Community Resources/Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021/Insights Summary

Community Resources

Insights Summary

Throughout the months of September and October, the Community Relations team reviewed feedback from past affiliate surveys, internal surveys, grantee and grants committee feedback.

Additionally we interviewed 12 different teams across the Wikimedia Foundation to understand their focus on the strategic direction and how they felt community resource grants could best support the process.

Internal Team Insights drawn from a team discussion reviewing past affiliate surveys, internal CR team surveys, informal grantee and grants committee feedback. While the conversations gave many great details we are highlighting the cross-cutting themes we found.

Why of Grants

We need to better articulate to Wikimedia communities, Affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation how grant programs support the movement strategy and the mission of the Foundation.

Capacity Development:
- A global thriving community that is resilient needs financial and also importantly significant resources for capacity building dedicated to empower the people in the community and ensure the sustainability of the distributed network (Wikimedia projects) and independence.
Culture, Space, Trust, Safety
- An open community that strives for equity needs to be intentional about creating it. Equity will be a very important element to a resourcing and grant programs.

New grantees from marginalized communities have stated they do not feel safe in the current spaces.

Process improvements for Equity

Current grants process impose limits to participation in our global community (examples include limited language accessibility, and processes that are not aligned to all cultural contexts).
Our process favours Wikimedians over volunteers and advocates from other Open Knowledge movements.

Participatory Approach
- It is imperative that the process is built with the principles of participatory decision making to ensure equity at all levels (participation, decision making and evaluation of impact)
- Currently, selection committees are a positive model for participation but have proven to have shortcomings. For example, committee structures favor English speakers and people resourced to volunteer unpaid labor, and often lack sufficient local context.
Partnerships
- There is no clear criteria for supporting partnerships with aligned organizations in the free knowledge ecosystem that could really benefit from growth and awareness
- USA Prohibited or Wikipedia or Wikimedia projects are prohibited
- There is no clear plan or strategy to support growth in countries that we can't fund directly due to US regulations and restrictions.
Wikimedia Foundation Strategic Initiatives
- When various Foundation departments launch strategic initiatives for the community which would benefit from integration with grant programs, they often find it challenging to fit into existing programs. We need program structures that better accommodate these initiatives so that the Wikimedia communities will benefit from the additional resources and support they will offer.

Review of Current Grant Programs

Rapid Grants
- GOAL: Offer quick support for low risk projects (like hosting local events). Welcome newcomers.
- This program offers the greatest level of accessibility, but the administrative burden is high for grantees, and the program does not offer much additional support beyond funding, even though it is often needed.
Project Grants
- GOAL: Promote innovation (including by supporting higher risk projects) and build on existing ideas. Support newcomers, especially aligned organizations new to the movement.
- This program supports worthwhile innovation, but the scope is not well defined, so it is difficult to sufficiently support the wide breadth of project types. It is not well integrated into the processes of other Foundation departments, even though their expertise is essential to the program. There is no clear long-term path to sustainability for successful projects.
- Qualitative researchers are under-supported in the review process.
Simple Annual Plan Grants
- GOAL: Support for structural growth for experienced grantees through annual grants and open operating grants
- This program offers annual planning funding to support affiliates and organizations, but grantees find it hard to get needed staff positions, and there is not enough support for capacity building for leaders.
Annual Plan Grants
- GOAL: Support for sustained growth for chapters through annual open operational grants
- This program sustains established organizations, but its current annual processes can hinder longer term planning.
- The current metrics and evaluation fail to articulate the longer term impact of their work.

We then had conversations with 12 WMF teams that have regular interaction with communities asking about their goals, how they incorporate the strategic direction and how they view the role of grants for the movement. Through those conversations we found the following cross cutting themes:

Lack of easily accessible information about grantees
- Currently, there is no simple way to view aggregated data about grantees and the work they are doing. This hinders the ability to do easy analysis and planning i.e. there is not an easy way to see an aggregated view of geographic location of grants or program focus of grantees.
Lack of a clear metrics framework that gives a holistic view of impact and a fuller picture of community or organizational health
- We do not yet incorporate other metrics that are being used and developed by other departments, such as Community Health, Affiliate Health, Representation and Engagement and Sentiment, Awareness, Growth.
- Current metrics (reflecting content / participation outcomes) do not provide a holistic view of the overall impact of grantees work and grants.
Insufficient integration of regional knowledge
- The importance of local knowledge and context was stressed. It should be integrated into the goals and programs for all departments.
- Clear criteria to support partnerships in regions was also noted as a need.
Supportive Fail and Learn Environment:
- It is critical that emerging communities feel comfortable to talk about what is not working without fear of punishment, so they can learn and adapt.
Financial Sustainability
- Funding opportunities beyond Wikimedia Foundations grants should be more visible for affiliates and community members.
Going beyond Wikimedia Foundation Capacity Building Programs
- Capacity building resources at the local level are needed.
- Foundation support should not be the only catalysing factor for developing local capacity. Funding opportunities at the local level should be identified and supported.
- The focus should be on sustainability and providing access for anyone who can join our Movement.
Proactive outreach and invitation to reach new leaders and communities
- Requesting funds is not an inherent skill found in Wikimedians. Formal training is needed to ensure that Wikimedians have the appropriate skills to access funding opportunities i.e. grant writing, reports, evaluation.
- Advertising for grants is useful, especially in areas where there is less awareness of funding opportunities, especially among people/parts of the world that do not have access to other funding resources.
- It is very important to identify and invite volunteers to apply or take part in a grant process.
- Grants provide the first spark in taking forward ideas in local communities and help foster innovation across projects.
- The design of funding opportunities should be intentional. Preshaped opportunities for specific kinds of grant requests may be supportive for some applicants.
Grants to partners that help expand impact to the movement.
- Awarding grants to partners increases their sense of value for the Wikimedia movement.
- In most cases partnerships only bring value to specific projects and communities. Such collaboration limits the engagement and makes partnerships with external organisations transactional in nature. Grants processes should empower both communities and partners to build sustainable and scalable models of learning.
- Positive experiences of working with partners should expand the scope of the activities taken up by the grantee organisation

Integrating grants programs with other programs within the Wikimedia Foundation to offer a richer set of resources to Wikimedian communities.
- Grant process should engage applicants and participating volunteers whether or not they are funded. Additional support for unsuccessful applications can be considered.
- Catalyse mentorship opportunities through the leadership training program.
- Leverage the accelerator/incubator approach with training cohorts from the Community Development team (for example, the work of the campaign organisers team can be used as a build up to grant opportunities).

Greater clarity and stronger support for research and software grants
- General goals
  - Create or improve tools/resources that build, strengthen or help us reflect on and improve the infrastructure of the Wikimedian movement
  - Explore technological frontiers/ technical innovation
- General issues
  - Monitoring, evaluation and learning around research and software grants has substantial room for improvement to better demonstrate the value the grants are bringing to the movement
  - Unclear paths to sustainability after initial funding ends
  - Staff capacity is a limiting factor -- program design needs to better reflect this
  - Not sufficiently aligned with existing processes and activities happening in research and software communities
- Software-related goals
  - Fund software that addresses needs of Wikimedians that WMF is not able to meet, across different geographies/languages (WMF technical teams cannot meet all technical needs of the movement on their own)
  - Expand global developer network
- Software-related issues
  - Struggle to get appropriate level of review of software grants from technical staff ( lack of foresight about review needs + tight review window)
  - Not clear enough when we should/should not fund projects touching core
  - Offboarding/transition process needed for volunteer developers, particularly if their product becomes crucial to others
  - Lack of clarity about appropriate feedback pathways among technical staff
- Research-related goals
  - Expand/nurture the global research network to increase the resilience of the Wikimedia projects -- priority goal for WMF Research Team (resilience, equity)
  - Fund research that provides knowledge the communities need or that can open new opportunities to the communities (improvements, future)
  - Fund research where we expect new technologies that can transform communities (innovation)
- Research-related issues
  - Better integration of review by researchers
  - PG Committee not sufficiently equipped to review comprehensively or with appropriate criteria
  - Lack integration with Research Team goals
  - Clearer process needed to support Research Team planning/integration
  - Lack alignment with needs of research community with respect to grant process (may need longer grant duration, more lead time, etc)

Wikimedia Foundation Departments Interviewed

Communications
Movement Strategy
Trust & Safety
Community Development
Community Programs
Community Engagement
Research
Technical Engagement
C-Team (T&C, Legal, Product, Communications, Finance, Advancement)
Product
Events
Partnerships
AffCom