Submissions/Professionalising South Africa: seeking external funding and finding the right person

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 2520

Title of the submission: Setting up South Africa

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): presentation

Author of the submission: Douglas Scott

E-mail address: douglas.i.scottgmail.com

Username: Discott

Country of origin: South Africa

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Wikimedia ZA, The Safety Lab

Personal homepage or blog

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

So your local Wikimedia chapter has been setup. People have come together with a common cause and common focus and have formed a local Wikimedia chapter. Or perhaps you are setting up different type of non-for-profit. You know what you are going to do but need resources to make it a reality. Now what?

How are you going to pay for it? What are your options for getting access to funding to make it happen? What are some of the potential trade-offs of using different sources of funding such as public funds, corporate sources, and donors? What are the costs and benefits of diversifying funding sources? If you do get funding; how to go about finding and hiring the best person? What are some of things you can do to make it easier to raise funds as a non-for-profit organisation and how to keep your donors happy?

These are some of the questions we will try to answer based on our (Wikimedia ZA’s) experiences in South Africa. In 2013 Wikimeida ZA became one of the first Wikimedia chapters to be granted a significant amount of funding from a source other than the Wikimedia Foundation. We will expand on our organisation’s experiences and journey to secure this funding, how we have used it, and research we have done on the trade-offs of accessing alternative sources of funding.

Although each country has their own legal requirements many of the challenges and trade-offs are the same. Whether you are involved in a Wikimedia chapter or want to start up an unrelated non-for-profit organisation that wants to attract funding this is for you.

Track: Legal & Free Culture

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: yes

Slides or further information (optional): Slides - incomplete draft slides can be viewed here.

Special requests: none

Interested attendees

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Johnbod (talk) 23:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This presentation is important because of the region of focus, the accomplishment of a viable Wikimania bid as a means to build community, and because it tracks a successful grant request from a foundation other than the WMF. Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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