Page:Funding Free Knowledge the Wiki Way - Wikimedia Foundation Participatory Grantmaking.pdf/5

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Often people don't see the politics behind their access to Wikipedia. At the end of the day, one of the most powerful ways to change the world around you is by changing yourself, and one of the most powerful ways to change yourself is through informing yourself. In a world in which everything is steadily either more corporatized or more securitized — and often both— by corporations and the State, I'm here to do this work because the Wikimedia movement is not just a website. Yes, it is one of the top websites, but it's actually a public domain space, a public space online that is bigger than all of us.

Even with the journey ahead of us, what it has already done is transform the world, in terms of the way people access and think about knowledge and education. At the end of the day, human rights should not be limited to what States offer us as a framework. It should be about how we experience thed multitude of choices we have. That is what we are trying to do.

— Anasuya Sengupta, Senior Director of Grantmaking

The Grantmaking Model at Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)

Wikimedia Foundation staff and board, Wikimedia volunteers, and Wikimedia organizations work together to find and fund innovative and impactful projects, and to evaluate and share the impact and the learning of the work being done across the Wikimedia movement. In addition to financial support, WMF provides grantees with tools, mentorship, and opportunities to tell their own stories and share their knowledge.[1]

WMF gives funding across a broad spectrum of movement constituents, including individuals and informal groups as well as staffed organizations, through six processes. In this analysis, we will focus on the three largest programs: Individual Engagement Grants, Project and Event Grants, and Annual Plan Grants.


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