Chapters ask for big bucks
The volunteer-led Wikimedia Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) and interested community members are looking at Wikimedia organization applications worth about US$10.4 million out of the committee's first full year's operation, in just the inaugural round one of two that have been planned for the year with a planned budget of $11.4M.
The WMF introduced the new finance structure earlier this year, with the FDC at its core, to promote transparent and accountable spending among Wikimedia entities. Fifteen organizations of 19, including the foundation itself, have met the transparency criteria in general, although several chapters encountered problems in satisfying the new requirements for reporting on their past finances and activities—some documentation having been overdue since 2010. Eleven chapters plus the WMF submitted funding proposals.
The largest chapter, Wikimedia Germany, which employs more than 44 people and has some 500 active volunteers and more than 2500 members according to its submission, is requesting the largest amount of funds among the chapters. WMDE is requesting $1.82M (24.3%) to fund parts of its planned $7.475M expenditure over the next fiscal year—a considerable increase on the chapter's current spend of $4.316M. The chapter's funding and expenditure are more complicated than for most: for example, funding for the Toolserver in Amsterdam, which is increasingly important to the running of Wikimedia sites, has been the subject of intense debate. Other projects, such as Wikidata ($2.75M), have been funded by the chapter from third-party donors. Among WMDE's initiatives will be new efforts to make state-owned cultural works freely accessible on movement sites, a greater presence at EU level, and the testing and evaluation of two innovative support tools to help readers and editors to improve balance on Wikipedia articles.
Wikimedia UK has five permanent staff and one intern, 87 active volunteers and at least a further 100 who occasionally participate, and 330 registered members. WMUK is asking the FDC for $919K (67.4%) of its annual budget of $1.365M. The entity's activity plan for the upcoming year provides considerably more detail than most other chapter plans. Among the chapter's initiatives will be support for Europeana uploads, a "train the trainers" program, the development of modular online training, outreach to editors working in the Welsh language, and moves to increase female participation in the movement. The chapter will continue its support of Wikipedian-in-residence positions with partnered GLAM institutions, including digitization efforts and a focus on Scottish museums.
Wikimedia France, with four staff members (soon to be five) and 303 members (20–30 of them "very active"), is requesting $961K (68.8%) of a total budget of $1.397M. Its plans include reaching out to new editors in universities—including PhD students, other students, and academic researchers—with about 15 training workshops, particularly on ecological topics, and a new partnership with the Société Française d’Écologie. The chapter will spearhead the promotion of scientific knowledge about Wikimedia, including the running of a research project on the geolocalisation of Wikipedia articles, involving engineering students from the major engineering college École Centrale de Lille. There will be a number of new GLAM projects, and new French-language outreach efforts, particularly in Africa and in support of minority languages in France. Language projects will include the launch of a francophone newsletter about Wikimedia projects, inspired by the Signpost and the French Regards sur l'Actualité de Wikipédia.
The WMF's own application, for $4.46M (10.6% of its $42.070M budget), involves the organization's non-core spending. For the first time, then, this part of the foundation's spending will be subject to community comment and review. Affected are programs such as the global Education Program ($718K)—of which the US and Canadian components are currently the subject of an RfC—and editor engagement experiments (E3; $1.2M).
Other chapters applying are Wikimedia Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, and Hungary. All applications can be reviewed by the community until 22 October. The FDC will consider both submissions and comments, and will submit its spending recommendations to the WMF board of trustees by 15 November 2012.