Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Art+Feminism, 2026-2028

Comments from Wugapodes

Thanks for your submission! It's great getting to hear about the great work you've been doing over your last grant period and to learn about your plans for the coming three years. I wanted to ask a few clarifying questions to help my review:

• It sounds like Network Organizers are a key part of your strategy going forward, and I'm excited to hear that you have plans to expand from 1 to 4! Is the line item in your budget (GL 6570) based on the existing 1 Network Organizer or the planned expansion to 4? It seemed low for 4, but wanted to ask in case I missed something.
• For the professional development fees (GL 6550), I'm trying to get a sense of the impact versus cost. Could you explain what the scope of participation will be? For example will these largely be small sessions for core staff or semi-public sessions for general members and volunteers?
• How do you plan to strengthen fundraising efforts through diversified strategies and clearer communication of impact? I think this is will be helpful in cultivating donors at all levels, but especially in seeking out additional grant-makers for future growth.
• Art + Feminism is incredibly successful in engaging editors, and based on that experience I wanted to ask if you have any insight into the challenges of editor engagement in the years after the pandemic? It seems like your participation has held steady since 2022 with a slight dip, so I'd appreciate any insight you might have there.

Thanks in advance! It was a pleasure to read through your proposal, and it seems like you have a solid plan to consolidate and focus on the initiatives that have been most effective. I'm looking forward to learning more, and other committee members may chime in with their questions. Thanks! Wugapodes (talk) 03:34, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Comments from Phibeatrice

Thanks for the lovely submission! The work you all do is needed and incredible, and it was a pleasure to read more about what you all have in the pipeline for the next few years. Here are some of my notes.

1. I'm curious about the thinking behind the second pillar, Education, namely the decision to shift emphasis from Wikipedia to Wikidata. Of course, both projects are important to the movement and to Art+Feminism's goals, but I have some questions about what the strategic significance may be of pivoting to Wikidata rather than staying on Wikipedia where a lot of equity work is still needed or balancing Art+Feminism's focus on both projects. Regarding your Strategic Direction document, it's very true that Wikidata can be a place where AI bias can be confronted, but isn't that equally true of Wikipedia in this specific moment as well?

2. I love the idea of collaborating with GLAM institutions, but I wonder what those collaborations might look like in the context of your work or how they may help you scale up or even envision new kinds of work toward your goals. Conversation Series and Virtual Editing Tables are great programs to augment through GLAM, but I'm curious if you also have any other ideas or opportunities that could emerge by tapping into such a valuable, experienced network. There's a lot of wonderful imagination to be harnessed there!

3. Given the international reach and significance of your work, are there concrete plans within, say, the fourth pillar, Organizational Sustainability, to have more leadership and presence in certain parts of the world, especially those where underrepresented and marginalized communities are? To be more specific, are there ideas for how to get more Network Organizers in other parts of the world?

4. I'm also curious about the size of the professional development cost and would like to know more about what these programs would look like and what you believe the team would get out of them.

All in all, the proposal looks really solid, and I don't have too many questions about the budget outside of the professional development cost. The pillars are very detailed and sound like very wonderful ways to move the work forward, so a lot of my notes have more so to do with what the intended implementation—and therefore outcomes—may look like. Thank you! Phibeatrice (talk) 22:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Summary of Responses to Wugapodes (talk) and Phibeatrice (talk)

Thank you for your thoughtful questions and consideration. Art+Feminism has already started to grow the Network Organizer program from one to four for the coming year, compensating each person in the role $1250 USD, plus an additional $500 USD educational bonus, with steady expansion and annual review of its invitation based model. Based on this year's success, we envision adding two more organizers in Year 2 and two more in Year 3, which would double the size of the program over the course of this grant. This invitation based program supports leadership development across the global community and will be assessed annually to ensure it aligns with organizational goals.

The consulting budget and professional development budget line (GL 6550) supports specific areas of expertise beyond the current team including language justice services (such as interpretation at all public virtual programs and translation of copy on the website and communications), digital safety support, fundraising consulting, and facilitation for internal alignment, and website maintenance, all of which are essential to serving a multilingual global community and strengthening organizational sustainability. Fundraising efforts will be bolstered by consultant support, an updated fundraising plan, and a new dossier being tested with board networks. And zooming out from the day-to-day, we're due for a new round of formal strategic planning that will ensure the sustainability of our work in the future.

To sustain editor engagement after the pandemic, the organization has refined themed campaigns, expanded virtual support, highlighted regional organizers, and maintained consistent year round programming. The shift toward incorporating Wikidata complements ongoing Wikipedia work by addressing larger gender gaps, enabling multilingual impact, and intervening in structured data systems that shape AI. GLAM collaborations will also become more intentional, expanding beyond single events to longer term relationships, shared conversations, and updated training materials developed with partners such as design students in Berlin. We’re also being more intentional with our relationships within the Wikiverse collaborating with a number of other affiliates for programming including by not limited to Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Botswana, Whose Knowledge?, and Wiki LGBT+.

We’ve incorporated these ideas into the proposal in Fluxx, but also have answered each question specifically here.

Thank you again for your consideration and please let us know if there are any outstanding questions. --Kiraface (talk) 20:25, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved

@Kiraface and Celestinesucess: Congratulations! Your grant is approved for partial funding for a total of 1,004,689 USD over a three-year period with a grant term starting 1 January 2026 and ending 31 December 2028. The funding will be distributed over the three-year period as follows :

• Year 1: 404,689 USD
• Year 2: 300,000 USD (minimum)
• Year 3: 300,000 USD (minimum)

Art+Feminism may request funding increases for Years 2 and 3 once the General Support Fund budget for that fiscal year is confirmed.

The Regional Fund Committee supports sustaining multiyear funding for Art+Feminism next year, and recognizes some core strengths of the proposal. Staff roles in the organization are well-defined and aligned with its mission, and the organization’s general programmatic direction and rationale toward Wikidata is clear, realistic, and bold. Your User Group also maintains a strong network of thematic organizations aligned with its purpose, and provides guidance to the Wikimedia movement and organizations broadly focused on building a more equitable and representative online environment.

The Regional Fund Committee also had important concerns that informed the funding decision including:

• that the overall budget requested for consultants, professional development, as well as leadership team advisors is very high, about 113,000 USD in total. In comparison, only about 26,000 USD is allocated for network organizers whose impact is more directly oriented toward engagement with Wikimedia projects and events. While we understand that some of these budgets are supporting things like translation that supports accessibility to your programs, other parts are not clearly justified over the three-year period. For example, one line item in the Scratch Pad tab for 30,000 USD is labelled as “Other”, and needed elaboration is absent.
  • Generally, the committee would like Art+Feminism to better prioritize work that supports volunteer engagement with Wikimedia projects, and to be more strategic around what consultancy needs it is requesting funding for each year. However, the committee agreed that a consultant related to Art+Feminism’s next strategic plan was important to prioritize.
  • Specific to the leadership team advisors (consisting of three people), the committee needed more specificity, such as how much each person is paid, what their roles and responsibilities are with respect to strategic planning, and why they are needed beyond a general consultant for strategic planning, which is also in the budget.
• while the committee supports Art+Feminism to attend more to Wikidata-related work around to improve structured data in this thematic area, and understands that some of this work is focused on training and preparation, it is concerning that the metrics contain no targets related to Wikidata over the next year. The committee also recommends that it would be better to balance programmatic work between Wikipedia and Wikidata, rather than more fully shifting attention to Wikidata.

The committee supported sustaining Art+Feminism at its current level of funding for its first year. But due to uncertainty over the extent of expected regional budget growth long-term, and that the need for a sustained budget for some consultancies/professional development/leadership advising needs was unclear, the committee was not willing to support this level of funding for Years 2 and 3. However, Art+Feminism is welcome to request an increase in funding for Years 2 and 3, coinciding with the relevant fiscal years for the Foundation (starting in July 2026 and July 2027), and these increases may require review from the Regional Fund Committee depending on the increase requested.

We look forward to the changes in Art+Feminism’s programmatic direction and its contributions to the Wikimedia movement over the next three years. On behalf of the Regional Fund Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

In response to funding decision

Thank you for the thoughtful review and for the committee’s support. We’re grateful to be able to continue this work and appreciate the care taken in evaluating our proposal. We would, however, like to clarify a few points highlighted in the funding decision feedback.

Leadership Team Advisers

The role of our Leadership Team Advisers is directly rooted in—and essential to—our Wikimedia campaign. As outlined in the proposal, their work centers on supporting and shaping the annual Art+Feminism campaign within the Wikimedia projects. This includes developing campaign programming, guiding its implementation, representing Art+Feminism across the movement, and ensuring alignment with our long-term strategic plan. Their responsibilities are embedded in Wikimedia organizing, community engagement, and participation in Wikimedia conferences and other movement spaces.

All three advisers are experienced Wikimedians with substantial involvement across the wikiverse. Each receives a 15,000 USD honorarium. Their contributions are distinct from those of a formal strategic planning consultant; instead, they are integral to delivering and sustaining our Wikimedia-focused campaign. For this reason, we believe their compensation should be categorized within the committee’s “Wikimedia projects and events” designation. While this level of detail was not requested in the follow-up questions, we are glad to provide additional context.

Consultancies and the Scratch Pad

Several of the items the committee assigned outside the “Wikimedia projects and events” category are directly tied to that work. Both the workshop consultants and the Language Justice support function as core components of Wikimedia-focused programming, training, and accessibility—each contributing directly to the success of Wikimedia projects and events.

We also want to clarify a misreading in the scratch pad example referenced by the committee. The “Other” line is 4,000 USD (line 30) and is earmarked for needs such as digital safety, an increasing concern for our organization. Line 31 is the subtotal for this category (and could indeed be more clearly labeled), and line 32 is explicitly designated for strategic planning.

Metrics

As stated in the proposal, the metrics we included reflect the previous year’s dashboard. This practice began several years ago after discussions with WMF staff about the challenges that forward-looking numeric targets created for organizers. At that time, WMF indicated that project-specific metrics were not required. For one cycle we entered zeros, and were later encouraged to include the previous year’s data to support continuity in Foundation reporting. If committee expectations have shifted, we are prepared to update our approach and include forward-looking Wikidata targets where appropriate.

We also want to reaffirm that our programmatic work will continue to maintain a healthy balance between Wikipedia and Wikidata. Our tools, resources, and vibrant Wikipedia-focused community remain at the core of our work. The strategic shift we described is an invitation to extend that work so that the gaps we aim to address on Wikipedia are not repeated on Wikidata and we’re excited in the creation of new tools, resources, and programming to educate and engage about this work.

We hope these clarifications help address the concerns around consultant allocations, professional development, and leadership advising. We welcome further conversation. Thank you again for the time, support, and thoughtful consideration. --Kiraface (talk) 15:21, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Re: Evaluation of Wikidata Strategy

We want to again begin with gratitude for considering our application. Now with a clearer understanding about the questions around metrics and our shift to Wikidata, we wanted to follow-up with our plans for execution and evaluation of this strategy. Apologies for not being clearer about this in the initial proposal. Our plan is to focus on three main buckets and will evaluate our work on the progress made in each area over the course of this grant.

New Resources: Our aim is to create new resources with a beginner’s lens, informed by feminist pedagogy to introduce our existing and new community members to editing Wikidata. Through the development of new modules and guides with feminist principles, we are specifically aiming to highlight how this work helps 1) highlight wikidata as an entry point to the wikiverse and how it’s actually easier to get started editing; 2) how this work can combat AI basis and perpetuating existing knowledge gaps; 3) demonstrate how language access/justice can be achieved via wikidata with a diverse global community. We’ve already begun this work by piloting new slide decks with two student groups (CUNY Graduate School and the University of Alberta). We’ll evaluate and track our progress made on the creation and engagement of these new resources throughout the grant period.

Intentional Wikidata Programming: We continue to fine-tune and build on the 2025-2026 Programming and Activities [External] document with intentional and focused public, virtual and hybrid programming specifically around Wikidata and Wikipedia. Building on our existing body of work on Wikipedia, new programs will additionally highlight Wikidata in our conversation series, virtual editing tables, workshops, and community hours. We’ll evaluate and track the progress of our programming through sharing on Meta, the Wikimedia outreach dashboard, registration numbers and using attendee surveys to continually evaluate and improve upon our programming.

Collaborations within the Wikiverse and GLAMs: In conjunction with our overall strategy to be more intentionally engaged with the Wikiverse, we fully recognize we are not the first affiliate to work in the Wikidata space and wish to collaborate with other affiliates and GLAMs to highlight, learn, and work on Wikidata together. We believe that increasing collaboration with other Wikimedia affiliates and GLAMs is important for Art+Feminism because it directly strengthens impact, sustainability, and alignment with the wider Wikimedia movement. In 2026/Year 1 of this grant, so far, the leadership team has confirmed new collaborations with Johns Hopkins University, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Botswana, and WikiLGBT+, while continuing to work with and regularly meet with WikieditorasLX and Whose Knowledge? Our Network Organizers are deeply involved with Wikimedia Taiwan Chapter (WMTW), Wiki Advocates Philippines, Wikimedia Côte d'Ivoire (WMCI), and Global Open Initiative. Additionally, a large percentage of our event organizers worldwide are wikimedia affiliates. We’ll evaluate and track the progress of our collaborations by sharing through communications with our community via our mailing list, social media, and the occasional Diff post. We’ll also assess the willingness of continued collaboration with these partner entities as a metric of success.

We’re hopeful that these clarifications along with the initial response to the committee feedback is enough information for the committee to consider the sustained/equal amount of funding from year 1 in both year 2 and 3. We welcome any follow-up questions and are grateful for the ongoing support and dialogue as we continue to do this work together. --Kiraface (talk) 21:16, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

@Kiraface: Having reviewed your response around the original decision, the Regional Fund Committee was not willing to revise the funding decision at this time for years 2 and 3 of Art+Feminism's current General Support Funding. The committee also offered some comments and feedback from the committee regarding this decision:

• The amount of proposed funding supporting training and consultancy during Years 2 and 3 in the original proposal still generally feels excessive to the committee overall. Relatedly, the roles and responsibilities of the Leadership Team Advisors are clearer after your response, but there should be greater justification provided for sustaining this work each year.
• Committee members generally want to see Art+Feminism's proposed spending and reporting more explicitly connected to its own strategic priorities or relevant initiatives from movement strategy. Your most recent response helped to clarify some of these areas, especially around newly proposed Wikidata-related work. Overall though, committee members remarked that the evaluation plan from the 2022 proposal and reporting had much more robust qualitative metrics that helped them evaluate potential for impact compared to the current grant.
• The budgetary concerns that were expressed in the 2023-2025 General Support Fund decision are also still relevant, and the committee is not confident that the General Support Fund will be positioned to support substantial budgetary growth for Art+Feminism in the near future. The committee continues to emphasize the need to continue reviewing external funding opportunities to support programmatic growth, administrative investments, and staffing. If these fundraising opportunities are not available or unsuccessful, Art+Feminism should consider organizational strategies and annual planning that can be supported through sustained funding, rather than growth from this funding program.
• The committee is willing to consider a possible funding increase for Years 2 and 3 when revisions or updates to your annual plans are normally due for submission for multiyear funding applicants. This due date is still pending, but is likely to be set for mid- to late-September 2026. The committee is willing to consider requests up to your current funding level for Year 1 (404,689 USD), but not for additional funding beyond this level during this multiyear period. However, they may elect to limit their budget adjustment decision to Year 2 only, which is a usual practice, and request to wait on a Year 3 decision until September 2027, when those annual plan updates/revisions would normally be due.

Please let me know if you need clarification on any part of the decision, and I am happy to meet to discuss it in greater detail if supportive. On behalf of the Regional Fund Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 18 March 2026 (UTC)