Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Updates/July 2024

Dear Wikimedia Grantee Communities,

This announcement provides an overview of updates and changes introduced to the General Support Funds (GSF) in Fiscal Year 2024-25 (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025). The changes concern the general eligibility requirements, funding conditions, financial compliance requirements, amendment requests, and funding options (more details below).

In Fiscal Year 2023-24, the Community Resources team introduced several new options for grantees, including simplifying annual grant applications, renewal option for Fiscal Year 2024-25, and several multi-year funding options (such as 2-years, 3-years, multi-year with a strategy, multi-year base funding options). After evaluating these different options in terms of process efficiency, uptake in the community, the considerations of the Regional Funds Committees (RFCs), current regional budget realities, and funding equity principles in our funding strategy, the following options will be maintained and made available within the General Support Fund system:

New GSF applications (annual plans or projects larger than the Rapid Funds with other terms than a whole year)

Before applying:

Returning grantees: The process mostly remains the same. Please read the basic general information and eligibility criteria.
First-time applicants: Read important sets of eligibility criteria for first-time applicants. It is required to contact and meet the Regional Program Officer before applying. Program Officers will help orient your application towards the right funding programs, provide you clarity on eligibility and requirements, as well as help set budgetary expectations for your project.

Annual renewal option of the previous proposal

Fiscal Year 2024-25 sees the first experimental iteration of this process to support those grantees, who wish to:

Maintain the same programmatic work and the same budget as the previous year.
Introduce no changes at all compared to the previous application in programs and budgets.
Go through a simpler evaluation process.
Have inflation compensation (Note: the RFCs will decide about inflation compensation for each renewal, based on IMF inflation rates and the regional budget available).

In particular, returning global campaigns and annual plans with maintained unchanging programs can benefit from this process.

Before applying:

Visit the Renewal page on Meta-Wiki, to see if you are eligible for the renewal program and learn about the application process and steps included.
Grantees in the NWE region whose Fiscal Year 203-24 multiannual proposal was turned into a renewal, please see the process that applies for you here.

New multi-year base funding proposals for 3 years

A 3-year multi-year base funding option remains available for those in the grantee community who wish to:

Have stability in funding and programming for 3 years in a row.
Plan to introduce no annual growth above the regional growth rates defined for each of the 3 respective fiscal years of the duration of the multi-year grant.
Include inflation compensation based on IMF inflation rates.

Please note: The Regional Funds Committees will still decide about budget and FTE growth as well as inflation compensation on an individual basis for each proposal, considering the regional budgets available, the growth history of each grantee, and the historical data on grantees’ underspending in their funding decisions.

Before applying:

Check all eligibility requirements for a multi-year base funding for 3 years on Meta-Wiki.

If you wish to:

Ask for multi-year funding for only 2 years, please follow the renewal process or submit a new application if greater funding changes are planned for your Year 2.
Ask for greater increases than the regional growth rates in Year 2 or Year 3, please submit a new application each year for Regional Fund Committee consideration.

While these changes focus on this year’s funding programs implementation, we are intentionally aligning them with other ongoing processes, such as updates to the affiliate strategy recognition and reporting in addition to contributing to the building of improved systems that will support current and future resource dissemination decision-making bodies.

If you have any questions or need support in understanding the changes, please reach out to the Regional Program Officer.