Hey all, The Funds Dissemination Committee announced their recommendations that they will be submitting to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees today. For Wikimedia Australia, where we requested USD 291,115, it has been recommended that we receive no funds whatsoever. I find this very troubling - without funds, we cannot accomplish our goals. Here's what was said in their recommendation:
WMAU pioneered working with the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM), which subsequently became a global program. It had done good work to further promote GLAM by working with State Library of Queensland, and its initiative to improve the content on Paralympics is laudable. While the FDC does believe that WMAU has the ability to undertake positive programmatic activities, the compliance aspects of previous grants, and gaps in the present proposal with regard to alignment and metrics, are major concerns. Therefore, the FDC recommends that WMAU apply for bridge funding through the Wikimedia Grants Program, without beginning recruitment for a staff member. After this, WMAU may apply in Round 2 with a revised annual plan/proposal, which includes the staffing plan. We recommend that the Board makes an exception to the FDC framework in WMAU's case to accept a Round 2 proposal if it should chose to apply. Going forward, it is very likely that the Board will accept the recommendations of the FDC, and we may be operating on a much leaner budget for the first half of next year. I think that as a chapter, we should reflect on what went wrong, but also think of how we can move forward from here to ensure success in future. What's done is done. We should now focus on revising our annual plan, to make the money that we have right now stretch as far as possible, and start on our work for the Round 2 proposals as soon as possible. This is definitely a setback, but I think that if we all pull together, we can still make good things happen for the Wikimedia Movement in Australia. Regards, Steven Zhang
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