The Signpost

News and notes

Re-imagining grants

Community grant-making is a complex and inherently political process. The Wikimedia community is a large and divisive place—one in which organic and systematic growth vie with each other. A variety of funding schemes have been tried, to target a variety of needs emerging at a variety of times and garnering a variety of results. Each process has its own adherents, its own community, and its own review body, resulting in a large number of complicated but important details difficult to penetrate for all but the most experienced onlookers.

So it is significant news that this week the Foundation's fundraising team put forward an IdeaLab proposal aiming for a complete refresh of the system as it exists today (the IdeaLab is the WMF's central fundraising incubator for providing community review ahead of grant submissions). The proposal lists three weaknesses in the current system:


The proposal prescribes replacing the current fourfold system with a three multi-tiered platforms. First, there would be project grants for both individuals and smaller organizations; these would consist of seed funds for experimental purposes and growth funds to sustain growing projects. Second, there would be event grants, which would fall into three subcategories: travel support for event attendance, micro funds for small community events, and logistical support (the case study is ordering pizza and stickers for a local meetup), and large event support for large conferences—up to and including, it seems, the annual international Wikimania itself. Third, annual plan grants for affiliates would continue, but would now deal with two categories: a rigorous system for larger bids; and a simpler process for smaller bids (provisionally capped at US$100,000 and one FTE staff member employed under the grant).


WMF Grantmaking, in March 2014

How can the community participate in the dialogue? A significant reworking of fundraising is an immensely complicated process to engage in—so much so that the IdeaLab proposal comes with not only its own calender but an entire page on how to direct feedback. An FAQ has been provided, which attempts to answer common questions. The consultation is scheduled to last until 7 September, with the requisite changes discussed expected to start to come into effect from 31 October, when the APG process split would be piloted, through 2016. For further discussion see the talk page. For more information on how grants are managed and disbursed, start here.

For more Signpost coverage on grantmaking see our grantmaking series.


















Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-08-26/News_and_notes