Grants:PEG/Grant Advisory Committee/Membership criteria

The Grant Advisory Committee (GAC) is a volunteer body composed of Wikimedia community representatives, tasked with reviewing and advising on grant proposals, to both the Wikimedia Foundation and grant applicants.

On June 2012, the GAC membership model became a criteria-based model, where all interested volunteers who meet the criteria below can become members of the GAC. This is thought to be well-suited to the spirit of open collaboration of Wikimedia projects, transparent, and a good antidote to the dangers of atrophy, groupthink, or prolonged inactivity. Any interested volunteer who demonstrably meets the criteria below, unless there be other reasons to exclude that volunteer (e.g. involvement in unethical behavior, police investigations, etc.), will be added to the GAC.

Mandatory criteria edit

  • Familiarity with the Wikimedia movement, and in particular at least one Wikimedia project
  • Experience with Wikimedia programmatic work, either on- or off-wiki, possibly but not necessarily within a Wikimedia chapter – i.e. outreach programs, community events, partnerships, education, workshops, advocacy, etc. (not software programming)
  • Facility with editing a wiki (grant proposal reviewing is to be conducted entirely on the Meta-wiki)
  • Reasonable working facility with English, for reviewing and discussing grant proposals
  • Experience handling externally provided money and working with and within budgets, preferably in a non-profit context

Optional criteria edit

  • Experience with applying for grants
  • Experience with the Wikimedia grants program, or another grants program in the Wikimedia movement
  • Experience with non-Wikimedia grants (e.g. in the academic or wider non-profit world)
  • Experience with auditing, comptrollership, and finance
  • Experience with governance, due diligence, and accountability processes

Definitely acceptable edit

  • GAC membership does not affect an individual's ability to request funds via the Wikimedia Grants program, for a member's own projects or the projects proposed by an organization to which the member belongs. Members will recuse themselves from reviewing such proposals.
  • Thanks to its open, non-exclusive membership model, GAC membership does not conflict with membership in other Wikimedia committees, except for the Funds Dissemination Committee.