It's Lisa Gruwell, MZ. Last I heard, she has been waiting to hear back from a couple of foundations about recent agreements.
Thanks, Sue
Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
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On 23 October 2011 11:05, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
MZMcBride wrote:
Sue Gardner wrote:
Oh. I can speak to this, at least a little. The Wikimedia Foundation has a policy of publishing our grant applications when the grantmaking institution is okay with it. We don't do a lot of grant applications, and of the ones we do, I am guesstimating that two-thirds of the grantmakers have said it's fine with them for us to publish, and about a third have asked us not to. Some grantmaking institutions are very happy to publish, because they believe the sector as a whole benefits from transparency about how things work. (IIRC Hewlett is an example of that.)
I do not know where they get published: I'll ask.
But, some of the grant we receive are unsolicited gifts, in which case there is no application, and nothing to publish. I think for example that our recent grant from the Indigo Trust in the UK is an example of that.
I assume, MZ, that you're mostly interested in the Stanton grant, and I don't remember their position on this issue. I do know they're not publicity-seeking, and they don't welcome grant applications that they haven't solicited. So they might be an example of a foundation that doesn't want its agreements publicized: I don't remember.
We can find out :-)
That would be great. Thanks. :-)
It's mostly the large grants that I'm interested in, the ones that have the power to shape a significant portion of Wikimedia's short-term future. Personally, the applications (assuming there are any) are completely unimportant to me. I can't imagine they're much more than "we'd like X money to fulfill Y portions of our mission", though perhaps I'm wrong. But the grant agreements ("we'll give you X money over Y months to do Z") are the piece that has me curious.
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. There's no rush on this, but I'd most certainly appreciate it if you could take a look or ask someone to.
Bumping this, so I don't forget. I think having public grant agreements wherever possible is critically important, particularly with large grants that have the potential to drastically (or dramatically) shape the future of Wikimedia, at least short-term.
Is there a particular staff member that I can talk to about this? There are some grant-specific people, aren't there?
MZMcBride
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