In what will be remembered as a game-changing week for Wikimedia grantmaking, the Foundation's executive director, Sue Gardner, published a forthright and in places highly critical statement, Reflections on the FDC process, and grantmaking staff revealed that the WMF will significantly strengthen its targeting of optimal impact in funding. These clear signs of the Foundation's intention to shift grantmaking strategies come just after 11 WMF entities placed on-wiki their applications for the October round of Funds Dissemination Committee allocations—the first of two rounds in the 2013–14 financial year in which the combined maximum budget will be US$8M. (The FDC is the volunteer committee, supported by a team of WMF specialist staff, that administers annual grants to chapters and other eligible entities.) The FDC also published the annual report for its first year of operation, 2012–13.
Sue Gardner's statement emphasised the successes of the new system, but went on to express significant concerns about how the WMF's affiliated entities are developing: "too large a proportion of the movement's money is being spent by the chapters [whereas] the value in the Wikimedia projects is primarily created by individual editors: individuals create the value for readers, which results in those readers donating money to the movement. ... I am not sure that the additional value created by movement entities such as chapters justifies the financial cost".
While stating her confidence in all FDC members, Gardner wrote: "I am troubled by the FDC being disproportionately chapters-centric, and my concern increased rather than decreasing following the 2013 FDC member elections, which resulted in the two open FDC seats being filled by chapters Board members. ... the FDC process, dominated by fund-seekers, does not as currently constructed offer sufficient protection against log-rolling, self-dealing, and other corrupt practices. I had hoped that this risk would be offset by the presence on the FDC of independent non-affiliated members".
"With such a high proportion of [resources] now funding [chapters' staff and offices], we need to ask if the benefits are turning out to be worth the cost. It's possible that a well-managed shift to some staff support can help a volunteer community stay energized and enthused, but the risks and costs of setting up bricks-and-mortar institutions also dramatically increase, alongside sometimes difficult dynamics between staff and community".
In Gardner's view, we lack evidence that this spending "is significantly helping us to achieve the Wikimedia mission. I believe we're spending a lot of money, more than is warranted by the results we've been seeing. I am concerned by the growth rates requested by the entities submitting funding requests to the FDC." She challenged Wikimedians to ask themselves "whether there are more imaginative and agile ways of organizing our movement that will support our work better".
Gardner's comments were, in part, reinforced and extended in presentations of unusual candour by FDC staff at the Foundation's regular Metrics Meeting last Thursday, streamed live and now available on YouTube (starting at about 37 minutes). WMF senior director of grantmaking, Anasuya Sengupta, said that analysing the impact of grants will be a priority in the coming year. One of her main points concerned the asymmetry in chapter allocations: "Last year, of the $5.65M we gave out, about $3M went to three chapters: Germany, France, and the UK. ... there are questions to be asked by all of us around where's the money going, for what, to whom, and how are our individual contributors being supported as best as we can".
Katy Love, the FDC's senior program officer, pointed out that the FDC guidelines generally allow a maximum annual increase of 20% in the funds allocated to any one chapter. Yet most of the 11 applicants are asking for considerably greater increases: Germany, the largest recipient—which already has access to generous levels of funding from German donors—is asking for 36% more ($2.43M). The UK's claim is up 32% from last year, Argentina's 34%, Switzerland's 38%, Austria's 41%, Serbia's 111%, Israel's 204%, and India's 401%. Only the bids from the Netherlands (up 20%) and Sweden (up 21%) were within the guidelines. This will present the FDC with "a very interesting process", Love commented.
Returning to the issue of asymmetry, the disparity between the allocations to the global south and north are more dramatic. Last year, Sengupta said, the global south received just 8% of WMF funding (from all sources, not just the FDC), with an average grant of $1554. The global north received 92% of the funds, and by the Signpost's calculation an average grant of $79,780. Despite this, reaching into the global south is a key priority for the Foundation. Asaf Bartov, head of WMF grants and global south partnerships, explained the rationale: "When our GS editorship is low, we are missing important voices, with different contexts, knowledge maps, hierarchies and categories." This leads to systemic bias from "the paucity of GS editors". More strikingly, Bartov pointed out that in terms of page visits "we are reaching 7% of the planet with our free knowledge – 7%! – so there's a way to go."
But the situation is complicated. In relation to grantmaking, he said, "it's actually hard to spend effectively in the global south. We are very eager to fund work in the global south, but it has actually been hard finding fundable projects that align with our global mission ... So that is a major component in the low number of funds that make it to the global south – it's not like we say 'no' a lot."
So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."
The WMF's primary formula, Bartov said, is now that "growth happens when community and outside resources come together", although he pointed out that "we are in disagreement with some parts of the community, with some chapters, about this conclusion: some people think we should still do work where no community exists."
What has been learned more specifically, then? He listed six critical advances in the Foundation's understanding that will be of interest to all Wikimedians who are engaged in practical projects:
"WMF contractors operating "on the ground" are too complicated and not effective enough ("we now only partner with grantees").
"Sustained attention to local communities yields actionable plans (a major focus in India and Brazil at the moment, which "has yielded actionable plans in those countries").
"WP Zero is effective, but it's still a challenge to get people to use the resource you make available".
"Just making offline resources [like software] available in the GS is not enough; distribution is the key".
What the WMF has been learning from its role in grantmaking appears to be leading to definite changes in its funding priorities and methodologies. While this is likely to be met with controversy in the movement, there will be inevitable implications for affiliated entities in terms of how they shape their own priorities and the way they achieve their goals. During the Metrics Meeting, Katy Love encouraged all interested members of the community to review and comment on the FDC applications.
Recent news concerning a related issue—the standards of governance required of FDC grant recipients—was first raised in the Signpost two weeks ago. In that edition we linked to an anonymous tip-off on the Wikimedia India mailing list on 15 September. The post claimed that two returning members of the chapter's executive committee, Pranav and Karthik Nadar, were in the paid employment of a third, Moksh Juneja, who joined them as a new member at the August election. This information did not appear to have been disclosed to voters, despite the obvious potential for conflict-of-interest in having a block of three members in mutual employment relationships out of a total of nine members.
The incident took a new turn yesterday when Moksh Juneja confirmed the employment relationships "have ended / [are] in the process of ending", and denied that this had any connection with the anonymous tip-off. Former president of Wikimedia India Arjuna Rao Chavala served on the chapter's election committee for the August election; his current membership of the FDC means that this information is likely to be discussed on the Committee during the current round, in which the Indian chapter has applied for US$178k for a predicted total budget of $217k .
An additional point of debate may involve another matter raised in the same edition of the Signpost: the allegation by one candidate, Santosh M. Shingare, that the chapter's election committee had failed to release the list of eligible voters 21 days before the election as required by the chapter's rules. In making the allegation that he would no longer participate in the election, Shingare declared he would no longer participate as a candidate.
Two weeks ago, we also reported on a conflict-of-interest issue in Wikimedia UK—that the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR—a professional body for public relations practitioners in the UK) has appointed current Wikimedia UK Secretary Alastair McCapra as its new chief executive. WMF general counsel Geoff Brigham has just published an opinion that "if a substantive issue arises at CIPR with respect to Wikimedia or its projects, I understand that Alastair intends to recuse himself from discussion and decision and appoint someone else at CIPR to act as the final decision maker on that issue within CIPR to avoid any appearance of a conflict of duty of loyalty. Alastair would also recuse himself on the WMUK board from a discussion and decision on any issue concerning CIPR. If an issue is particularly contentious and critical to the very fabric of either organization, Alastair may need to make a decision of resignation to address the potential conflict on that question, but such decisions can be handled on an issue-by-issue basis. The mere possibility of such a scenario does not necessitate resignation today."
Chris Keating, Chair of the WMUK board, has posted this message: "If there is a widespread view that, even with the steps we've outlined, it's not in the charity's best interests for Alastair to continue, then we will listen to that. However since Alastair posted the details of how he will handle this situation, only 5 people (myself included) have taken part in the resulting discussion. Some have posted at some length and in strident terms, but I don't yet see the picture I would need to see to be persuaded we are taking the wrong course of action here."
Discussion continues at the WMUK water cooler, beneath Brigham's statement.
Discuss this story
Drafting notes
Just a note: The maximum number of people would have been 228 on Oct 1; but the number increased over time from about 20. — MPelletier (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Chapters spend money
The WMF and FDC are far far away for local users, too far away. There is a huge gap between local users and WMF for already more than 7 years, which makes WMF unreachable for local users. Where do local users (individuals) then go to if they need money and other support? the chapters. Who has the contacts with cultural institutions so that for example tens of thousands of images are uploaded to Commons to illustrate articles? the chapters. Is the proportion of spending by the chapters a problem? No. If there is a problem, it is WMF itself for already more than 7 years to be in general unable to reach out to local individuals, WMF has a large communication problem and the little communication often gets damaged by decisions that annoy local communities much. Because WMF itself is unable to reach out to all those individuals around the world, chapters have jumped in that gap to support locally the cultural institutions and local individuals who need that support that WMF does not provide. I am sure a lot of things can be improved in chapters and in spending by chapters and that is something which can be critical looked into, but I am more concerned about the unreachable Wikimedia Foundation which is too far away if local individuals and communities (in another country) need help. So please improve that first... Romaine (talk) 01:49, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment—one of the problems with Sue's reasoning here is that it is actually the foundation itself that imposed many of the extra costs for chapters. For example, the new reporting requirements by the WMF and FDC require most chapters to have a full-time employee dealing just with metrics and specific requests, the WMF's new legal guidelines require most active chapters to pay legal fees to a lawyer, etc. I estimate that for some small chapters the running cost went up by more than 100% because of these relatively new requirements, and even for large chapters this is not negligible by any means. I understand why most of these new requirements exist, but the WMF shouldn't be surprised that existing volunteers have neither the time nor the expertise to handle the extra load and have to hire employees to do it.
In terms of value to the movement, chapters are responsible for most of the useful innovations in the movement, both in terms of projects and even in terms of engineering which the chapters weren't intended for (the Toolserver and WikiData both come from Germany). The chapters are responsible for getting millions of high-quality images to Commons, many of them from archives that would otherwise be inaccessible. The chapters are responsible for convincing government agencies to release free content. They are responsible for holding community events and letting people around the world know that Wikipedia is not just a website, but a resource that anyone can edit that has a community of real people behind it that can provide all kinds of support for all kinds of projects. Disproportionate funding for the value that they create? Maybe disproportionately low.
—Ynhockey (Talk) 11:28, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks
Very useful information in the report this week. Thanks Tony1, Crisco 1492 and The ed17. --Pine✉ 07:06, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The problem of editor metrics
Community building as a chapter goal, in addition to editor metrics
No sound process for establishing spending priorities
One thing I am missing is any kind of analysis in the chapters as to which content areas of the Wikimedia projects are objectively in need of improvement, and targeted spending plans geared to address those areas.
Such an analysis would look at things like the following:
I see little evidence of a customer (i.e. reader) focus in chapters' spending decisions. My impression is that spending often happens along the following lines: 1. We have money to spend. 2. What could we do with that money? Is there a GLAM organisation (even if it's just a local or regional museum) that would host a Wikipedian in Residence if we were to finance the position? Do we have someone in our membership who would like to do a job like that? Is there someone who might be interested in hosting or running an awareness workshop somewhere? Can anyone think of a gap in our coverage that could be filled if we throw a bit of money at it?
As far as I can see, the main question asked is whether the planned activity would fundamentally be in line with the Foundation's mission. But I see little interest in quantifying cost-benefit ratios, or assessing whether the activities engaged in really address those areas that are in most need of improvement (based on metrics such as number of readers reached, or importance of the information to readers' lives). Yet we promise donors that their funds will be used "wisely". When Sue says, "I am not sure that the additional value created by movement entities such as chapters justifies the financial cost" and "there is currently not much evidence suggesting this spending is significantly helping us to achieve the Wikimedia mission: I believe we're spending a lot of money, more than is warranted by the results we've been seeing", I read that as an admission that funds are not in fact used wisely, but quite haphazardly.
Spending must be far more metric-based and grounded in a rational and traceable analysis of priorities. For example, donors' money could be used to finance Wikipedians in Residence in universities, professional associations, academic bodies, government-funded agencies providing information and advice on legal, medical or social matters etc., with a view to having highly qualified subject matter experts –
In my view, if we are spending millions and millions of donated dollars (bearing in mind that Wikimedia Foundation revenue and spending has increased about tenfold over the past five years – see graphic), then this is the sort of way we must spend them in order to live up to the promise that donors' money will be spent "wisely". Andreas JN466 21:11, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A related issue is the system of reportage on the progress and results of funded activities back to the grantmaking body; I'm disappointed that the WMF board's priority of disseminating "lessons learned" is not gaining much traction in this reportage. Do chapters genuinely want to share with each other their accumulating knowledge of what does and doesn't work? Tony (talk) 01:56, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say that I take Sue's main point to be the "cuckoo" argument: growth in the chapters' budget and activity is not proof that the chapters aren't growing at the expense of other possibilities (hence the worries about the FDC governance, if the perspective is uncritical of chapters). The detail of chapter budgets is another matter; and what could be done to spend money in other sectors a third matter. There are "cuckoo" areas within the budgets of individual chapters, surely (certainly in my experience). The WMF fundraising total is lower than it could be, if every effort were made to maximise it. Trying to read this all together: routing funds to areas that could most benefit the overall mission is not a simple matter of replying positively to those who think they have a good business case. People generally are very impressed by Wikimedia content. That still mostly reflects volunteer efforts, and how to target the auxiliary spending is in no sense a solved problem.
My own view is that we should be more concerned with the grassroots, and, as here, they are not necessarily the ones making most of the noise. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:57, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have been told I have been cryptic with my metaphors. Here's an attempt in different language (see growth-share matrix). A WMF criticism I have heard, though it is not Sue's main point, is that chapters tend to have too diverse a portfolio of activities, so there is a fairly good reason to translate into that language.
There the point would be the predominance of "stars" and the lack of identification of, and support for, "cash cows". If Andreas is mainly talking about the presence of "dogs", well, you'd expect some in any business context. Here of course "cash cow" is something that steadily builds the Wikimedia community, if in unspectacular manner (e.g. the sort of claim made for WLM, once you strip out the stats). Why "stars" have to be treated with some suspicion is standard stuff: they hog the limelight, are greedy for resources, and management can get obsessed with them. In our context, as Asaf points out rightly, GLAM activities really depend on having a local community in good shape. (GLAM = "star" is pretty much implicit in the acronym.) Charles Matthews (talk) 03:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification on "rates of growth" for Annual Plan Grants / FDC proposals
I want to explain a bit more about how the "rates of growth in movement resources" mentioned in the Signpost article were determined in the annual plan grant proposals to the FDC. The amounts in US dollars used to calculate movement resources allocated in 2013 for FDC entities come from the allocations in US dollars presented in the FDC recommendations; they may differ from actual amounts received in local currencies. Therefore, the percentage growth in movement resources (grants received and funds retained through payment processing) may also differ when calculating in local currency.
The amounts in US dollars used to calculate movement resources allocated in 2013 and requested growth rates for entities new to the FDC process (Amical, Wikimedia India, and Wikimedia Serbia) were a bit more complex. Figures for the movement resources allocated in 2013 are based on a pro-rated amount of Project and Event grant funds allocated by dividing the equivalent in US dollars of the total grant amount listed in the approved grant submission by the number of days in the grant’s term listed in the approved grant submission and multiplying that amount by the number of days of each grant term in the calendar year 2013. Therefore, please note that these figures, along with the associated requested growth rate percentages, are only estimations used to create a sense of comparison with the FDC entities and do not reflect exactly the amount of grant funds that may have been expended in each calendar year. See the Project and Event Grants page for more information about approved Project and Event grants.
If anyone has further questions about these figures, you are welcome to contact me and the FDC support team at FDCsupport@wikimedia.org.
Thanks! KLove (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]