I talked to some Wikipedians from India at the Wikimania conference. I asked them about the relationship between Wikimedia India, the Wikimedia community in India, the Wikimedia Founation, and the Centre for Internet and Society, a nonprofit organization in India which manages some Wikipedia affairs there. They told me about general conversations among participants in Wikimedia India. Nothing I learned was surprising, but I say the conversations were interesting just because I do not think people outside India would understand their point of view.
I am going to give some background information on these four groups, then I am going to describe some problems, then I am going to suggest what I think should be done by any person in India who wants to seek grant support for their community from the Wikimedia Foundation. I wish that the different groups could understand each other, because I think there is a complete misunderstanding by people in India of what they are asked to give in return for grant funding, and a complete misunderstanding of the Wikimedia Foundation of why they are not doing what the local Indian people think they should. What I say could apply to countries other than India. The summary of all of this is that if anyone applies for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation or any other western nonprofit, then the grant recipient should treat making a good grant report as more important than actually spending the money well, and if resources are scarce, then cut any amount of work so that all necessary resources are invested in writing the most attractive and understandable grant report possible. If this does not make sense to anyone reading it then seek other opinions, but in my opinion, this is what Western nonprofit organizations want. Most western organizations do not understand that not every community prioritizes creating reports, and many treat this as optional. When in doubt, write a report of imaginary events before even spending any money, then review that report together and see if all sides find it acceptable.
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) would like to award grants to diverse communities internationally, and grant awardees in these communities are expected to report what they do with the money and hopefully report Wikimedia mission impact. As a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, the WMF has made great investments with great effort to be an international organization and be seen as an international organization, and to that end, it seeks validation from all local communities which talk about it and also seeks more local communities to recognize the Wikimedia movement as their own. Wikipedia was founded in 2001. By 2005 the WMF had been established to manage Wikipedia and related projects, and in that year the organization had only enough money to hire a single employee. This person managed the server. This was unusual because Wikipedia has a well-known project by this time, and probably the best known website ever with so little funding. In 2008 the organization was raising USD 1,000,000 for the year. Around that time they hired a proper executive director who initiated more fundraising, and now the organization’s annual budget is USD 50 million and growing. Project participants have not likewise increased so steeply as fundraising, and everyone agrees that it would be nice if funding going to the Wikimedia Foundation could be used to increase project participation. To this end, the WMF issues grants, particularly favoring opportunities to reach large communities and moreover favoring communities in the developing world on the presumption that the highest mission impact is possible where people have less access to online educational resources like Wikipedia. The WMF gives grants in response to community proposals for projects. These proposals go through community review and some amount of professional nonprofit management oversight from they themselves as a foundation with experts in grant management. Diligence in administering grants is judged primarily based on grant reports which are publicly posted by the grant recipient and which are to describe how the grant was used. Anyone may openly make any comments about these grants and permanently connect those comments in an obvious way to the public record of discussion about how the grant was managed.
Wikimedia India is a chapter of the Wikimedia movement and an affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. There is a history of regional community groups forming chapters in which to organize Wikimedia projects. Chapters get the benefit of using Wikimedia trademarks in outreach and publication and also may apply for larger grants than would be awarded to an individual. Chapters are expected to represent multiple perspectives and encourage broad community participation in Wikimedia projects wherever they host them. Since 2007, I have had continual management ties with nonprofit organizations in India which receive grant funds from Western cultures. It is not possible to generalize Indian culture or management practices, and it is troublesome for me to say “all organizations in India…” do anything. However, it is my opinion based on observation of and conversations about dozens of Western people who work with Indian nonprofit organizations that without a lot of really invasive guidance there is great resistance from nonprofit organizations in India to do accounting or return grant reports for funding in the way that Western culture expects and imagines that anyone would find obvious and trivial. It is hard to explain, but many Western people who work with organizations in India report that the organization will not do accounting despite India producing many brilliant and entirely able business accountants who perform perfectly in the commercial sector, and furthermore Western people will complain that Indian people demonstrate almost no respect for the urgency and importance to Western funders of writing a narrative in words to explain how grant funds are used. From the Western perspective, it is supremely important even at the expense of practical benefit to channel resources and attention into doing grant reporting. I cannot speak for the Indian perspective because it would be wrong and ignorant for me to do so, but if I were to try to describe it, then it is my opinion many organizations in India would say that it is better to have practical benefit and that writing reports and doing accounting is a low priority, and that it is a bit rude to talk about money anyway, and that no harm comes from bad grant reports and no significant benefit comes from good ones.
The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) is a nonprofit organization in India which is known for its advocacy for increased access in India to online services and for its ability to deliver excellent grant management to Western organizations which fund it. It sometimes is asked by Western organizations to manage nonprofit organizations in India which have serious and expensive management problems, such as receiving grant funds but not reporting their use to the extent expected. Wikimedia India had these problems, and in response and increasingly over time, the Wikimedia Foundation sought to have CIS give oversight to Wikimedia India projects.
The Wikimedia community in India is an uncertain group. Ostensibly Wikimedia India represents community members who speak up as wanting to have a role in managing Wikimedia projects in India, and ostensibly it seeks to recruit more people in India to participate in these things. It is presumed also that many Wikimedia community participants in India will not participate in chapter business, but that they can be encouraged from chapter outreach efforts and benefit in that way. A problem with the Wikimedia community in India is that it is difficult to measure how they might be benefiting from Wikimedia India efforts. India is extremely diverse, having probably 20 major languages and hundreds more minor ones, along with as many ethnicities, reglious groups, cultures, and regional distinctions in populations. What is certain is that people outside India perceive Wikimedia India as having the attention and support of fewer demographics in India than these outsiders imagine is acceptable. Wikimedia India also wishes for more diversity and is getting it at a certain pace and this might be enough.
At some point in the past Wikimedia India applied for WMF funds and did projects. For whatever reasons, the WMF was not satisfied with the results, and for the first time in the Wikimedia movement, it sought to arrange for the Wikimedia India chapter to partner with a more experienced nonprofit organization, the Centre for Internet and Society. Wikimedia India accepted this, but after some time, CIS applied for what might be called competing grants with Wikimedia India at the behest of the WMF. From Wikimedia India’s perspective, this was Western meddling in local culture and a betrayal by both the WMF and CIS of community volunteer investment in establishing a grassroots community in their region. Part of the problem is that the existence of paid staff is said to discourage the enthusiasm of unpaid volunteers, and also the paid CIS staff got prestige in the local movement from the grant award and was not elected by the community as the Wikimedia India board was. At this point, the situation was that Wikimedia India received grant funding, CIS received more grant funding and seemingly was under less pressure, and typical community members who were stakeholders in Wikimedia outreach in India were unlikely to be able to understand the politics behind any of this.
Wikimedia India could speak for itself, but by my expectation, I would expect its board and closely involved members to wish for the following:
- Steady funding at the present level with rather slow growth
- Decreased WMF funding of projects in India outside of the community management process established in Wikimedia India
- Increased acceptance for its own practice of grant reporting, and less praise and notarity for the grant reporting style used by CIS
- Investigation into corruption allegations agains CIS. The rumor is that a member of WMF’s advisory board is owner of the real estate rented by CIS for their office, and that people close to the WMF grant awarding process have personal benefits to gain by WMF favoring CIS. In any case, Indian people are sensitive to corruption and this needs to be addressed regardless of what anyone thinks.
- Less pay for any staff Wikipedia person in India. The director of CIS managing the WMF grants is paid a fantastic sum of money by local standards. This amount is public, and it is low by Western pay scales and less than the person has earned in the business sector in India.
The Wikimedia Foundation could speak for itself, but by my expectation, I think it would wish for the following:
- Excellent grant reports to come from any group in India which received its grants
- A large increase in grant requests. India holds about 1/7 of the world population, and with the Wikimedia movement having an international image, it would be reasonable to expect that India also got 1/7 of available grant monies. It gets much less than this, and the small amounts of money going to India could lead people to say awful things, like the WMF is cheating India out of money it deserves or otherwise is not fairly sharing resources with all communities in India. I am sure the WMF would like to send more money to India and to every kind of community group if it could be fairly managed.
- Growing and deepening engagement from Wikipedians in multiple cities who all speak up about grant funding for their own communities and in healthy competition with all other grants in India
The Centre for Internet and Society could speak for itself, but I think it would want this:
- Distance from all community groups in India
- Increased recognition for its ability to do remote accounting and grant reporting to support local community groups who do not have the training to know what Western funders expect
- Continued funding for what it does
The Wikimedia community in India hardly speaks at all in international forums. Many people cannot communicate in English, and many do not know how to apply for grants. I know that a lot of nonprofit organizations in India would appreciate the fundraising opportunity that is available to them.
In the future for India, I would propose that anyone or any organization who applies for a grant to plan to invest a lot of time in writing a grant report. It would be prudent to seek help in writing this report from other Wikimedia chapters in other countries to get an international perspective on what looks good. Groups which are not comfortable writing reports or who want partnership should ask for help from CIS, as this organization writes great reports by Western standards.
The WMF is not the final oversight in grant funding of WMF funds. They too are accountable and especially outside the Wikimedia community conversations to high-level donors and organizations. They very much need quality grant reports which come from the Wikimedia community in India, and when they do not get them, that puts extra work and burden on a lot of WMF staff. This is why all these odd pressures and oversight measures are being directed at India – India is critically important, must grow in the movement, and is causing problems for people who have to explain why India is so silent internationally.