As you know, we recently re-named the Global Development department at the Wikimedia Foundation, as the Grantmaking and Programs department. The Grantmaking team is committed to supporting our community and meeting our shared goals at the different levels of contribution - whether individuals, groups or organisations - and we will be working with you over the next few months to deepen our strategies for doing so, and for evaluating our impact.

In the meantime, however, I am delighted to announce some changes to the Grantmaking team that reflect this commitment. Siko Bouterse [1] needs no introduction to most of you, having worked at WMF since 2011, most recently coordinating the Fellowships program. Siko is coming on to the Grantmaking team as Head of Individual Engagement Grants, a program that will support individual or small team projects for online impact. This is to be launched later today... watch out for Siko's announcement and details of the program, coming soon to a wiki near you. Siko will also shortly be taking on the responsibility for the Participation Support Program (which WMF and WMDE fund together), and supporting the documentation and analysis of our project-based grants. We are really pleased to have Siko's experience and insights on our team.

Katy Love is new to the team, the organisation and the movement, but I have no doubt that her experience and insights, as well, will help us be more effective. Katy has just joined us as the Senior Program Officer for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) [2] with a passion for strategic and impactful grantmaking, participatory collaborative work, and transparent decision-making. Her background spans philanthropic activities and NGO programs, systems, and operations. She spent the last four years at CARE International with the Emergency Capacity Building Project, a collaboration between six of the largest NGOs, aimed at improving humanitarian response.

Please join me in welcoming them to our team!

Warmly,
Anasuya

[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/User:Sbouterse
[2] http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=owwHWfwp&c=qSa9VfwQ

--
Anasuya Sengupta
Senior Director of Grantmaking
Wikimedia Foundation

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