[Imc-finance] Criteria for disbursing funds

[Sheri Herndon]

hi everyone,

i've been away from email for nearly a week and immersed in 
conference organizing so am just catching up now.  and want to thank 
everyone for the energy people have put into moving this process 
forward and figuring out our process.  and a big thanks to sascha who 
really made alot of that happen.  alot of unresolved questions remain 
that we can figure out to improve the process, as petros so 
accurately states.

i'd just like to share something a few of us wrote for a grant to 
establish funds for the "global south".  it might prove useful as we 
move forward ourselves in figuring out criteria and what our 
priorities should be and all that.  because we have to have these 
things figured out ideally before we start disbursing funds.

i was in complete support of sending money to imc south africa and so 
glad it happened.  but the clearer we get on our criteria and 
decision-making process and how to take in proposals, etc., the 
easier will be the decision making.

in this email i'm only addressing the criteria part.  petros asks 
many more great questions that will help us with clarifying but i 
only have time for this.

Goals:  The overarching goal for this proposal is to increase the 
voice of the people in the "Global South" in the ongoing discussions 
taking place at local, national and international levels, and to 
build more social network relationships between the IMCs in the North 
and the South.   The specific goals for this Fund are to: (1) empower 
grassroots media production and facilitation in parts of the world 
where available resources make media production extremely difficult; 
(2) disburse grants to areas not served by grant-giving foundations 
(although many organizations in the U.S. give grants, these types of 
organizations are much less common in countries in the Global South; 
therefore we will become an intermediary grant giver for IMCs in the 
South, using our resources in the North to get grants to create small 
yet important opportunities for media makers throughout the southern 
hemisphere); (3) survey the IMCs in the South for their needs and 
potential stumbling blocks; and (4) counteract the economic imbalance 
of  the relatively high cost of media making equipment and technology 
(wages in the South are low compared with the North but technology 
and media equipment costs are fairly stable between the hemispheres).

Additional goals of this Fund are to: (1) inspire greater awareness 
for how to use small amounts of money to its fullest potential; (2) 
encourage collectives in the South to develop their own mechanisms 
for raising and disbursing money; (3) increase international 
collaboration and awareness of the priorities of Indymedia as a 
whole; and, (4) increase understanding of the different needs and 
resources available in the Network, North and the South.

Grant Criteria:  The most significant criteria for grant disbursement 
are (1) the IMC must be in the "Global South"; (2) the IMC must meet 
the Network Principles of Unity and the Membership Criteria; (3) the 
IMC must be participating (through their liaisons) on global lists 
and facilitating media production at the local level; (4) the grant 
should facilitate media making that counteracts the worst failures 
and gaping holes in the corporate profit-based or state-sponsored 
media; (5) timeliness of the funds will be a consideration (rapid 
response element); (6) a limit of one grant per quarter for each IMC 
and/or project; and (7) we recognize that emergency situations will 
arise and such grants are given a high priority.  We define an 
"emergency" as a situation when communication is being prevented by a 
fixable short-term problem.  For example: tension escalates in Ache 
(Indonesia) and media makers have taken hundreds of photographs but 
don't have enough money to process their film.  The GSF could 
facilitate a constructive solution to this problem by sending them 
immediate funding to be used for film processing and scanning.  Thus, 
successful application of GSF disbursements can act as a catalyst for 
future growth of sustainable democratic independent media in the 
Global South.

love
sheri