Grants:Regions/South Asia

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South Asia

This region includes the following countries: Afghanistan; Bangladesh; Bhutan; India; Maldives; Nepal; Pakistan; Sri Lanka.

Program Officer

Jacqueline Chen

Senior Program Officer for the South Asia Region

sa_fundwikimedia.org

Location: Singapore

Timezone: GMT +8

Language(s) spoken: English, Chinese

JChen (WMF)

Regional calendar

Please reach out to your Program Officer if you are interested in applying before making any application or if you need flexibility on dates.

General Support Fund - Round 2 (2023-24)

February 15, 2024 - March 14, 2024

Applicant support and eligibility check

March 14, 2024

Submission deadline

March 15 - April 22, 2024

Review and translation

April 22 - May 6, 2024

Review feedback and applicant engagement

May 23, 2024

Decision announced

June 6, 2024 - June 30, 2024

Agreement and first payment

January 15, 2025

Midpoint conversation

August 15, 2025

Final or first year report due

General Support Fund - Round 1 (2023-24)

General Support (Wikimedia Community Fund)

• Applicant proposal support starts: August 11, 2023
• Submission deadline: September 8, 2023
• Eligibility check: August 11 - September 8, 2023
• Application translation: September 11 - September 15, 2023
• Review process starts: September 18, 2023
• Feedback received: October 6, 2023
• Engaging with feedback: October 6 - October 27, 2023
• Decisions announced: November 10, 2023
• Agreement signed: December 1, 2023
• First payment sent: December 1 - December 19, 2023
• Midterm conversation due: July 15, 2024
• Final report due: January 31, 2025
• Yearly report due for multi-year funds: January 31, 2025

Contact us

Rapid Fund

If you want to apply or if have any questions about the Rapid Fund, please reach out to the Regional Program Officer at: sa_rapidwikimedia.org

General Support Fund

If you have any questions about the General Support Fund, please reach out to the Regional Program Officer at: sa_fundwikimedia.org

Regional Committee

• आर्या जोशी, August 2021 - Contributor to Marathi Wikimedia projects and works with many not for profit organizations in Maharashtra. A passionate researcher and enthusiastic learner always.
• Balajijagadesh, August 2021 - Open source enthusiast, active in community engagement activities in Tamil Wiki projects. Contributes to Wikisource and Wikidata.
• Mahir256, August 2021 - Active Wikidata and Bangla Wikisource contributor, part of the Indic TechCom initiative.
• Medhavigandhi, August 2021 - Lead Co-organizer at Art+Feminism, active in GLAM space, open GLAM work; leads The Heritage Lab project.
• Nawaraj Ghimire, August 2021 - Wikimedian contributing to the Wikipedia in Classroom project and outreach activities in Nepal.
• Tarunno, October 2021 - Wikimedian active in Bangla Wikimedia projects. Open source enthusiast.

Inactive and Past Committee Members

Questions from Office hour 27 July 2021

• User:Manavpreet Kaur

• For Organizations asking for Staff support, will their salaries/remuneration be considered as income?

Criteria of eligibility, are non-affiliate groups eligible? As discussed, their eligibility consideration is dependent on what the committee feels about them. How aware is the committee of all such groups’?

• Considering some mentorship programs are being discussed within affiliates, there might be a chapter supporting a user group to organize, plan and run some activities. So who would apply for this grant? The trainer or the trainee?
• In continuation of the last question, say both apply for grant for specific activities, but one regional committee approves but other refuses. How will the CRS team evaluate such cases?
• About Alliance funding, will it only be available to nonprofits or for profit organizations as well?

Regarding specific funds allocation for a region, if we are actually going to promote this funding for underrepresented communities, considering there are other major grantees in the region, cushion might not be sufficient.

• So what if there is an Allied organization asking for funds for the first time and come up with a great plan for engagement in India and ask for an equal or more amount than the existing grantees, would you consider funding the new organization?
• Are there any plans on training the regional committees? Or How will you ensure that everybody who's on the regional committee, irrespective of the region, is trained on similar standards?
• All communities stand at different levels regarding the sensitivity towards various aspects of engagement, grants, etc. Are there any plans for sensitization activities?
• Drafting Grants’ policies- Will the process be inclusive to the community for review?
• If an affiliate is being supported by other grantees in the region, will this association act as a barrier for the grant the affiliate wishes to apply directly for expansion of the group's activities?
• About Grant structure, would there be a Global criteria or would there be a regional criteria for evaluation & funding?
• When we're talking about increasing the funding opportunities for the under-represented communities, Do you have any kind of plans on capacity building? *Like designing a pilot for new Affiliates, identifying some, extending training on handling finances and later they apply for a grant. This will enable them to efficiently apply for & manage future grants. This will be an actual capacity building and increasing the funding to the underrepresented communities. Otherwise like, or is it just an opportunity without any capacity building support.

• User:Bodhisattwa

• How will Rapid Funds support long term but short budget projects as it is written that it is only meant for short term projects?
• Will individuals or smaller affiliates have to compete with big players w.r.t. General Support Fund,?
• How will you ensure legally to make the grant applicants submit the reports and financial receipts?
• How will you prevent people from disappearing with the money or submit vague/false reports?
• How will the transparency of the grant projects be ensured?
• What is the transaction limit by which an individual will not face FCRA wrath from the Government and how will it be ensured to remove the FCRA barrier for smaller affiliates?
• If an individual/affiliate wants to hire a paid person to execute some project, how will the money be transferred to that person?
• What will be the exact legal way to save tax when money comes to someone’s account for a project?