Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wikimedians of Indiana operating costs (ID: 23546189)

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Applicant Details

Main Wikimedia username. (required)

Dominic

Organization

Wikimedians of Indiana User Group

If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)

I'm a group leader of a Wikimedia User Group (submitted to the Affiliation Committee)., I'm a bank account signatory for the joint bank account of a Wikimedia affiliate, group, or organization.

Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)

Wikimedians of Indiana User Group

Main Proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.

Wikimedians of Indiana operating costs

2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.

2025-10-31 - 2025-11-30

4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)

United States of America

5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)

Not applicable

6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)

Wikimedians of Indiana has been incredibly successful in fundraising, partnerships, and organizing public events. That is why, perhaps unusually, we propose to use this rapid grant as supplemental funding to cover our operating or administrative costs not provided for by our other external sources. This would allow us to continue and expand our existing programs.

For context, over the last 3 years, Wikimedians of Indiana has organized around two dozen Wikipedia editathons, making it the most prolific local Wikimedia community in the United States outside the two formal chapters. The user group’s members are also responsible for the upload of over 300,000 files to Wikimedia Commons since 2020. The user group has held over a dozen WikiWednesdays—a monthly Wikipedia skill-building meetup based at the Indiana University Indianapolis University Library—and also had numerous staff trainings at cultural institutions in the area; and also held. We have also had various irregular meetings, such as when the Indiana Stare Fair provided free tickets for us to take pictures for Wikimedia Commons, or when we attended the BUTTER Art Fair to provide head shots for notable artists. Finally, this small group also organized a highly successful WikiConference North America last year, which brought over 200 attendees to Indianapolis. For that meeting, the user group successfully brought in over $30,000 in external grants and in-kind donations, mainly from Indiana University, the Indiana State Library, and the Central Indiana Community Foundation.

To achieve this, the principals involved in the user group—Dominic Byrd-McDevitt and Jamie Flood—have worked together with IUI staff—particularly librarians Jere Odell and Olivia MacIsaac—to build a partnership and seek external grants. Across four separate grant cycles with The Indianapolis Foundation’s Library Fund, this group has been awarded $352,000. This series of grant projects, starting in 2022, have event costs, such as food and sometimes room rental, for most of the Indianapolis events in that time. They have also enabled the IUI University Library to employ student workers to assist the program, learning Wikipedia editing and library skills. In 2023, grant funding enabled the foundation of the Central Indiana Wikipedia Partnership (see announcement: https://library.indianapolis.iu.edu/digitalscholarship/blog/building_the_central_indiana_wikipedia_partnership), a network of partner organizations—including the IUI University Library, Indiana State Library, and others—led by the user group. This groundwork culminated last year in wikiConference North America’s Culture Crawl, during which 19 partners from across the city participated in tours and events attended by 132 registered attendees. The Culture Crawl included tours of Indianapolis Public Library, the Ray Bradbury Center, Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana Statehouse, the Indiana War Memorial Museum, and several independent bookstores, among others, as well as an evening reception at the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library with a panel of experts and authors.

You can see more specifics of our activities and at our user group’s last annual report (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Indiana_User_Group/Reports/2024-2025)—and note that we have continued to add to our list of partners this year, with editathons since that report with the Crown Hill Foundation, Herron School of Art Library, and the Indiana State Archives. You can also see more about these events at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Indianapolis

Clearly, we have been successful in finding support, both monetary and institutional, for our programs. What we have lacked so far is organizational development for the Wikimedians of Indiana User Group as an independent Wikimedia affiliate. We rely heavily on outside fiscal management. For example, in addition to the grants mentioned above, Wikimedia DC was the fiscal sponsor for WCNA’s 2024 conference grant, even though it was primarily organized by Wikimedians of Indiana. Almost all of our work would have been impossible without benefactors such as IUI. One consequence of this is that our funds have always been restricted to spending on specific events or programs. We have not had funds allowed to spend on basic operating costs for the user group itself. This rapid grant funding would allow us to improve the Wikimedians of Indiana as an organization, spending on basic costs such as banking and email. It would also give us experience necessary to chart a path toward future goals like becoming a Wikimedia chapter and seeking General Support funds. We have made such inroads in the community that the mayor of Indianapolis even recently proclaimed a Wikipedia Day (https://wikiconference.org/images/wikiconf/8/82/Wikipedia_Day.pdf)… but we have never had a budget of our own. The goal is not just to cover those costs themselves, but that the ability to fund our own administrative needs is an important step to mature and secure a future that is not entirely reliant on the favor of a few local institutions.

7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.

As mentioned, we plan to use rapid grant funds to cover operating expenses for the user group. We have identified a few expenditures, mostly recurring bills, where we could spend in order to improve our organization’s professionalism and grow in new ways.

Tech:

Web domain registration: This would fund the ongoing costs of ownership of two web domains currently used by the user group: indy.wiki and indiana.wiki. User Group funding for these domains would allow ownership to be transferred to the user group, with payments made out of the user group’s bank account, which is much more secure than allowing them to be owned by a single individual.
Google Workspace: Our Squarespace-managed Google Workspace account costs USD$16.80 monthly per user. We use this to allow for professional email addresses for our volunteers, with the @indy.wiki domain. Google Workspace allows us to operate a Google Groups announcements listserv for the user group and to be able to maintain shared documents.

Transportation:

Most of our operations are around downtown Indianapolis. Being in an urban setting, partner outreach and events often results in parking meter costs. We would like to be able to pay parking meter fees and sometimes public transit costs for event organizers and attendees out of this budget.

Office expenses:

A virtual mailing address with iPostal1 would give us a mailing address aside from volunteers’ home addresses. This would be a more secure and sustainable way to provide addresses for needs such as banking, IRS registration, and receiving external grants.

Banking:

With an organizational banking account comes modest banking expenses. Our checking account incurs a $15/month fee. We are requesting a small budget also in expectation of paying fees such as ACH or checks, since we may use our bank account to pay vendors.

These costs are specifically detailed in the budget document, where we have made cost estimates based on a request for 36 months of such bills. We understand the rapid grants are meant to be spent within 12 months. These are small expenses which fall well below the rapid grant limit, which we do not want to file repetitive grant requests for; and as they are predictable/recurring expenses, we could report on them at the 12-month mark. However, if WMF is not amenable to this idea, we want to note that *all* expenses in the budget can be simply divided by three, with a total request of USD$1,331.80 we would still like to be considered for.

8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.

The primary Wikimedians of Indiana team members are the two signatories, Dominic Byrd-McDevitt and Jamie Flood.

Dominic (User:Dominic) has been a Wikipedian for over 20 years, and his day job has included running Wikpedia programs at the US National Archives and the Digital Public Library of America. He has extensive experience seeking and executing grants. As the manager of a national network of libraries, he is heavily involved in outreach activities to local institutions, and also assists in organizing many of the Indianapolis editathons. He is the primary handler of money and bill-payer for the user group.

Jamie (User:JamieF) is an experienced Wikipedian who is a Scholarly Communication Librarian at Butler University. She previously ran Wikipedia programs for the USDA National Agricultural Library. She has deep connections in the local and national GLAM-Wiki community, and served as an organizer and program chair for WikiConference North America 2024 (in Indianapolis) and 2025 (in New York). She has become the go-to Wikipedia trainer in the user group, as well as planning events.

Additionally, as mentioned, above, the user group’s programs are also undertaken by a number of institutional partners. These are particularly Indiana University Indianapolis and the Indiana State Library, as well as many one-off or recurring event hosts.

9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)

The target participants are Wikimedia editors and allied institutions within Indiana. In particular, Wikimedians of Indiana User Group serves participants mainly through editathons and events as mentioned in other sections. Most of the activities specifically are aimed at increasing the professionalism or sustainability of the user group as its own organization. So, for example, having our own organizational email addresses helps with outreach to the organizations we do not yet reach. Having a physical mailing address helps ensure the organization's administration can more easily pass between individual volunteers. In terms of follow-up, we have various methods such as Eventbrite, Wikipedia meetup pages, and internal email (many particpants are known institutional staff or volunteers), that we maintain communication with attendees after the events. At any Wikimedians of Indiana event, attendees are instructed to sign in so their usernames can be recorded for the dashboard metrics and future communications.

10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)

No

10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.

N/A

11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.

This proposal was discussed in the biweekly planning meeting held by user group organizers. We will also be posting a notice to the user group's meta page and meetup page on English Wikipedia.

12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)

Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial

13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)

Culture, heritage or GLAM

14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)

Not applicable

15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)

Invest in Skills and Leadership Development

Learning and metrics

17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)

An expected outcome is that Wikimedians of Indiana User Group program leaders gains experience in administrivia necessary to advance our work. In this respect, our main learning will be organizational experience. We expect to grow our reach and impact by serving the community with continued events and outreach.

For this section, we are reporting on the outcomes of all of our user group programs expected during the grant period. All of these activities would be indirectly benefited, if not directly funded, by the user group's operating expenses being covered.

18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)

Number of participants, editors, and organizers
Other Metrics	Target	Optional description
Number of participants	150	We anticipate up to 10 editathons, trainings, or workshops, with an average of 15 participants.
Number of editors	100	We anticipate up to 10 editathons, trainings, or workshops, with an average of 10 editors. These events tend to break down about 50/50 in terms of new and returning editors.
Number of organizers	10	We have 4-5 core organizers involved in almost every event, plus most partner events include at least one key planner and/or speaker on the partner's side.

Number of content contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Number of content created or improved
Wikipedia	150
Wikimedia Commons	10000
Wikidata	100
Wiktionary
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia

Optional description for content contributions.

We expect to create or improve up to 15 articles per event. The 10,000 anticipated Commons files uploaded can come from either events or partner bulk uploads. Since 2020, our roughly 15 institutional partners have uploaded 323,858 files to Wikimedia Commons via the DPLA Wikimedia pipeline. Additionally, at a recent editathon, 521 files were uploaded at once during the event. We believe at least 10,000 new files will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons over the next 12 months as a result of the user group's activities.

19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)

No

Main Open Metrics Data
Main Open 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

20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)

We measure these metrics primarily through tracking participant sign-ins and outcomes in on-wiki meetup pages, as well as the Program and Events Dashboard. For uploads, we also use DPLA bot and the Commons Impact Metrics-derived analytics tool for upload and page view metrics of our GLAM partners' images.

Financial proposal

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

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t53u3QTg1UPnqfgmpuNQa0qQw2YEUNBjtqYt9n6tVjI/edit?usp=sharing

22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)

3995.4 USD

22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.

3995.4 USD

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

Yes

Endorsements and Feedback

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Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).

Endorse