Hi all, My name is Biyanto Rebin, and I am one of the community members who is part of the Knowledge Equity Fund Committee. I joined the Equity Fund Committee last year because I believe that our movement needs support from other groups and organizations who are working on free knowledge to make sure that we can address knowledge equity, which is stated in the movement strategy.
The grants support those groups that are being left behind or under-resourced, as we believe that supporting those particular entities will increase the quality of knowledge overall and contents on the Wikimedia projects in the future. It is not true that these grants are completely unrelated to Wikimedia or the Wikimedia projects. From the beginning, the Knowledge Equity Fund was designed as an experiment: a pilot fund to improve the pool of knowledge resources on underrepresented topics that can then be used to strengthen content on the Wikimedia projects. Because it is a pilot project with a limited pool of funds, our intention is to experiment with different approaches, and see where we can learn what works. The size of the initial Equity Fund, $4.5 million, was from the Foundation’s 2019-2020 fiscal year operating budget, when the Foundation had a budget underrun <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_Equity_Fund/Frequently_asked_questions/en#11._Where_did_the_funding_for_the_Equity_Fund_come_from?> due to COVID-19 and set aside funds for this pilot. No new funds from the Foundation’s revenue have been added to the Fund, and it is not meant to replace or compete with the other and larger grant programs <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start> for community members and Wikimedia groups. I understand it is frustrating that we cannot yet measure impact directly to the Wikimedia projects. This is an area that we hope to improve in this new round, and to do so we are connecting each of our new grantees directly with groups in the Wikimedia movement. We believe that we cannot build stronger projects without building and strengthening alliances with other institutions working to create knowledge. One example I can explain using my local context is with Indonesian Wikipedia, and how we are connecting them with two of our new grantees: AMAN <https://aman.or.id/> and Project Multatuli <https://projectmultatuli.org/en>. I am coming from Indonesia where indigenous topics are still marginalized issues and they are left behind. Sure, there has been some improvement for the last decade, but it is not enough. AMAN has an initiative to build an Indigenous Peoples Glossary, so Indonesian people in general can benefit from this resource. As indigenous peoples are marginalized, sometimes we still use some insensitive words toward them, and even some Indonesian Wikipedia articles still use these words. We cannot rely solely on resources that are coming from outside of indigenous people realm to define who they are, what we should call them. By having this initiative, we firmly believe our community can later use the Indigenous Peoples Glossary as one of useful resources for Indonesian indigenous people related topics. Project Multatuli is a non-profit journalism organization working with indigenous women topics for this grant and they also can collaborate to empower more indigenous people as citizen journalists. I’m also sharing details about the relationships that we’re building in the movement with some of our other new grantee. Black Cultural Archives <https://blackculturalarchives.org/>: Given BCA’s focus, we have connected them with Wikimedia UK, Wiki Library User Group and Whose Knowledge to help them better understand how to connect their work and archives with the Wikimedia projects. Create Caribbean Research Institute <https://createcaribbean.org/create/>: As the first digital humanities centre in the Caribbean, Create Caribbean has natural alignment with Wiki Cari UG, as well as Noircir, Whose Knowledge, Projet:Université de Guyane, and WikiMujeres. We also plan to connect them to present or speak at Wiki Con North America. Criola <https://criola.org.br/> Criola is a civil society organization dedicated to advocating for the rights of Black women in Brazilian society. We have connected them with Whose Knowledge, WikiMujeres, Mujeres (mulheres) latino americanas in Wikimedia, and we will be connecting them with Mais_Teoria_da_Historia Na Brasil. Data for Black Lives <https://d4bl.org/> Given D4BL’s focus in the US, we have connected them with AfroCROWD and Black Lunch Table. Filipino American National Historical Society <http://fanhs-national.org/filam/>: FANHS is focused on Filipino American heritage, and as members of the diaspora we are connecting them with the PhilWiki Community, Wiki Advocates of Philippines and Wiki Libraries User Group. If you have other ideas for how we can improve, please reach out and let us know. Our email is [email protected]. Best, Biyanto Rebin (committee member, Knowledge Equity Fund) On Fri, 18 Aug 2023 at 09:01, Samuel Klein <[email protected]> wrote: > ++. Anything we can learn + apply from Outreachy (and their own community > of mentors, alums, and practitioners!) would be wonderful. > Their impact per unit of funding seems, at very casual inspection, well > ahead of all comparable initiatives. And we could even fund them directly, > who have often helped us in turn. ;) > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 12:13 AM Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 10:23 PM Steven Walling >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > With the money allocated to Knowledge Equity in the last couple years, >> we could have hired >> > at least a couple more software engineers to do work like fulfill >> community wishlist requests. >> >> I disagree with that framing. Wikimedia Foundation, even with reduced >> fundraising goals, is a very well-endowed organization that can easily >> shift more of its existing effort towards community wishlist requests. >> _All_ areas in which it spends money are deserving of healthy >> scrutiny, not just this new program. I feel it's best to evaluate this >> program on its own merits -- and to make a separate argument regarding >> the community wishlist & prioritization of software engineering >> ventures. >> >> To me, the question with these grants is whether there's a plausible >> theory of change that ties them back to the Wikimedia mission and >> movement. I share some skepticism about broad objectives around >> "improving quality of sources about X" without any _obvious and >> direct_ connection to the movement's work (i.e. concrete commitments >> about licensing and availability of information, or collaboration with >> Wikimedians). The Borealis Journalism Fund grant report [1] explicitly >> states: >> >> # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages: 0 >> # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects: 0 >> Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects: 0 >> >> (There are qualifiers in the report, but frankly, they're not very >> plausible ones.) >> >> I see a lot of value in WMF having new connections with these grantees >> -- these are organizations Wikimedia _should_ have a relationship >> with. But do we best accomplish that by directly funding their >> operations? This statement from the latest announcement stands out to >> me: >> >> > The Equity Fund Committee [...] have also connected each of these >> grantees with regional >> > and relevant partners in the Wikimedia movement, including local and >> established >> > movement affiliates who can support knowledge equity work and help >> grantees learn about >> > how to connect back to the work of free knowledge on the Wikimedia >> projects. >> >> That's great, and I look forward to hearing what comes from these >> connections. I do worry a bit about slipping into a transactional >> framework -- "we give you support for your core mission, and to >> maintain good relations with us, you have some meetings with friendly >> Wikimedians in your area". Many grant-giving organizations tend to >> adopt transactional frameworks, sometimes overtly, sometimes without >> even realizing it. In the worst case, the grantee experiences it as a >> chore -- a checklist item to complete to apply for the next round of >> funding. Not saying that's where this program is at, just that it's >> something I would suggest watching out for. >> >> Personally, I see potential in the direction of well-scoped >> fellowships/residencies/internships paid by WMF, where both parties >> understand fully that engagement with the Wikimedia movement is part >> of what they're signing up for. There are pitfalls here as well: >> avoiding paid editing; making sure that the fellows themselves are >> diverse, etc. But these issues seem "closer to the metal" of >> Wikimedia's work, i.e. "the right kinds of of problems". >> >> There's a lot of institutional history to look back on & learn from, >> from GLAM residencies to WMF's internal fellowship program which you, >> Steven, went through so many years ago. I'd also encourage a close >> look at Outreachy, who have done amazing work getting diverse new >> contributors to join open source & open science projects. And that may >> be what you mean with "try less controversial methods to improve >> knowledge equity", but I feel this should be entirely about >> effectiveness and mission alignment, not about avoiding controversy. >> >> In general, I'd love to hear more from both the staff and community >> members on the committee how they came to their funding decisions >> (i.e. what set the successful grantees apart from the unsuccessful >> ones, and what theory of change animated the decisions), and where >> they'd like to see the program go in future. >> >> Warmly, >> Erik >> >> [1] >> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Knowledge_Equity_Fund_%28Round_1%29_-_Borealis_philanthropy_report.pdf >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines >> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/6654SWPDLQMI5SLKSWMSJB5YNIBOGTEC/ >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > > > -- > Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines > at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/PTGVB6RTZG26QNYNU3ONZJBFH4WUVKDO/ > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
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