Grants:Conference/Expressions of Interests for Regional Conferences

Expressions of interest for 2025, 2026, and 2027

The Conference Fund program is now introducing a new funding pathway and allowing regional event organizers to submit their conference proposals up to 3 years in advance. We are now accepting submissions for the Fiscal Years 2025–2026; 2026–2027 and 2027–2028. If you are interested in only applying for the coming year, please follow the standard timeline and submission process.

The main goals are to:

Ensure that funding for community conferences is aligned to the strategic priorities of each region
Allow more flexibility for organizers in terms of planning time.
Work with communities and affiliates that might not have the required capacity and experience now, but can build it over time.
Give a concept commitment to regional organizers for those pre approved events.
Allow more time to establish partnerships, sponsorships, visa arrangements and on-in on-wiki collaborations.
Ensure community alignment and consensus on the selected location and organizer.

We will currently only consider proposals for the big Regional events based on the 8 identified regions. We might consider global Thematic events as well (such as the EduWiki conference, Global GLAM conference), but this will be on a case by case basis.

Interested communities do not necessarily need to have a venue selected, contracts drafted or sponsors lined up. The Wikimedia Foundation staff are here to help you!

If a Wikimedia affiliate, group or community in a region is interested in hosting the regional event, please express interest by submitting an entry below. After applying your expression of interest, please make sure to email us at conferencegrantswikimedia.org.

Create expression of interest for regional conferences

Type the proposed conference / your affiliate or group name, click "Create expression of interest", and follow the instructions on the proposal page.

Please make sure to read carefully through the criteria and pay special attention to the requirement for a public evidence of a community agreement/alignment/decision on the hosting location/affiliate. After applying your expression of interest, please make sure to email us at conferencegrants wikimedia.org.

Review expressions of interest

All requests:

By fiscal year:

Conference/Expressions of Interests by Fiscal Year

Conference/Expressions of Interests/FY 2025-26

By region:

Conference/Expressions of Interests by Region

Conference/Expressions of Interests/ESEAP

Requirements and considerations for conference proposals

The points below give some idea of minimum requirements for hosting a regional/thematic conference and some of the responsibilities of the hosting team/organization. We will be taking into account various factors about potential sites and hosts, especially the cost, accessibility, security, and the capacity and experience of the organizing team.

This section is to outline the necessary details the Conference Fund Committee needs to assess your proposal for a conference.

Please note that all proposals are subjected to a legal risk assessment that will be done by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Legal, Human Rights and Trust and Safety team.

If there are questions about the requirements and/or you do not have the answers until after the proposal is submitted, please contact conferencegrants wikimedia.org.

Local Wikimedia Community and organizing team
- Is there an active and engaged local community to support the on ground planning?
- How do you assess the capacity and past experience of the suggested organizing team or the local community?
- What kind of needs, gaps and challenges do you foresee and how will you mitigate those over the course of the planning period?
- We encourage expressions of interest from regions who have not recently hosted a regional or a large scope conference.
Community alignment
- As we would like to prioritize decisions to be made collaboratively within regional communities, we ask for public Evidence of a community agreement/alignment/ decision on the hosting location/affiliate. This can be presented and facilitated as a public community discussion; a vote; a ‘bidding process’ ; a village pump discussion or steering committee/hub’s decision and can be presented in any language. Please email us with the evidence, link or refer us to any discussion/ decision announcement. This is a requirement in order to apply.
Location and date
- What is the suggested location for the event? Country | City. Please mind that we request the host city to be considered as a major hub for better accessibility.
- Please state if you have a suggested venue. It is ideal for the venue to be close to an international airport and not require extensive travel upon arrival.
- When do you plan on having the conference? We encourage you to take into consideration not only other regional and thematic Wikimedia events that might be happening at the same time, but also think about what other non-Wikimedia platforms and events can be used as an opportunity for collaboration.
- Please note that per our new changes, for all regional events, travel arrangements (flights, hotel booking and potentially venue contracting) will be done directly by the Wikimedia Foundation’s travel team.
Travel and visas
- An easy, accessible visa process is key to international participation. Use this Index as reference.
- This could mean few visa restrictions, accessible electronic visas, or embassies / agencies found in many global cities Wikimedians would be traveling from.
- Please state if the organizers have an existing relationship with a government authority to support the visa process.
Eligibility
- An affiliate or a Fiscal Sponsor with no outstanding reports and that are in compliance with the funding and Wikimedia Foundation agreements.
- That can receive funds from WMF and potentially can also reimburse participants.
Cultural/Religious considerations and competency
- It is important to us to know your target audience for your conference. Is the conference solely for your regional community? For example, are you only addressing the community for those who speak specific languages, projects, programs that you want to help grow in your community?
- Is this conference available for the entire Wikimedia community? For example, people who are outside of your region?

The Conference Fund Committee

The Conference Fund Committee is one of the Wikimedia movement’s volunteer fund committees, and makes decisions about Community Conferences funding for organizations and groups. The program launched in July 2016. The program supports Local, regional and thematic conferences focused on sharing, skill-building, and networking. To learn more about the Conference and Event Fund program and the funding pathways, visit: Grants:Conference.