2013 Annual Plan

July–December 2012

The total assets of Wikimedia Australia as of 30 Jun 2012 were $141,000, with $138,738 in the bank.

Wikimedia Australia is moving from an annual plan aligned with its fiscal year (July–June) to an annual year aligned with the calendar year (January–December).

As a result of this, and low expenditure from the previous fiscal budget (2011–12 budget), Wikimedia Australia will continue to operate from its previous fiscal budget for the period July 2012 and December 2012 with a planned spend of $41,000 in this period, which will bring the organisations bank balance to $100,000. This amount will be carried forward to be used in the 2013 Annual Plan.

The income planned for this period consists of new memberships and renewals, interest earned on money in the bank, and donations.

The expenses planned for this period consist of

  1. outstanding payments related to project activity before 1 July 2012, such as the SLQ project and an anticipated $11,000 from the APC for HOPAU program activity), and
  2. compliance fees for the audit of financials for financial years 2010–11 and 2011–12, and
  3. funding of already approved proposals

January–July 2013

As a consequence of not receiving funding in FDC round 1, Wikimedia Australia needs to adopt a plan that assumes we only have our cash reserve of $100,000 for at least the first half of 2013. Additional funding should be sought via the Wikimedia Grants program for optional items which need to be funded in the first half of 2013.

Description Amount
Research 12,500
Conferences 10,000
Administration 10,000
GLAM 37,500
Other programs 5,000
Cash reserve 25,000
Total 100,000

To ensure the UQ-WMAU-APC linkage application proceeds irrespective of the status of other funding applications, the $25,000 allocated to the UQ-WMAU-APC linkage grant needs to be reserved to be available mid-year 2013. Should the linkage application be denied by the ARC, the allocated funds can be returned into the general pool. ($25,000 reserved)

The University of Sydney linkage application will not be submitted. Instead a symposium is being planned for early 2013, to be hosted at the University of Sydney. Wikimedia Australia would need to provide travel assistance for Australian Wikimedians and academics who can not secure funding from their university. ($12,500)

The preparation for staff must proceed immediately so the organisation is ready to advertise as soon as possible. Wikimedia Australia will need to pay the first instalment in the first half of 2013. ($10,000)

The ALIA conferences are to be held in the first half of 2013. ($10,000)

A round of GLAM projects can begin in the first half of 2013 with one $25,000 project and one $12,500 project. ($37,500)

The remaining $5,000 is to be used for other projects.

Wikimedia Foundation Grant applications

The Wikimedia Chapters conference, scheduled for the first half of 2013, is optional. This should be requested as a separate grant once the details have been announced.

Providing Wikimania scholarships from Wikimedia Australia is optional, as the global scholarships program exists. This amount should be requested as a separate grant soon after the AGM.

Should the first round of GLAM projects result in more than one good project proposal, Wikimedia Australia can submit separate grant requests for the additional projects.

Overview

The Wikimedia Australia annual plan for 2013 is designed to draw heavily on partnerships to maximise the donor dollar.

Description Wikimedia
funding
Partner
funding
Total Percentage
GLAM 100,000 90,000 190,000 31.9
Research 50,000 90,000 140,000 21.8
Conferences 40,000 25,000 65,000 10.9
Administration 120,000 120,000 20.1
Other programs 80,000 80,000 13.4
Total 390,000 205,000 595,000

With $100,000 in the bank, and $205,000 coming from partners, Wikimedia Australia will request approximately $290,000 from the Wikimedia meta:Funds Dissemination Committee round 2.

GLAM

Wikimedia Australia ran one large GLAM project during 2012 in partnership with the State Library of Queensland. See w:WP:GLAM/SLQ for details. While we plan to have administrative support in 2013, we are cautious not to exceed our capacity. Our limited number of regular volunteers are geographically spread over very large distances and travel costs in Australia are prohibitive compared to other countries. Wikimedia Australia's objective for GLAM is to build volunteer capacity in the major capital cities around Australia, support GLAM events outside the capital cities, and provide travel assistance for people outside the capital cities to participate in GLAM events in capital cities.

Wikimedia Australia will offer a range of grants in 2013 to institutions in the GLAM sector.

All large grants will require the partner contribution to be equal to the Wikimedia Australia contribution. The partner contribution may include in kind contributions; however this will need to be included in the grant application.

Two small grants of $5,000 will be made available to small GLAM institutions only. These grants will not require any co-contribution to be explicitly included as part of the budget of the grant application; however the grant application will be strengthened by any in-kind support mentioned in the application.

Wikimedia
grant
amount
Number Total
Wikimedia
funding
Total
partner
funding
25,000 2 50,000 50,000
12,500 2 25,000 25,000
7,500 2 15,000 15,000
5,000 2 10,000
Total 100,000 90,000

The Wikimedia Australia community will be asked to comment on the proposals, and the committee will approve projects based on this feedback.

Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Consolidate: Identify and improve key Australian content, Grow: Develop regional Australian outreach and Grow: Digitise key Australian culture works items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn align with the "Improve quality" and "Improve participation" items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Research

Wikimedia Australia is preparing to be a partner in one grant under the Australian Research Council National Competitive Grants Program Linkage Projects scheme. Under this scheme, the Australian government provides up to four times the funding that the partners put into the projects. The linkage projects are to be administrated by an Australian "sandstone university".

Note: The following numbers are indicative only.

Description Partner(s) Years Amount 2013
WMAU ARC Other Total WMAU ARC Other Total
Sports history UQ & APC 3 100,000 220,000 30,000 350,000 25,000 75,000 10,000 110,000
Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Grow: Outreach to universities item in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn aligns with the "Improve quality" item in the WMF's strategic plan.

UQ–WMAU–APC Linkage grant

Building on our existing partnership with UQ and APC in the HOPAU project, we will be a partner on an ARC linkage grant with UQ as administrating institution and APC as co-partner. The project will be over three years commencing in or after the result in announced in June 2013. Wikimedia Australia expects to contribute $25,000 in the 2013 calendar year.

The application is available under Proposal:UQ sports history linkage.

USyd symposium

The linkage application with University of Sydney will not be submitted in December 2012. USyd would like to host a symposium on education using Wikipedia in Australia. There are a number of courses in Australia using Wikipedia, including a few that are not publicly disclosed. This symposium will bring these academics together, along with Australian Wikipedia editors, to discuss best practise for using Wikipedia as a platform.

The WMAU contribution remains unchanged at $12,500, restricted to travel expenses by Australian Wikimedians. USyd would provide the venue and event management, estimated to be an in-kind contribution of over $12,500.

Research database

$12,500 is allocated to providing support for the establishment of a research database hosted in Australia that is available to all Australian academics. Once the research database has been established, the remainder of this $12,500 may be used to fund small adhoc research projects that are overseen by an Australian researcher competent in a relevant field.

Conferences

Conferences are an important part of supporting our community and outreach to people outside our existing community.

Conference Wikimedia
funding
Partner
funding
ALIA NLS & IO 10,000 20,000
RCC Perth 10,000 5,000
Wikimania 2013 20,000
Total 40,000 25,000
Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Consolidate: Discover and keep new Australian users and Consolidate: Organise and support "real life" events items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn aligns with the "Increase participation" and "Encourage innovation" items in the WMF's strategic plan.

ALIA

Wikimedia Australia will have a stall at the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) New Librarians Symposium (NLS) and ALIA Information Online (IO) conferences to be held in Brisbane during February 2013. Wikimedia Australia will support local Queenslanders attending this event, and also a small contingent of Australian Wikimedians from outside Queensland to help man the stall and network with librarians at these two conferences.

Wikimedia Australia allocates $10,000 for travel assistance to Wikipedians to man the stall at the ALIA conferences.

RCC Perth

Due to the Wikimedia Australia support of the ALIA conferences in Brisbane, Wikimedia Australia will not provide funding for a RecentChangesCamp (RCC) in Canberra or elsewhere on the eastern coast of Australia. Wikimedia Australia will reserve $10,000 to be available for travel funding for an RCC pilot in Perth. This exceeds our support for v:RCC2011 in Canberra, which consisted of sponsorship for international facilitator Mark Dilley and $5,000 in travel grants. The funding for this event will only be made available if the organisers have secured a venue, preferably at a university, that will allow the RCC to be run in its open space unconference format.

Wikimania

The Wikimania 2013 conference will be held in Hong Kong during August. Due to the close proximity of Hong Kong to Australia, and the strong ties between Australia and Asian nations, Wikimedia Australia will send more Australians to this Wikimania than would typically be sent to the conference.

To support the local community, Wikimedia Australia allocates $20,000 for Wikimania 2013, which will provide funding to assist at least 13 people attending Wikimania.

Wikimedia Australia allocates up to $14,000 for full scholarships, which will fund seven (7) attendees between $1500 and $2000 each, where the higher amount will only be made available for applicants who do not live in one of the Australia's capital cities on the main national airline routes (i.e. Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne).

Wikimedia Australia will provide between six to nine half scholarships of $1000 each.

Scholarship Amount Number Wikimedia
funding
Full 2000 7 14,000
Half 1000 6–9 6,000
Total 13–16 20,000

The total allocated for Wikimedia 2013 scholarships is $20,000.

Chapters conference

Each year the chapters of Wikimedia hold a conference in Europe. In 2013, Wikimedia Australia allocates $5000 for two Australian attendees.

In previous years Wikimedia Australia has funded two attendees from other chapters. With the introduction of the FDC funding model, Wikimedia Australia will not be funding attendees from other chapters.

Other programs

Wikimedia Australia has a proposals process for the development of new programs.

Our existing programs include :

Wikimedia Australia also provides funding for Meetups as requested by our community. The Melbourne meetups are now a regular monthly event.

In addition to the above programs, the Wikimedia Australia community has expressed a strong interested in participating in Wiki Loves Monuments 2013.

For the above-mentioned programs, Wikimedia Australia allocates $35,000 in 2013.

Many programs will be developed by our community in the future. Wikimedia Australia recognises that volunteer initiatives are developed in an ad hoc manner, and often need to be approved at short notice otherwise the volunteer resources may become unavailable or the strategic benefit may no longer exist.

Wikimedia Australia allocates $15,000 for any other high strategic importance programs which have not yet been developed and are to be implemented in the first half of 2013.

Due to the unpredictable nature of program development by volunteers, Wikimedia Australia is planning for a future $30,000 to be needed for high strategic importance programs which have not yet been developed and are to be implemented in the second half of 2013.

Programs that the committee do not consider to be high strategic importance will be pushed into 2014.

Some of the programs currently being developed include:

The total amount allocated to "other programs" is $80,000

Volunteer Support Programme

In October 2012, the chapter's existing small grants programme will be wound up and replaced with the "Volunteer Support Programme". This is essentially just a name change, to emphasise the nature of the programme as providing for reimbursements of up to $200 for expenses incurred by volunteers while working on Wikimedia projects. In the period between 1 July 2011 and 30 September 2012, 13 small grants totalling $1317.12 were paid to members of the Australian community (a 14th was approved but the recipient decided not to claim). Some examples of expenses approved in the past include public transport fares, tickets to events, and the purchase of scholarly reference materials. The chapter will continue to run Volunteer Support Programme for the foreseeable future, and will investigate ways to raise its profile so that more editors are aware of it and can take advantage.

Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Core: Support volunteer initiatives, item in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn aligns with the "Encourage innovation: promote the adoption of great ideas." and "Increase participation: expand Wikimedia’s global footprint through catalytic investments and chapter support." items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Camera Equipment Program

This program allows high-volume and high-quality contributors of photographs and digital imagery to receive reimbursement for some or all of the costs involved in upgrading photographic equipment. Applicants are required to have a solid record of contributions to Wikimedia Commons before this assistance is granted. Wikimedia Australia will continue to run this program for the foreseeable future.

Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Core: Support volunteer initiatives and Consolidate: Identify and improve key Australian content items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn align with the "Encourage innovation: promote the adoption of great ideas.", "Improve quality: provide excellent service to our audience through clear quality labeling and the development of highly effective response systems." and "Increase participation: expand Wikimedia’s global footprint through catalytic investments and chapter support." items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Regional WikiAcademy program

In 2012, Wikimedia Australia in conjunction with the State Library of Queensland ran a series of editing workshops across regional Queensland. These workshops were held in Quilpie, Tambo, Townsville, Ingham, Charters Towers, Hughenden, Hervey Bay, Gympie and Esk, and the results are documented on Wikipedia. These sessions involved getting two Wikimedia volunteers, and two SLQ staff out to each location and delivering a day long workshop covering the Wikimedia philosophy and free licencing, article creation and editing, and uploading images to Commons.

Given the success of the program in 2012, Wikimedia Australia hopes to engage in a second round of workshops in 2013. Discussions are ongoing with the State Library of Queensland and State Library of New South Wales with a view to partnering with them in the new year. We hope to run at least fifteen workshops in regional areas in the 2013 calendar year, with at least ten attendees per workshop and seventy percent of attendees managing to successfully create an article in the article space of any language Wikipedia edition (most likely English).

The bulk of costs involved in these programs revolve around getting volunteers into the regional areas to deliver the training (both transport and lodging costs), and catering for attendees. Facilities and equipment hire is typically covered as an in-kind donation by the hosting organisation. Our experience in 2012 has shown that a budget of $1000 per workshop can cover all expenses for all but the most remote and inaccessible of locations.

Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Consolidate: Identify and improve key Australian content, Grow: Develop regional Australian outreach and Grow: Maintain GLAM momentum items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn align with the "Improve quality: provide support to the Wikimedia movement in the development of institutional partnerships and alliances.", "Increase Participation: Encourage the health and growth of Wikimedia communities and the projects they sustain." and "Improve quality: provide excellent service to our audience through clear quality labeling and the development of highly effective response systems." items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Wiki Loves Monuments

The Wiki Loves Monuments program is an annual event that takes place in September where the public is invited to contribute photographs and images of historical monuments and objects. Australia has not participated in this event to date, but the Australian Wikimedia community has expressed a strong interest in participating in this event in 2013. Accordingly, Wikimedia Australia will provide funding and support to the community to prepare and participate in this event. Consultations will begin with the Australian community and WLM event organisers after the AGM in November to determine the best way to proceed.

The expected payoffs from this program are not just the photographs and images themselves, but the outreach potential that they represent in helping members of the community who have never edited a Wikimedia project before to make their first contribution. Wikimedia Australia targets include the upload of at least 500 new images, from at least 100 users, at least 70% of whom have made few or no contributions in the past.

Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Consolidate: Identify and improve key Australian content and Grow: Develop regional Australian outreach items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn align with the "Increase Participation: Encourage the health and growth of Wikimedia communities and the projects they sustain." and "Improve quality: provide excellent service to our audience through clear quality labeling and the development of highly effective response systems." items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Administration

Staff

To achieve the wmau:Strategic Plan, Wikimedia Australia needs to obtain a Communications and Project Manager. The description for this position has been approved by the Wikimedia Australia committee; however the policies and procedures required have not been put in place.

In 2013 Wikimedia Australia allocates $90,000 for a 12-month managerial position, and allocates $20,000 to preparing the organisation for employing staff.

The managerial position will be advertised and selected using a method to be approved by the members. See Position Description (PDF).

To prepare the organisation for employing staff, Wikimedia Australia will contract an existing Australian Wikimedia contributor to guide the organisation through the process of developing policies and procedures, and manage the process of advertising and selecting its first staff member. The committee estimates that this will be a three-month process. The payment will be made in two instalments of $10000 by resolution of the committee upon acceptance on work done. The two milestones are

  1. development of a report outlining the tasks required to be undertaken, and recommending policy for advertising and selection of employees. This report is to be distributed to members, and payment is made upon acceptance of the policies and procedures.
  2. managing the advertising and selection process for the managerial role, and completion of all paperwork. Payment to be made on engagement of the first employee.
Alignment to strategy: This goal aligns with the Core: Improve and professionalise communications with stakeholders and Core: Professionalise WMAu operations and fundraising items in the chapter's strategic plan, which in turn align with the "Stabilise infrastructure: Build internal capacity to better support the movement and achieve its strategic goals." and "Stabilise infrastructure: Expand public awareness and support for the Wikimedia movement." items in the WMF's strategic plan.

Expenses

Wikimedia Australia expects $10,000 in administrative expenses in 2013. This includes:

  • $5000 for full financial audit (required by state and territory authorities, cost based on actual cost of audit for 2010/11 year)
  • $600 for continued subscription to Xero for financial accounting software (fixed price of $49.95/month over 12 months)
  • $4200 for other administrative overhead (bank fees, regulatory fees, etc)
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