Grants:IEG/Committee/Workroom

Individual Engagement Grants

committee workroom

This committee aims to do as much of its work in public as possible. The Workroom is our organizing hub.

« Welcome, committee members! New committee candidates are welcome to apply through March 25. »
« Please share early feedback on new drafts and ideas during open call. » +

round 2 2015 schedule

Proposals accepted: 31 August–29 September

Committee members finalized: 30 September

Community comment requested: 30 September–19 October

Committee review: 20 October – 2 November

Grantees announced: 4 December

2015

Grants disbursed: December 2015 – January 2016

Midpoint reports: April

Final reports: July

2016 +

round 1 2016 schedule

IdeaLab Campaign: 28 February-29 March

Proposals accepted: 14 March through 12 April

Open feedback period^[1]: 12 April through 2 May

Committee review: 3 May –16 May

Grantees announced: 17 June

Grants disbursed: June

Midpoint reports: September

Final reports: December

2016 +

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getting started

Template:IEG/Committee/Links/Start

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roles and responsibilities

The committee and WMF staff work in partnership to ensure that the best proposals are selected for Individual Engagement Grants. These are our commitments to each other.

committee responsibilities

Primary roles:

Provide feedback on the talk page of grant proposals in all 3 stages: ideas, drafts, and final submissions.
Evaluate finalized proposals: Review finalized proposals and community input, and score proposals according to rubric determined by selection criteria.
Recommend proposals for funding: Recommend a shortlist of proposals for funding based on the available budget and projects.
Organize into working groups to accomplish all of the above.

Secondary roles:

Help recruit new proposals and ideas, and spread the word about IEG and committee openings during open call periods.
Make recommendations to WMF about grantmaking practices and help improve the IEG program and committee process.
Become a project advisor. If you’ve become familiar with a project and we’ve funded it, following its progress to completion is a great way to stay involved between open call periods. Read reports, highlight results, check-in with grantees from time-to-time about what they’re producing, help troubleshoot or connect them to others if needed, etc.

specialized committee roles

Review Coordinator:

Close committee discussions in proposal review.
Transfer committee feedback and other key findings generated in the proposal review process from private channels (e.g. aggregated scores on iegcom-wiki) to Meta.
Communicate committee feedback to proposers in collaboration with staff, when a point person is needed.

Member: Sign up! Your name here

Keeper of the Clock:

Keep track of upcoming deadlines in the review process and IEG schedule.
Email the committee with helpful notices and calls to action.

Member: Steven Zhang (talk) 22:04, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Communications:

Spread open calls by reaching out to the broader community through Village pump posts, wikimedia-l and announcements mailing lists, Signpost, etc.
Announce new committee members, IEGrantees, etc via similar channels.

Member: Steven Zhang (talk) 04:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Documenter:

Maintain record of ongoing and new committee practices and policies on Meta.

Member: User:Ocaasi 20:37, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Crat:

Control permissions on the private wiki and mailing list.
Close committee discussions on committee candidates.

Member:

Member Coordinator:

Coordinate open calls for new members in each round.
Oversee the vetting and approval process of new members.
Coordinate welcoming and orientation of new committee members.

Member: Sign up! Your name here

staff responsibilities

Encourage Wikimedians to write up new ideas and proposals.
Define a budget and schedule for each round with community input.
Maintain program pages and information for proposers and grantees.
Provide feedback on the talk page of grant proposals in all 3 stages.
Determine and communicate eligibility of proposals.
Nudge proposals to move from draft to proposed status.
Maintain proposal pages with formatting and categorization to ensure committee has easy access to proposals with all info needed for completing review.
Prepare scoring rubric and other materials to assist with committee review.
Facilitate committee review process, aggregating scores and other info for discussion, bringing in expert opinions and information as needed.
Help communicate committee recommendations outward.
Complete due diligence on recommended grantees.
Approve and disburse grant funds.
Support grantees from onboarding through final reporting stages.
Support specialized committee roles in facilitating the grantmaking process

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proposal review

Reviewing and recommending proposals is the primary mandate of the committee. Here is information about how the process works, tools and instructions we use to accomplish this work, and so forth.

review process

What	Who	Where	When
Feedback on ideas and drafts	Committee, Staff	Idea/Proposal talk page	March 14-April 12, 2016 (IdeaLab Campaign launches February 24--committee engagement encouraged)
Working groups formed	Committee	Workroom	20 April
Eligibility status confirmation	Staff	Proposal page + talk page	13 Apr-18 Apr
Comments period	Community, Committee	Proposal page + talk page	13 Apr until 2 May
Scoring	Committee (working groups)	IEG review tool + IEG wiki	3 May until 16 May
Aggregate scores and publish feedback	Committee (working groups)	IEG review tool + IEG wiki + proposal talk pages	by 23 May
Due diligence	Staff	Email + Skype interviews with shortlist grantees	17 May until 3 Jun
Finalize recommendations and approvals	Committee, Staff	IEG wiki, Skype call, mailing list	4 Jun until 15 June
Grantees announced	Staff, Committee	Talk pages + blog post + IEG page announcements + mailing list	17 Jun

edit

instructions: initial proposal feedback

Check for new ideas and drafts submitted to the IdeaLab, and for complete proposals on the IEG mainpage.
Give feedback and ask clarifying questions to help improve proposals and projects for which funding is sought. It would be rare for a submission to be absolutely perfect from the start. Some may need tweaking to become really good actionable project plans, and we can help nudge them in the right direction. Point proposers to the Proposal guidelines and other documentation when needed.
Encourage good ideas to move to status=PROPOSED before the deadline for each round.
Ensure that sufficient information is provided and that goals and estimates are realistic and well-defined. If scope or budgets need to be adjusted up or down, the appropriate time to request this is before a project is recommended for a grant.
Check on the community discussion around each proposal. Make sure community notification happened. If not, suggest or help grantees to do so.

instructions: formal review

Visit Workroom Review for detailed instructions, a complete scoring rubric and other information needed to complete the formal review.

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guidelines

communications

The committee communicates using a variety of channels, including:
- Proposal talk pages
- This meta Workroom and the Workroom talk page, for discussion and organizing
- an internal wiki, for scoring and deliberation purposes only
- iegcomlists.wikimedia.org (currently private)
- Skype or Google Hangout may also be considered if voice becomes necessary for reaching consensus
Active committee members should not communicate with recused members, grant proposers, or anyone not on the Committee email list regarding scores or comments about specific proposals during the scoring and recommendation periods.
WMF Grantmaking staff may post a one-time release of aggregated scores and comments after the scoring phase has concluded.
Members are encouraged to communicate with grant proposers in the IdeaLab and proposal discussion pages, to make suggestions, to ask questions, and give feedback. Members are also encouraged to communicate with grant proposers after grants are announced to discuss how proposals that were not selected could be improved or to share revision suggestions if the proposal may be submitted in future rounds.

conflicts of interest

The committee handles conflicts of interest from active members who submit proposals as follows:

Members may continue to serve on the committee during a round in which they have submitted a proposal by continuing to participate in public discussions and other on-wiki activities.
Members who have submitted a proposal will recuse themselves from all working groups that formally review proposals in the same category during that round.
Members who have submitted a proposal may continue to serve in a working group reviewing a category of proposals for which their own proposal is not included.
Members who have submitted a proposal will recuse themselves from the final deliberation and recommendation of all proposals when their own proposal has moved from a working group to the all-committee shortlist.
Committee members and WMF grantmaking staff who take on a role of advisor to the point of becoming a champion for any given proposal should recuse themselves from the process of reviewing or giving final approval on the proposal.
Committee recusal includes abstaining from scoring and formally recommending proposals, and removal from the committee mailing list and any other private channels or documents in use throughout the formal review period.
Committee members should follow the WMF Conflict of Interest Guidelines, which is currently in a draft form at Guidelines on potential conflicts of interest. Any potential or perceived COIs must be first and foremost disclosed proactively to the Supervisor of the allocation of funds. The Committee must be informed of any recusals that take place, but not necessarily of the reasons involving them.