Wikimedia Foundation Receives a $300,000 Grant

Wikimedia Foundation has just received a $300,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to support its Wikimedia Commons project. The money will go into research, to find the reasons keeping some users from participating, as well as into redesigning the upload process.

“The global community that is building Wikimedia Commons is setting the standard for the way that video and images are uploaded and shared through the Web,” said Jenny Toomey, a program officer for the Ford Foundation. “The whole process is simplified, promotes collaboration, and is driven by consensus among the community. Ultimately, this approach and others like it can help ensure that the Internet remains a rich and open space for learning, expression, and participation.”

Wikimedia Commons is a site dedicated to sharing media content under a free license. It also houses all of the multimedia content on Wikipedia. Part of the grant will go towards funding a study looking at what obstacles new users encounter when trying to add content as well as some of the solutions similar sites found. After the initial research phase a new interface will be designed to streamline the process of uploading a file and selecting the right license.

The Ford Foundation is a nonprofit organization offering grants to certain projects generally with a social focus. It has awarded $311 million in grants this year alone with the average grant being $284,000. It headquarters in New York and has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

“We are thrilled that the Ford Foundation is supporting this project,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “We want to make uploading files to Commons as easy as possible, so that people everywhere can join us in helping Commons grow. The bigger Commons is, the more people it will serve.”

Wikimedia is the foundation behind Wikipedia the popular online encyclopedia, one of the world's top 10 sites with 12 million articles in 295 languages contributed by more than 100,000 volunteers worldwide.