Hi all,
Thanks for the questions. We intend to announce the Knowledge Equity Fund
in early 2021, once we have a bit more details and specifics worked out.
However, we can share the overall intention today.
Some background: Our fiscal year runs from July through June, which means
that the second half of last year was heavily affected by the unforeseen
effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Community events were canceled, hiring
slowed, and we put work on pause while we responded to the changing
circumstances. As a result, we ended the year with funds that were
underspent, relative to what we had planned for the budget.
In May of last year, we were also planning for this current fiscal year and
had very little insight about how fundraising would perform in this
pandemic. People around the world were losing their sources of income, as
unemployment soared. We worked with the board to plan for different
scenarios, including if fundraising went really poorly.
As a general matter, when the budget is underspent, any remainder goes into
the reserve. For accounting purposes, it cannot be carried over into the
budget of a new fiscal year. Because we were concerned about the
uncertainty of fundraising this year, we decided to set aside underspent
funds from the past fiscal year, so that we could keep our commitment to
our grantees even if fundraising fell short and also make progress on
knowledge equity. (Good news: Fundraising ended up going a lot better than
we expected when we were planning in the early months of this pandemic.
More to come on that.)
With the WMF board’s approval, we set up a US$8.7 million grantmaking fund
at Tides Advocacy, which has two purposes: 1) Funding Annual Plan Grants
(APG) to the affiliates this year and 2) Funding Knowledge Equity. We have
been working with Tides since 2016 when we launched the Endowment. The
relationship has gone well and they have a lot of expertise at
administering grants internationally.
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.
As the Audit Report FAQ states,[1] the remaining funds will be used to
launch the Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund. This new fund is in addition to
the existing grants that are already available for the communities
(Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants, and APGs) and does not
impact the amount of funds in those grant portfolios.
Our goal is to use this fund to invest in new opportunities that increase the
availability of free knowledge for marginalized people and counteract
structural inequalities. Knowledge equity is a key pillar of the 2030
movement strategy, and this investment will help us to address some of the
barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free
knowledge.
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.
We’ll share more details in early 2021 about the Knowledge Equity Fund. We
are excited to see what progress we can make for knowledge equity with this
investment.
Thank you,
Lisa Gruwell
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audi…
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2019-2020_-_frequently_asked_questions/id#This_year%E2%80%99s_report_says_that_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_provided_an_unconditional_grant_of_$8.723_million_to_Tides_Advocacy_for_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund._What_is_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund?>
On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 12:35 PM Katherine Maher <kmaher(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi folks,
Happy Sunday from San Francisco -- we've seen the questions on this list,
and we'll reply tomorrow when folks are back at work. Thanks for your
understanding!
Hope everyone is staying well and safe,
Katherine
On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 5:36 AM Isaac Olatunde <reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I agree with Dan. A question about this should
have been directed to the
WMF and allow them to respond prior to raising it here (if that's even
necessary in the first place.)
Regards
Isaac
On Sun, 13 Dec 2020, 14:30 Dan Garry (Deskana), <djgwiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
It seems disingenous to describe it as
"secret" given that it was
willingly acknowledged in the the FAQ of the annual financial audit
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2019-2020_-_frequently_asked_questions/id#This_year%E2%80%99s_report_says_that_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_provided_an_unconditional_grant_of_$8.723_million_to_Tides_Advocacy_for_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund._What_is_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund?>.
The information provided in the FAQ is somewhat lacking, but these are not
the actions of people trying to sweep it under the rug.
Let us politely ask for more information without being unnecessarily
alarmist.
Dan
On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 at 08:54, Yair Rand <yyairrand(a)gmail.com> wrote:
According to the recent Independent Auditors'
Report of the WMF [1], at
some point prior to the end of June 2020, an entity called the "Wikimedia
Knowledge Equity Fund" was established, and $8.723 million was transferred
to it by the WMF, in the form of an unconditional grant. The Fund is
"managed and controlled by Tides Advocacy" (a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit
previously led by the WMF's current General Counsel/Board Secretary, who
served as CEO, Board Secretary, and Treasurer there). Given that a Google
search for "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund" yields zero results prior to
the release of the report, it is clear that the WMF kept this significant
move completely secret for over five months, perhaps over a year. The
Report FAQ additionally emphasizes that the WMF "has no right of return to
the grant funds provided, with the exception of unexpended funds."
The WMF unilaterally and secretly transferred nearly $9 million of
movement funds to an outside organization not recognized by the
Affiliations Committee. No mention of the grant was made in any Board
resolutions or minutes from the relevant time period. The amount was not
mentioned in the public annual plan, which set out rather less than this
amount for the entire grantmaking budget for the year. No application was
made through any of the various Wikimedia grants processes. No further
information has been provided on the administration of this new Fund, or on
the text of the grant agreement.
I am appalled.
-- Yair Rand
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation…
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