Wikidata:Twelfth Birthday/Run an event/Funding
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If you are planning an event for Wikidata’s birthday, you may need some financial support in order to run the event smoothly, to help your participants join or to provide equipment or refreshments. On this page, you will find some useful information about how to get funding.
Overview of funding options
There are typically three options to get funding for a Wikidata birthday event:
- Reach out to your local affiliate to know if they have budget planned for the Wikidata birthday, or if they have a microgrant program you could benefit from;
- Apply for WMF’s Rapid Fund if you meet their deadlines and eligibility requirements;
- ✨ New! Apply for Wikimedia Deutschland’s special Wikidata birthday microgrant.
In the table below, you will find a summary of these options, to figure out what could be most adapted to your needs.
Wikimedia Deutschland’s microgrant | WMF Rapid Fund - Cycle 1 | WMF Rapid Fund - Cycle 2 | Your local affiliate |
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Wikimedia Deutschland’s microgrant program for Wikidata’s birthday
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For the first time in 2024, Wikimedia Deutschland is offering an international microgrant program for local Wikidata communities who want to organize events and activities for Wikidata’s birthday.
Wikimedia Deutschland will offer up to 10 organizations the possibility to get funding up to EUR 1,000 to fund activities related to Wikidata’s birthday. The application phase runs until September 1st. If you are preparing activities for Wikidata’s birthday, we encourage you to apply! You will find more information below on this page.
Please note that this microgrant program is developed as an experiment, and that some issues may arise. Although we will do our best to run the application, selection and delivery phases smoothly, in order to provide funding to organizers ahead of their event, we may experience some difficulties delivering funds to some countries. If you have any questions or encounter issues, do not hesitate to reach out to Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (lea.lacroix_ext@wikimedia.de or @Auregann on Telegram).
Important dates
July-August: application phase is running
We strongly encourage you to plan ahead and start preparing your application early. We are providing office hour calls to support applicants in preparing their content.
See also:
➡️ List of questions (to prepare your application)
Until September 1st at 23:59 UTC: deadline to submit your application.
Late applications will not be considered. We strongly encourage you to plan ahead and start preparing your application early!
See also:
➡️ Activities that can be funded
➡️ List of questions (to prepare your application)
September 2-6: Selection
See also: ➡️ Selection process
September 9-13: Decision announced
Organizers who will receive a grant will be informed first. They will be asked to confirm that they are still interested before September 15th.
A waitlist may be created. Organizers who cannot receive a grant will be informed shortly afterwards.
See also: ➡️ Status of applications
September 16-30: Processing and payment
Grant recipients will be in close contact with Wikimedia Deutschland about the status of the payment. As the payment is an international bank transfer, it may take up to two weeks to arrive on the local bank account.
October 1 - November 15: Events are taking place
Wikidata birthday events and activities are expected to take place in October and first half of November, with a focus on October 29th, the birthday date.
November: documentation, reporting and wrap-up
In November, grant recipients will be asked to provide documentation about their activities.
Eligibility requirements
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Here are the eligibility requirements for Wikimedia Deutschland’s microgrant program. Please read them with attention if you are planning to request a grant.
Organization applying for a grant
- Due to regulations that apply to Wikimedia Deutschland as a German non-profit organization, we can only fund organizations that are officially registered in their country. Applications from individuals or groups of individuals without a registered organization cannot be processed. We encourage individuals and groups to organize a common application together with a registered Wikimedia organization, that can apply for a microgrant, then redistribute the funds.
- The organization applying for a grant must be in capacity to receive a bank transfer from a German bank account or a Paypal transfer. Organizations that do not operate any of these payment modes and organizations based in a country in which receiving funds from a German NGO is impossible may not be able to receive the grant. Before applying to the microgrant, please check with your bank whether bank transfers from Germany are possible, and what may be the additional costs to receive such a transfer.
- Due to administrative or diplomatic regulations, organizations based in one of the countries from this list unfortunately cannot be funded by Wikimedia Deutschland: Belarus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Republic of South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Central African Republic, Yemen and Zimbabwe.
Application and activities
- The application must be sent through the form before the end of the application process, on September 1st at 23:59 UTC. Late applications can not be processed.
- The activities funded must be organized in the frame of Wikidata’s birthday, and must have a direct connection with Wikidata.
- The activities funded are taking place between October 1st and November 30th, 2024.
- The request must be between 100€ and 1,000€ or its equivalent in another currency at the time of the application.
Event organizers and trainers
- The organizers and trainers must be active Wikimedia community members and must be able to show some activity on the Wikimedia projects in the past year, especially activities related to Wikidata.
- The organizers and trainers as well as all participants of the event must follow the Universal Code of Conduct and Friendly Space Policies.
- Applicants are not eligible for funding if repeatedly or indefinitely blocked on any Wikimedia project, even if the proposed work is independent from that Wikimedia project.
Activities that can be funded
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Birthday_cake_cutting.jpg/400px-Birthday_cake_cutting.jpg)
The activities funded must be organized in the frame of Wikidata’s birthday, and must have a direct connection with Wikidata. This include for example (but is not limited to):
- Rent a space to organize an onsite event
- Rent or buy the necessary equipment to run a presentation or a workshop (laptops and other devices, screen, furniture, etc.)
- Provide the internet connection needed for an onsite event
- Cover for the transport and accommodation costs of organizers, speakers and participants
- Provide food and refreshments during an onsite event (including birthday cake!)
- Cover for the needs of participants: data plan, power supplies, childcare, food, etc.
- Communication costs: design, print, advertisement
- Merchandising for participants and organizers: printing stickers, T-shirts, etc.
- Prizes for contests
- Compensation for well-defined roles that do not replace volunteer activities, for example graphic design, training, speaker fees, translation, project management, administrative tasks.
- Administrative fees that are expected to be required to receive the bank transfer from a German bank account, or to distribute funds to other entities.
If you have any doubts or want to check if an activity can be covered, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Selection process
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The selection of the applications will take place at the beginning of September. The selection committee is composed of Mohammed Abdulai (WMDE), Lydia Pintscher (WMDE), Alan Ang (WMDE) and Lea Lacroix (WMDE). The committee will evaluate the applications based on the following criteria:
- The organizers have a good understanding of Wikidata and its community.
- The proposal includes a clear description of activities, target audience and outcomes.
- If the activities include a Wikidata presentation or training, the name of the trainer must be mentioned, and they must have experience with Wikidata and be recognized as a knowledgeable editor.
- The planned activities are directly related to Wikidata and birthday celebrations.
Additionally, we will look into the following information to give additional chances to organizers from a minoritized background:
- We will make sure that a certain number of grants are attributed to organizers who are not based in Europe or North America.
- We will give priority to organizers who plan activities focused on minoritized cultures or languages.
- We will give priority to organizers who do not have access to other sources of funding.
List of questions
We strongly recommend applicants to start preparing their application as soon as possible, and to prepare the form answers in a document before pasting them into the application form. In the expandable box below, you will find the list of questions that will be asked in the form. Please note that the form is only available in English.
List of questions | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Section 1 - About the organizers First of all, we need some information about the people who are applying for a microgrant and who will organize Wikidata birthday activities.
Section 2 - About the project Now, let’s look into the activities that you have planned for Wikidata’s birthday!
Section 3 - About the expenses It’s time to talk about the amount you request for this grant.
Section 4 - About the fiscal sponsor Due to regulations that apply to Wikimedia Deutschland as a German non-profit organization, we can only fund organizations that are officially registered in their country. Applications from individuals or groups of individuals without a registered organization cannot be processed. We encourage individuals and groups to organize a common application together with a registered Wikimedia organization, that can apply for a microgrant, then redistribute the funds. The organization applying for a grant must be in capacity to receive a bank transfer from a German bank account or a Paypal transfer. Organizations that do not operate any of these payment modes and organizations based in a country in which receiving funds from a German NGO is impossible may not be able to receive the grant. Before filling in this part, please reach out to the bank to get the information needed, ask them to confirm whether they can receive a transfer from a German bank account, and what are the fees to be expected (so we can include them in the total amount you will receive).
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Apply for a microgrant
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Did you carefully read the documentation above? Now you can start filling out the application form!
The application form is hosted on Wikimedia Deutschland’s Zoho Forms instance and available in English.
The information you provide in this form will only be shared with Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.’s staff or contractors in charge of evaluating the applications and processing the payment.
For transparency purposes, the name of the project, name of the organization and username of the main organizers will be published on this wikipage.
Get support and office hours
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There are many people interested in Wikidata events or working on their own event for the birthday. In order to get answers to your questions and get inspiration from others. Feel free to join the dedicated Telegram group Wikidata events or to use the talk page.
If you have general questions about Wikimedia Deutschland’s microgrant program, the frame of the Wikidata birthday, how to enter an event in the calendar, or how to connect with organizers, feel free to contact Lea Lacroix (WMDE) at lea.lacroix_ext@wikimedia.de.
If you have questions about Wikimedia Foundation’s Rapid Fund program, about the eligibility criteria or the activities that can be funded, or about an application that you sent through Fluxx, please contact your Regional Program Officer.
We are also offering calls for organizers during which you can exchange ideas with other organizers and ask questions to the project coordinator and to one of the program officers. The calls take place on a Jitsi videoconference room, lasting for 20 to 50 min. Everyone is welcome to join!
Upcoming organizers calls
- July 29th at 14:00 UTC on Jitsi (with a focus on the microgrant application process)
- August 8th at 18:00 CEST: onsite discussion at Wikimania during the Wikidata meetup (onsite only)
- August 28th at 18:00 UTC on Jitsi (with a focus on the microgrant application process)
- September 11th at 08:00 UTC on Jitsi
- September 11th at 18:00 UTC on Jitsi
- October 9th at 08:00 UTC on Jitsi
- October 9th at 18:00 UTC on Jitsi
Status of applications
In this section, the selection committee will add the list of organizations that applied for a microgrant and the status of their application. Please note that this list is maintained manually and may not always be up to date. WMF Rapid Fund applications can be listed here as well.
Project name | Organizers | Organization / fiscal sponsor | Type of grant | Status |
BridgeHerDataGap: Achieving Equality on Wikidata | CoachAni, KojoOwusu2022 | Women for Sustainability Africa | WMDE microgrant | Applied |
… | … | … | … | … |