Hackathons/Handbook/Finances

Budget

For the Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 in Lyon, ¾ of the budget went to food and venue.

Links to past hackathon budgets: Barcelona (2018), Vienna (2017), Jerusalem (2016) Lyon (2015), Zurich (2014), Amsterdam (2013)

In some cases, some of the budget was used to hire a local part time event coordinator.

Fundraising Strategies

Sponsors

Consider adding someone to your team who is well connected to the IT community in your area and can help with fundraising. (This person may also be able to help with outreach to like-minded communities and other stakeholders, as well as local IT solutions.)

Leanings from WMFR, organizers of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 in Lyon

Use Twitter by directly contacting the companies you think would be willing to pledge - works a lot better than writing them emails
Contact partnership or Marketing or Public Relation department
Especially international companies
Mention that many enablers are coming to the event, might interest companies
Ask foundations, mention Wikipedia
It might also be to thank Wikipedia. It’s free and cool.
Convey some urgency (only this year in this country, moves somewhere else next year)
Asked Google for 10.000 € (got it)

Learnings from WMAT, organizers of the Wikimedia Hackathon 2017 in Vienna

Universities of Applied Sciences (German: FHs - Fachhochschulen) were very open to sponsoring
hard to reach out to companies where you don't know anybody (cold-calling)
As a local Wikimedia chapter or group, it is generally a good idea to invest in a good network and potential sponsor relations - this takes most of all time and human resources.
reaching out to MediaWiki stakeholders, people who use the software MediaWiki for their business, is a good starting point to establish future sponsoring contacts in the business world.
We set up a special landing page on our website, where we could direct potential sponsors. There, we offered different sponsoring packages, from 500€ to 10.000€.
Link to sponsoring materials (in German): https://www.wikimedia.at/hackathon/sponsoring/

Partnerships

Sometimes, in-kind donations are easier to get than money.
Look for collaborations.

Grants

Apply early for grants in your city or country. A large tech event like this is likely to be applicable for grants in various fields, like technology-awareness, women-in-tech or similar.