Hi all, this is to inform you that I just placed an official reaction to the FDC funds allocation recommendation for WMNL on: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2014-2015_round1#Comments_regarding_Wikimedia_Nederland I'd like to add here that, contrary to many opinions on this list, we find that the FDC has done a good job. The recommendations were thoughtful and we will take their advice seriously.
Frans *Frans Grijzenhout*, voorzitter / chair +31 6 5333 9499 http://www.wikimedia.nl/ *Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland* *Postadres*: *Bezoekadres:* Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3 3500 AD Utrecht 3511 LH Utrecht Kamer van Koophandel 17189036 2014-11-27 8:15 GMT+01:00 Ting Chen <wing.phil...@gmx.de>: > Hello dear all, > > this is not a response to any specific mails on this thread, just a few > thoughts from my side. > > I am not very heavily involved in the FDC process, what I did was, well, > as one of the board member decided to create this process and one of the > advisory group member observed the feedbacks, and I read a few of the mails > in this thread. By all means, I would not call myself expert in this > matter. I have a very high respect for those people who apply for funds > throw the FDC process and I have a very high respect for the FDC members. I > know most of these people (both the applicants and the FDC members) and I > believe in their good will, their honest, their belief that what they are > doing is helping the movement and the effort they invested. > > Now back to the matter. > > One of the issue that the advisory group reviewed in May this year was > that the FDC is a very hard and, because of this, a very expensive process. > Every partner organization that apply for FDC has an annual planning, this > alone is an organizational effort that eat up fund that do not go into > program. I know from the WMF that the annual planning is very expensive. > The whole organization is involved and the entire process lasted (anyway > when I was in board) half a year. One can do a rough estimation of manhours > invested into this process and then put a price on it. My rough estimation > would go into 4 digits, maybe five. Partner organizations have less (alone > because they have less C-level management), but I believe the proportion > would be the same. Atop of this partner organizations who apply for FDC > have to do an extra effort. I cannot say how much this extra effort is, but > from my remote observation and my impression from the frustration and > accounts in the list I would say it is not a small one. I have a guess, but > it is totally subjective. Maybe one of the chapters can provide an example > of insight? All these costs go into organization and off from program. The > anual planning part is unavoidable, the FDC part is atop. This makes a > malignant feedback: More organizational cost makes the efficiency worse, > and that makes it more necessary to make more effort in the presentation > and reasoning, which means more FDC effort. > > We need to break up this circle. The advisory group made two > recommendations this spring: The first one is to make repeating > applications easier, and the other is to allow applications for more than > one year. My impression from this thread is that either these > recommendations didn't catch, or they were not implemented in this round. > If the last case is true (not implemented) I would like to ask FDC to take > these recommendations seriously and implement them. If the first case is > true (implemented but doesn't catch), then I would think that we need to > think about this again. Can someone clarify which case is more the reality? > > One of the critics about the fund dissimination as a total that catchs my > eyes again is "how unbalanced the distribution is". As I said I know most > of the people who expressed their frustration here. I know that they are > all reasonable people. So, if let's say the total funding is declining, I > believe that the outcry would not be so loud as that we currently have the > situation that the total sum of the funding is increasing and the partner > organizations feel that they are being cut off from that increase. The > total amount that the FDC can distribute is not determined by FDC. So, > since as I said most of the people are reasonbale and rational, I would > like to call the Foundation to take this point really really seriously. It > remains one of the biggest problem between the Foundation and the partner > organizations. > > Greetings. > Ting > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
