Wikimedia CEE Hub/Funds Distribution Vision

WIKIMEDIA CEE HUB

Regional hub covering Central and Eastern Europe

This document was created in April 2024 as part of a possible change in the way that funds are distributed and budgets are planned across the Wikiverse. The suggestions should provide a start for a discussion around how every part of the Wikimedia Movement sees its own role and what it expects of other groups. This document is also not an implementation guideline, any implementation of these ideas would require extensive consultation and preparation in order to ensure that the ideas outlined here would actually work.

Short summary

The CEE Hub sees itself as a support structure for the affiliates in the CEE region and not as handing down or governing the CEE part of WMF budget decisions - for rapid grants this would not be such an issue and these could be integrated into the existing micro grants program. The general support fund process on the other hand would have to be rethought in a way where within the framework of WMF budget planning, the CEE Hub facilitates a more participatory process, based on a direct through-line from the needs and goals of the affiliates and the joint movement strategy and vision, with the CEE Hub supporting the affiliates in planning their budgets before negotiating a regional budget for the CEE region with the WMF.

The long version

Principles

The CEE Hub was built on the principle that information and requirements always flow from the communities to the hub. Right now our governance is built on a consensus-driven model, therefore any decisions the CEE Hub would make would have to be supported by the CEE communities and affiliates.

The CEE Hub is a support structure for the communities and affiliates in the region, and not a structure that enforces funding decisions made by the Wikimedia Foundation which is incompatible with making fund decisions that would place the CEE Hub in a position of power. This has implications for the role that the CEE Hub can play in a funds dissemination process, as will be outlined below.

Aims

The aim of this document is to outline a framework around the funds dissemination process of the Wikimedia Foundation, which the CEE Hub and the wider Wikimedia CEE community would probably consider participating in. Within the CEE region there is the strong belief that information needs to flow from the bottom up in order for bodies with a greater mandate (either financially or organisationally) to make well-informed and balanced decisions, and this document reflects this belief.

Scope / Role of the CEE Hub

This document covers the funds currently managed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Depending on the fund in question, different processes will be required to ensure accountability and transparency on all levels of these processes. For example, the rapid grant fund could be integrated into the current micro grants program of the CEE Hub.

The general support fund would require a rethinking of the way funds are handled within the Wikimedia movement, starting with a joint approach of all stakeholders (WMF, hubs, affiliates, communities) to a strategy and vision that informs the planning of budgets on all levels of the movement. In the case of the CEE region this would require a planning process that starts with the needs and goals of communities based on the joint strategy, informing the requirements for the next budget deliberations within the CEE region and consequently also the WMF budget planning.

What we perceive as a major shortcoming of the current general support fund process is, that its budget planning seems to be based more on extrapolating from the last budget and observations made from a centralised point of view, rather than taking into account all the available information about local groups' plans. If that were to change, the CEE Hub could support the information discovery process, and also use it as an opportunity to have CEE groups negotiate directly with each other about budget constraints, instead of that decision being left entirely to an external group, which as of April 2024 are committees where the members are selected by the WMF itself.

Required resources

For rapid grants, it would probably be necessary to hire at least a half-time employee to cover the incoming requests. The micro grants project will, depending on the interest of communities, already take a fair amount of time for one staff member to process.

Considering past experiences and to avoid underfunding/understaffing critical processes in the Wikimedia movement, larger-scale funds like the current general support fund would require at least hiring two new full-time staff. They would report to the CEE Hub coordinator and would be hired by one of the affiliates in the region, depending on their location/work situation (as is the case with the current CEE Hub employees).

Participation in budget planning

In order for regional hubs like the CEE Hub to administer (or support) a funds dissemination process in the region, it is starting to become apparent that hubs can’t receive funds from the same processes as other entities in the region, because it would effectively put the support structure in direct competition with the affiliates and communities it’s supposed to support. Instead, the size and scope of a hub should be determined by all stakeholders within the budget planning process to ensure that the responsibilities and tasks required of a hub are met.

Based on this assessment and how individual affiliates and communities in the region plan to implement the overall Wikimedia strategy and vision, the CEE Hub would prepare a regional budget plan together with the affiliates. This budget plan would then be part of the negotiations with the WMF. The results of these deliberations with the WMF would then in turn have to be signed off by a majority of affiliates/communities in the CEE region.

For this new funds dissemination process to work effectively, the CEE region would also need to be involved in the WMF budget planning process, when the overall grants budget is being discussed. This involvement would enable a direct line between the top decision-making and the affiliates/communities affected by those decisions, making it more apparent to those in the decision-making places how their decisions will be perceived and what effects they will have. This kind of process would also require a more transparent budget planning process at the WMF, in order to ensure that representatives, like those of the CEE region, are in turn accountable towards their communities.