Talk:Grantmaking/Reports/2020-2021

Grants administered by

During the 2020–2021 fiscal year, the Wikimedia Foundation awarded 389 grants to mission-aligned organizations and people around the world, totaling $7,859,230. Most programs are led by the Community Resources team, but some grants are also led by other areas such as Partnerships and Community Programs. JStephenson (WMF) (talk) 13:46, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@JStephenson (WMF): Do you know which grants are led by Partnerships and Community Programs? I'm curious about whether they're also recorded in Fluxx. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Change high-income to developed (at link to developed)

Change high-income to countries classified as "developed" according to the definition of emerging communities (link to this). JStephenson (WMF) (talk) 13:55, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

"High income" and "Developed" have different definitions. "High income" refers to the classification by the World Bank. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Report actual money amounts instead of percentage?

percentages, but no financial data

@Guillaume (WMF): Can you or anyone else please share actual financial data for 2020-21? By "financial data" I mean actual money amounts.

The top of the report says that the WMF awarded $7,859,230. Then the report gives data visualizations of percentages awarded. I want to know actual dollar amounts awarded for 2020-21. I would like those amounts reported for the same groups where percentages are reported, which are by these regions

• Sub-saharan Africa
• South Asia
• East Asia & Pacific
• Middle East and North Africa
• Latin America and Caribbean
• North America
• Europe and Central Asia

and these demographics

• Emerging communities
• Gender gap

Also, if you have data by country for 2020-21, then I would like that too! The community outreach for the fundraising campaign at Fundraising/India2022campaign advertises that the WMF gives money to India, but it does not report how much. I asked JBrungs (WMF) for it because they are managing the India fundraising, and they referred me here. Does anyone at WMF have data for every country to share? If not, could you please share just India's last year data for us? Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 11:37, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: It is trivial to obtain money amounts by simply multiplying the percentages by the total amount. The charts also give both financial amounts and percentages. Here they are for convenience:

Region	Funds	% funds
Europe & Central Asia	$3,209,569	40.8%
North America	$1,430,312	18.2%
Latin America & Caribbean	$621,907	7.9%
East Asia & Pacific	$629,018	8.0%
Sub-Saharan Africa	$1,277,540	16.3%
Middle East & North Africa	$346,460	4.4%
South Asia	$288,724	3.7%
Unclassified	$55,700	0.7%

Similarly, the charts for Emerging status and Gender gap provide both percentages and financial amounts, and the amounts can also be easily obtained as above:

Emerging status	Funds	% funds
Developed	$4,773,990	60.7%
Emerging	$2,916,023	37.1%
Unclassified	$56,975	0.7%
Least developed	$112,242	1.4%

Focus	Funds	% funds
Gender gap focus	$2,826,724	36.0%
Other focus	$5,032,506	64.0%

I don't have exact numbers for India specifically handy, but from a cursory glance the CIS-A2K APG grant is the largest one, along with a number of smaller grants. Hope that helps. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

@Guillaume (WMF): Thanks, this is helpful. I am sharing it with others.

The numbers you have here are slightly different from those in the report. For example, the report says "38% of funds go to emerging communities" whereas in the table here, you say 37.1%. I expect that this table is more accurate than the prose, but please confirm.

Can you also share a table for Grantmaking/Reports/2019-2020 and confirm the numbers there? I would like it also for future reports too.

Thanks, I am happy to see this shared. Bluerasberry (talk) 02:08, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: The numbers should be the same in the table and in the prose apart from rounding differences. The section on emerging communities does say 37%, but you're right that the summary at the top said 38% (seemingly introduced in this edit). Sorry I didn't catch that; I've corrected it.

I'll try to add the tables to the previous report as well this week. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 11:39, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry and Guillaume (WMF): As mentioned on the mailing list, I am currently struggling to square the figures in the reports here on Meta with the figures provided in the Form 990. For example, the Form 990 for the 2020-2021 financial year lists grantmaking activities for various regions outside the US on pages 30–31 (with the same figures then repeated on pages 32–35, split into grants for organisations and individuals).

The "grantmaking" amounts listed there sum to $3,475,062, don't they? (That is the total at the bottom of page 31.) That sum is about $3 million smaller than the sum for regions outside the US above. Why the discrepancy? Andreas JN466 22:13, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

None of the numbers match and it would be ideal to sync them for future reporting. This is a 2020 Wikimedia Foundation finance report to the United States government, so it seems conventional. Here is some of what I notice -

Grant report here for South Asia - $288,724; in government report $3,339.

Grant report here for Europe and Central Asia - $3,209,569; in government report $666,875 for Europe, $1,495 for Russia and nearby, and $82,799 for near east

Grant report here for sub-Sahara Africa $1,277,540; in government report $507,904

Requests: anticipate a need that these community facing reports need to be accessible and understandable for the Wikimedia community. A great way to do this would be to have Wikimedia Foundation staff enter grants into Wikidata so that we can just query them however we like. I think I would like to request Wikidata management of Wikimedia Foundation grants - is that a reasonable request for me to make of Wikimedia Foundation grants staff? Bluerasberry (talk) 13:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: Note that there are generally two amounts for the various regions in the Form 990. For example, there is another $75,198 for South Asia on page page 31. Page 32 then makes clear that the $3,339 represented grants to one or more organizations in South Asia ("Assistance to Organizations or Entities Outside the United States"), and page 34 makes clear that the $75,198 was spent on individuals in South Asia ("Assistance to Individuals Outside the United States"). However, the sum of these two amounts ($78,537) still falls far short of the amount shown here ($288,724). So the question is – Why is the community told something different than the IRS? Andreas JN466 15:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I see the difference. The Wikimedia Foundation is likely going to find your question difficult to answer. As an escape to a better future, I think a great reform would be for the Wikimedia Foundation to hire an entry-level worker for data entry to convert all grants into Wikidata items. If that happens then we leverage our own Wikidata for its strength in data visualization, we solve the problem of discrepancies in reporting, and we live up to our values of transparency. It is really weird for the Wikimedia Foundation to present these charts outside of Wikidata when Wikidata is explicitly designed to contain and visualize this data in endless ways. If the Wikimedia Foundation does not want to hire such a person, I wonder how much appetite they have to give a grant to an organization to convert their grants data into Wikidata items. We would get so much insight about about impact, diversity, and just an inventory of our resources if this happened, and it seems inevitable anyway. Bluerasberry (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2022 (UTC)