Grants:Programs/Hub Fund/North American Hub 2025-26
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Applicant information
[edit]- Organization or group name. (required)
- North American Hub
- Provide your main Wikimedia Username. (required)
- econterms
- Have you contacted the Wikimedia Foundation Hub team before applying? (required)
- Yes
Is your group legally registered in your country? (required)
- Yes
- Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- Yes
- Fiscal organization name.
- Hacks Hackers, Inc.
Main proposal
[edit]- 1. State the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required)
- North American Hub 2025-26
- 2. Proposed start date. (required)
- 2025-08-01
- 3. Proposed end date. (required)
- 2025-07-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? Provide the region or country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal. (required)
- United States and Canada mainly. We expect to have grantees and partnerships in Mexico, the Caribbean, and perhaps Central America. Hub members in these regions would be welcome.
- 5. Does your group have a theory of change for your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (optional)
- Yes
- 6. Why do you believe your group is best positioned to drive this hub initiative? (required)
For years, the core team behind this proposal has organized discussion of this hub idea among regional Wikimedia community organizations. Individual unaffiliated Wikimedia community members and other stakeholder organizations such as cultural partners have also joined these conversations for years.
Notes from these discussions include the chapter planning discussion at Wikimania 2012 in Washington DC, years of regular WALRUS and NARWHAL meetings as documented on Meta-Wiki, annual governance discussions at the regional WikiConference since 2014, and through participation in the various Wikimedia Foundation-organized Movement Strategy talks. Anyone who has sought to participate in or give comment about regional Wikimedia governance has found this network and an opportunity to join. Our group is best positioned to drive the hub initiative because it is well prepared as anyone could expect given the resources we had to coordinate consensus and strategy.
These discussions led to a WMF-funded research project evaluating prospects for a North American hub which submitted a substantial report a year ago: [1].
The research included input from scores of North American wikimedians and a comparison to larger chapters and Wikimedia hubs being organized elsewhere
This group has a tentative agreement among several chapters and user groups in this region. For a list, see [2]
- 7. Do you have a strategic plan that can help us understand your proposal? If your proposal relates to piloting a hub, share your piloting plan. If your proposal relates to research, share your research plan. (required)
- Yes
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/North_American_Hub_Research_Project/Final_report
- 8. Describe the specific activities that will be carried out during this project. If your proposal is related to piloting a hub, describe the services you plan to offer and include how you are drawing on community consultation and needs assessments to define your activities. (required)
1. We will establish a small grants program with awards generally from $50-1000. This program will address several problems. One problem that this will address is preventing existing small programs from failing and disbanding for lack of support. It happens too often that collectively, our organizers lack administrative capacity to directly support small groups with grant writing capacity, including rapid grants, and such groups will do a single good program but then burn out from overwork and lack of recognition. While money does not solve all problems, we do believe that program incentives such as small grants for coffee, meeting expenses, and administrative costs are an easy way to recognize good contributions, motivate organizers, reduce social awkwardness of asking volunteers to pay out of pocket to volunteer, and retain engagement from those who already generously give their time. The Wikimedia Foundation rapid grants process only makes awards of minimum $500, so this program fills the gap for smaller grants, for proof-of-concept events, getting started as an organizer or small local projects. It will help organizers build confidence and kickstart collaborations that will then be furthered by the existing grant system. Another problem which the grant program will address is lack of central coordination and communication in the region, because we can use the grant application process as a way to have all program organizers centrally check in, and become aware of collaboration campaigns. Yet another problem which this will address is lack of metrics reporting, as volunteers simply do not report essential Wikimedia impact metrics without having an incentive guiding them to either the Wikimedia Event space extension, the Programs & Events Dashboard, or whatever process we develop. As those metrics are useful for regional coordination, consensus building, and strategy planning, we need the grants program to increase the efficacy and impact of programs which already occur. Finally, the grants program will encourage participation from underserved groups which will continue to be underrepresented, until and unless someone starts serving them. Grant making is the cheapest and best way to fill that gap given our current state of hub development. Every small grant made is a point of contact between the hub and the community, and will promote public on-wiki consultation and exchange. We expect to have rolling applications, and rolling acceptance/rejections/revisions, and to publicize some of our small-grant results following the successful model WM Canada now uses.
2. We will develop more advanced communication infrastructure for the hub. The problem we are trying to address is lack of communication infrastructure to 1) recruit new campaign participants, then 2) guide them into a process where they can stay engaged. This infrastructure will include research and development on the CentralNotice tool to enable our hub to give new editors notice of campaigns and events, and development of a hub membership registry to collect the contact information of existing editors who want to receive notice of events. The CentralNotice tool is excellent for making editors aware of campaigns, but because of its complexity and potential for error in setting up banners (campaigns), we need to develop it technically, and with technical documentation, and with user documentation, and to maintain it. To keep users engaged after campaign recruitment, we will develop a technical and social communication strategy. For this, the Hub may use CiviCRM as a community management tool for keeping user contacts, defining our security and privacy practices, and standardizing regional communication for anyone who wants to opt-in to receive messaging. Development of CentralNotice and exploration of CiviCRM will go along with other communication infrastructure, such as standardizing our social media practices, improving our online calendars and newsletters, and setting rules for using on-wiki notices or the regional email list. More information is on Meta-Wiki at [3]
3. We will manage the administrative support required to support the membership program and grants program. We will establish centralized administrative services by appointing staff. These services will include their following:
- Establishment of a single point of contact for general queries and communication
- Administrative support for scheduling and publicizing regional meetings, of which there already have been several a month for some years
- Support for regional groups to document their program outcomes in a way that is compatible with the new 2024 Wikimedia Foundation recommendations on community health metrics
The theme for all of these services is increasing community engagement and communication between the hub and users. The problem that we are trying to address is wasted opportunity of volunteers wanting to engage, and there being community organizations which already exist to welcome volunteer organizers, but lack of administration prevents matching volunteers to the network organization.
- 9. Did you involve communities during the drafting of this proposal? Share which specific communities you involved, the process you used to involve them, and how they will participate in this proposal. (required)
Yes, the community involvement in drafting this proposal was years long and as comprehensive as it could have been given our resources and current infrastructure.
Processes which we used for community outreach include the following:
- Implemented a staffed research project for needs assessment, as documented in [4]
- Communicated with all community organizers of regional chapters, user groups, proto-user groups, and recurring campaigns over the past several years.
- Hosted large in-person discussions at WikiConference North America Toronto in 2023 and Indianapolis in 2024
- Hosted online discussions through both the virtual meetups for the region, including meta:WALRUS and meta:NARWHAL
- Got consensus to proceed from three established regional chapters and many user groups.
Key support from this proposal comes from the regional chapters. Canada, NYC, and DC will participate on the hub's board or steering committee. Mexico is supportive and invited to participate in the future, but for now, will be focusing on Spanish language communities even though they expressed hope for the hub to proceed. Other wiki communities do not have the infrastructure to make commitments at this time, but more engaged individuals have volunteered to join as this concept develops. There has not been any significant protest against this proposal, so nothing blocks proceeding.
- 10. Are you in communication with other initiatives or groups that either support similar communities or offer similar services to the ones in your proposal? Provide information about any initiatives, affiliates, and/or hubs that have the potential to duplicate or overlap with your proposal. (required)
We are in communication with other such efforts by many means: the Movement Strategy process and meetings; the Berlin conferences, Hub meetings with Jessica Stephenson; the North American conference, the WikiFranca partnership, the joint meetings of Executive Directors of chapters, the joint meetings of chairpersons of chapters. As part of the research effort cited above, Wikimedia DC people interviewed Hub organizers around the world (CEE, ESEAP, East Africa) and large chapter managers (WMUK).
The ongoing North American conference overlaps with this proposal in that it addresses a similar audience. It may be helpful to merge these efforts into the conference user group or vice versa, but we did not find it to be practical to do so now.
- 11. Who is your primary audience(s)? List the communities, affiliates, and groups. (required)
We wish to support organizers of Wikimedia-related activities, events, projects, and services in North America, so the immediate audience is North American Wikimedians who might organize such things. Indirectly we want to support all Wikimedians and potential Wikimedians. The official participants at this point are three chapters (asking for these funds) and seven user groups. We expect that list to expand if we show effective forward motion.
For a list of the user groups, see [5]
- 12. If your proposal relates to piloting a hub, share the governance structure you plan to establish. If this governance structure is not yet in place, share how you are making decisions in the interim. (optional)
The group has had many discussions about governance and sought to include all regional wiki community organizations in the discussion, as well as any unaffiliated individuals who asked to participate.
Briefly, the plan is to pilot an initial, temporary governance system for one year. Because we are unsure how effective it will be, we plan to evaluate it before the next year, with potential to completely rewrite and change it based on its fit for our needs.
The initial steering committee includes 10 seats, one each for Wikimedia DC, Wikimedia NYC, Wikimedians of Los Angeles User Group, North Carolina Wikipedians User Group, Wikimedians of Colorado User Group, Wikimedians of Chicago User Group, Wikimedia Canada, AfroCROWD, Cascadia Wikimedians, and MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group. Groups participating in the hub will choose their representative for any meeting or vote; if they do not visibly select a representative for a meeting, the steering committee will welcome a self-selected one assuming good faith.
The steering committee will decide on its schedules of meeting and which ones if any are public.
A quorum will consist of a majority of the hub members in good standing. Decisions will be made on a consensus or majority vote (two thirds of committee members present). The agenda for the meeting is decided in the previous meeting, with all steering committee members able to add discussion items during the month if necessary. All votes are announced at least 2 weeks in advance. The steering committee may adopt a mechanism for votes by online means (that is, apart from a meeting) in a way that follows these rules in spirit.
As suggested by the WMF, we have drafted a Memorandum of Understanding describing the expected ways in which the Steering Committee will unify its decisions and authorize payments by the Fiscal Sponsor. The memorandum, in draft form, is here: [6]
To summarize it in brief: it is expected that the Steering Committee will designate an individual authorized to ask for and approve payments from funds granted to the Hub.
More documentation about governance is on wiki at [7]
- 13. Describe your team. (required)
The team is representatives of Wikimedia Canada, NYC, DC, and WikiConference North America.
More specifically, Peter Meyer and Ariel Cetrone speak for Wikimedia DC. Richard Knipel and Pacita Rudder speak for Wikimedia NYC. Louis Germain and Chelsea Chiovelli speak for Wikimedia Canada. Lane Rasberry and Rosie Stephenson-Goodnight speak for WikiConference North America organizers.
Everyone on this team is well established as Wikimedia user/editors and Wikimedia community organizers.
- 14. Upload a timeline of activities or provide a link to it. Timeline (operational calendar) is for your programs and activities. (required)
- Please see attached spreadsheet in tab "Time line / Gantt chart"
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kJfgl8vcvtUA2TNfLZVh-ho_l7m1pUtRfNa6Zwb_CQM
- 15. How do you intend to keep communities updated on the progress and outcomes of the project? Share your communication plans. (required)
We have two years of developing community infrastructure from the research project about this hub, at [8] .
If the hub is established, then the hub organizers will continue communicating in those channels. Those channels include
- On Meta-Wiki, in the same channels used for years - [9] (NARWHAL) and [10]
- At WikiConference North America, in what is the largest community discussion of the event
- Through the regular regional virtual meetings to which everyone is invited, and which happen 10+ times yearly
- Through chapter, user-group, and program leaders and representatives, who stay in touch through typical networking activities such as messaging apps, email, and regional campaign collaborations
- We will produce an annual report on the hub, as is usual for Wikimedia Movement and Wikimedia Foundation grant compliance. We will share this report in these channels and/or on wikiconference.org.
- 16. If your activities include community discussions, what is your plan for ensuring that the conversations are productive, inclusive, and safe? Provide a link to a Friendly Space Policy or UCoC that will be implemented to support these discussions. (optional)
In 2014, WikiConference North America established the Friendly Space Policy at [11] which the Wikimedia Movement adopted, and we are proud to promote and sustain it. We have more than 10 years of experience in implementing this with our available resources. The WCNA 2025 policy is slightly updated from previous years: [12]. We are committed to UCoC principles.
- 17. Are there any other details you would like to share? Consider providing rationale, research or community discussion outputs, and any other similar information that will give more context on your proposed project. You can also upload any additional documents in the section below. (optional)
Metrics
[edit]- 18. Share quantitative and/or qualitative metrics that you plan to measure in order to showcase the impact of your activities. (required)
Please see google spreadsheet in tab "Metrics" https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kJfgl8vcvtUA2TNfLZVh-ho_l7m1pUtRfNa6Zwb_CQM
Budget
[edit]- 19. Your local currency. (required)
- USD
- 20. What is the requested amount in your local currency? (required)
- 140400 USD
- 21. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required)
- Yes
- 21.1. How many paid staff members and contractors do you plan to cover through the Hub Fund? (required)
Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period as well as their work status (full-time/part-time, indefinite/fixed). If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms (period of work).
- This proposal plans 1.0 FTE staff time, spread equally among two employees. Total compensation is $82,000, so it is $41,000 per staff for this time, with all tax and benefits included in that amount. One staff person would manage the communication program. The other staff person would oversee the grants program and also be responsible for reporting outcomes of all grants. Both staff do Wikimedia community management.
There are two contractor positions. These are contractor positions rather than staff because people with expertise can execute these jobs without doing Wikimedia community management. One role, "communication infrastructure development", will develop technical features and documentation of CentralNotice. The other position, "communication infrastructure maintenance", will maintain the developer's CentralNotice features, and use any additional time for further communication technical support. The budget for these contractor roles is $19,500.
- 22. Provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. (required)
| Budget category | Amount in local currency |
|---|---|
| Staff and contractor costs | 101000 USD |
| Operational costs | 23400 USD |
| Programmatic costs | 16000 USD |
- 23. Upload your detailed budget or provide a link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DVBFE9k4VU82Lu19VzLCSv23rLWe6UwAcGlJbWLDALo/edit?gid=0#gid=0
By submitting your proposal and funding request you agree with the Application Privacy Statement and Universal Code of Conduct
We/I have read and agree:
- Yes
Feedback
[edit]- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.