Talk:Wikimedia 2030/2021 Call for Movement Strategy Implementation Grants

Making progress on questions of resource allocation

A key bottleneck to the strategy is building regional support hubs, reviewing and rebalancing regional funding and other resource allocation, and supporting smaller grants / gifts / direct payment from a movement account for communities that primarily need support for projects costing under $2k.

To that end, here are questions about how we implement the strategy for resource [re]allocation, each of which may benefit from an implementation grant. (Intended for anyone to answer, if you know something relevant to the question, but especially those who are actively designing some of the current approaches.)

1. Current state of movement funding

• 1a. Roughly what % of global fundraising is currently allocated to affiliates, or other entities + projects not run by the WMF?  (my poor guess)

• 1b. Roughly how much regional fundraising goes directly to major affiliates?

• 1c. Which affiliates with annual plan grants have been growing over time, and how is the expansion of existing budgets approved?  

• 1d. Which affiliates have gotten their first APG in the past five years, and how has that developed over time?

2. Current review process

• 2a. How is funding by WMF of movement affiliates (general operations, and large specific projects) currently determined?  Does the Board engage with this?

• 2b. Is the funding of affiliate work linked to goals of increasing equity across the world, and supporting underrepresented communities? If so, how / how is this visualized?

• 2c. What other mechanisms for focusing and allocating resources are good examples to replicate?

• 2d. What other bilateral projects (such as joint projects, and grant  or microgrant programs), run by large affiliates and hubs other than the WMF, currently exist?  Which seem like examples to replicate?

3. Desired futures!

• 3a: How should we make funding recommendations + decisions, through what bodies? What movement bodies are expected to play any role in recommendations about funding (extending, withdrawing, denying funding) to new and existing affiliates, now that the FDC is inactive?

• 3b. How should the major parts of the movement contribute to reviewing how things are going? What roles do we envision each of {WMF, hubs, affiliates, community members, other} to play in reviewing movement budgets/plans? How should we review the overall balance [volume + focus] of funding distribution across the movement?

• 3c. Is there a possibility of the FDC returning? What ideas do past FDC members have about this? What was found to be good and bad about the FDC process?

• 3d. What elements of this are the global council expected to take up in its first year? What elements are hubs expected to take up?

Thank you for posting these questions. We want to take this opportunity to use the answer as a wider conversation and we will share more links, updates, and reports as they are published here to further illustrate the processes we are talking about below.

Grants funding and Review process: as you have already pointed out, we have the Grantmaking reports of 2019/2020 and the Grants spending analysis which give a good in depth overview from 2014 onwards. There are affiliates that don’t apply for funding from Community Resources (CR) grants programs and affiliates who get revenue from different streams beyond CR grants. The Annual Plan Grant and Simple Annual Plan Grant programs were exclusively for Affiliates and you can see the amount of grant funds that have been dedicated to those programs over the years. The CR team is now focused on implementing the new Grants Strategy that will open up funding and support. The new Strategy is designed to enable more global participation, raise equity by supporting underrepresented communities, and align itself to the Strategic Direction. This should also enable us to provide more detailed data in the future. The new Grant Strategy will also answer in detail your questions around review processes. We just launched the call for people to join our new Regional Committees for Grants which will be instrumental in decision making across the Grant Strategy.

Thank you kindly for the broader answer. For clarity to anyone reading this, the questions were for the movement at large, not just the WMF grants team :) and some are specifically questions for others (like former FDC participants or members of the strategy groups focused on the relevant recommendations) to answer.

Do you know of any combined estimate of revenues to affiliates beyond CR grants? The data is public, just diffuse. –SJ talk  15:30, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

There currently is no way to aggregate this data and as you say, it is there and public but not combined. --JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:20, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

This page does give you an idea of what other grants are around in the community. Please note that this is by and for the community and might not be up to date.

Furthermore, once we have published the latest iteration of the annual report (including the financial reporting) and the new Annual Plan, we would be able to provide more detail and up to date information.

Next to the new Grant Strategy, there is also the Movement Strategy which will be able to answer your questions (especially with regards to governance and the above paragraph titled 3. Desired Futures). The work on implementation is starting now. One of the first steps with regards to the Global Council is in deciding together what tasks and responsibilities the Global Council will take. This will be done by drafting the Movement Charter and according to it, establishing the Global Council. As per Recommendation 4, equitable allocation of resources is one of the recommended tasks and we are working all together to find out best ways to do this.

Could someone point me to where discussion about implementing those points is happening? I have not seen anything since the recommendations were published last year, so perhaps I don't know where to look.

There have not been anymore discussions since the ones in December-January. So far the implementation discussions are focusing on Movement Charter, which is considered a top priority. For now, the place to watch or participate is Funding for Underrepresented Communities.--JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:20, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

We will post more links to reports, processes, and plans as they become available over the next few months.--JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 09:34, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Just adding here some of the reports and plans that have recently been published. The Annual Plan 2021-2022 is now available and we have also published the new Grants Strategy. JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 10:56, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Understanding the status + scope of smaller grant pools

Within each section, major projects that lasted more than one year, with public budgets and more than a handful of grants, are listed first.

In general, see Grants#To_Wikimedia_volunteers for grant pools large and small for individuals.

Microgrants supported / discussed by the WMF

• Support programs (PSP 2013)
• WikiCite (2019-20 grant program) Project & Event grants and e-scholarships (scholarships for at home virtual events/work)

Microgrants by chapters+, over the years

• WMCH (Meta)
• WMDE
• WMPL (Wikigranty)

...

• WMBR (2013)
• Amical (general)
• WMDC (general)
• WMFR
• WMIT (general)
• WMNYC (general)
• WMPH (2011)
• WMUK (history)
• WMRS (2018)

Microgrants + related support from other affiliates + allies

• WikiCred

  Launched at WikiCon North America 2019. Initial funding pool: $50k+ Grant size: up to $10k (actual range: $500-10k?)

  # of grants over time: (per yr) Still active as of 2021.

  Process: short application form; committee review; public report, demos at office hours;

...

• Bulgaria (2015)
• CIS?
• Latvia (2016)
• OSM (2020, HOSM 2020)
• Volunteer Supporters Network (Resources)

Discussions about small grants

• CEE (2015)
• L&E (2013)

The deadline for this call for grants has been extended until July 15, 2021

Hi, we have decided to extend the deadline for this call for grants until July 15. During the official period, we have received fewer applications than expected. However, in the past days we have received several questions and other indications of interest in applying. We hope the extension of one month encourages more groups to apply. If you have any questions or ideas that you want to share, reach out to us at strategy2030wikimedia.org. Sooner is better! Qgil-WMF (talk) 06:46, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

What is Your Feedback on The Movement Strategy Grants Process

Hello everyone, permit me to re-introduce myself. I am Yop Rwang Pam, the Movement Strategy Implementation Specialist at the Foundation, and I will be the primary point of contact on Movement Strategy Grant conversations. In the last few weeks I have reviewed all grant applications from the last call, and met with many who sent in grant proposals.

This was the first call

Now I am coordinating the reopening of MS implementation grants, and reaching out to all who submitted grants requests to get feedback on the last call, and for their suggested improvements. And here I am extending the question to everyone: what is your advice for our upcoming call for MS implementation grants? You can answer here or privately to me.

By the way, if you are interested in the status of the proposals presented in the first call, you can check here Best,YPam (WMF) (talk) 11:37, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Announcing a Movement Strategy grants peer support group

A Movement Strategy Peer Support Group has just been created. This will be the channel where people can discuss ideas around projects they are working on, that could potentially be funded through a Movement Strategy Grant. Please feel free to join the group if: a) you applied for a grant in the previous call, or b) you intend to apply for a grant in the next call. Here's the link to join the group. Feel free to reach out with any questions --Abbad (WMF) (talk) 12:34, 17 September 2021 (UTC).