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Knowledge Equity Fund/Grantee

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Remaining funds (USD)
Initial Round One Round Two Round Three
Total amount of grants given N/A 1,235,000 995,000 1,362,000
Amount left after the round 4,500,000 3,265,000 2,270,000 819,000

Knowledge Equity Fund grantees are chosen by the Knowledge Equity Fund Committee based on an evaluation of their existing programmatic work and how it furthers racial equity in the context of free knowledge. Each grantee also needs to meet specific criteria, such as being a recognized nonprofit, establishing a proven track record of impact, and having a financial model that is not dependent on a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

First round

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On 08 September 2021, we announced the first round of grantees.

The grantees are:

  • Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (US$250,000): The Arab Reporters in Journalism (ARIJ) is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in Jordan. ARIJ has built an expansive network of journalists across the Middle East and North Africa and has supported over 650 investigative projects on topics ranging from threats to freedom of expression, to systemic patterns of bias and discrimination. This grant will support ARIJ’s continued work in training and coaching media on how to report on issues of equity and institutional accountability, with dedicated workshops that tackle the skills, tools, and knowledge required for Arab journalists to address racial inequity in the region. Through their work, ARIJ will continue to grow the breadth of investigative journalism about inequity throughout the Arab World based on journalistic principles of facts, research, and multiple sources.
  • Borealis Racial Equity in Journalism Fund (US$250,000): Borealis is a philanthropic intermediary that takes a community-led approach to addressing injustices and driving transformative change across the United States. This grant will be provided to their Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, which invests in local news organizations led by people of color that have built long-standing relationships and trust with the diverse communities they serve. With this investment, Borealis will invest in local community-based journalism with a focus on improving how communities of color are represented and reported on throughout the media. Through this work, they will increase the amount of citable articles about leaders of color and community issues and further knowledge equity.
  • Howard University and the Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice: The Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice (US$260,000) (IIPSJ) is a nonprofit organization that was established to promote social justice in the field of intellectual property law. IIPSJ is led by professors from and graduates of the Howard University School of Law (HUSL), the oldest historically black college or university law school in the United States and a leading institution in civil rights and social justice advocacy. IIPSJ advocates for equity and inclusion throughout the intellectual property (IP) ecosystem, including shaping IP law, policies, and initiatives to promote awareness of IP protections and possibilities among communities of color. With this grant, IIPSJ will create a two-year fellowship at HUSL led by a Wikimedia Race and Knowledge Equity Fellow to explore how systemic racism and injustice impacts how marginalized communities can participate in free knowledge (including in the intellectual property ecosystem), recommendations to address these gaps in knowledge, and how knowledge can be used to advance racial equity and empowerment.
  • InternetLab (US$200,000): InternetLab is a nonprofit think tank focused on internet policy and research around critical digital issues of inclusivity and equal rights, based in São Paulo, Brazil. With this grant, InternetLab will create a two-year fellowship led by a Wikimedia Race and Knowledge Equity Fellow that will produce scholarly writings and publications, as well as educational programming on the intersection between racial equity and free knowledge in Brazil. The Fellow will conduct research on topics including what barriers impact the participation of Black and Indigenous peoples in online knowledge, and identify national and local policy solutions across the fields of intellectual property, access to technologies, education and research, affirmative action, funding and incentives, among others. This fellowship will expand the available research about how racial inequity has impacted communities of color in Brazil.
  • The Media Foundation for West Africa (US$150,000): The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is a non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting and defending the right to freedom of expression, particularly for media and human rights defenders, throughout the 16 countries in West Africa. This grant will support the MFWA’s continued work to protect the public’s right to access information and advocacy for equitable policies throughout the region. MFWA will promote investigative journalism on issues of equity and injustice as part of their focus on freedom of expression and access to information. The grant will also support the organization’s press freedom and independent journalism advocacy to help build a favorable and enabling environment for in-depth investigative reporting that encourages transparency and accountability — the lack of which often result in injustices and marginalization of the poor, underrepresented, and minority groups.
  • The SeRCH Foundation, Inc. (US$250,000): The STEM en Route to Change Foundation (SeRCH Foundation) is a non-profit organization based in the United States that focuses on the intersection of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as a tool for social justice. This grant will be used to support their flagship program, #VanguardSTEM, which asserts the value of non-traditional knowledge alongside technical expertise and uses storytelling as a means of cultural production to amplify the contributions of Black, Indigenous, women of color and non-binary people of color in STEM fields. With this investment, #VanguardSTEM will grow their collection of featured BIPOC STEM creatives, adding multimedia to each profile to enhance the storytelling capacity. This collection of open and freely licensed audio, video, and written content about women and non-binary innovators and inventors of color will expand the repository of rich content in the Commons centering the experiences and expertise of people of color in STEM and support non-traditional methods of storytelling.

For updates on the round one grantees’ work, and a discussion of how the Fund evolved for round two, please see our April 2023 blog and the individual reports by the grantees’, which provide specific updates on their progress.

Round 1 – Narrative and Financial reports

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In August of 2022, the Round 1 grantees shared annual reports of their work and progress with the year of funds given by the Equity Fund, from September 2021-August 2022. Although these reports are being posted several months after they were initially produced, they provide a summary of work completed by each grantee during that 12 month period.

Second round

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On 03 August 2023, we announced the second round of grantees. They are:

  • Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, Indonesia: The Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, or the Alliance of the Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN for short), is a non-profit organization based in Indonesia that works on human rights and advocacy issues for indigenous people. They are receiving a one-year grant from the Equity Fund for $200,000 USD, and are one of the first Equity Fund grantees in Asia. AMAN will use this grant for several initiatives: firstly, to support their ongoing program to empower more indigenous people as citizen journalists so that the people reporting on issues that affect the indigenous people of the archipelago are those who most directly understand and can speak to them. Secondly, they will create an Indigenous Peoples Glossary in collaboration with indigenous journalists, for distribution to libraries and public schools. Thirdly, they will conduct research to measure public understanding about indigenous people and indigenous issues. The grant will also be used to update the AMAN website as a source and repository of information, research and journalistic articles about indigenous issues. This work will help to create more journalistic sources of information about indigenous peoples in Indonesia that can potentially be used as sources for sites including the Wikimedia projects.
    Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Black Cultural Archives, United Kingdom: Black Cultural Archives is a Black-led archive and heritage center that preserves and gives access to the histories of African and Caribbean people in the UK. They are the recipients of a one-year $290,000 USD grant. Their goals with this grant for the coming year include increasing research into their collections, as well as increasing the breadth of their collections for research. Another aim is to play a leading role in supporting a network of archive organizations that champion Black British history, and finally, they hope to develop programmatic work that provides access to their less traditional archive material; VHS tapes and cassettes that contain a large amount of information on Black British cultural history. This grant will be an important step in continuing to support archival work and increasing access to historical records.

    "We are the nation’s home of Black British history and a beacon for Black communities at home and abroad. From heritage seekers to future leaders, school children, young people, university academic students courses, to senior academics and elders. We serve people who seek a deeper understanding of primarily British and global diasporic black history," said Lisa Anderson, Director of the BCA. "This transformational gift will be used to advance BCA’s mission to collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and African Caribbean descent in order to inspire and give strength to society at large."


    The Black Cultural Archives describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Create Caribbean Research Institute, Commonwealth of Dominica: Create Caribbean Research Institute is the first digital humanities center in the Caribbean. They will be receiving a $75,000 grant. The grant will be used to expand Create Caribbean’s Create and Code technology education program to enable children ages 5-16 to develop information and digital literacy as well as coding skills. The funds will support the expansion of the curriculum for the camp, development of open access resources for participants and the adoption of underserved schools to implement longer term skill building. In addition, the funds will also align with the Knowledge Equity Fund’s focus area of supporting non-traditional records of knowledge: the grant will support the development of a Caribbean oral history database focused on the themes of education, information and knowledge preservation, local community development and environmental sustainability.
    Create Caribbean Research Institute describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Criola, Brazil: Criola is a civil society organization, based in Rio de Janeiro, dedicated to advocating for the rights of Black women in Brazilian society. They prioritize knowledge production, research, and skills development as part of their work. They are also part of a national and international network of human rights, justice and advocacy organization focused on promoting racial equity. They will be receiving a one-year Equity Fund grant of $160,000 to enhance their research and publishing capabilities, with a specific focus on improving accessibility. Criola has over three decades of experience in human rights and advocacy, and their work with this grant will focus on knowledge production, including studies, research and surveys on the impact of racism in all areas of society, as well as courses and workshops focused on political advocacy and digital and physical security for activists.
    Criola describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Data for Black Lives, United States: Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and scientists committed to the mission of using data to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. They will be receiving a one year grant of $100,000, which they will use to launch a Movement Scientists Fellowship. This Fellowship will match racial justice leaders with machine learning research engineers to develop data-based machine learning applications to drive change in the areas of climate, genetics, and economic justice. They will also launch a new series of educational programs, such as free and open oral histories that promote data literacy.
    Data For Black Lives describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Filipino American National Historical Society, United States: The Filipino American National Historical Society, or FANHS , has a mission to gather, document and share Filipino American history through its 42 community based chapters. FANHS will be receiving a one-year grant for $70,000 from the Equity Fund. This grant will support continuing and growing FANHS’ scholarship and advocacy on accurate historical representations of Filipino Americans and counter distorted and effaced ethnic history, their collection and archival of non-traditional records of knowledge such as oral histories, and their efforts to build community digital literacy skills to enhance preservation and access to Filipino American knowledge. These records have the potential to provide additional citations and sources for accessible information about Filipino American history.
    Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund
  • Project Multatuli, Indonesia: Project Multatuli is an organization dedicated to non-profit journalism, especially for underreported topics, ranging from indigenous people to marginalized issues. Their goal is to produce data-based, deeply researched news stories to promote inclusive journalism and amplify the voices of marginalized communities. They will receive a $50,000 grant from the Equity Fund to support three activities over the coming year: first, training with women photojournalists from other publications around the region; second, ten in-depth reports of minority and marginalized groups, shedding light on human rights abuses, and environmental issues, and other challenges they face, including five reports that center on indigenous women groups; and third, support for administrative and technical improvements of the organization’s reporting capabilities to embrace new media, to provide the public with unrestricted access to high-quality reports across different formats.
    Project Multatuli describes their work as a Round 2 grantee of the Knowledge Equity Fund

Round 2 – Narrative and Financial reports

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Each organization that receives an Equity Fund grant is required to share an annual report that summarizes their work, the impact of the grant, and any examples of how they connected with the projects and Wikimedia communities. Given location and different banking regulations, grantees may have received the funds at different times. We are sharing here some reports of grantees, and will share the rest of the final reports as we receive them.

Round 3

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On October 9, 2024, the Knowledge Equity Fund announced its third round of grantees, as well as plans for its final round. The third round includes 13 grants to nonprofit organizations in 10 countries.

Introducing the Round 3 Knowledge Equity Fund grantees
  • AfLIA: The African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) is the umbrella body for the library sector in Africa, with membership from 34 African countries. We have worked with the Wikimedia projects through initiatives like the African Librarians Week, which resulted in the Wikipedia in African Libraries course as well as a course on Wikidata which sought to assist these professionals make their information resources more visible for all. Nevertheless more work remains to be done. Firstly, this grant would enable us to revisit the Authority Control construct in Wikidata and Wikipedia. Currently, the AC template only directs readers of African content to national libraries outside the continent for ‘validation’ through the AC template; with this grant, we will create a model of how African National Libraries can create semantic Authority Control for their resources using Wikibase which can then be linked to African content on Wikidata and Wikipedia, through a collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland. Secondly, it will allow us to coordinate virtual conversations between the African Library sector and African Wikimedians, as a pathway for promoting Wikimedia projects and activities adoption in African libraries. Total grant amount: $70,000
    Introducing AfLIAl, a Round 3 Knowledge Equity Fund grantee
  • Archive Nepal: Archive Nepal is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization based in Nepal and the USA, focused on preserving and promoting Nepal’s rich cultural heritage by curating, digitizing, and improving access to archival resources. With this grant, we aim to catalog and digitally preserve historic manuscripts from Nepal's diverse ethnic, minority, and marginalized communities. Through AI-powered tools and collaboration with the Wikisource team, we will engage the global community to transcribe and translate these manuscripts into accessible languages like Nepali and English, addressing inequalities that limit access to these materials. By digitally safeguarding these manuscripts, we ensure their preservation for future generations, while fostering inclusivity, cultural understanding, and community engagement. Total grant amount: $20,000
    Introducing Archive Nepal, a Round 3 Knowledge Equity Fund grantee
  • Auckland War Memorial: Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum is the largest Museum in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest, and most diverse city, Tāmaki Makarau Auckland. For the past five years we have been actively working with various Wikimedia projects enabling it to make its openly licensed collections available to a global audience. This funding allows us to continue our Wikimedia Alliances Funded work, diversifying Auckland local history content on Wikipedia for use in secondary school classrooms. We will support a cohort of four university students in a ten-week Wikipedia editing programme at the Museum, taking part in the Museum’s wider Summer Studentship programme. With guidance from the Museum’s Wikimedian in Residence, this second cohort of Wikipedia Interns will focus on improving and diversifying Auckland’s local history content on Wikipedia, particularly focusing on underrepresented places, people, and related topics. The project aligns with the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum and seeks to mirror Auckland's cultural diversity, addressing gaps in knowledge representation and enhancing digital literacy, while also introducing a group of students to Wikipedia editing and the wider Wiki ecosystem. Total grant amount: $57,000
    Introducing the Auckland War Memorial Museum
  • Democratic Voice of Burma: Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) was established in 1992 in Oslo to disseminate unbiased news and information to the people of Burma. Today, we provide 24/7 satellite TV news to people in Burma and publish dozens of stories daily online. Operating from exile, DVB has 100 full-time reporters inside and outside of Burma, with 20 million followers on Facebook, 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and a reach of at least 15 million TV viewers inside the country. We will use this grant to run trainings for our journalists and increase capacity building, and further maximize our audience reach through satellite TV, social media, and websites. We hope that the expansion and exposure will result in more openly-available, accurate, and creative content around people and issues of Burma. Total grant amount: $200,000
    Introducing Democratic Voice of Burma
  • Earth Journalism Network: This century, every story is a climate story. Our mission is to strengthen local journalism that serves communities and policymakers on the frontlines of climate and environmental crises, enabling them to shape solutions, hold power to account and demand action. With Wikimedia’s support, we will be implementing two activities. First, we will support Indigenous journalists globally through a training program and story grants as part of our Indigenous Environmental Reporting project. Through the leadership of our Indigenous media trainers Amira Abujbara and Stella Paul, journalists will benefit from 1-1 editorial mentorship, hands-on skills training, connections with key experts, and the funding to complete a longform investigative reporting project. And second, we will be investing in immigrant, Black, Indigenous and people of color-serving local newsrooms in the United States and Canada who serve under-reported communities. We will do this through seed grants to enable them to develop their own innovative reporting projects that call attention to issues, groups and/or locations lacking representation in mainstream media. Total grant amount: $150,000
    Introducing Earth Journalism Network
  • Ideas Beyond Borders: Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB) is dedicated to empowering individuals and communities in the Middle East by promoting knowledge, free expression, and intellectual curiosity. Through our work, we challenge censorship and misinformation, fostering a culture of open dialogue and critical thinking. This grant will empower 26 young leaders from 13 ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region through comprehensive training in journalism, media, and social media advocacy. IBB, Kurdistan Information Network (KurdistanIN), and those leaders will produce 13 documentaries and 13 Wikipedia articles, preserving the unique oral histories and cultural heritage of their communities while raising awareness of minority issues through a large-scale social media campaign. Total grant amount: $90,000
    Introducing Ideas Beyond Borders
  • International Center for Journalists: The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) enables a global network of journalists to provide the trustworthy news essential to free and strong societies. The grant from Wikimedia Foundation will allow us to expand the multilingual resources we offer journalists on our unparalleled International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), with a focus on topics of critical importance to underrepresented communities. In addition, we will run a “solutions challenge” supporting newsrooms to innovate with AI in ways that deepen trust with the communities they serve. Total grant amount: $100,000
    Introducing International Center for Journalists
  • Just Futures Pahal: Just Futures Pahal (JFP) is a Nepali non-profit organization led by Dalit women and committed to understanding and fostering new narratives on dignity, justice, equity, inclusive democracy, and sustainability through the prism of Caste. We believe that over 120 million Dalit women worldwide must not remain invisible but must be recognized as valuable producers of new knowledge for just futures. This grant will support our inaugural Damal Fellowship, a nine-month intensive program involving six Dalit women to interrogate and foster narratives related to caste, gender, sexuality, and class. Additionally, the grant will help establish a distinct JFP Learning and Resource Center, as well as a digital space for archiving and accessing knowledge materials—textual and non-textual—on these topics and beyond. By doing so, we hope to expand the knowledge of the marginalized in open and accessible ways. Total grant amount: $150,000
    Introducing Just Futures Pahal
  • Kontras: The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) is a non-profit organization established in Indonesia to promote human rights and democracy, ensuring that the state fulfills its obligations to respect and protect the human rights of its citizens. We will be using this grant to initiate the Human Rights Documentation Center (PUSDOKHAM). PUSDOKHAM has three priority program components: (1) serving as an archive center for human rights-related information in Indonesia, including archiving human rights advocacy activities, human rights defenders, and document human rights violation cases in Indonesia; (2) Providing a platform for citizens to report human rights violations; and (3) serving as an educational center on research methods for human rights monitoring. Based on meetings with local Wikimedia Indonesians, our training agendas will involve collaboration with the Wikimedia community. Through these collaborations we hope to further a partnership between KontraS and the Wikimedia community. Total grant amount: $65,000
    Introducing Kontras
  • Open Restitution Africa: Open Restitution Africa (ORA) is a pan-African, women-led initiative based in Kenya and South Africa, dedicated to making information on restitution of African material heritage more accessible, transparent and usable. Our work is premised on 3 core areas: collating nuanced grassroots research on restitution processes, providing access to this research via a bespoke open-data platform, and increasing awareness. Over the next 12 months, with this grant from the Knowledge Equity Fund, ORA will publish a series of in-depth restitution case studies, to drive restitution efforts across the continent. Total grant amount: $40,000
    Introducing Open Restitution Africa
  • Rising Voices (Global Voices): Global Voices, through its Rising Voices initiative, will use the Knowledge Equity Fund grant to strengthen, build upon, and expand its support to Indigenous language communities. Over the past several years, we have collaborated with various Wikimedia affiliates and contributors in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We will facilitate spaces to bring together individuals who are part of the Global Voices community and the Wikimedia movement to collaboratively plan and implement future partnerships, leveraging their knowledge of both communities. The initiative will include additional collaborations with Wikimedia groups to provide peer-led digital activism workshops using the "Digital Initiatives for Indigenous Languages" toolkit co-developed with UNESCO as part of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages. This initiative will also expand the peer learning Fellowship Program in Latin America. Total grant amount: $250,000
    Introducing Rising Voices
  • School of Cultural Texts and Records: The School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University, India was established in 2003 to enhance the university’s capacities in archiving, digitization, bibliography, textual studies, editing, and book history. Our mission is to promote the use of archives amongst the general public. As the Endangered Archives Programme Hub for South Asia, we also collaborate with the British Library to regularly conduct workshops on various archival practices. Resources from the Knowledge Equity Fund will allow us to extend our reach, allow us to travel to remote areas of India to reach underserved communities and provide workshops on easy and low budget digitisation techniques. We plan to share the digitized items through Wikimedia, creating open access to cultural items of importance that have not been digitized before. Total grant amount: $10,000
    Introducing the School of Cultural Texts and Records
  • Syria Untold: UntoldStories is an independent media organization running three major projects: SyriaUntold, a bilingual platform covering Syrian voices and stories; MENA Art Gallery, an online space supporting local artists; and UntoldMag, a bilingual magazine addressing interconnected global challenges. With support from Wikimedia, we will focus on amplifying underrepresented voices and telling the stories, past and present, of the diverse peoples who make our communities and preserve them. By producing high quality journalism and knowledge in Arabic and English we challenge mainstream narratives and propose an alternative lens that highlights the intersectional nature of our shared realities across the globe whether in Syria, West Asia, North Africa, and beyond. Total grant amount: $160,000
    Introducing Syria Untold
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