CHALLENGES
Research for the "Who Decides" Report identified a number of consistent challenges arising for the international Participatory Grantmaking Funds we analyzed: need to diversify their income sources; the complex logistics of working in multiple languages with limited staff capacity; and significant financial oversight requirements.
At the Wikimedia Foundation, we find echoes of the above concerns, but we found the WMF core challenges to be significantly different. Plainly, where most of the funds reflected in "Who Decides" are challenged to expand their funding beyond a small number of institutional supporters, WMF has a rare capacity to generate substantial income through grassroots fundraising. In the 2013-14 fiscal year, WMF raised $51 million, including $37 million from more than 2.5 million individual Wikipedia readers.[1] As a result, while internal negotiations about budgeting are surely a concern for WMF staff, we did not find significant concern about lack of financial resources, staff capacity, or complex financial oversight requirements. This is especially impressive when we consider the relatively low number of total WMF staff compared to the size and logistical complexity of WMF budget, and the massive scope of international volunteer participation to be coordinated.
Instead, we found that discussion about challenges centered on the logistical complexities of the multiple grantmaking programs, which are all relatively new and simultaneously evolving, and the dynamic challenges of expanding the Wikimedia community to increase participation of women and the Global South. We will explore those issues in this section.
Committee Logistics: Room for Improvement
We heard a theme of concern about how to connect the dots between the most successful elements of the various grantmaking processes, and interest in looking at where elements that work about one program might be applied to another. Though staff reported different opinions on which tools are useful for the varied programs, it is clear that there can be increased ease and participation through further experiments.
For instance, until recently the Grant Advisory Committee (advising on Project and Event Grants) invited feedback solely through free-form comments, as opposed to the IEG and APG programs which have considerably more structured processes, including the use of consistent "scoring rubrics" along with free form comments.[2] As a result, says Asaf Bartov, comments on PEG grants can range from "bikeshedding"[3] on the minutiae of a proposal (for instance, "the biscuits are too expensive") to big questions about why a project is necessary.
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