Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Wikimedia Foundation funding Human Rights

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Funding Human Rights

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The Wikimedia Foundation is thrilled to announce that it recently has been selected to be a member of two human rights funding groups: The Ariadne Network and the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG). Admission into these groups allows WMF the opportunity to learn from the experience of numerous other funders, as well as open the door for us at WMF to share our learnings and experience in grantmaking with the broader funder network.

The Ariadne Network is a network of European funders who are dedicated to providing funds to help advance human rights issues. The admission of WMF in February 2014 was the first official acknowledgement from the broader funding community of the human rights nature of the Wikimedia projects: in particular, the right to education for all. The communities supported by WMF - whether individuals, groups, or movement organizations are working to create environments both online and offline where educational information can be disseminated through the online Wikimedia projects. These activities by our grantees include things like partnerships with GLAM institutions or education institutions to digitize content for the public domain, helping provide training to local volunteers, or community building projects focused directly online.

This last week, my colleague Anasuya (Senior Director of Grantmaking) and I had the privilege of joining other members of the Ariadne Network at a Policy Briefing. So many wonderful sessions and conversations happened, but a few of the highlights:

• discuss our unique experiences in peer-funding models with the few other peer-based funders in the field (note: we are really excited to share our learnings from this going forward, as we are the largest grantmaker in the world conducting grantmaking with a peer-based model)
• hear research by the International Center for Nonprofit Law on the trend towards restrictive funding laws, and a working group with other funders on strategies for dealing with this
• share our observations and discuss trends in and strategies against internet surveillance
• gather resources for finance and governance best practices for european NGOs

We are so thrilled to be welcomed into Ariadne Network and IHRFG. We are looking forward to many great conversations and information sharing with our partners in supporting universal human rights.

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