Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia DC Annual Grant 2026

This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the web service of Wikimedia Foundation Funds, where the user has submitted their application. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.

Applicant information

Organization name or Wikimedia Username for individuals. (required): Wiki Society of Washington DC Inc. dba Wikimedia DC

Do you have any approved General Support Fund requests? (required): Yes, I have already applied and received a General Support Fund

You are applying as a(n). (required): Wikimedia Affiliate (chapter, thematic org., or user group)

Are your group or organization legally registered in your country? (required): Yes

Do you have a fiscal sponsor?: No

Fiscal organization name.: N/A

Please provide links to the following documents if they are available

These documentation can be provided in your local language(s), no translations required.

Organizational website
Detailed financial reporting and/or audits
Documentation of the governance structure, board list, governance processes
Documentation of the general assembly decision on your plan

All documentation and reports are published at https://wikimediadc.org, https://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Governance, https://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors, https://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Plans_and_reports, https://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Meetings_(2023%E2%80%932024)

Main proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required): Wikimedia DC Annual Grant 2026

2. Do you want to apply for the multi-year base funding for 3 years? (required) (only for returning applicants): No

2.1. Provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan? (required)

N/A

3. Proposed start date. (required): 2026-01-01

4. Proposed end date. (required): 2026-12-31

5. Does your organization or group have an Affiliate or Organizational Annual Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): No

6. Does your affiliate, organization or group have a Strategic Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): No

7. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required): Regional (more than one country in the same continent or region); Our primary focus is on serving the chapter’s official region, the mid-Atlantic states of the USA. In practice, we run and support programs and partners across the USA. Many events are online. Through our leadership in WikiConference North America, we collaborate with affiliates across the US and in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. In a previous grant cycle, we conducted research to assess the opportunities and need for a North America Hub. We are fiscal sponsors for activities in the San Francisco Bay Area, and in some years, for the WikiConference. In 2025, we hosted a successful GLAM camp that drew Wikimedians from various regions of the US (See the event page at en.wp:WP:DCGLAM25).

8. What are your programs, approaches, and strategies? What are the challenges that you are trying to address and how will your strategies support you in addressing these challenges? (required)

WMDC continues to plan and facilitate programs that engage and encourage participation in Wikimedia projects. Collaborative edit-a-thons and editing initiatives with institutional partners are our core activity. All in-person and virtual edit-a-thons include training for new editors and project participants. Approximately 70% of our edit-a-thon participants are new to Wikimedia editing. This is partly a result of our partners’ utilization of their own networks to draw new editors to these collaborative events.

At our past 118 edit-a-thons, we have welcomed over 1,700 editors. These editors have added 626,000 words to English Wikipedia across 547 new articles and 2,900 existing ones. See the campaign ‘Wikimedia DC events’ in the Outreach Dashboard.

Program Strategies

1. Partner cultivation and retention

We continue to leverage the resources and expertise of government, academic, and cultural partners in our region and beyond. The cultivation of partner organizations through the demonstration of mission alignment and measurable outcomes has proven to be an effective approach. We average 3-5 new partners each year while also maintaining existing ones.

The most accurate history of past and current events and partners can be viewed at en.wp:WP:DCMEET. Challenges affecting partner cultivation and retention are mostly related to a partner's own capacity and priorities. Because we are in the DC-region, our partners are often affected by transiency and staffing changes among those making programmatic decisions. They are also heavily affected by priority shifts at the executive level. We monitor these situations closely and have been able to sustain most partnerships with those most affected by the latter.

2. Editor cultivation and retention

Most of our event attendees are new to editing. We provide a user-friendly approach that limits ‘tech-talk’ and prioritizes accessible training methods. We’ve found this approach to be successful as it encourages a gradual learning process as opposed to an overwhelming one that may intimidate new editors.

Ariel Cetrone, the chapter's Institutional Partnerships Manager, trains new editors in a way intended to feel approachable and focuses on making connections to prior knowledge and experience.

3. Administrative excellence and organizational sustainability

Wikimedia DC is a long-standing chapter affiliate with a history of governance and grant support. We are currently in a good financial position with an engaged and active board and improved book-keeping practices since a year ago. A new annual grant from WMF will help us continue on this positive path towards organizational stability and resilience. We continue to invest in ongoing record keeping, bookkeeping and accounting, and membership support and communications software to ensure ongoing effectiveness. Our tax records, board meeting minutes, and membership votes back to 2011 are available on our chapter web site. At the time of this submission, the chapter’s finances are undergoing a voluntary financial audit by Mullins, LLC. This will serve to ensure and authenticate our ongoing fiscal health and transparency to our board and members, and we will receive advice on good practices. The chapter's accounting books are maintained by accounting professionals at the firm Your Part Time Controller. The chapter seeks to continue to have outside experts manage our bookkeeping and accounting, as this investment in fiscal soundness may allow for the chapter to scale up to offer fiscal sponsorships more widely and professionally to our community. In the coming year we expect to receive a strategic planning report from consultants who will interview our stakeholders.

9. What categories are your main programs and related activities under? Please select all that apply. (required)


Category	Yes/No
Education	Yes
Culture, heritage or GLAM	Yes
Gender and diversity	Yes
Community support and engagement	Yes
Participation in campaigns and contests	Yes
Public policy advocacy	No
Other	No

Education

9.1.1. Select all your programs and activities for Education. (required): Editing Wikipedia Training, Wikidata programs, Wikimedia Commons programs; Other programs and activities if any: N/A
9.1.2. Select all relevant audience groups for Education. (required): Vocational, tertiary, or higher education, Teachers or professors, Senior citizens; Other groups if any: N/A

Culture, heritage or GLAM

9.2. Select all your programs and activities for Culture, heritage or GLAM. (required): Introducing new approaches to underrepresented culture and heritage, e.g. decolonising or reparative work; oral and visual knowledge; outreach to communities of origin, indigenous and first nations self-determination, Supporting institutions to open up their collections, data, metadata, and research, Supporting GLAM professionals to incorporate use of Wikimedia in their work, through documentation, training, or Wikimedian in Residence programs, Partnering with institutions, professional associations, and allied organizations to raise awareness of open culture, ethical sharing, and related issues; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Gender and diversity

9.3. Select all your programs and activities for Gender and diversity.: Bringing in women and/or gender diverse participants and editors, Focusing on creating content about women and/or gender diverse groups, including biographies, intersectional topic areas and/or adding images, Focusing on creating content about marginalized (underrepresented) communities and their knowledge, Focusing on knowledge equity by bringing in contributors from underrepresented communities, Building organizer skills in women and diversity groups, Fomenting female leadership within the movement (either staff, members or boards), Sensitize and educate for gender perspective among Wikimedia projects stewards and editors; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Community support and engagement

9.4. Select all your programs and activities for Community support and engagement.: On-wiki training of community members, Organizing meetups, conferences, and community events, Supporting community members' participation in events and conferences; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Participation in campaigns and contests

9.5. Select all campaigns that apply. (required): Wiki Loves Monuments; Other programs and activities if any: N/A
10. Please include a link to or upload a timeline (operational calendar) for your programs and activities. (required): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Pq6jsGb-IvFlt_9A01Y8c7Lf0Gr2_TRxbntpMS2zU-M/edit?usp=sharing

11. Describe your team. (required)

Staff (1 person): Ariel Cetrone, Institutional Partnerships Manager - Salaried, employed since 2017, User:Ariel Cetrone (WMDC). Roles and responsibilities: (1) Facilitation of institutional partnerships with GLAMs, universities, affinity groups, associations, etc. with the goal of increasing engagement with Wikimedia projects. (2) Partnering with other Wikimedia chapters or projects. (3) Presenting nationally and internationally on establishing successful Wikipedia partnerships and user engagement

Board (9 persons): Peter Meyer, President, User:econterms; John Sadowski, Vice President, User:Antony-22; Diane Shaw, Secretary, User:Uncommon fritillary; Sara Snyder, Treasurer, User:Sarasays; Rob Fernandez User:Gamaliel; Kevin Li, User:L235; Kevin Payravi, User:SuperHamster; Mia Cariello, William Beutler.

Our board members are all Wikimedia editors, participating in Wikimedia and chapter activities. We anticipate having part-time work for specialists in communications or disinformation policy, however, we are not seeking funding for these positions from the WMF General Support Fund.

12. Will you be working with any internal (Wikimedia) or external partners? Describe the characteristics of these partnerships and bring a few examples of the most significant partnerships. (required)

Wikimedia DC works with external partners and other Wikimedia chapters with the goals of encouraging editors/project participants and creating good content. We do this by building relationships that lead to internal staff trainings and editing drives with curators, librarians, educational staff (private edit-a-thons) and partner constituents (public edit-a-thons).

Our most robust external partnership with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.

2023-2025 Institutional Partners: DC Preservation League, Georgetown University, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Center for News, Technology & Innovation, University of Maryland’s Center for Archival Futures (CAFe), National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Gallery of Art, Tennessee State University, University of South Florida, Aurora Hills Library (Arlington, VA), American Statistical Association, Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, SAGE Publishing, American Meteorological Society, National Trust for Historic Preservation. More to come in October-December, 2025.

Internal movement partners: Past internal edit-a-thon partners (Wikimedia Chapters) include Wikimedia Sweden (through joint WIkiGap events), and Wikimedia Mexico (vaccine-related edit-a-thons). Board members participate in many movement groups, notably WikiConference North America. US juries for the photo submissions to the biennial Wiki Science photo competition are organized by a Board member.

Community partners: We interviewed Wikimedians and worked closely with other movement affiliates to conduct the North American Hub research project. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/North_American_Hub_Research_Project

We continue to maintain a close and collaborative relationship with Wikimedia NYC. With them we hold monthly North American ("NARWHAL") video calls for Wikimedians and develop hub practices to the extent possible.

We anticipate holding a hackathon in partnership with WMF and/or GLAM institutions to maintain or develop GLAM-relevant software tools. (We had hoped to do this last year but it did not come together.)

13. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select all that apply. (required): Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Ensure Equity in Decision-making, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge

Metrics

Wikimedia Metrics

14. Please select and fill out Wikimedia Metrics for your proposal. (recommended)

14.1. Number of participants, editors, and organizers.

All metrics provided are optional, please fill them out if they are aligned with your programs and activities.

Participants, editors, and organizers
Metrics name	Target	Description
Number of all participants	275	Individuals attending or participating in editathon gatherings, workshops, salons, or conferences, bootcamp or edit-a-thon gatherings led or co-led by WMDC
Number of all editors	200	Wikimedia DC will facilitate 20-30 editing events, including training sessions, edit-a-thons, and/or workshop. Based on past metrics, these events would accommodate approximately 150-250 editors, depending on the number of editors who come to more than one.
Number of new editors	120
Number of retained editors	30
Number of all organizers	40	This includes Wikimedia staff, volunteers, and representatives from WMDC’s institutional partners. On average, about 60% of our annual institutional partners have hosted and coordinated events or initiatives with WMDC in previous years.
Number of new organizers	5

14.2. Number of new content contributions to Wikimedia projects. (recommended)

Contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Created	Edited or improved
Wikipedia	60	400
Wikimedia Commons	100	50
Wikidata	50	400
Wiktionary
Wikisource	20	20
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions / Abstract Wikipedia

Description for Wikimedia projects contributions metrics. (optional)

This is based on annual averages tracked within the outreach dashboard. It does not include any edits made on tracked content in the days after events. Our members are active on other platforms such as Wikidata and Wikisource but do not keep as detailed records of contributions on those platforms.

Other Metrics

15. Do you have other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): No


Other Metrics	Description	Target
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A

Budget

16. Will you have any other revenue sources when implementing this proposal (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): Yes

16.1. List other revenue sources. (required)

Membership contributions. We have been fortunate to receive some contracts and grants. We will continue to seek diverse sources of funding, possibly also including large donations.

16.2. Approximately how much revenue will you have from other sources in your local currency? (required): 20000

17. Your local currency. (required): USD

18. What is the total requested amount in your local currency? (required): 112900 USD

Multi-year funding request summary
Year	Amount (local currency)
Year 1	N/A USD
Year 2	N/A USD
Year 3	N/A USD

19. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required): Yes

19.1. How many paid staff members do you plan to have? (required)

Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms.

One programmatic FTE

Contract bookkeeper for financials Contract accountant for tax filing

19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)

Include the total FTE of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include their FTEs with the terms separately.

One

19.3. Describe any staff or contractor changes compared to the current year / ongoing General Support Fund if any. (required only for returning grantees): We intend to continue to expand the duties of our Partnerships Manager. She was in charge of our September 2025, GLAM camp, a large successful project (WP:DCGLAM25). Our membership agreed to a bylaws change at the end of 2024 which enabled us to give her immediate spending authority. In the coming year we anticipate her interacting more directly with the DC government on the chapter’s behalf. We request funding for a 5% salary increase in keeping with this ambition.

20. Please provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. The budget breakdown should include only the amount requested with this General Support Fund (required).


Budget category	Amount in local currency
Staff and contractor costs	102000 USD
Operational costs	10900 USD
Programmatic costs	112900 USD

21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rNxw4FLZZLzY-YTcaOO73dbG9PsOTla3/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107339971778774786470&rtpof=true&sd=true

Additional information

22. In this optional space you can add any other additional information about your proposal or organization that you think can help us when reviewing your proposal. (optional)

By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.

We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes

Feedback

Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.