Hi Lisa and all,
Thanks for the info.
Laudable though the goals of the Knowledge Equity Fund surely are, you
seem to be saying that you gave $4.5 million – which readers presumably
donated because they thought you were struggling to have enough money to
keep Wikipedia up and running – to Tides Advocacy for the kind of
"dismantling inequities" work that Tides Advocacy does anyway.[1]
If donors had wanted to support Tides Advocacy's racial equity work,
surely they could have donated to that organisation in the first place?
Have you announced – or will you announce – this redirection of funds to
the public, complete with an explanation of how this decision came about
(i.e. as a result of last year's underspend, as described in your mail last
December)?[2] At the time of writing, a Google search is unable to locate a
related Wikimedia blog post or press release.
Without such a public communication, donors will not even be aware that
money they gave in response to banners asking for donations "to protect
Wikipedia's independence" etc. is now going to be used for a different
purpose altogether, one that is expressly outside of the scope of the
conventional Wikimedia community grants that they might reasonably have
expected their money to be used for.[3]
Moreover, at some point, Wikipedia readers will no doubt be asked to
donate another $4.5 million to meet expenses these funds could have covered
(such as the most recent $5 million WMF donation to the endowment).
Do you agree donors should be told?
Best,
Andreas
[1]
?
On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 6:42 PM Nadee Gunasena <ngunasena(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi all,
We realized we had shared the wrong date for the Equity Fund Office
Hours. Lisa's email initially said these would be Monday, June 13 - that
should be Monday, June 14. Sorry for any confusion - Updated times below.
You can also find these details and more information on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund
-
Monday, June 14 at 0100-0200 UTC
meet.google.com/myf-zcaw-ubg
-
Monday, June 14 at 1500-1600 UTC
meet.google.com/dzu-edej-wva
ᐧ
On Wed, Jun 9, 2021 at 10:15 AM Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi everyone,
I’m excited to share more information about the Wikimedia Foundation’s
Knowledge Equity Fund.
The Equity Fund is a pilot initiative that came out of the commitment
the Foundation’s leadership team made in June 2020 [1] in the wake of
global protests against racial injustice. Our goal was to create a
grant-making fund with an explicit focus on addressing barriers to free
knowledge experienced by Black, indigenous and communities of color around
the world.
This is a $4.5 million USD fund to address racial inequities that impact
the work of free knowledge. It was created to provide focused grants to
organizations that are advancing knowledge equity, one of two key pillars
of our 2030 strategic direction of becoming the essential infrastructure of
free knowledge. Specifically, the fund is meant to support organizations
working to address the racial injustices and barriers that prevent
participation in free knowledge.
We allocated funds for the Equity Fund at the end of the Foundation’s
fiscal year last June. [2] It took more time than we expected to share our
plans for this pilot program, as we’ve been navigating the operational
and logistical issues of creating a new type of fund. Over the past
several months since the Equity Fund was first announced, Foundation staff
and volunteers have been meeting to discuss the goals and the details of
the Equity Fund, and we finally have more to share.
The Equity Fund will be used to support local and international
organizations that don’t currently qualify for grants funding from the
Foundation, such as external organizations that can help advance our
mission and are not working directly on wikiprojects. We recognize that the
work of knowledge equity is work that we as a movement cannot do alone. Our
projects can only do so much when, for example, academic and mass media
representation of marginalized communities remains insufficient, which in
turn limits citations and primary sources for us to build from. Through
Equity Fund investments, we wish to create an ecosystem of partners,
collaborators, and grantees working on knowledge equity that will benefit
the movement. This could include journalism projects to increase content
about underrepresented regions of the world, or scholarship and research
initiatives that are focused on expanding academic understanding of
structural barriers to knowledge and potential solutions.
The Equity Fund is separate from the grants that are available for
community groups and the ongoing Grants Relaunch [3]. It is a new pool of
funds that we can use to directly impact knowledge equity, and specifically
barriers due to race that prevent access and participation in free
knowledge.
We are currently working to identify the first grant recipients for the
Equity Fund. The Meta page for the Equity Fund [4] includes more
information (the members of the Equity Fund Committee, the five specific
focus areas we will be investing in) and next steps. We are also currently
looking for recommendations on organizations for grants - you can visit
Meta or fill out this survey [5] if you have organizations that are already
doing this work and would be a good fit.
Lastly, we do want to emphasize that this is a pilot. There are a lot of
open questions that have been raised by community members that we are still
figuring out, on topics such as ensuring investment in global organizations
and inclusive definitions of racial equity. We welcome additional questions
as the project evolves from this early stage. We’re answering questions on
Meta, so please join us there. We will also be hosting Office Hours in the
coming week:
-
Monday, June 13 at 0100-0200 UTC
meet.google.com/myf-zcaw-ubg
-
Monday, June 13 at 1500-1600 UTC
meet.google.com/dzu-edej-wva
This is an active step towards addressing the barriers that perpetuate
knowledge gaps on our projects and prevent participation in free knowledge.
We’re excited to try this new pilot and share our progress.
Thank you,
Lisa Gruwell, Janeen Uzzell, Tony Sebro and the Equity Fund Committee
[1]
https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/we-stand-for-rac…
[2]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2020-December/096022.html
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund
[5]
https://forms.gle/gzqRH7yMFEGgZb4e6
--
Lisa Seitz Gruwell
Chief Advancement Officer
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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--
*Nadee Gunasena*
Executive Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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