Hello all,
Hope this email finds you well. We are sending this message to select
community mailing lists and all previous recipients of Wikimedia Foundation
Rapid Grants.
As you know the Rapid Grants Program
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid> [1] has played an
important role in helping our communities to grow. The number of grants we
have given out grew by 30% between FY16 -17 to this fiscal year, and they
grew by 55% when measured by the total amount disbursed. (See the spending
analysis
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis>
[2] for reference.*)
While communities have valued these flexible funding opportunities, on our
part, it hasn’t been easy to measure and track their impact. We therefore
will be implementing a number of changes in Fiscal Year 19/20, starting *August
1 2019*, to sharpen the focus and impact of rapid grants, whilst at the
same time maintaining the quick and flexible funding options for community:
1) In the months specified below, we will prioritize support to *contests
and campaigns* which have been an exciting source of growth in editorship,
innovative participation and content generation by communities. These
months will be solely dedicated to different contests and campaigns
throughout the year:
- *August*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Monuments*
- *September*: only receiving proposals for *Awareness Grants*
(campaign)
- *December*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Africa *
- *January*: only receiving proposals for *Art + Feminism* (campaign)
- *March*: only receiving proposals for *Wiki Loves Earth*
2) Outside the months specified above, proposals are welcomed in all other
categories: edit-a-thons, contests, photowalks, general promotion
campaigns, and video campaigns. For added flexibility, we will also
consider proposals outside of these categories, such as software
development. However, we will no longer be providing rapid grants for
travel support, equipment purchase or meetups.
3) We will evaluate each batch of grants once a month and accept the best
proposals in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation’s medium-term goals.
We will share the evaluation for the Rapid Grants Program that led us to
sharpen the focus for the program once the evaluation is completed by
September 30, 2019. In addition to these changes, we’ve also considered
comments around Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants eligibility criteria and
have clarified these criteria. Please take the time to re-familiarize
yourselves with the Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants Guidelines and
Criteria <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn> [4]
page.
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Medium-term
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019>
[3] plan goals are set out here for information.
If you have any questions, please email us at <rapidgrants(a)wikimedia.org>rg>.
Best regards,
Woubzena
*Please note that we have not yet put out the final FY 2018-19 numbers and
we’re basing this calculation based on up to date internal numbers of 184
grants and $270,194.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_spending_analysis
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn
Woubzena Jifar (pronouns - she/her/hers)
Program Officer, Rapid Grants
User: WJifar (WMF)
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>