On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 10:18 PM Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi Mike-Thanks for the question. The review and oversight that we will get from Tides is nothing like the FDC review. They will be looking at, for example, "Is this grant supporting activity that is legal for a 501c3 to fund?" It is in no way a replacement for the work that the FDC or the Global Council would do regarding grants.Best,LisaOn Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 12:55 PM Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:Hi Lisa,_______________________________________________Isn’t this the oversight work that the WMF wanted to be able to do when it changed from Wikimedia affiliates being able to fundraise directly to the FDC process? Why has WMF chosen to outsource this to Tides rather than continuing to do it in-house? And why does Tides now get to approve such grants, rather than a community appointed committee?FDC was a process that worked extremely well, and was discontinued for obscure reasons. The Global Council approach that the strategy was heading towards looked like it might be a good replacement. Outsourcing it to Tides seems really bad.Boldly creating a new fund for fellow organisations looks nice, but without community involvement it’s a controversy in development.Thanks,MikeOn 14 Dec 2020, at 20:11, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell@wikimedia.org> wrote:Hi Chris-I am happy to answer your questions about Tides. No, Tides is not picking the grantees. The docket of grantees and the specific of the grants comes from us. Tides provides legal and administrative review of the grants, approves them, and processes the grants(i.e. wires the funding to the grantees). It is rare that there is ever a problem, but if Tides were to see one, we actually appreciate the outside review and would be open to hearing their reasons. There is no change for the reporting and transparency requirements for APG grants. Tides will also not be making recommendations for the grants for the Knowledge Equity Fund. They will play a similar role as I described for the APG grants. Again, I know there will be more info on the Knowledge Equity Fund in the new year. I ask your patience for the folks initiating this and trust that they will share more soon.Best,LisaOn Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 10:18 AM Chris Keating <chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com> wrote:_______________________________________________Thanks Lisa. That statement makes a lot of sense, though I do have some questions still.Our first priority was to ensure that we had enough funding to support community grants. We transferred the full amount for Annual Plan Grants (APG) for FY20-21 over to Tides to ensure that all funding for affiliates for this year was secured, regardless of how fundraising performed. It also gives staff at affiliates and the Foundation more time to work together to make thoughtful grants, instead of an end-of-year rush. All affiliates who will be receiving funding through Tides were informed of the arrangement last summer. All other grantmaking (Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants) are still being funded through WMF directly, as usual. There is a round of APG grants set to go out via Tides this week.Are Tides simply administering these funds at the WMF's direction, or will Tides start to take over decisions about who gets these grants and what amount different entities are eligible for? Has there been any change to the reporting and transparency requirements that go with the APG grants? What is the intention about how APG grants will work, since the FDC was abolished a couple of years ago and there is unlikely to be any community-driven replacement for it until at least a year or two's work has gone into the implementation of the strategy?As of now, this is a one-time commitment of approximately $4.5 million. We are still working on the specific initial objectives of the fund and how it will operate. As a pilot initiative, we’ll be learning and adapting as we go.Funding knowledge equity sounds like a great idea, but I have not previously heard of an organisation making an irrecoverable $4.5 million transfer without knowing what that money will be used to fund. Is there anything more that can be shared apart from "it'll be used to fund knowledge equity somehow"? And as above - is this going to be a WMF-led process (maybe even involving the community), or will Tides be actually making recommendations about who and what is funded? If the latter, how are Tides going to adjust to the Wikimedia community's expectations about transparency?Thanks,Chris
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