FDC staff raise the benchmarks for activities, impact, planning, and governance
The supporting staff of the Wikimedia Foundation’s powerful volunteer Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) have released their assessments for the third half-yearly round of funding applications. Staff assessments are a key preparatory stage before the Committee itself sits in San Francisco, which for this round will be from 17 to 22 November. The applications for the newly named annual plan grants were submitted by affiliated entities on 1 October, and comprise a total of more than US$5 million in bids—most of them by returning applicants that had gained one-year funding from the very first FDC round in October 2012.
Two nation-based chapters have joined the bidding for the first time—India and Serbia—as has Amical Wikimedia, the newly affiliated thematic organisation, which focuses on the Catalan language and culture in coastal regions of the western Mediterranean. The Hungarian and Australian chapters did not re-apply, and the French chapter successfully moved into the March round for each year after funding was declined in the initial October round. The Wikimedia Foundation did not make an application in this round.
As the grantmaking process evolves, it is clear that the Foundation's assessment of applicants is becoming more sophisticated. The assessments now include a detailed statement of methodology, a financial summary table, and an overview of each application's strengths, feasibility, risks, and concerns. Summaries of expert opinions and community commentary are presented for each application, although only Wikimedia Germany's application garnered one of the former—by Erik Möller, the WMF's Vice President of Engineering and Product Development. This time, the staff's nearly-final draft assessments were shared with all applicants a day ahead of their release, to provide lead-time for initial responses, which were then taken into consideration for any required factual changes and clarifications.