Grants:Conference Grants/Committee/Process

This page is a draft and this process is currently only a proposal

Conference Grants Committee Process and Role

History of WMF Grantmaking, Conference Grants, and the Conference Grants Committee

(currently this is a draft missing information and needing some additional fact checking)

The Wikimedia Foundation grants program started in 2009 and was started by Erik Moller. Most chapters only source of revenue at that point was from membership dues and it was clearly identified that they foundation needed a way to further support them. Here is the Dif with the initial program outline. The 2009 GLAMwiki conference is the first community conference funded by the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2011 the Wikimedia Foundation Global Development Department was formed which gave grant making a first official home within the WMF. At that point grants were submitted and given a "yes" or a "no" with no discussion or community engagement. Asaf was hired at WMF in 2011 onto the Global Development Team to begin managing the grant program and immediately opened grants up to everyone (not just chapters) and also begin engaging on grant requests talk pages. By 2012 all WMF grant programs also had community committees. The 2012 CEE Regional conference was the first of its kind and set the stage for all of the regional events to follow. Ibero Conference was next and then the first WikiIndaba in 2014.

(need details from 2014 - 2019) At some point conference grants were separated out from the other grants and given their own program, program officers and budget. In 2019 the Conference Grants program moved from the Grantmaking Team over to the Community Events Team in order for the grants to be given more specialized support and incorporated into the community event Ecosystem.

In 2020 the Conference Grants program expanded to include three types of community events including Regional Events, Thematic Events, and Growth Events and the Conference Grants program expanded to include two Program Officers the Conference Grants Committee Expanded from four to six committee members and this page was created. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic all Wikimedia conference after February 2020 were canceled world-wide and remote events began to be funded.

Process

This section describes the process that we will follow every round

• Before the Wikimedia Foundation program finalizing dates for an upcoming conference grants round we will check with the committee
• The Wikimedia Foundation Program Officers and Conference Grants Committee will sync before each round in order to makes sure that our stated priorities are still relevant or if we want to make any changes. These changes should be based on movement strategy and strategy implementation and not individual person preference.
• The Wikimedia Foundation Program Officers will remind the committee as the community review dates approach and keep the committee up to date on the details of the round
• Committee members will review and comment on at least three Conference Grant Requests during the community review phase of each round, although more reviews are very welcome. The reviewing is done in a spreadsheet provided to the committee members by the WMF program officers. The spreadsheet itself will be kept private within the committee and will contain a summary of each grant, a summary of feedback already given, some questions for the committee, and a place for the committee members to vote on how to fund each proposal. Committee members are also encouraged to ask any questions they might have directly to grantees on meta. Program Officers or a committee member will combine committee feedback and post it all at once on meta.
• The final decision and responsibility to approve all conference grants will ultimately be up to the Wikimedia Foundation Program Officers, and in some rare cases it may not be possible to share the full details on why a request needed to be declined especially when related to personal information around grantee eligibility status or trust and safety issues.
• Committee members are welcome to be involve in next steps we take with grantees after their grants are approved to either help mentor the grantees or to learn from the organization process.

Other general process points

• At least once a year the Program Officers will meet with the committee in a video call to discuss longer term strategy around what types on conferences should be prioritized and if our process needs any changes. Our program strategy should be inline with the Wikimedia 2030 strategy.
• Program Officers will make themselves available to committee members throughout the year to do 1:1 trainings around how to more effectively look at and review grant proposals.
• We attempt to make this a collaborative committee and want to make sure that our committee members are able to contribute in ways that they are personally interested in. All work on this committee is a negotiation between the Program Officers and other committee members and we are very open to new ideas around how to run / structure the committee and how committee members can contribute.

Committee member commitments

• Committee members recuse themselves from commenting on or prioritizing conferences where they are personally invested in the outcome. Committee members should not be involved in reviewing grant requests for events coming from their own community, for an event related to a project they are heavily involved in, or from an event organized by their personal close friends.
  • Each each member of the committee will,
    1. Review the WMF's Conflict of Interest Policy;
    2. Disclose any possible personal, familial, or business relationship that could reasonably give rise to a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest in the Conflict of Interest Questionnaire. WMF and the committee will work together to appropriately address any conflicts of interest or potential bias that committee members identify, to maintain the integrity of the decision making process.
• Committee members should not make any commitments to community members about what conference grants will be approved before the official announcements or suggest that their own communities or personal contacts will be given special preference or consideration.

Joining, leaving, and being removed from the committee

Joining

• We have no limit to the number of committee members we can accept into our committee. If we end up with so many people on the committee that it becomes unmanageable or hard to track what everyone is doing we may change this.
• We accept committee members as often as possible but try to wait until we have a few applications and can onboard new members in groups / cohorts. We try to move quickly but during busy times it may be up to a few months before we begin onboarding the next group.
• All applying committee members are reviewed by the Wikimedia Foundation Trust and Safety Team and must generally have good standing in the Wikimedia community. If their standing changes while they are on the committee this may impact their ability to remain on the committee.
• We hold a video call interview with every new committee candidate where the Program Officers will check in with the committee member to discuss their interest areas, availability, and what to expect. All existing committee members will have a chance to join in on that interview if they would like.

Leaving

• If a current committee member knows that they will not be able to participate in an upcoming round they should asked to be removed from the committee for that round so our meta page only reflects active committee members but they will be welcomed back onto the committee at any point that they reach out to the Program Officers to rejoin. They may be asked to answer a few questions about bandwidth and how they would most be interested in being involved in the upcoming rounds by email or in a quick meeting.
• Committee members should feel comfortable to leave the committee at any time based on their personal availability and know that there are no long term negative impacts to joining this committee or any others in the future.

Removing

• If a current committee member is not active during a round and they have not proactively discussed this with the program officers they will be automatically removed from the committee for the following round but are welcome to join again for future rounds if they reach out and chat about availability with the Program Officers.
• If there are any major friendly space or code of conduct violations by any of the committee members in any of our Wikimedia spaces the Program Officers reserve the option to remove committee members. It may not always be possible to explain to the rest of the committee why removal actions were taken.

Other

• Our committee communicates primarily by email but we have an opt-in telegram group where members who are comfortable using telegram can chat and reach each-other more quickly and informally. We also occasionally have video call meetings. If we are ever in person together at an event we try to have a committee check in / social dinner.

Information about this page

This page was created by Rachel Farrand in September 2020. The intention was to clarify the process and inform current and future committee members about the committee, how it works, and the general expectations. The content of this page was reviewed by ...

For more information about the Conference Grants committee please see:

Our main committee page on meta

Committee Candidates / where you can apply to join