Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire/Funding

Welcome to the funding page for the Inspire Grants Campaign! This page includes information about how proposals are selected for funding (criteria, review process, timeline) and who selects them. Proposals are accepted March 4-31, grants announced April 30.

Funding Committee

Committee members' role is to...

Mentor teams to transform ideas into grant proposals.
Provide feedback on the talk page of grant proposals.
Evaluate finalized proposals by scoring proposals according to the selection criteria.
Advise WMF which finalized proposals should be funded.

All committee members agree to the IdeaLab Friendly Space expectations.

Members

Conflict of Interest Guidelines

Engaging in the discussion process by all committee members is welcome and expected! We handle conflicts of interest from committee members who submit proposals as follows:

Members may continue to serve on the committee even if they have submitted a proposal by continuing to participate in public discussions and other on-wiki activities.
Members who have submitted a proposal will recuse themselves from the scoring and recommendation of their own proposal.
Committee recusal includes abstaining from scoring and recommending proposals, and removal from the committee mailing list and any other private channels or documents in use throughout the review of their proposal.
Committee members should follow the WMF Conflict of Interest Guidelines. Any potential or perceived COIs must be first and foremost disclosed proactively to the Supervisor of the allocation of funds. The Committee must be informed of any recusals that take place, but not necessarily of the reasons involving them.

Selection

Proposals should increase gender diversity on Wikimedia projects while supporting the achievement of Wikimedia's mission and strategic priorities, including increasing participation, quality, reach, and diversity of the Wikimedia projects.

Eligible Projects

Scoped to 12 months or less.
Aimed at improving one or more of Wikimedia's existing websites.
Content-creation is not directly funded. Projects should foster conditions that encourage editing by volunteers, not replace volunteer action by funding someone to edit articles, upload photos, etc.
Any code or other materials (e.g., training material, program checklists, pamphlets, etc.) must be published and released as free and open-source. Licensing should be compatible with current Wikimedia and MediaWiki practices.
Projects that can be completed without assistance or review from WMF engineering are strongly preferred. Should your project require MediaWiki Extensions or software features requiring code review and integration, please highlight your needs in your proposal as early as possible so these can be discussed. On-wiki tech work (templates, user scripts, gadgets) and completely standalone applications without a hosting dependency are welcome.
All grantees are required to disclose their legal names, addresses, and dates of birth to WMF, but are not required to do so publicly.
Grantees need to be in compliance with all existing agreements with the Wikimedia Foundation, including grant, chapter, user group, thematic organization, or fundraising agreements. Wikimedia affiliates should be up-to-date with their reporting requirements to receive a grant.

Project Selection Criteria

We select proposals based on the following criteria:

Impact potential - Does it have potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects? Does it have potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?
Community engagement - Does it have a specific target community within the Wikimedia movement, and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?
Ability to execute - Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?
Measures of success - Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?
The total amount of funding available - approved per campaign.

Scoring Rubric

Key:

1 = very weak or no alignment
3 = weak alignment
5 = passable alignment; room for significant improvement
7 = reasonably good alignment
10 = excellent alignment

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?
Additional comments from the Committee:

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Proposal Review

Process & Timeline

What	Who	Where	When
Feedback on ideas	Committee, Community, Staff	IdeaLab	March 4-31
New grants submitted	Grantees	Inspire funding page	By March 31
Review/Scoring period	Committee, Community	Proposal page + talk page, scoring tool	April 6-16
Committee discussion	Committee	Conference call	April 18/19
Publish feedback	Staff	Proposal talk pages	April 20-24
Grants announced	Staff	Committee mailing list, proposal talk pages, Inspire campaign page	April 30

Instructions for committee members

Step 1: Review period.

When: March 4-31

Check for new ideas submitted to the IdeaLab.
Give feedback and ask clarifying questions to help improve ideas.
Encourage proposers to turn good ideas into grant proposals before the March 31st deadline.
Ensure that sufficient information is provided and that goals and estimates are realistic and well-defined.
Check on the community discussion around each proposal. Make sure community notification happened. If not, suggest or help grantees to do so.
Remember that submitting a grant proposal can be intimidating for people! Please be kind as well as honest in your feedback :)

Step 2: Score eligible proposals.

When: April 1-15

Read the proposal and its associated discussions one more time to refresh your memory.
Continue to ask clarifying questions or suggest changes on the proposal talk page as needed.
Reach out to your fellow committee members via the committee mailing list to discuss proposals as needed.
Use the scoring tool to individually submit your scores and comments for each proposal based on the rubric below.

Step 3: Discuss proposals.

When: April 18/19

Staff will:

Organize a call to provide updates on open proposals and discuss any complex issues.

Step 4: Synthesize feedback for proposers.

When: April 20-24

Staff will:

Synthesize the group's comments from the scoring tool into a list of qualitative feedback. Remember that this feedback will be shared with proposers, so it should be clear, concise, thorough, honest and kind.
Post feedback on the proposal's talk page.

Step 5: Finalize recommendations and approvals.

When: April 30

Contribute your thoughts to the discussion on the proposal talk page, posting additional comments, support or opposition.
Staff will consider committee and community feedback and make a funding decision.

Remember:

The committee may continue to post feedback, questions, or requests on proposals throughout the review period. Plans can be updated and improved in response to committee requests until a project is selected for funding.

Funded Grant Proposals

Evaluation

Please visit the Evaluation hub for information on how to track and measure your project's impact.