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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