Dear all, the FDC has published its recommandation, they are proposing to the WMF board an allocation of 362 000 CHF (400 000 $) for Wikimedia CH in 2014. [1]
It’s exactly the amount we received last year and 72% of what we were asking this year. Considering the force and weakness of our chapter and the requests of the other chapters, this recommandation is a fair recommandation. Wikimedia CH was the chapter requesting the third biggest amount after WMDE and WMUK. We were asking far more than WMSE and WMNL and it wasn’t a good message to the FDC. Just with this point it was already sure that we will not receive the amount requested. WMSE and WMNL are two chapters similar to WMCH in the eyes of the whole movement. Looking at the recommendation, WMNL receive 410 000 $ and WMSE 390 000$. If we consider the overall allocation, it’s clear that WMCH cannot ask more funds, we are in a global movement and the funds have to be distributed as much as possible : « The overall funds available for movement entities through the FDC process in 2013-2014 is $6,000,000, some of which will be recommended to be allocated during Round 2 of this year. This round, $4,432,000 has been allocated, leaving $1,568,000 for Round 2. The Letters of Intent estimating the requested amounts for Round 2 total $1,400,000. » I’m a little bit disappointed because next year we will host the Hackathon, and it’s an important budget, that increase a lot our global budget. Anyway, this event has a high potential to receive external sponsoring, and we will work for that. About the comment: - For the negative point, the staff cost is considered too high for the movement context, the FDC consider also that our metrics are insufficient and than in general the ratio between the funds allocated/active community is too high. All in one these « negative » point are not so problematic, they are consistent with the concerns that have been expressed internally since the beginning of september. A large part of our annual plan is dedicated to increase the swiss editors community. - For the good point, as expected the wikipedia in Jail program has been highlighted, as well as the Alps project. Our capacity to recognize our challenges has been highlighted by mentioning that we have been able to left the TAO project when we realized it was not effective. In the next few days I will review our annual plan and the associated budget (directly on the members wiki), to proposed to the board a revised version. I want to share with you the general lines of this revision: *Priority to the projects dedicated to support the swiss editors community, by helping the actual editors and recruiting new ones *Wikipedia Offline and the Alps project *Each FDC funded project should have a clear impact on a Wikimedia project *improving the coordination with the neighboring chapters *Improvement of our reporting and the evaluation of our activities (improving our metrics definition and reporting) A global interpretation of the FDC recommandation may be that the movement is sending a message to invite the chapter to re-focus on the very identity of a wikimedia chapter, i.e. the distribution of free knowledge through the Wikimedia projects. I wish you a very good week. Charles [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2013-2014_round1#Wikimedia_CH ___________________________________________________________ Charles ANDRES, Chief Science Officer "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Office +41 (0)21 340 66 21 Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch http://prezi.com/user/Andrescharles/
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