A season of subsidiarity: Two reflections on transferring ownership of Rapid Funds to Wikimedia organizations

What does it look like when Wikimedia movement funds distribution changes hands from a central organization to a more local one? Over the last year or so, multiple Wikimedia organizations that have led these transitions with the Wikimedia Foundation’s Rapid Funds program are now well positioned to answer this question.

Recently, the Community Resources team at the Wikimedia Foundation has supported the transfer of managing our Rapid Funds program to some local Wikimedia organizations with the interest and capacity to adopt this work. This work maps onto 2030 Movement Strategy principles reflecting a need for greater subsidiarity in funds distribution. In doing so, funds distribution can improve in multiple ways: Review and decisionmaking can become more efficient, organizations with better local knowledge can better prioritize funding needs, and applicants can more easily approach and communicate with a local organization they are familiar with. Rapid Funds review and funds distribution has been transferred to the following Wikimedia campaigns and organizations for the communities they serve:

• Wiki Loves Africa
• Wiki Loves Women’s #SheSaid
• Nigeria National Funding Program
• Wiki Loves Folklore
• Wikimedia Colombia
• Wikimedia CEE Hub
• Wiki Loves Earth

Based on the experiences of these organizations that have taken on this new role in funds distribution, here are three themes we have heard from them about what they have learned from this transition process:

Perspectives on a transition period

Organizations that are supporting Rapid Funds distribution to their communities have transitioned into adopting Rapid Funds in different ways. For example, Wiki Loves Earth and the CEE Hub’s engagement with Rapid Funds began with a transition period, where review and decisionmaking for proposals from the CEE Region was shared with the Community Resources team. The CEE Hub reported that this transition process was beneficial because it helped them get to know some regional applicants as well as consider general review practices and expectations. Furthermore, this transition period helped them prepare to more fully take ownership of review and decisionmaking, and have now implemented their own CEE Hub Rapid Funds program earlier this year.

Conversely, other organizations like Wikimedia Colombia’s transition for their HacerWiki funding program was different. In their case, the chapter was positioned to more fully adopt Rapid Funds for local community members without a shared review or decisionmaking transition process with Wikimedia Foundation staff. By staying close to grantees throughout implementation, the chapter is getting to know people’s different profiles, interests, skills and networks, and creating opportunities for these people to engage with Wikimedia beyond the project they were initially funded for.

Proactive applicant support using different operational models

Organizations we have partnered with use different models to review and make local funding decisions. Our collaboration with organizations distributing Rapid Funds across the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region involves two distinct operational models:

• Wiki in Africa Rapid Funds Subsidiarity Program: Grants are currently issued through the Wikimedia Foundation’s Rapid Fund program and managed by the Wikimedia Foundation. In this setup, Wiki in Africa acts as the campaign coordinator by reviewing applications and passing recommendations to the Foundation’s SSA Programme Officer for final approval. See their learnings on the funding pathway here.

• Nigeria National Funding Program (NNFP): This model operates independently of the Wikimedia Foundation’s SSA Program Officer. Instead, the NNFP Grant Evaluation Committee (GEC) reviews all applications autonomously using a standardized, 8-dimension scoring matrix.

While these models are different, both groups have emphasized the need for maintaining a direct relationship with grantees throughout the review, funding, and execution phases.

Direct support for applicants is also a key part of the HacerWiki funding program and CEE Hub Rapid Funds. This support before and during the application process ensures that the funding programs align with our core mission: to shift financial decisions and resource distribution as close as possible to the communities executing the work. This kind of practical support for applicants has other benefits as well, in that it can become a way for Wikimedia organizations to expand their community and potentially identify people who could become longer-term contributors or partners.

The experience of HacerWiki illustrates what can happen when funding decisions are made closer to the communities themselves. As Manuel Franco, Project Director at Wikimedia Colombia, puts it: “This marks a significant shift, as the projects that apply and are selected for funding start from the interests and challenges of diverse groups, and from there explore ways in which Wikimedia projects can contribute to the territory and its people.”

What comes next?

The Community Resources team will continue to engage with our partners supporting Rapid Funds at a local level in an advisory capacity where needed. We are also using our partner’s reflections on these themes and others to develop clear documentation for Wikimedia affiliates and other movement organizations on:

• How to prepare to manage Rapid Funds funds distribution for their local community, and 
• What approaches and practices can be considered around these complex, but important transitions.
  

We look forward to sharing more about Rapid Funds subsidiarity work later this year, and we greatly appreciate the work that our current partners are doing to resource Wikimedia movement needs in their local communities.