
> The plan was approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting in
> Washington, DC, at Wikimania, and previously outlined to the
> Foundation staff and interested community members at the monthly staff
> meeting on July 5, 2012. We were planning to publish the video
> recording of that meeting at this point, but encountered technical
> difficulties; the video will hopefully become available soon.

My biggest question mark over this plan is the GAC.  In some slides the GAC money is combined with fellowships, in some it is combined with FDC money, and in another slide the GAC money awarded to chapters is pulled out separately without ever commenting on whether all GAC awards were to chapters or if there were additional awards to other entities (awards to chapters is set to decrease 40%).

It seems to me despite the WMF's stated confidence, that the FDC allocating money to WMF for the GAC is somewhat questionable. Given that the WMF has failed, so far, to show a capacity for properly administering the existing grants by providing a timely reviews. Although I can also see how the political nature of the situation wrt the FDC would tend to pull for the GAC money being approved no matter how competent or not the *SF* side of the program proves to be. And that whole aspect of the GAC program is probably a good part if the explanation of why there was not adequate support from SF to complete the reviews. The GAC program is just not commonly seen as being beneficial to SF, but as beneficial to the chapters and affiliates. And however much the WMF tries (and I think it is making large strides!) to re-adjust the institutional paradigm from SF to Movement, the resourcing is still telling. So when I said above that I thought outcome at FDC questionable, I mean that I haven't even slightest clue of what odds to place on the outcome. After considering both the principles of the FDC will and the context of the GAC, it ends up being a rather arbitrary choice to my mind. Which is a very unfortunate puzzle to pass like a hot potato to the rookie FDC.

So I am very curious how much money the WMF plans on distributing through the GAC, whether it is significantly different than last year.  And also if there has been a projection made for the number of grants in new fiscal year. And if so, whether the projection takes in to account that the number grants made in the past year overwhelmed WMF's capacity to manage its portion of the administration. 

And to give you what I am driving at, are these projections landing at numbers where the WMF could find alternate funding for the GAC program this year? Is possible to take a year and demonstrate that WMF has the will to resource this program into competence before placing it in the FDC pile? 

Birgitte SB