Grants:Project/Rapid/Learn
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The rapid grants program is experiencing a large volume of applications. This has affected our ability to respond to proposals in the same month as they have been submitted. Thank you for your patience as we work through the backlog of requests.
Rapid Grants
Learn the information you need to apply for a Rapid Grant, including program guidelines, who is eligible for funding, criteria used to review requests, timelines for the process, and what expenses can be requested.
Guidelines and Criteria
Eligibility criteria
- Individuals, groups, and organizations may apply.
- Maximum request is USD 2,000. Minimum request above USD 500.
- Grants can be up to 12 months in length.
- Grant requests and reports are accepted in any language.
- Any individual, group, or organization is allowed three open grants at any one time. This includes both Rapid Grants and Project Grants. Conference Grants are not included in this cap.
- Funds are typically for direct expenses and not used to pay for people’s time. There are some exceptions. Please review the Funding Guidelines below and email rapidgrants
wikimedia.org if you have questions. - We support volunteer participation; participation that is tied to paid work is not eligible for funding.
- Grantees must be in good community- and legal- standing (not currently blocked or banned, involved in allegations of unethical financial behavior, etc).
- Grantees must adhere to the Friendly space expectations and have some type of Friendly space policy for in-person events.
- You must agree to the reporting requirements, be willing to sign a grant agreement, and provide the Wikimedia Foundation with information needed to process your funding.
wikimedia.org if you have questions.Application timeline
- Applications will only be accepted between 1st and 15th of each month.
- Grantees will be expected to respond to questions on the discussion page within a week of questions/comments being posted. If no response has been given, the application will be declined but you may resubmit with responses in the next month of applications.
- Decisions will be made on an application by the end of each month.
Selection criteria
When selecting applications we consider the following criteria…
- Strategic priority: Do your activities improve one or more of Wikimedia’s existing websites?
- Potential outcomes and impact: What are the concrete outcomes that are anticipated as a result of the activities? What difference do you expect your project to make?
- Contribution record: Do you have a history of engaging with Wikimedia projects and communities?
- Support and endorsement: Do you have sufficient volunteers to complete the project and endorsements from community members?
Funding guidelines[edit]
These guidelines apply to both Rapid Grants and Project Grants. Please check with your local Wikimedia affiliate to see if they offer a local grant program!
General guidelines[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Projects aimed at improving one or more of Wikimedia's existing websites | Projects aimed at improving third-party applications
(Click here if you're interested in creating a new wiki instead.) |
| Projects that foster conditions to encourage editing by volunteers (e.g. editor recruitment campaigns) | Projects that replace volunteer action by directly funding someone to create content (e.g. editing articles, uploading photos) |
| Production of code, research, materials that are published and released as free and open-source. Licensing should be compatible with current Wikimedia and MediaWiki practices | Production of code, research, materials that are created on a closed source platform or published in such a way that access is not freely available |
| Projects up to 12 months long | Projects more than 12 months long |
| Requests from individuals, groups and organizations | Requests from groups and organizations that already have a current Annual Plan Grant or Simple Annual Plan Grant |
| Requests from affiliates (including User Groups) that have announced grant requests on their official user group page on Meta and a local language forum that is recognized by each group, to allow adequate space for objections and support to be voiced. | Requests from affiliates (including User Groups) that have not announced their grant requests to the user group and received feedback and support from the group. |
| One project per proposal, up to a year in duration. | Multiple projects per proposal. If you would like to submit a multi-project proposal, please apply through our Annual Plan Grants program. |
| Funds for direct expenses
Funds for people’s time for short-term project activities that can't be completed by volunteers and does not involve content creation |
Funds for people’s time when it replaces volunteer activities |
| Project management fees for concentrated work that could not be completed by volunteers or during non-working hours | Full-time staff or paid affiliate board members |
| Requests between USD $500 and up to USD $2000 for Rapid Grants
Requests from $2001 up to $100,000 for Project Grants
|
Requests of more than $2,000 for Rapid Grants, and more than $100,000 for Project Grants |
| Applicants/grantees that adhere to Friendly space expectations | Applicants with a history of violating Friendly space expectations |
| Applicants who (i) agree to the reporting requirements, and (ii) are willing to sign a grant agreement, and (iii) provide the Wikimedia Foundation with information needed to process their funding. | Applicants who can't comply with the requirements and contractual terms of the program |
Fiscal sponsor administrative fees of no more than 20% of the requested grant amount. Must be included as an explicit budget line item in the finance section of the grant proposal.
|
Contingency fees.
Administrative fees above 20% of the requested grant amount. |
| Applicants in good community standing. | Applicants who are blocked or banned on any Wikimedia spaces, or who have a demonstrated history of not complying with Friendly Space expectations. If applicants have been in good community standing for three years, but have previous history of censure, proposals will be reviewed on a case by case basis. |
Facilities, equipment and materials[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Temporary working space for short-term project organization | Ongoing office space rent |
| Equipment to be shared amongst Wikimedia community members (cameras, laptops, book scanner, wifi hotspot/dongle, etc.) with a plan for use and content integration | Personal equipment, including books, and equipment for non-Wikimedia affiliates |
| Offline (hard-copy) publishing for targeted networking or training (ie: Wiki Love Monuments photo brochure to give your local GLAM partner) | Offline publishing of general outreach materials |
| Merchandise (swag) to recognize exceptional volunteer contributions (i.e: for help organizing an event, as a contest prize, for the best contributions during an editathon, etc.) | Merchandise giveaways for all participants in an event or for general outreach, including t-shirts. (exception: low-cost stickers and pins). Please see this article ("It's time to stop spending billions on cheap conference swag" for more info on the environmental and human impact of swag.) |
| Certificates, gift cards, books, photo equipment, etc. to recognize achievements or contest winners for their contributions | Cash prizes for contest or other competition winners |
| Small scale equipment purchases for Wikimedia affiliates to be shared among multiple volunteers. If no affiliate is available to host the equipment, a single active volunteer in good standing may serve as the coordination point for shared equipment. | Large scale equipment purchases and distribution programs. For example, we cannot fund computer labs or school computer programs. |
| Up to 10% of total budget for unforeseen expenses, such as when items cost more than initially estimated. However, total project budget cannot exceed $2,000 USD. | Expenses already accounted for or estimated in other parts of budget. Budgeting for miscellaneous or unforeseen expenses greater than 10% of total budget. |
Wikipedians-in-Residence[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Wikipedian-in-Residence to collect resources, train/engage GLAM and Wikimedian community, and organize events around integrating content | Wikipedian-in-Residence whose sole focus is to digitize resources and/or personally create content |
Software Projects[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Software projects (including templates, gadgets, bots, and standalone applications) that can be fully completed by the Project Team | Software projects that would depend on WMF staff for code review and integration or other technical support (unless those staff are part of the Project Team) |
| Software projects requiring code review and integration, if there is demonstrated commitment from the related maintainers | Software projects requiring code review and integration that do not have the support of related maintainers |
Digitization Projects[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Digitization of materials as part of a program, at the request of the community, with a plan for how digitized content will be integrated into Wikimedia projects. | Paying individuals to digitize materials as the primary focus of the project |
Events[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| In-person events with a Friendly space policy | In-person events without a Friendly space policy |
| Series of events
Single-instance events with a budget less than $2,000 (via Rapid Grants) |
Large, single-instance events over $2,000 are funded through the Conference Support program |
Travel[edit]
| Eligible for funding | Not eligible for funding |
| Local travel for project planning, execution and follow-up
|
Longer distance travel for activities that can be done online or by local volunteers |
| Travel to organize an outreach activity (training, editathon, etc.) and conduct follow-up with participants at a non-Wikimedia event | Travel to a non-Wikimedia events with no planned outreach project and follow-up activity |
