Thanks Lisa,
It makes total sense.
Galder
________________________________
From: Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Lisa
Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2020 6:53 PM
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF transfers $8.7 million to "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity
Fund"
Hi all,
Thanks for the questions. We intend to announce the Knowledge Equity Fund in early 2021,
once we have a bit more details and specifics worked out. However, we can share the
overall intention today.
Some background: Our fiscal year runs from July through June, which means that the second
half of last year was heavily affected by the unforeseen effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Community events were canceled, hiring slowed, and we put work on pause while we responded
to the changing circumstances. As a result, we ended the year with funds that were
underspent, relative to what we had planned for the budget.
In May of last year, we were also planning for this current fiscal year and had very
little insight about how fundraising would perform in this pandemic. People around the
world were losing their sources of income, as unemployment soared. We worked with the
board to plan for different scenarios, including if fundraising went really poorly.
As a general matter, when the budget is underspent, any remainder goes into the reserve.
For accounting purposes, it cannot be carried over into the budget of a new fiscal year.
Because we were concerned about the uncertainty of fundraising this year, we decided to
set aside underspent funds from the past fiscal year, so that we could keep our commitment
to our grantees even if fundraising fell short and also make progress on knowledge equity.
(Good news: Fundraising ended up going a lot better than we expected when we were planning
in the early months of this pandemic. More to come on that.)
With the WMF board’s approval, we set up a US$8.7 million grantmaking fund at Tides
Advocacy, which has two purposes: 1) Funding Annual Plan Grants (APG) to the affiliates
this year and 2) Funding Knowledge Equity. We have been working with Tides since 2016 when
we launched the Endowment. The relationship has gone well and they have a lot of expertise
at administering grants internationally.
Our first priority was to ensure that we had enough funding to support community grants.
We transferred the full amount for Annual Plan Grants (APG) for FY20-21 over to Tides to
ensure that all funding for affiliates for this year was secured, regardless of how
fundraising performed. It also gives staff at affiliates and the Foundation more time to
work together to make thoughtful grants, instead of an end-of-year rush. All affiliates
who will be receiving funding through Tides were informed of the arrangement last summer.
All other grantmaking (Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants) are still being
funded through WMF directly, as usual. There is a round of APG grants set to go out via
Tides this week.
As the Audit Report FAQ states,[1] the remaining funds will be used to launch the
Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund. This new fund is in addition to the existing grants that
are already available for the communities (Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants,
and APGs) and does not impact the amount of funds in those grant portfolios.
Our goal is to use this fund to invest in new opportunities that increase the availability
of free knowledge for marginalized people and counteract structural inequalities.
Knowledge equity is a key pillar of the 2030 movement strategy, and this investment will
help us to address some of the barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing
to free knowledge.
As of now, this is a one-time commitment of approximately $4.5 million. We are still
working on the specific initial objectives of the fund and how it will operate. As a pilot
initiative, we’ll be learning and adapting as we go.
We’ll share more details in early 2021 about the Knowledge Equity Fund. We are excited to
see what progress we can make for knowledge equity with this investment.
Thank you,
Lisa Gruwell
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audi…
On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 12:35 PM Katherine Maher
<kmaher@wikimedia.org<mailto:kmaher@wikimedia.org>> wrote:
Hi folks,
Happy Sunday from San Francisco -- we've seen the questions on this list, and
we'll reply tomorrow when folks are back at work. Thanks for your understanding!
Hope everyone is staying well and safe,
Katherine
On Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 5:36 AM Isaac Olatunde
<reachout2isaac@gmail.com<mailto:reachout2isaac@gmail.com>> wrote:
I agree with Dan. A question about this should have been directed to the WMF and allow
them to respond prior to raising it here (if that's even necessary in the first
place.)
Regards
Isaac
On Sun, 13 Dec 2020, 14:30 Dan Garry (Deskana),
<djgwiki@gmail.com<mailto:djgwiki@gmail.com>> wrote:
It seems disingenous to describe it as "secret" given that it was willingly
acknowledged in the the FAQ of the annual financial
audit<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Finan…d?>.
The information provided in the FAQ is somewhat lacking, but these are not the actions of
people trying to sweep it under the rug.
Let us politely ask for more information without being unnecessarily alarmist.
Dan
On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 at 08:54, Yair Rand
<yyairrand@gmail.com<mailto:yyairrand@gmail.com>> wrote:
According to the recent Independent Auditors' Report of the WMF [1], at some point
prior to the end of June 2020, an entity called the "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity
Fund" was established, and $8.723 million was transferred to it by the WMF, in the
form of an unconditional grant. The Fund is "managed and controlled by Tides
Advocacy" (a 501(c)(4) advocacy nonprofit previously led by the WMF's current
General Counsel/Board Secretary, who served as CEO, Board Secretary, and Treasurer there).
Given that a Google search for "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund" yields zero
results prior to the release of the report, it is clear that the WMF kept this significant
move completely secret for over five months, perhaps over a year. The Report FAQ
additionally emphasizes that the WMF "has no right of return to the grant funds
provided, with the exception of unexpended funds."
The WMF unilaterally and secretly transferred nearly $9 million of movement funds to an
outside organization not recognized by the Affiliations Committee. No mention of the grant
was made in any Board resolutions or minutes from the relevant time period. The amount was
not mentioned in the public annual plan, which set out rather less than this amount for
the entire grantmaking budget for the year. No application was made through any of the
various Wikimedia grants processes. No further information has been provided on the
administration of this new Fund, or on the text of the grant agreement.
I am appalled.
-- Yair Rand
[1]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikimedia_Foundation…
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Lisa Seitz Gruwell
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