Wikipedia is powered by the dedication and generosity of volunteers.  They share their knowledge, language skills, photography, artwork, even their own voices and music, with the rest of the world, for free.  This all happens online.  But Wikipedians can often make additional progress toward our vision of free knowledge freely available for everyone in the world, by participating in physical meetings, events, or conferences.  Such participation often entails travel costs, and sometimes accommodation, visa, and other costs too.  These costs are often prohibitively expensive for a volunteer’s personal budget, who is already donating valuable time and effort.

Therefore, in the interest of enabling this potential impact by members of our editing communities around the world, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland are announcing the new Wikimedia Participation Grants program (see also the German chapter’s blog post).  Participation Grants are funds made available to Wikimedia community members to cover travel, accommodation, registration, and other costs associated with participating in an event or activity, in furtherance of the Wikimedia Mission.

Other Wikimedia chapters with individual revenue sources (i.e. those not themselves funded by grants from the Wikimedia Foundation) are welcome to commit some funds to the Participation Grants pool.  We already consider this participation to be “made possible by the Wikimedia movement” rather than by any of the participating bodies, and this will become more obvious as other chapters chip in.

To receive a Participation Grant, community members are encouraged to apply, following the instructions, citing the event they wish to participate in, a little background about themselves, and the expected impact for our movement’s mission. We deliberately do not inquire into the applicant’s financial situation.  By accepting a participation grant, the applicant commits to writing up a public report about the participation the grant enabled.

A committee composed of representatives of the funding organizations meets weekly to discuss open requests.  The goal is to resolve all open requests each week, so often decisions would be made within days of making the request.  However, some requests require additional information, or consultation with other organizations (e.g. the event organizers, or a local Wikimedia chapter), which may increase the turnaround time of the committee.

In the past month, we have been discussing, reviewing, and setting up the program, and have already awarded some participation grants.  Like the general Wikimedia Grants program, all participation grants are requested and resolved in public, and may be perused, along with reports about past grants (as those come in), at the requests page.

We look forward to seeing all the inspiring work this program can now make possible!

Asaf Bartov, Head of Global South Relationships

In my presentation on the new Wikimedia Grants program, at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin last March, I mentioned the intention to create a Grant Advisory Committee (its friends can call it the GAC) to help the movement generate effective program plans and bring community experience and perspectives to bear on the evaluation and assessment of funding requests.

Today we announce the formation of this Grant Advisory Committee, and thank all the Wikimedians who volunteered their time and good will to help the movement in yet another way.

The committee’s goals are twofold:

1. Encourage and mentor chapters and other groups to:

• Learn about and understand the Wikimedia Grants program
• Draw up compelling project plans with an emphasis on strategy alignment and measures of success
• Request funding, i.e. submit a grant request on Meta

2. Help the Foundation evaluate requested grants, not by a yes/no vote, but by deliberation and evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of individual proposals in public, i.e. on the Talk pages of the proposals. The aggregate experience and know-how represented by the committee should be able to provide excellent feedback and assessment of proposed projects and plans, and thereby help the Foundation decide how the movement’s resources may best be allocated.

I think an important aspect of the Wikimedia Grants program in general, and of the GAC’s work in particular, is the fact that it is done in public.  Grantmaking, like most activities involving money, tends to happen behind closed doors: money is a sensitive topic, real names need to be used for the actual transactions, there are legal aspects, etc.  But the Wikimedia way is one of public conversation, and I intend to devote attention to ensuring as much of the debate about grants and grantmaking does indeed happen in public.

I am pleased to be able to introduce this new avenue for community involvement in strategic decisions, and I look forward to working with the GAC to strengthen chapters and groups worldwide, and further our mission through judicious use of funds.

Your suggestions and feedback are most welcome.  Please don’t hesitate to submit a grant request, comment on this post, or contact me directly.

Asaf Bartov, Head of Global South Relationships, asaf@wikimedia.org, User:Ijon

Each year, the Wikimedia Foundation conducts a grant making process to support the work of chapters around the world. We are happy to announce that 15 grants for ten different chapters have been awarded for the 2010-2011 fiscal year thus far. The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to help launch all of these great projects and we encourage other chapters (and organized groups of volunteers) to consider grant request as we have additional funds available.

We’d like to spotlight a grant from 2009/10 as an example of the work that chapters are doing. The Indonesian chapter ran a project Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010 (Free Your Knowledge 2010) during 2009/10. The grant aimed to enrich the informational content of the Bahasa Indonesian language Wikipedia with the goal of increasing active contributions.

The highly anticipated competition included 10 universities on the island of Java, each appointing nine students to compete and one professor to evaluate the writing results for the largest quantity and highest quality of articles produced in the Bahasa Indonesian language. The top-five student winners received a laptop computer and free operating system. The grand-prize winner was awarded a trip to the 2010 Wikimania in Gdansk, Poland this past July.

While it is hard to directly attribute the impact of the project to the overall project growth, it is worth noting that the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia article count grew by over 20% to 130,000 articles between August 2009 and July 2010. In addition, page views on Indonesian Wikipedia grew by 100% in that time period – the fastest growing Wikipedia in the world.

The 2010/11 grants have been provided by the Wikimedia Foundation to further the growth of new chapters in the areas of Organizational Development, Digital Technology and Outreach Activities. This year will see chapter start-ups and kick-offs in Hong Kong, Estonia, Ukraine, the Philippines and in New York City. As a result of these grants, chapters will be able to register and host their own websites, secure government permits and non-profit status as well as pay necessary legal fees.

Organizational development is an important aspect in expanding individual chapters. Several Foundation grants have been given for materials such as laptop computers, projectors, and video equipment. This year, the Netherlands have been granted a forgiveness grant from their participation in 2009/10 fundraiser revenue sharing. These funds will be allocated towards sustainable organizational development and outreach activities.

Digital technology grants have been given to the Hungary chapter for a Free License Photo Competition, encouraging the photographer community to place their work under Free License for the Wikimedia Commons project. The Czech Republic followed up their successful photo project in 2009/10 and will continue their efforts to expand the site’s documentation of regional costumes and traditions and vernacular architectural landmarks project.

Outreach activities are an integral part of chapter work on behalf of the movement. Internship programs, Wikimedia conferences and academies, and educational programs in schools and universities are all a part of this program. New York City is setting a worldwide precedent by holding the first annual Wikipedia Day NYC 2011. In conjunction with several 10th Anniversary celebrations to commemorate a decade of Wikipedia, funds will go to logistics preparation and conference supplies for participants.

Sharing in Outreach Activities, Wikimedia Switzerland will be embarking on a three-year project to invite senior citizens into the world of Wikipedia editing. By fostering the life experience and collective knowledge of seniors, the Third Age Online (TAO) program will be used to bridge age and cultural gaps in the community. Likewise, our Hong Kong chapter will be working with a new mandatory liberal studies program in high schools, encouraging students to use and contribute to Wikipedia Hong Kong.

The grant process is open to all chapters and volunteer groups officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation. Proposals must be aligned with the Foundation’s shared mission statement and the core values that drive the Wikimedia project. Each of these project grants has been assessed by the Foundation for relevance based on the needs of individual chapters and the diffusion of Wikimedia language sites and Wikimedia projects worldwide. Once grants are approved, chapters are subject to reporting requirements that are then made available to the general public to enable knowledge sharing.

This year alone, the Wikimedia Foundation has awarded $82,000 in grants to international chapters and $115,000 in forgiveness funding for fundraiser revenue sharing. The Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of additional funds for the 2010/2011 fiscal year. We encourage all chapters to apply. For more information on our grant process please visit: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index

Barry Newstead

Chief Global Development Officer