Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wiki Education Foundation Annual Plan Grant, 2024–2026

Questions from the Regional Committee

Greetings, WikiEdu team,

Thank you for your very comprehensive and thoughtful proposal. Members of the US/Canada Regional Committee have reviewed the proposal, and we have a few initial questions:

• in your proposal, you mention that the new Wikidata Student Program is expected to be funded by an external funder, not the Wikimedia Foundation. Is this expected for all 3 years of this plan i.e. until 2026?
• In sections 8 & 12 of the proposal you describe a number of examples in which WikiEdu is active. These all appear to be US examples; could you provide 1 or 2 examples of WikiEdu activity in Canada?

Many thanks on behalf of the Committee,

Redwidgeon (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

@Redwidgeon: Thank you to you and other committee members for your detailed review!

• Our new strategy (which, now that our board has formally approved it, is available; should I update the link on Fluxx?) calls for the launch of that program at some point during the plan. We're planning to seek funding for it in 2024 and hope to launch it in 2025; it would run in 2026 as well and be funded through non-WMF funding both years.
• Absolutely! We have supported 43 courses in Canadian universities who have incorporated teaching with Wikipedia in 2023 through our Wikipedia Student Program (see, for example, this course, which produced the new articles w:en:Wetlands and wetland policies in Canada and w:en:Ecofeminism in Canada. We've also had several Canadians participate in our Scholars & Scientists courses, including those from the Canadian Heritage Information Network, the Association of Canadian Archivists, the Musée de la Civilisation, and several from universities, including Western University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Saskatchewan.

I hope this is helpful; I'm happy to answer any more questions the committee may have. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:54, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Budget

Good morning, Wiki Edu team! Could you please provide a more detailed budget for this request? If you'd rather not post publicly to Meta, I can provide an email. Thank you! Emjackson42 (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

@Emjackson42: I'm at WikiConference North America right now -- any chance you or someone else from the committee is here and we could discuss in person so I can make sure to provide what you're looking for? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:06, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 820,000 USD

@LiAnna (Wiki Ed): Your proposal is approved for partial funding over a period of three years in the amount of 820,000 USD with a grant term starting 1 January 2024 and ending 31 December 2026. This total is distributed over three years in the following manner:

Year 1: 420,000 USD

Year 2: 200,000 USD (at minimum)

Year 3: 200,000 USD (at minimum)

The committee acknowledges this decision represents a significant change in how your organization has been funded through the General Support Fund. For one, funding has been reduced from the previous year, and secondly, the approved amounts for multiyear funding are substantially less than in the first year. There are a number of important points of context and explanation to address around these changes, which will be described below in detail.

Recognition of Wiki Education Foundation’s strengths and recent achievements

During its review of the proposal and annual plan, the committee acknowledged several areas they see as your organization’s strengths and areas of success. These include:

• Robust, clear long-term planning that directly addresses dimensions of movement strategy (such as the prospect of Hub development, enhancing the impact of Wikimedia campaigns, and prioritizing efforts to prevent and reduce disinformation). These choices are supported by ample expertise in your staff and board related to these topics as well as the needs of multiple Wikimedia communities you support.
• Relative to many organizations that receive General Support Funding, Wiki Ed has invested considerable time and attention into fundraising to support its sustainability. The committee feels that your efforts to thoroughly investigate and apply for additional funding opportunities have clearly been successful. This supports the committee’s confidence that the Wiki Education Foundation prioritizes long-term stability for its programs and mission.
• Wiki Education’s outcomes often meet or exceed targets, and important contextual explanations are provided in reporting when targets are not met, with considerations about what could be done differently where possible. This reflection encompasses community-facing work such as with new instructor participation or participant feedback on programs, but also includes internal-facing work to hold office hours, recruiting board members, and supporting community engagement with different leaders in your organization.

Decision to reduce funding for Year 1

The committee has reduced funding to the Wiki Education Foundation relative to its funding from last year to 420,000 USD. Last year, an increase approved by me (your program officer) through the multi-year funding process was for 535,000 USD. The year prior, the Regional Committee supported funding your organization for 500,000 USD for its first year.

The decision to reduce funding in Year 1 was not premised on any specific concerns about the proposal, nor that specific programs were considered a poor use of movement funds. While a number of concerns were expressed regarding the level of detail provided in the proposed budget and previous budgets (which will be elaborated on later), the committee did not feel it would be sensible to justify a budget decrease on this basis, as these concerns could be addressed in other ways.

The primary reason for reducing funding in Year 1 is based on the overall portfolio for funding in North America. Prior to the round, all returning grantees and the Regional Committee were notified that the level of growth for the Wikimedia Community Fund this year was modest– just under a 6% increase from the previous year for this region. Given this limited growth, the committee recognizes there are competing needs between 1) maintaining funding for organizations that receive a large proportion of movement funds in the region, and 2) supporting other, important funding opportunities, such as sustaining or growing smaller affiliates or investing in initiatives addressing important challenges or communities. In the current environment, the committee determined it was not possible to realistically support both of these needs. The committee consequently made a decision to prioritize the latter approach to funding this year. The prospect of not being able to consider new funding opportunities in addition to only being able to consider trivial or no financial growth for other existing grantees in the region was generally considered unacceptable by the committee.

The committee acknowledges that this decision is likely to create a significant funding gap for your organization, and the committee is not certain if it is fully possible to make up this difference with other funding sources your organization maintains or will seek in 2024. This may mean that programmatic work, staffing, or other expenses supported through General Support Funding may need to be reduced or scaled back this year. Your program officer is also willing to provide any support around other funding opportunities you may be seeking.

Decision to create minimum funding amounts for Years 2 and 3

The committee supported funding amounts for Year 2 and Year 3 of your proposal to be initially set at 200,000 USD. This decision diverges from typical multiyear funding arrangements, where smaller increases or a consistent amount is provided year over year.

Recognizing that 1) Wikimedia Foundation currently operates on an annual budget, and 2) that budgetary growth for General Support Funding for next fiscal year is expected to be relatively smaller compared to the current year, the committee feels there are significant risks in issuing larger multiyear funding decisions at this time. Given these circumstances, the committee is willing to support multiyear funding budgets up to 200,000 USD for Year 2 and Year 3 for all multiyear grantees moving forward. (For the sake of transparency, this decision also affects other muiltiyear funding grantees this round, and is expected to affect any multiyear decisions next round as well.)

Importantly, these amounts are to be treated as minimums, and the committee is willing to review requests for increases from these minimums as a part of the multi-year funding process, and as more budgetary information becomes available for subsequent fiscal years. Just as for your current General Support Fund for Year 2, a requested increase will not require an elaborate or lengthy rationale. However, it is unlikely that the committee will be able to realistically support the kind of financial growth requested in the current proposal (i.e. an annual budget of 600,000 USD).

Remarks on budget and financial reporting

The committee met with you before finalizing a funding decision to discuss feedback around the level of detail in your proposed budget. In that meeting, the committee noted that the summary level of detail was not satisfactory relative to the level of detail expected and provided by most other grantees in the General Support Fund. This lack of clarity over how movement funds are expected to be used is a concern for several reasons. Before addressing those reasons, the committee wants to acknowledge that

• the committee is not seeking to learn more about how movement funds are spent on a specific program, administrative need, or other expense area, and
• there are no concerns related to Wiki Education Foundation’s financial controls or potential misuses of funds.

However, the committee does have concerns around this level of detail for the following reasons:

• An organization that is highly funded is expected to demonstrate a high level of accountability on how that funding is budgeted and spent. In the current proposal, there is significantly less transparency in how movement funds are expected to be used in your proposal, except at a fairly abstract level (e.g. salaries for an unspecified number of staff, and contractors, and various overhead expenses). This situation creates a dynamic where organizations that receive significantly less movement funds than yours are actually doing more work to clearly indicate specifically how movement funds are expected to be used. Said another way, it is easier to determine how movement funds are budgeted and later used in other organizations compared to yours, despite them receiving significantly less resourcing overall. In either case, the situation creates inequity in the accountability practices and expectations across organizations we fund.
• While the committee acknowledges that pending decisions on other funding sources can create uncertainty in how best to use General Support Funds for your annual planning, this does not usually prevent other movement organizations from proposing a reasonable hypothetical scenario for how funding could be used given what they know at the time. That the funding is unrestricted also permits changes to these initial budgets at the grantee’s discretion.
• Explanations provided around expected auditing-related consequences of publishing a more concrete budget remain somewhat unclear and disconnected to the actual, unrestricted funding agreements inherent to this funding program. It may be necessary to discuss these considerations further with your program officer, potentially with board participation and your auditor if needed to support better clarity.

The committee appreciates that your organization prepared a more detailed budget – splitting staffing and outreach costs, and providing more detailed notes overall – after these concerns were presented. Moving forward, budgets at this level of detail should be provided publicly as a part of your proposals.

Concluding remarks

The committee continues favoring significant investment of movement funds for the Wiki Education Foundation, as your overall impact across educational and technological programs across the Wikimedia communities is undeniably substantial, and consistent, as is your practice of learning. However, the committee’s general rationale around this decision was primarily based on an intent to change their approach to multiyear funding related to the overall funding environment, rather than on any specific aspect of this proposal.

We understand that this kind of rationale may be disappointing or frustrating to receive. Afterall, these factors and limits that impact the environment around funding are not ones you can directly control or improve. Where possible, we will be sure to provide clear feedback on future improvements that could support additional funding for your organization. But, current limitations on growth in the region in the near future means that your organization cannot rely on the General Support Fund for significant financial growth, and we ask that future proposals be prepared accordingly.

We are open to discussing the decision further with you to answer questions you may have or to provide clarity where needed. We look forward to your work over the next three-year period, and appreciate your continued contributions to the Wikimedia movement.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 07:12, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): and Committee (@Emjackson42, Effeietsanders, Redwidgeon, Matthewvetter, Wugapodes, and AbhiSuryawanshi:),

On behalf of everyone at Wiki Education, I want to first express our deep gratitude to all of you for the hard work that goes into your service on the committee. We know these kinds of decisions are not easy to make, and we appreciate the time and effort you took to carefully read and evaluate our proposal.

You are correct that we are disappointed in this decision. For 2022, 2023, and 2024, we’ve requested the amount of $600,000/year in funding for our organization, and each year, the dollar amount has been cut from our request – now for 2024, a 30% cut from our request and a 24% cut from our dollar amount from the prior year, and a cut of up to 70% in 2025 and beyond. To be clear, even our $600,000 request, we believe, does not truly reflect the impact that we have to the Wikimedia projects (remember, we bring 19% of all of English Wikipedia’s new contributors), and this decision makes our impact relative to the dollar amount we receive of movement funds even more disproportionate than it already was.

In reflecting on the committee’s statement, we’d like to challenge the (in our minds) false dichotomy presented therein. Of course, if your choices are only “Fund Wiki Education” or “Fund newcomers and smaller affiliates”, the decision is understandable. But we see other options, and we’d love to hear whether the committee considered these.

1. Request more money for the “region,” given most organizations funded from the “North America region” actually do work outside the U.S. and Canada. From our understanding, the growth in grantmaking budgets was primarily focused on funding regions from emerging communities. That’s excellent, and directly in line with Movement Strategy. However, there is no mention of how the North America “region” is full of organizations that are incorporated in the region but whose primary focus is content or contributors in emerging communities — the five other organizations who applied at the same cycle we did are all international in scope, and groups funded in the last cycle like AfroCROWD and Art+Feminism do exceptional work that is also international in scope. Wiki Education’s own work with the Programs & Events Dashboard is also widely used internationally. Dismissing the work we all do as being “North America” (and thus not in support of emerging communities) does not do justice to the incredible work funded through this “region”. What efforts did the committee make to flag how much international work is funded through this regional committee to decision-makers at WMF, to justify an increase in the budget to accommodate new grantees who sought funding for international (not regional) work? Or are there discussions about creating an “international/thematic funding region” to recognize that many organizations do work on a global scale, not a regional scale?
2. Distribute cuts equally across grantees. If you do need to cut, why not cut all grantees equally? Of the three other grantees funded in our cycle, one received 100% of their request and the other two had 12% and 13% decreases from their requests for 2024, and all received year over year increases in raw dollar amount (note: one was a new grantee). Wiki Education was the outlier here: We received a 30% decrease from our request, and a 24% decrease from our prior year’s funding. Why were cuts not evenly distributed across grantees, so that everyone would need to re-adjust plans? If there were concerns about our impact or our plans, we could better understand the cuts, but it seems like we were singled out solely because we’re a larger organization (with also large impact).

Finally, we have a high level question as well. Based on the numbers available, Wiki Education is internationally one of the most impactful organizations in the Wikimedia universe. We believe impact should matter in funding decisions, since it is precious donor money. How are you taking impact into account when you discuss funding decisions?

We look forward to hearing more from the committee. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

@LiAnna (Wiki Ed): Hello, LiAnna and the Wiki Education team. Firstly, we want to acknowledge again that the news about our funding decision is a disappointment for you, and may require significant work to adjust your fiscal budget and assess your existing and planned services and programs. As a committee, we place a high value on the work you are doing and acknowledge its significant impact. We are also disappointed that we could not fully fund many compelling proposals due to our budget constraints. As you noted in your response, only one proposal from the region was fully funded this round, while all other proposals were either declined or funded at an amount below their request. We mention that simply to emphasize that reduced funding is being felt by the majority of our grantees. As your program officer communicated prior to your application, there was modest budgetary growth in all regions, including North America.

In your response, we hear you asking for clarification on three points:

1. What efforts did the committee make to flag how much international work is funded through this regional committee to decision-makers at WMF, to justify an increase in the budget to accommodate new grantees who sought funding for international (not regional) work? Are there discussions about creating an “international/thematic funding region” to recognize that many organizations do work on a global scale, not a regional scale?
2. If you do need to cut, why not cut all grantees equally?
3. We believe impact should matter in funding decisions, since it is precious donor money. How are you taking impact into account when you discuss funding decisions?

The first question is a broader question for Community Resources and Wikimedia Foundation executive leadership to address, and outside the scope of what this committee is tasked with. We have shared your concerns with Yael Weissburg, VP of Community Growth (and acting Director of Community Resources) and she will be following up with you directly.

Speaking to the second question, and using your examples, a proposal of $58,000 for a single year and a proposal with a multi-year budget totaling $1,891,500 are at quite different scales, and draw from the same budget. Cuts to the former would be felt quite heavily, and the net gain to substantially larger organizations would be negligible. In addition, using the approach of applying equal reduction percentages to all proposals would in our view not be appropriate, as that would introduce undesirable incentives towards budget padding for future rounds. We are committed to judge proposals on their merits, in the context of constraints.

As you noted, we did fund less than requested in the case of the two other multi-year requests this round. Sometimes, proposals are also declined by the committee as well. It is the job of the committee to make difficult decisions about funding, when needed, based in part on the resources available to us. Our concerns regarding very large grants posing constraints on the grant ecosystem are not new, and were also communicated in your previous application. Our initial funding decision for Wiki Education includes very specific information about why we decided to fund your project in the way that we felt was most appropriate, given the constraints of this funding round, as well as anticipated constraints of future rounds.

This brings us to the final question, of the importance of impact. Certainly, impact is important. If you have followed our funding decisions over the last several years, you will see a common thread of asking organizations to consider, collect, and report on meaningful metrics related to their work. However, it’s also the case that this funding program is available for wiki-organizations and wiki-projects that have existed without WMF funding, as volunteer-led, until the point of their application, and are not yet assessing their impact in the ways that more established projects may be doing. If we were to only look at impact for established projects, we would not have the capacity to fund new and emerging projects, and we would be stifling diverse voices and initiatives. Wiki Education is an extremely important organization in the movement, and we are very happy to be able to support your operations. However, its importance does not negate the importance of smaller and emerging organizations and projects. In order for the wiki-verse to continue to be accessible and attractive to new participants, who bring in diverse perspectives and new ways of contributing to open knowledge, we must be good stewards of our funds, and not take what is arguably the easier path for the committee, to fund a small number of established projects at larger and and larger percentages of our overall budget.

Should you wish to discuss this further, several members of the committee are available to meet over Zoom.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, Emjackson42 (talk) 19:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)