Grants:Conference/Updates/September 2024

Dear Wikimedians,

In the past year we have witnessed some changes in the way we gather as a movement. We have also heard from communities about the growing needs and the desire for more in advance planning, flexibility and resources beyond funding.

As a result, beginning in September 2024, the Conference and Event Fund program will introduce 3 updates and changes regarding:

A more predictable cadence of conferences to allow for predetermined timeline and long term planning;
the submission and planning process for Regional events, focusing on community led decision making process for Regional gatherings;
and a new Wikimedia Foundation structured support system and additional offered areas of support.

1. Predictable cadence and 3 years pre-approved funding plan

The Conference Fund program is now introducing a new funding pathway and allowing regional event organizers to submit their conference proposals up to 3 years in advance. We are now accepting submissions for the Fiscal Years 2025-2026; 2026-2027; 2027-2028. If you are interested in only applying for the coming year, please follow the standard timeline and submission process.

The main goals are to:

Allow more flexibility for organizers in terms of planning time.
Work with communities and affiliates that might not have the required capacity and experience now, but can build it over time.
Give a concept commitment to regional organizers for those pre approved events.
Allow more time to establish partnerships; sponsorships, visa arrangements and on-wiki collaborations.

We will currently only consider proposals for the big Regional events based on the 8 identified regions and on a yearly basis. We might consider global Thematic events as well (such as the EduWiki conference, Global GLAM conference) in a cadence of every 2 to 3 years, but this will be on a case by case basis.

Interested communities do not necessarily need to have a venue selected, contracts drafted or sponsors lined up. The Wikimedia Foundation staff are here to help you!

If a Wikimedia affiliate, group or community in a region is interested in hosting the regional event, please express interest by submitting an entry.

Please make sure to read carefully through the criteria and pay special attention to the requirement for a public evidence of a community agreement/alignment/decision on the hosting location/affiliate. After applying your expression of interest, please make sure to email us at conferencegrants wikimedia.org.

2. Community-led decision mechanism

Continuing with our ambition to bring our regional communities closer to the regional decision making process, we would like to work more on enhancing regional connections and alignment, by asking that decisions on hosting countries/affiliates will be made collaboratively within regional communities. Starting September 2024, as part of the reviewing process, and in order to be eligible to a 3 year in advance approval, we will ask that as part of the proposal, you will submit a public evidence of a community agreement/alignment/decision on the hosting location/affiliate. This can be presented and facilitated as a public community discussion; a vote; a ‘bidding process’; a village pump discussion or steering committee/hub’s decision, and can be conducted in any language. If you do not currently have a regional hub, a steering committee or any other form of regional leadership structure, and would like our help in facilitating such a decision, please reach out to us.

3. Structured WMF support system with additional offerings

We know that organizing a community led conference requires a lot of time, effort and resources – far beyond funding. That is why we will start incorporating a more holistic support system for organizers, by Wikimedia Foundation’s regional and programmatic teams.

Some of the new services offered to regional event organizers will include:

Communication department support: The main point of contact for any regional or thematic conference from the Communications Department will be a member of the Movement Communications Team, specially the Regional Movement Communications Specialists, who work with the other teams within the Communications department on specific conference needs.

The Movement Communications team will provide overall strategic communications support along with providing support for emergent conference needs to the Core Organizing Team. Additionally, based on the applicability, they will work with the Press, Brand, External Communications and other relevant teams to provide additional support to the conference Core Organizing Team as deemed necessary by the organizers.

Travel team support: Starting this year, for all regional events, flight, accommodation and travel arrangements for scholarship recipients and core organizing team members will be directly managed, booked and paid for by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Travel and Convening team. This will also include hotel contracting, room reservations and potentially also venue contracting in situations where the hotel is being used as the venue. By having the travel team’s assistance, we hope to maximize the budget, access better rates and, of course, take much of the burden off of the volunteer organizers.
Partnership support: As organizers, you will be assigned a Regional Partnership Manager to work with you on identifying and developing potential collaborations and partnership opportunities to support the conference's logistical and programmatic needs. Partners can support being part of the program (e.g. panel and workshop participation), support certain logistical needs on a case-by-case basis, and overall, participate in the conference as attendees to learn more about the movement in your country and/or region. The Partnerships team has supported COTs in the past by either being directly part of it or as an advisor.

Other areas of support will be around Legal mitigation strategies and Risk Assessment, help in identifying Product and Tech needs, Community Resources support, and of course – the Conference and Event team that will meet with you regularly and support in any other required areas.

Please note that some of those services can be offered to Thematic event organizers as well, depending on the scope of the proposed event. Please reach out to us if you would like to explore this.

If you have any questions or need support in understanding the changes, please reach out to us at conferencegrants wikimedia.org.