Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Strengthening Wikimedia Communities Through Shared External Grantmaking Knowledge and Collaboration

Comments from Wugapodes

Thanks for your submission! It's a novel idea and I'm excited to think about the possibilities here. I wanted to ask a few questions I had while reading the proposal:

• You have a notable body of scholarship on grant-making and Wikipedia. How do you see this work fitting into that research program?
• Do you plan to monitor program outcomes for those who participate or utilize services? For example, number who apply for and number who receive grants?

Thanks! I'm interested in learning more, and other committee members may chime in with their questions. Wugapodes (talk) 04:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Response from applicants

Buttliere's comments

Hello Wugapodes,

Thank you for your interest and questions.

1. We have an ongoing WikiResearch grant about who is funding Wikimedia related (scientific) research and we see that as feeding into/ preparatory work for this grant. That project is mainly focused on using bibliometric data to see e.g., who is funding Wiki work and what types of work they are funding. Also who is doing that work as a way to identify partners and who to support (e.g., corresponding authors). This then leads into this work because we will have a better idea of where to look and who to apply to for funds.

So the idea is to take the results of that project and utilize them to help kickstart this project, so we know where to look and have a more complete idea of potential funders. That project has no formal project support, no community outreach or advertising about ongoing projects, and no grant writing in it. This project is much more focused on the community and looking forward rather than backward. Whereas that grant looks at grants that were made back until 2015, this project is looking much more to the future at active and available grants, rather than grants that were available in e.g., 2018 and no longer active.

2. While we expect and hope to be able to track outcomes for our services, it will be slightly difficult because we will be sending opportunities out by email and if someone chooses not to let us know that they e.g., applied, then we will have no way of knowing about it. Additionally, the feedback time for especially large state funded grants are often more than 6 months, meaning that if someone puts in a grant in June of next year, they will likely not hear back until December or even after the formal grant period is over - though we will keep updating the outcomes even after this formal grant period is over.

We intend to track the number of projects we send out to people, the number of people we send them out to, the number of people that attend our monthly meetings, the number of actual projects we support through direct feedback, and the outcomes of those projects assuming the project participants share the feedback with us.

Thus, while we intend to track those individuals we have actual contact with and provide feedback to, this is a sort of minimum because we will be sending the projects out to many people over email and there is no guarantee that they will let us know they applied or got the grants.

Thank you again for your questions, hopefully i answered them, and Matt can add anything i forgot.

Brett Buttliere NabuKudurru (talk) 10:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Vetter's comments

Thank you Wugapodes and committee for your questions.

1. The "State of Science and Wikimedia" Research grant will inform and support this current project because as NabuKudurru mentioned, the outcome from the research grant will provide actionable data on the most frequent funders, especially of research, and we can rely on these as potential future opportunities for community members. This current opportunity will not likely inform the research grant, however, not only because the goals and outcomes are different, but also because the research grant will be concluded 6 months before this one. Is there another aspect of our scholarship on grant-making and Wikipedia that you were referring to?
2. I would mainly second the comments made by NabuKudurru - the grant period of 1 year would substantially limit the amount of assessment we could do on this, mainly because most external grants (especially larger ones) are not as nimble and quick as those from WMF and can easily take over a year from first identifying the grant, to applying, to actually receiving notice of acceptance or rejection. Tracking how many of our participants apply to grants might be feasible. I can talk more with Brett about this. Is this something in particular the committee would like to see?

Again thank you for your support and feedback! Matthewvetter (talk) 16:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal decision and comments

@Matthewvetter and NabuKudurru: Thanks for your proposal on behalf of the IUP Research Institute. Unfortunately, the Regional Fund Committee was not willing to fund the proposal, partially due to limitations on the available regional funding for new projects that require a larger budget. The committee broadly supported the proposals on its merits, while also sharing some concerns and suggestions for consideration. Funding for this proposal will not be available this fiscal year, and the committee recommends consulting with the Regional Program Officer to see if sufficient regional budget will be available in the next fiscal year starting on 1 July 2026.

The committee had some comments and suggestions on the proposal. Please review this feedback below:

• The committee recognizes that one of the strengths of the proposal is that it is narrowly premised on capacity building that can potentially benefit the entire Wikimedia movement. This kind of work is rare to see in this funding program, and represents an interesting opportunity for investment. Making grants more accessible for researchers and scholars focused on the Wikimedia movement can support more basic and applied work that investigates complex questions about Wikimedia communities, the projects they maintain, and the broader environments they operate in.
• The project also benefits from having an initial network of academics who can both benefit from and actively support this work. It appears there was some interest in potentially identifying advisors and other team members from this network, and we encourage you to continue recruiting from this network. The proposed team of two people is small for a project of this scope that may involve up to 500 participants and require engagement with participants from seven named countries in addition to EU countries. This scope does present some concerns around capacity and the sustainability of the project if a larger team is not successfully identified.
• The limitations around measuring impact of the programmatic work here in terms of grants received make sense to the committee given the schedule for many funding programs focused on scholarly work. The committee was generally satisfied with the metrics provided in the Other Metrics section as good indications that the work is likely to be successful beyond mere participation.
  • The committee also requested knowing more about where participants are from in terms of their institution or country when they interact with your programs or apply for a grant you recommend. This would make clearer if your programs are successfully reaching underserved communities in addition to researchers within the United States and Canada.

Thank you for your proposal, and I am happy to meet to discuss the decision further and provide guidance where possible. On behalf of the Regional Fund Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:59, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF)Thank you for your feedback. I will need to consult with @NabuKudurru regarding our full response, but I do have one initial question. You state that "Funding for this proposal will not be available this fiscal year" - does that mean that available funds for North America's Round 2 have already been allocated to other applicants? Thank you for your kind consideraiton. -- Matthewvetter (talk) 16:00, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Matthewvetter: You state that "Funding for this proposal will not be available this fiscal year" - does that mean that available funds for North America's Round 2 have already been allocated to other applicants? Thanks for your question. None of the funding has been formally allocated yet, no. However:

• in each round, some of the regional budget is reserved for affiliates in the middle of multiyear funding, and is awarded provided they are in good standing around reporting and submit required updates for their annual plan, budget, and metrics. There is one such grantee for next round.
• the remaining funding is such that — in order to fund or mostly fund this proposal next round — the committee would be required to stop funding a returning applicant entirely or substantially reduce funding to multiple returning applicants. Furthermore, it is possible there will be more funding available for new initiatives next fiscal year in comparison to this one.

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick resposne @I JethroBT (WMF)! -- Matthewvetter (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Hello again @I JethroBT (WMF). After chatting with @NabuKudurru, I can now add the following additional questions:

1. ) Does the committee have any recommendations for the number of team members needed for a project of this scope?
2. ) Do you recommend paid or volunteer positions for these additional team members? I the latter, does the committee have any recommendations for compensation structure?
3. ) What other changes would the committee recommend to create a more viable, successful proposal?

Thank you - Matthewvetter (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Matthewvetter: I will follow-up with the committee on these questions to provide more specific guidance where possible. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I JethroBT (WMF) I just want to clarify that we are not really expecting to actively engage with 500 participants, but rather than the mailing list could reasonably be expected to reach 500 people (ideally more!). It seems like some of the concern is that the team is too small, but again we are not expecting to spend e.g., 5 minutes with each participant. But for instance the WikiScience mailing list already has 80 people, the WikiResearch List has at least a few hundred, the WikiEducation hub has a few hundred (likely significant overlap), so there already we are close to 500. I would send at least one or two emails to the whole wikimedia list serv just to join for the first one or two - so that they can join the more specific group. Just wanted to clarify that because it seems there was some confusion.

Another thing i wanted to mention is that we are not focusing solely and definitely not entirely on grants for research - the goal would be to identify potential grants for e.g., GLAMs, education initiatives, infrastructure projects, pretty much anything we can to help strengthen the community.

It is somehow ironic that our grant about finding more funds to solve the lack of funds problem was not and will not be funded in the near future because of a lack of funds! :,D

Finally, I wonder if there are any other funds or opportunities you think might be appropriate for this type of work - I looked at the Strategy 2030 team but it seems that they are on grant pause. I think the research team is a good option and we will explore it in the coming weeks with Leila and Kinneret.

Another option i think we could be open to is reducing the amount of work and resubmitting it, if that is preferable or more feasible for the committee, it seems like the size of the grant was too big for a newcomer (please correct me if i am wrong). tagging @Matthewvetter

Best and Thank You,

Brett NabuKudurru (talk) 11:44, 9 December 2025 (UTC)