CONCLUSION
The organization needs to understand we are shaping the movement over time, not through carrot and stick approach, but through negotiation. It's hard to document that you're trying to drive a super tanker when you're not at the helm. We're all bending and shaping towards a common direction, based on shared values and trust.
— Garfield Byrd, Chief of Finance and Administration
The Wikimedia Foundation Grantmaking programs, structures, and processes have developed through emergent design, both responding to and stimulating an evolving clarity about the needs of the Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia Foundation Grantmaking is relatively new, with less than five years of overall development, yet it has already proven to be groundbreaking and innovative in the field of participatory grantmaking, with capacity to effectively steward a very large budget, diverse volunteer committee structures, and a wide range of applicants from individuals to large, formal organizations.
At the same time, this study finds that the organic evolution of WMF has yielded a structure that is clearly aligned with the comparative operations of others in its philanthropic field. Procedures, statistics, and organizational culture at WMF reflect values and behaviors shared by the funds we analyzed in the "Who Decides" report.
This study represents the first full survey of grantmaking at the Foundation. We found that the Wikimedia Foundation staff and the Foundation's Participatory Grantmaking practices enable a truly responsive, exciting, and dynamic movement.
WMF has the largest grantmaking team of any of the funds we have studied to date, by far the largest grantmaking resources, and a deeply shared sense of purpose, innovation, and movement development. With a rare capacity to fund, nurture, and elevate the movement's best ideas, leaders, and practices,WMF holds much promise for sustainability as a truly trailblazing institution.
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