On 25 January 2022 17:11:59 GMT, Nadee Gunasena ngunasena@wikimedia.org wrote:
I've shared more information about how we'll be sharing the recommendations and making decisions about the grantees on Meta in response to your comment there: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Concerns.
Besides how the grants are allocated in the first place, something I do not see on that page is the clear description of how the success of the grants are measured and reported, auditing of expenditures and when the results are due.
From the Meta page:
The Equity Fund is focused on supporting groups outside of the movement whose work will impact and improve knowledge equity on the Wikimedia projects over the long term.
Thus I imagine a good part of the results will be able to be tied to long term changes that will be measurable as some kind of wiki engagement? If the results are not expected to manifest "on-wiki", where and when are they expected to manifest? Obviously, "long term" implies no final results "soon", but responsible management means that the outcomes of interest are, of course, known already along with a plan for follow-up analysis.
No self-respecting organisation would spend over $7 million without even a way to tell if the money is being spent as promised, or no way to tell if the project is working or has lasting effects.
For context, it's enough money to keep the servers on for years, or, as about 50 person-years of payroll and overhead expenditure, keep a modest dev team trucking for a decade or so. The story of what knowledge-societal good has been done with this amount of money will be absolutely fascinating to anyone with an interest in knowledge equity, and critical to justifying support for similar initiatives in future. The analysis and accurate reporting of the outcomes of these grants is at least as valuable to future similar efforts as the grants themselves. Imagine the utterly disastrous effect it would have if it were impossible to showcase the success: it could undermine the whole idea of knowledge equity in general as a worthwhile financial cause, and within the wiki movement, it would badly injure the concept that funds donated in good faith are spent carefully.
I look forward to reading in detail about what outcomes have been selected to be tracked, how and why that selection was made, how each grant is expected and hoped to affect them, and when and how we may be expected to find out how it went, both "on the ground" for the grantees and in terms of the already-set outcomes. These are all things that must already have been carefully documented.
Down the road, a thorough breakdown of how it actually did go and how it can be done better, if possible, for future rounds will be a cornerstone of best-practice for knowledge equity initiatives for years to come.
Cheers,
--IL