[Wikimedia-l] APG- TIdes Advocacy

[Kassia Echavarri-Queen]

Hello Everyone,



My name is Kassia Echavarri-Queen and I became the Director of the
Community Resources team in June. I am so excited and inspired to be a part
of this movement.  Lisa covered the overall intention and background of the
Equity Fund and Tides Advocacy. I want to address the specific questions
about Tides Advocacy and its impact on the Annual Plan Grants.



Tides Advocacy is disbursing funds for the Annual Plan Grants that were
managed under the FDC. Simple Annual Plan Grants and all other existing
grant programs remain under the direct administration of WMF.



As mentioned the FDC was paused to focus on strategy. As the Community
Resources team is currently reviewing its strategy to align with the
movement strategic direction the FDC remains paused. During this time, the
Community Resources team continues to renew eligible APG grants with a
streamlined process. The process for applying and reviewing the APG remains
the same as the last two years and under the management of the Community
Resources team. Upon the recommendation of the Community Resources Team,
Tides Advocacy will distribute the funds. We have hosted conversations with
all of the affiliates directly impacted by the changes.


Thank you for the questions. I wish everyone well and can't wait for the
moment we have opportunities to meet in person.



All the best,

Kassia


-- 
*Kassia Echavarri-Queen* (She/Her)
Director Community Investment
Wikimedia Foundation 
kechavarriqu...@wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Conference Grants Program Updates

[Rachel Farrand]

Hello everyone!

We would like to announce the dates for our next two upcoming rounds for
our Wikimedia Foundation conference grants program.


   -

   If you would like to apply for funding to hold an event between July -
   December 2021 your application deadline is: February 8, 2021
   -

   If you would like to apply for funding to hold an event between January
   - June 2022 your application deadline is: September 27, 2021


The majority of events in 2021 will likely be mostly or fully remote events
unless anything major changes in our COVID-19 risk assessment protocol
.
Following this protocol, some local events are possible in regions with low
COVID risk.

So far we have gained a lot of experience organizing remote events and
working alongside remote event organizers and are happy to meet and chat
about options and ideas for your community before you apply. We have
created some remote event guidelines here
.
You can also read about some community efforts at Wikiproject: remote event
participation
.

We are happy to announce that we have approved two events for the first
half of 2021:

   -

   Arctic Knot: A Wikimedia Languages conference
   

   organized by Wikimedia Norge
   -

   WP20 Aniversario
   
   organized by Wikimedia España
   -

   We are in final discussions with two other organizing groups for
   possible events during this time frame and will update our meta page
   
   if and when they are approved.



Finally, we are also looking for any community members with event
organizing experience from Asia or South America who might be interested in
joining our conference grants committee
 as we
currently don’t have representation from those regions. Once you read more
about our committee, you can apply on meta directly or email us back and
ask any questions you have.

Thank you & happy end of the year!

Rachel Farrand & Chen Almog


-- 
Rachel Farrand
Senior Program Officer
Community Events Team
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New online learning courses on Building Partnerships and Identifying and Addressing Harassment

[Cassie Casares]

Hi everyone,

Applications for each course open today (December 15) and not December 1 as
listed in our previous email.

Best,

Cassie Casares
Project Coordinator
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation
ccasa...@wikimedia.org


On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 10:05 AM Cassie Casares 
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> The Community Development
>  team at the
> Wikimedia Foundation is launching the WikiLearn (Online Learning Pilot)
> , a
> capacity-building project. This project will deliver two courses over an
> 8-week period that will begin on February 1, 2021. Courses are free to take
> part in and will be hosted on Moodle . During this
> pilot project, each course will be taught, and assignments are to be
> prepared, in English. At the end of the pilot, we will be making course
> materials available for anyone interested in self-study, and for
> translation.
>
> The two courses we will be launching on February 1, 2021, are:
>
>
>1.
>
>Identifying and Addressing Harassment
>
> :
>This course will focus on developing skills that will help volunteers
>respond to on- and off-wiki harassment.
>-
>
>   This course will combine scheduled sessions and independent study.
>   The weekly commitment of this course is 2-3 hours per week.
>   -
>
>   Target Audience: Volunteers with administrator or other advanced
>   user rights.
>
>
>
>1.
>
>Partnership Building:
>
> 
>  This
>intensive course will provide an in-depth curriculum on how to develop
>meaningful programmatic and organizational partnerships within the movement
>and with external partners.
>-
>
>   This course will consist of scheduled sessions and individual
>   assignments with a weekly total commitment of up to 6 hours.
>   -
>
>   Target Audience: Volunteers with intermediate-level experience
>   contributing to Wikimedia projects and beginner-level experience with
>   building partners with Non-Wikimedia groups and organizations.
>
>
> To ensure our small team can provide each learner individual support, we
> are limiting each course in this pilot to 40 participants. We ask that all
> interested applicants commit to attending weekly for the full course.
>
> All efforts will be made to ensure that scheduled sessions are time-zone
> friendly to the greatest number of enrolled participants. However, with the
> wide distribution of volunteers, that may not always be possible.
>
> Key Dates:
>
>
>-
>
>Applications open Today (December 1, 2020) and will close on January
>14, 2021.
>-
>
>Successful applicants will be notified on January 18, 2021.
>-
>
>The first session for each course will be held on February 1, 2021.
>
>
> To Take Part in the Online Learning Pilot:
>
> To participate in the Partnership Building online course, fill out this
> application form
> .
>
> To participate in the  Identifying and Addressing Harassment Online
> course, fill out this application form
> .
>
> For more details on the Online Learning Pilot, please see our Meta page.
> Feel free to ask questions on the project Talk
> 
> page or contact us at com...@wikimedia.org.
>
> Best,
>
> The Community Development Team
>
> Cassie Casares
> Project Coordinator
> Community Development
> Wikimedia Foundation
> ccasa...@wikimedia.org
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Join the International Jury Team of Months of African Cinema Contest

[Eben Calist]

Thank you very much for participating in the Months of African Cinema global contest/edit-a-thon, and thank you for your contributions. It is already the end of the contest and a lot have been achieved! We have been able to get about 3,000 articles created in about 20 languages! This would not have been possible without yoursupport and we want to thank you. We are about  to constitute the International Jury team, which will consist of members from all the languages that participated in the global contest/edit-a-thon. If you would like to join us in the Jury team, please let us know by 23rd December by filling this form.[1] Thanks for all your contributions this year and congratulations to you! Regards,Ebenezer MlayCommunity Liaison – Afrocine project  [1] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrt_xGsVNV1rJthKrEQvRlPOTAlgTU0IzSGz5GcPZ-cPBV-w/viewform

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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation FY20-21Annual Plan on Meta-wiki

[Katherine Maher]

Hi everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation would like to announce that our final FY20-21
Annual Plan is now available on Meta[1]. The Annual Plan was approved by
the Board of Trustees on September 28th, 2020.

As you know, we finalized the plan several months further into the year
than we normally would, and into a world full of uncertainty: the COVID-19
pandemic, a global economic downturn, and a changing political landscape
marked both by inspiring civic protests for racial justice and by rising
threats to freedom of information. In light of these circumstances, we
built this plan with one thing at the forefront: our responsibility to the
stability and continuity of our projects, and the commitment to secure the
resources to steward free knowledge and to serve our global communities.
Much of our work will focus on securing these fundamentals.

At the same time, we want to continue our progress towards our strategic
direction as an organization serving our movement and vision. Thus, this
Annual Plan represents an important balance between both the current needs
of our movement and the aspirational goals that we all share. The projects
outlined in the Annual Plan align with the two goals, and five priorities,
of our 2019 medium-term plan[2], which is the Foundation’s three-year
roadmap of work to help move us toward the overall movement strategic
direction.

These projects include work as varied and adventurous as exploring new
knowledge formats through our newest Wikimedia project, Abstract Wikipedia;
introducing new improvements to our tech stack and new tools for editors,
and investing to close knowledge gaps through a pilot fund for knowledge
equity.

As a movement, we are now in the exciting phase of the movement strategy
process where we begin the implementation of the final recommendations.
Over the past three years, the movement strategy process highlighted the
long-term impact we can have when we come together as a movement. In that
same spirit, implementing these recommendations will be a collaborative
effort.

The projects that we have prioritized in this year’s Annual Plan will allow
us to improve our capacity to support the global communities as we enter
this implementation phase, together, and lay the groundwork for greater
investment in the coming years as the movement builds out the initiatives
prioritized in the strategy. Thank you to all the work of everyone,
especially the Annual Plan team, for making this possible.

In this year’s Annual Plan, we increased community funding through the
grants program, safeguarded APG funds through a fiscal set-aside, and
developed new resources for community events. We are also investing in
improving our staff capacity to support the communities more
systematically, through improved consultation practices, multilingual
communication, Trust & Safety support, and online events, among other areas.

The Annual Plan also includes one of the most significant milestones for
our movement, Wikipedia’s 20th birthday this January. We’re devastated that
this birthday comes amidst a pandemic that is keeping us apart, but it’s
all the more reason for us to celebrate the strength and breadth of our
global movement.

As in previous years, this marks the start of an open community discussion
period, where we invite your reflections (comments and clarifying
questions) on how the Annual Plan aligns with our movement strategy and
Strategic Direction. In the past, we’ve called this process a consultation.
This year, we want to be more precise: this is an invitation to provide
comments and ask questions, but it is not a consultation in the traditional
Wikimedia sense, as we will not be able to make changes to the entire plan,
as it has already been approved by the Board of Trustees.

Instead of asking for consultation on *what* we are planning to do, we are
asking for your feedback on how to improve and strengthen the planned work
itself. This means that we will look for your feedback on this document, as
well as continue to engage with communities throughout the year on specific
projects within the plan. We want to be more intentional about your time,
in order to get deeper, more meaningful consultation on our work to support
you and the projects, and create more chances for input and collaboration
across the movement.

Finally, a personal apology: the delay in sharing this plan is squarely on
me. My colleagues in the Foundation finished planning and the Board
approved the budget in September. However, every year we deliver the Annual
Plan with a note from the ED to explain our goals, intentions, and why we
made certain decisions. As we have been working to deliver the movement
strategy implementation plan, recalibrate program work based on community
and staff capacity in the pandemic, and as I have had to be available for
my own family, I found it difficult to find the time until now to sit down
to write this note. I hope you will accept my apologies for this delay.

(On that 

[Wikimedia-l] New online learning courses on Building Partnerships and Identifying and Addressing Harassment

[Cassie Casares]

Hello all,

The Community Development
 team at the
Wikimedia Foundation is launching the WikiLearn (Online Learning Pilot)
, a
capacity-building project. This project will deliver two courses over an
8-week period that will begin on February 1, 2021. Courses are free to take
part in and will be hosted on Moodle . During this
pilot project, each course will be taught, and assignments are to be
prepared, in English. At the end of the pilot, we will be making course
materials available for anyone interested in self-study, and for
translation.

The two courses we will be launching on February 1, 2021, are:


   1.

   Identifying and Addressing Harassment
   
:
   This course will focus on developing skills that will help volunteers
   respond to on- and off-wiki harassment.
   -

  This course will combine scheduled sessions and independent study.
  The weekly commitment of this course is 2-3 hours per week.
  -

  Target Audience: Volunteers with administrator or other advanced user
  rights.



   1.

   Partnership Building:
   

This
   intensive course will provide an in-depth curriculum on how to develop
   meaningful programmatic and organizational partnerships within the movement
   and with external partners.
   -

  This course will consist of scheduled sessions and individual
  assignments with a weekly total commitment of up to 6 hours.
  -

  Target Audience: Volunteers with intermediate-level experience
  contributing to Wikimedia projects and beginner-level experience with
  building partners with Non-Wikimedia groups and organizations.


To ensure our small team can provide each learner individual support, we
are limiting each course in this pilot to 40 participants. We ask that all
interested applicants commit to attending weekly for the full course.

All efforts will be made to ensure that scheduled sessions are time-zone
friendly to the greatest number of enrolled participants. However, with the
wide distribution of volunteers, that may not always be possible.

Key Dates:


   -

   Applications open Today (December 1, 2020) and will close on January 14,
   2021.
   -

   Successful applicants will be notified on January 18, 2021.
   -

   The first session for each course will be held on February 1, 2021.


To Take Part in the Online Learning Pilot:

To participate in the Partnership Building online course, fill out this
application form
.

To participate in the  Identifying and Addressing Harassment Online course,
fill out this application form
.

For more details on the Online Learning Pilot, please see our Meta page.
Feel free to ask questions on the project Talk

page or contact us at com...@wikimedia.org.

Best,

The Community Development Team

Cassie Casares
Project Coordinator
Community Development
Wikimedia Foundation
ccasa...@wikimedia.org
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Clinics retrospective and next Clinic

[Asaf Bartov]

Dear Wikimedians,

As the year draws to a close, the Wikimedia Foundation's Community
Development team took some time to reflect on the Wikimedia Clinics
program, a pilot we created a couple of months into the pandemic.

You can read our retrospective here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics/Retrospective

The next Wikimedia Clinic call is scheduled for January 12th at 6pm UTC,
and will feature a short presentation from the Foundation's *Growth*
[1] team with an overview of their
recent work, followed by time for questions, and, as usual, additional time
for bringing up any Wikimedia-related topic on your mind.

See you then!

A.

[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Growth

Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)

Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities

Wikimedia Foundation 

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF transfers $8.7 million to "Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund"

[Pharos]

Hi Lisa and all,

Thanks for your responses and thoughts. This is an important area, and key
to get right with a consensus-driven approach.

Are we going to announce the process for giving grants to organisations
outside the movement, including the process for community involvement, in
the spirit of the strategy recommendations?

Or should we just expect an announcement of the first recipients?

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)

On Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 12:54 PM Lisa Gruwell 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Thanks for the questions. We intend to announce the Knowledge Equity Fund
> in early 2021, once we have a bit more details and specifics worked out.
> However, we can share the overall intention today.
>
> Some background: Our fiscal year runs from July through June, which means
> that the second half of last year was heavily affected by the unforeseen
> effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Community events were canceled, hiring
> slowed, and we put work on pause while we responded to the changing
> circumstances. As a result, we ended the year with funds that were
> underspent, relative to what we had planned for the budget.
>
> In May of last year, we were also planning for this current fiscal year
> and had very little insight about how fundraising would perform in this
> pandemic. People around the world were losing their sources of income, as
> unemployment soared. We worked with the board to plan for different
> scenarios, including if fundraising went really poorly.
>
> As a general matter, when the budget is underspent, any remainder goes
> into the reserve. For accounting purposes, it cannot be carried over into
> the budget of a new fiscal year. Because we were concerned about the
> uncertainty of fundraising this year, we decided to set aside underspent
> funds from the past fiscal year, so that we could keep our commitment to
> our grantees even if fundraising fell short and also make progress on
> knowledge equity. (Good news: Fundraising ended up going a lot better than
> we expected when we were planning in the early months of this pandemic.
> More to come on that.)
>
> With the WMF board’s approval, we set up a US$8.7 million grantmaking
> fund at Tides Advocacy, which has two purposes: 1) Funding Annual Plan
> Grants (APG) to the affiliates this year and 2) Funding Knowledge Equity.
> We have been working with Tides since 2016 when we launched the Endowment.
> The relationship has gone well and they have a lot of expertise at
> administering grants internationally.
>
> Our first priority was to ensure that we had enough funding to support
> community grants. We transferred the full amount for Annual Plan Grants
> (APG) for FY20-21 over to Tides to ensure that all funding for affiliates
> for this year was secured, regardless of how fundraising performed. It also
> gives staff at affiliates and the Foundation more time to work together to
> make thoughtful grants, instead of an end-of-year rush. All affiliates who
> will be receiving funding through Tides were informed of the arrangement
> last summer. All other grantmaking (Community Grants, Rapid Grants,
> Project Grants) are still being funded through WMF directly, as usual.
> There is a round of APG grants set to go out via Tides this week.
>
> As the Audit Report FAQ states,[1] the remaining funds will be used to
> launch the Wikimedia Knowledge Equity Fund. This new fund is in addition to
> the existing grants that are already available for the communities
> (Community Grants, Rapid Grants, Project Grants, and APGs) and does not
> impact the amount of funds in those grant portfolios.
>
> Our goal is to use this fund to invest in new opportunities that increase the
> availability of free knowledge for marginalized people and counteract
> structural inequalities. Knowledge equity is a key pillar of the 2030
> movement strategy, and this investment will help us to address some of the
> barriers preventing people from accessing and contributing to free
> knowledge.
>
> As of now, this is a one-time commitment of approximately $4.5 million. We
> are still working on the specific initial objectives of the fund and how it
> will operate. As a pilot initiative, we’ll be learning and adapting as we
> go.
>
> We’ll share more details in early 2021 about the Knowledge Equity Fund. We
> are excited to see what progress we can make for knowledge equity with this
> investment.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Lisa Gruwell
>
> [1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_reports/Financial/Audits/2019-2020_-_frequently_asked_questions/id#This_year%E2%80%99s_report_says_that_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_provided_an_unconditional_grant_of_$8.723_million_to_Tides_Advocacy_for_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund._What_is_the_Wikimedia_Knowledge_Equity_Fund?
>