Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/WikiConference North America 2025/Final Report

Conference Fund Final Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 15 January 2026

Funding program: Conference Fund

Report type: Final

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General information

Title of proposal: WikiConference North America 2025
Username of applicant: Pacita (WikiNYC)
Name of organization: N/A
Amount awarded: 237686
Amount spent: 131305.77 USD, 131305.77 USD

Part 1: Understanding your work

1. Did your event have any impact that you did not expect, positive or negative?

The annual WikiConference North America took place on October 16-19, 2025 at Civic Hall, Manhattan. The event brought together over 300 in-person participants from across North America, including Wikimedia editors, open knowledge enthusiasts, and Wikimedia Foundation staff. And over 100 virtual registrations.

Interest and participation

The event attracted an unprecedented amount of interest, from both organizations and the general public.
About 17 different cultural heritage and educational institutions and organizations signed on as WCNA partners, providing free Culture Crawl tours and swag, to attending and presenting at the conference.
There was also a much higher number of registrations (attendees that were neither Foundation staff nor scholarship recipients) than in previous years, reflecting the high level of interest in Wikimedia projects in NYC, so much that we needed to increase the original capacity from 300 people to 360. We also received many visa support letters from general attendees, as we attracted an unexpected amount of international interest.
Almost 150 scholarship applications which was 50% more than the 2024 conference and we accepted 80 spots.
Over 100 program submissions - 81 high quality submissions accepted

Press interest before the event New York Times interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/nyregion/nyc-wikipedia-conference.html Gothamist: https://gothamist.com/news/citation-needed-inside-nycs-wikipedia-community-drama

Accessibility: Over the three days of programming, we scheduled 81 presentations across 3 conference rooms and 1 auditorium. Slides and/or videos from most presentations were live-streamed via Eventyay and made freely available online. This was particularly helpful as many would-be international attendees were unable to travel into the U.S. to attend the conference in-person, due to increasing visa constraints Presentations were translated into Spanish and French, either through AI or live translation.

Security incident There was a security incident that occurred on Friday morning during the CEO’s keynote speech where a registered attendee brought a firearm to the event and threatened self-harm on stage, which impacted the event on multiple levels. First, although no persons were ultimately physically harmed, it was undoubtedly a traumatic experience for those in attendance and required immediate attention to attendees’ mental and emotional wellbeing. It also disrupted the flow of events, leading to canceled or rescheduled sessions, with some speakers and attendees withdrawing out of safety concerns, as well as a need to institute informal safe space sessions.

While the Friday security incident was unfortunate and disruptive, it inadvertently brought about a positive impact for the community in two ways. First, it strengthened a sense of unity and collective care among attendees and organizers who supported one another through a difficult and unexpected situation. Second, the incident resurfaced important conversations about baseline safety standards, protocols and risk assessments that will shape how future Wiki conferences and events are planned.

There was a lot of press coverage solely focused on the security incident which drew attention away from the rest of the conference.

Revenue

Ticket sales generated $8475 in revenue

2. What do you think will be the long term impact of this conference?

Increased community spirit and connectivity, especially across borders

Likelihood of greater participation in local chapters and user groups (27% of survey respondents marked this)
Increased participation in Wiki projects (survey responses - 80% said “very likely” or “likely” to be more involved in Wiki projects after the conference)
Sparked conversations about the infrastructure in North America and people seem more interested in supporting what the future of the Wikimedia movement in North America looks like moving forward, including increased interest in the formation of a hub for this region.

Improved communications between WMF and local user groups, especially when planning future large scale events.

Improved communications between English ArbCom and the WikiConference North America user group.

More attention placed on planning and safety protocols, especially for in-person Wiki events.

Increased interest in participation from non-U.S. Wikimedians

3. Would you say that your work improved participants’ ability to apply new skills and knowledge?

Yes

3a. If yes, please describe how and why you think this was successful. Please describe why you think this is the case.

Goal: Apply new practical skills + knowledge about free knowledge

A key goal of the Programming Committee was to ensure that the program covered a range of topics, presenters and formats. Consequently, this resulted in a comprehensive and diverse program centered around the themes: Content gaps; Future of Wikimedia; and WikiCred/Credibility.

For instance, some sessions were focused on improving technical Wiki skills, providing easy-to-follow steps and guiding questions to writing citations, tackling disinformation and taking advantage of all the images on WIkiCommons. Other sessions addressed Wikipedia conceptually, shedding light on missing information and representation of certain groups on Wikipedia and how this can be addressed.

We fostered a collaborative working environment as we left international space for informal networking and discussions.

High number of attendees that weren’t regular WIki project contributors - people who were in New York who attended out of curiosity, who benefited a lot from the variety of programs.

4. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact. You can also provide links to them.

Field to type in URLs.

Wikimedia Commons photos and videos: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiConference_North_America_2025

Storytelling video we produced that was featured on Wikipedia social media channels: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRnOQnzjt7N/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

5. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community	Agree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives	Agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors	Agree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers	Agree

6. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

Event volunteer manual: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o3LJfoCFkTSTH309yhyxu-MppGJHlz4gr3LukOvFbQ8/edit?tab=t.0

Presenter orientation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hmLPSXb1hdEppwIGx_lYX06N6rA83dYna878DDqe_u0/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p Volunteer orientation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eZRr0AsiBy_NzQHFrYYk3HL4WNiho1sLHGrTMm6FYDE/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p

7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

We were able to engage a lot of underrepresented groups in our local ecosystem in New York, particularly people of color, women, gender non-binary, and young people through our partnerships with universities and allied organizations. We were able to get Wikimedia representation from Mexico, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean but due to the political situation in the U.S. and some countries/chapters boycotting travel to the conference this was not a large number of non-U.S. Wikimedians.

Part 2: Your main learning

8. Were there any major challenges or things you found difficult that you would like to share? What would you do differently next time?

- Funding this conference in a high cost of living city. All aspects of planning this conference from venue to food to AV/tech were more expensive in New York City than other smaller cities which made it difficult to stay within the original budget that was set. We underestimated how much more expensive things like the hotel cost would be during the Fall season.

Security safeguards. In the original budget we submitted before the U.S. presidential election there wasn’t a line item for security as previous WikiConference North America events have typically not had it. After the election, we realized that it would be wise to have some security guards in case of political disruption which Wikimedia NYC paid for out of its organizational budget (which ultimately post security incident ended up being reimbursed by the Wikimedia Foundation). In hindsight, it would have been better for security to be built into WikiConference North America budgets from the get go and to have a more robust strategy for security protocols that ideally would be led by the Wikimedia Foundation. There was also a need for better and more transparent communication between the Wikimedia Foundation trust and safety team, WikiConference North America organizers, and the English Arbitration Committee to align on potential safety risks for the conference and work together to mitigate those risks ahead of time.

We experienced issues navigating Eventyay and Pretix, and feel that future WikiConferences may benefit from improved event platform tools and/or more in-depth training.

9. Was there any non-financial support that the Wikimedia Foundation could have provided that would have better supported you in achieving your goals?

- Establishing early contact with all relevant WMF teams would have improved coordination of timelines, communication channels and clearer delineation of roles and responsibilities. For this conference it felt like we only initiated contact with a particular WMF team when the need arose, which felt more reactive than proactive and put a greater strain on our resources and capacity.

We think that for large-scale events like these, WMF staff could play a greater and more active role in the planning as it was difficult to solely rely on volunteers who have limited capacity.

More on-the-ground support from WMF staff to assist with operations, safety, and communications functions to ensure adequate coverage and support, especially during critical moments. Luckily we had some WMF staff on site to support during the security incident which was very helpful.

10. What would you recommend on a local and/or regional level as the best next step to leverage your success and momentum?

- Continue to build with the local organizations and institutions that were in attendance and/or participated in the culture crawl.

Have more cross-regional conversations with leaders in the Wikimedia movement.

Sustain the momentum and desire for a regional hub that can help support the movement in North America and provide guidance for best practices and policies for our region.

11. Please add any 3 operational recommendations for future events organizers.

- Begin event planning as early as possible so there’s time to address any shifts and changes that may occur.

Have consistent and in-depth conversations with relevant Wikimedia Foundation staff and committees about safety and security measures for your event.

Over estimate on budgets so there are no surprises.

Part 3: Metrics

12. Open Metrics reporting

In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in.

Open Metrics Summary
Open Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Attendees	We would like to reach the 300 number for attendees and be intentional about the diversity of attendees. We would like to see a good mix of established Wikimedians, newcomers, people of color, gender diversity, age diversity, and attendees from Latin America and the Caribbean.	300	350	There was a high interest in this conference so we ended up exceeding the initial 300 people we had anticipated and because of budget and space constraints we could only stretch to accept 350 registrations and had to turn away an additional 60 people who joined the waitlist. I believe this was the biggest WCNA yet and perhaps the current political landscape in the region contributed to that, as well as it being hosted in a famous city.	We tracked attendees and data using PreTix which was provided to us by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Safe Event	There could be friendly/safe space problems. If so, we would like to handle them well and report them properly, as we have done in the past. The number of cases handled poorly, or complaints to the WMF, would be a metric of whether we have met our goal.	0	1	We had zero friendly/safe space complaints during the conference. The security incident on stage was of course the biggest safety issue that happened which I've reflected in the results, but in terms of the typical safe space complaints that occur at conferences we didn't receive any.	Trust and safety team members didn't receive any friendly/safe space complaints directly and there were no emails or concerns shared through the evaluation survey.
Program Coverage	The program will cover significant diversity, with more than two tracks of content, covering a wide range of topics, and sometimes more than two sessions, lightning talks, or birds-of-a-feather meetings at once. Last year we had over 60 conference presentations, and we can aim for that this year.	60	81	We had over 100 program submissions this year and accepted 81. We had three tracks of content covering a wide range of topics, along with lightning talks and educational side events like the culture crawl and wikigamejam.	Meta Wiki programs schedule and eventyay.
Local Community Partners	We would like to engage at least 10 local partners in both the conference itself and as a part of the culture crawl. This includes partners that Wikimedia NYC has worked with before and new partnerships.	10	18	We had 18 local partners who participated in the conference and the culture crawl which was higher than expected and ranged from high profile art museums like the Met to local niche art collections like Poster House. Along with universities like NYU and CUNY, and library systems like the New York Public Library.	Programs schedule.
'		N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

13. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

No

13a. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future. Also mention why you felt you had to change some metrics.

N/A

14. Please indicate if you applied any of the following survey and registration tools. Please select all that apply.

2. Post-event participant survey

14a. Please share the result(s) with us, provide the link(s) or summarize the main result(s) and insight(s) from them.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1fgB-gYnvUcfATgCpQZ-fG1OE2a_LEDRPEsyaNT2--RQ/edit#responses

14b. If you used other forms, please share them with us, as these forms might be useful for others to use.

Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance

15. & 16. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

131305.77 USD

17. Please state the total amount spent in USD.

131305.77 USD

18. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

Upload a financial report file.

Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XpxR9V0mkbZn_GUEz10OdoIWAcdB9mo4tt4OKzJa6tI/edit?pli=1&gid=1209160769#gid=1209160769

As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

19. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

We had to increase the conference budget to cover the cost of security guards and enhanced AV and live streaming services which Wikimedia NYC was planning to cover from our operational budget. After the security incident at the conference, we immediately brought in additional security guards for the rest of the conference, the Friday wellness and debrief session at Prime Produce, and the closing reception which incurred additional budget costs. Post-conference, the Wikimedia Foundation offered to cover the additional security and AV costs incurred which is now included in the current budget.

20. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?

No

20a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

N/A

20b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

N/A

20c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

N/A

21. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?

Yes

22. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

23. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

24. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.