Hi all,

thanks first of all for the responses both onlist and offlist. I appreciate the numbers mentioned in the report - they are retrospective and useful indeed. They are more detailed than I was aware of at the time of my initial query (my initial query predated the report, I believe). Thank you for pointing at this.

There is indeed value in the transparency provided after the fact. I believe however that it would be even more helpful to provide these numbers before and during the grant rounds: it allows the community to identify discrepancies and enter a conversation about how it can be improved (I realize this may be an advantage for some, and imply more work for others) but maybe more importantly it is an important piece of information for potential applicants to know how much money there is to distribute. This importance will grow over time as a better understanding will develop about how previous rounds ended up. This way, applicants are not left to guess which regions have increased budget available thanks to strategic shifts, but they can actually use this information in setting their grant priorities.

I hope that going forward, this information can be shared before the round actually starts. There is no harm in adding a few caveats of course (as these amounts can vary somewhat if the submitted proposals so require), but I see little reason to shy away from proudly sharing what kind of grant funds are available in which region - this distribution is something we should be proud of. If we're not, we should perhaps reconsider them. If these amounts are already prospectively, I happily will stand corrected!

Warmly, Lodewijk

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 11:18 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:

Dear Kassia,

Thank you very much. I am currently struggling to square the figures in the reports on Meta with the figures provided in the Form 990.

For example, the Form 990 for the 2020-2021 financial year lists grantmaking activities for various regions on pages 30–31 (with the same figures then repeated on pages 32–35, split into grants for organisations and individuals).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/e/e4/Wikimedia_Foundation_...

The grantmaking amounts listed there sum to $3,475,062, don't they? (That is the total at the bottom of page 31.)

Could you tell us where we can find that same figure on Meta-Wiki?

Or, if we can't find it, what is the difference in the reporting methods used on Meta-Wiki vs. the Form 990?

Best, Andreas

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 6:23 PM Kassia Echavarri-Queen < kechavarriqueen@wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

Dear Lodewijk,

Thank you for the question. We have published on meta the Funding Distribution report https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Reports/Funding_Report_2021-2022for grants allocation for the past fiscal year as well as the prior two years. There are further regional learnings being shared on diff, here is the post from the ESEAP region https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/11/03/our-future-success-lies-in-the-investments-that-we-make-today/. We will also soon be publishing both a regional learning sessions on grantee self reported programming and impact report, as well as, a report on the feedback from applicants and committee members from the second round of funding from the first year of implementation of the new funds programs and regional committees.

Thank you, Kassia

On Wed, Nov 9, 2022 at 9:29 AM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:

...

Hi,

Over the past year I've had the pleasure to serve on one of WIkimedia's regional funding committees https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Committees. Together, these committees get to allocate several millions of grant funding on behalf of our movement.

As I tried to have conversations about that, I noticed that the actual amounts that each committee is allowed to allocate in their region, is not published. I asked about this, and the response I get is that this is "internal information" and it might make things cluttered (I don't know if this is because the question got stuck in bureaucracy or because there is an actual concern for clutter - I do have to admit that the grants pages can be terribly confusing, but don't see how these numbers would change that).

I believe that it is important for transparency reasons, if not essential, that we all know how much money in grants we are spending and will be spending over the years in the various regions. Is there a stronger reason to keep this information confidential/secret?

Thanks!

Lodewijk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org

---

Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org