Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia Israel/Impact report form

Purpose of the report[edit]

FDC funds are allocated to improve the alignment between the Wikimedia movement's strategy and spending; support greater impact and progress towards achieving shared goals; and enable all parts of the movement to learn how to achieve shared goals better and faster.

Funding should lead to increased access to and quality of content on Wikimedia project sites – the two ultimate goals of the Wikimedia movement strategic priorities, individually and as a whole. Funded activities must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

Each entity that receives FDC funding will need to complete this report, which seeks to determine how the funding received by the entity is leading towards these goals. The information you provide will help us to:

Identify lessons learned, in terms of both what the entity learned that could benefit the broader movement, and how the entity used movement-wide best practices to accomplish its stated objectives.
Assess the performance of the entity over the course of the funded period against the stated objectives in the entity's annual plan.
Ensure accountability over how the money was spent. The FDC distributes "general funds", for both ongoing and programmatic expenses; these funds can be spent as the entity best sees fit to accomplish its stated goals. Therefore, although line-item expenses are not expected to be exactly as outlined in the entity's proposal, the FDC wants to ensure that money was spent in a way that led to movement goals.

For more information, please review FDC portal/Reporting requirements or reference your entity's grant agreement.

Basic entity information[edit]

Table 1

Entity information	Legal name of entity	Wikimedia Israel
	Entity's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd)	1/1 - 12/31
	12 month timeframe of funds awarded (mm/dd/yy-mm/dd/yy)	01/01/14 - 12/31/14
Contact information (primary)	Primary contact name	Itzik Edri
	Primary contact position in entity	Chairperson
	Primary contact username	itzike
	Primary contact email	itzik@wikimedia.org.il
Contact information (secondary)	Secondary contact name	Michal Lester
	Secondary contact position in entity	Executive Director
	Secondary contact username	לסטר
	Secondary contact email	mlester@wikimedia.org.il

Overview of the past year[edit]

The purpose of this section is to provide a brief overview of this report. Please use no more than 2–3 paragraphs to address the questions outlined below. You will have an opportunity to address these questions in detail elsewhere in this report. Also, we encourage you to share photographs, videos, and sound files in this report to make it more interactive, and include links to reports, blog posts, plans, etc as these will add context for the readers.

HIGHLIGHTS: What were 2–3 important highlights of the past year? (These may include successes, challenges, lessons learned. Please note which you are describing)Our highlights from the passing year:

Community engagement - This year marks another significant improvement in the relationship with the Wikipedia community, as well as with other Wiki communities – most notably WikiWomen and WikiSource:

- Active involvement of Wikipedians in several of WMIL’s key initiatives, such as the education program, the WikiWomen community, and editors’ meetings
- WikiWomen Group collaborating with WMIL.
- The first ever Wiktionary community gathering, which started a course and a unique collaboration with the Academy of the Hebrew Language

- Collaboration and provision of regular support to the Hebrew Wikisource community, and the resulting strengthening of ties and dialogue between this community and WMIL staff.
- Moreover, we have continued to strengthen our collaboration with The Public Knowledge Workshop that has spun off an initiative to provide access to a repository of the Israeli legislation, and provided ongoing and multi-channeled support to our community (on-Wiki, in social networks, and by e-mail/phone). This has resulted in a greater assistance and support of chapter’s initiatives, a greater readiness to volunteer, a rise in the use of the chapter’s resources and infrastructure and the creation of a positive and constructive dialogue. We expect this trend to continue in 2015.

Volunteerism spirit - The year of 2014 saw a stabilization of our chapter’s structure, allowing us to focus on what’s most important to us: our volunteer community. We have tuned most of our actions and programs, not only to achieve impact, but to recruit volunteers, and the results are evident:
- There is a significant increase in the number of active volunteers: 19 active, involved volunteers have joined the chapter in the past year. Some joined after the chapter reached out to new communities; others joined after having participated in editing workshops for the general public. Most of the new volunteers, however, are veteran Wikipedians whom we have successfully recruited as active volunteers in WMIL’s activities – we see this as a boon to the professionalism and effectiveness of our programs.
- At the end of 2014, WMIL has 60 chapter members, 40 of whom are active volunteers – a 100% increase compared to 30 volunteers in 2013 (and not all of them were active volunteers). Accordingly, chapter volunteers have put in 3,808 volunteer hours this year, compared to about 2,000 hours in 2013. Check out our “2014 in numbers” table below to see more great results.

New Editors' Support System - We've established a system for support of, and follow-up on new editors which includes a range of support tools.

SWOT: Reflecting on the context outlined for your entity in the FDC proposal, what were some of the contextual elements that either enabled or inhibited the plan? Feel free to include factors unanticipated in the proposal.
- Strengths: Organizational strengths that enabled the plan
  - In 2014, we have succeeded in expanding the variety of options for in-kind donations. For instance, we have applied for and received the Google AdWords grant for nonprofits, - a $14,700 in AdWords on Google search result pages. In addition, we have received subsidized Microsoft software and tech support for NGOs, thereby saving $4,500 in computer software.
  - The tracking and reporting mechanisms for workshops (both routine workshops and one-time workshops) have improved dramatically. The challenge now is to focus more thought and effort on encouraging volunteers to report back on their activities.
  - Article-writing contests: following the PhysiWiki contest (in which articles were written in the fields of science and technology) we realized that these contests provide a relatively large amount of products and new editors. In 2015, we will endeavor to hold additional contests on a larger scale.
- Weaknesses: Organizational weaknesses that inhibited the plan
  - Inefficient use of some of the volunteer hours: it has proven difficult to divert volunteers to activity areas to which they are not accustomed.
  - Difficulty in the recruitment of skilled volunteers as instructors for editing workshops: although there are numerous volunteers active in different chapter projects, there are not enough volunteers who are skilled and/or trained to instruct and facilitate an editing workshop. Since many of our activities were centered on editing workshops, there is a major need for experienced volunteers in that area.

- Opportunities: External opportunities that enabled the plan
  - Partnering with the Ministry of Education: following a meeting between Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (who attended the Wiki-Academy conference) and Rabi Shai Piron, Minister of Education, it was agreed that teachers in the fields of history, geography and science will participate in professional editing courses, which will enable them to teach their students on writing and editing in Wikipedia.

- - Strengthening our collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority: At the beginning of 2014, we approached representatives of the Israel Antiquities Authority and suggested it supports and participates in the Wiki Loves Monument (WLM) photography contest. The Antiquities Authority helped to fund the contest and organized guided photography tours for the participants. This partnership has prospered after the contest and images, is sent routinely to a chapter volunteer. The Antiquities Authority also assists us in answering queries, and filling missing information in different Wikipedia initiatives. In addition, inspired by the WLM contest, the Antiquities Authority has held a prize-bearing contest for its employees. Following that, 130 new images of archeological sites and antiquity sites in Israel were released under a free license to Wiki Commons. The Antiquities Authority has also requested to join the Thousand Words photography project. In 2015, it plans to hold guided tours in Archeology sites for Wikipedians.

- Threats: Risks or threats that inhibited the plan
  - Deletion of images from Wiki Commons-URAA. This damages the moral of volunteers and wastes valuable time.
  - Low level of awareness to the concept and significance of free and open content among policy makers in Israel and the general public.

WIKI-FOCUS: What Wikimedia projects was your entity focused on (e.g., Wiki Commons, French Wiktionary) this year?
- Hebrew Wikipedia, WikiSource, Wikisourse.
GROWTH: How did your entity grow over the past year (e.g., Number of active editors reached/involved/added, number of articles created, number of events held, number of partipants reached through workshops)? And what were the long term affects of this growth (e.g. relationships with new editors, more returned editors, higher quality articles, etc)?

Metric	2014	2013	% Growth
No. of articles that were written or edited	351 new articles, 1278 articles improved	Not measured	N/A
No. of new editors	12	Not measured	N/A
Community meetups	12	6	100%
Volunteer hours	3,808	2000	190%
Number of active volunteers	60	30	200%
Lectures	55	28	196%
No. of participants in the lectures	2050	Not measured	N/A
Workshops	51	28	180%
No. of participants in the workshops	1149	297	402%
Images uploaded to WikiCommons	6894	~7000	-2%
Text files uploaded to WikiSource	9	0	900%

Financial summary[edit]

The FDC requires information about how your entity received and spent money over the past year. The FDC distributes general funds, so your entity is not required to use funds exactly as outlined in the proposal. While line-item expenses will not be examined, the FDC and movement wants to understand why the entity spent money in the way it did. If variance in budgeted vs. actual is greater than 20%, please provide explanation in more detail. This helps the FDC understand the rationale behind any significant changes. Note that any changes from the Grant proposal, among other things, must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

If you'd prefer to share a budget created in Google or another tool and import it to wiki, you can do so in the tables below instead of using wiki tables. You can link to an external document, but we ask that you do include a table in this form. We are testing this approach in this form.

See attached a link to the 2014 audited financial report.

Revenues[edit]

Provide exchange rate used:

1$ = 3.6 NIS

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.

Revenue source	Currency	Anticipated	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Anticipated ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Explanation of variances from plan
Donations from individuals	ILS	2,000	700	720	940	845	3,205	555	890
Membership fees	ILS	800	400	60	80	500	1,040	222	288
Sponsors	ILS	30,000	0	0	40,000	10,000	50,000	8,333	13,888	Israel Antiquities Authority ; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Funds	ILS	90,000	0	0	0	0	0	33,333	0	WMIL applied for funds from four foundations. All of our applications were rejected.
Partnerships	ILS	25,200	0	8,400	10,600	19,068	38,068	7,000	10,574
FDC	ILS	709,000	413,583	0	297,509	0	711,092	196,944	197,525
TOTAL	ILS	857,000	414,683	9,180	349,129	30,413	803,405	24,638	223,168
In kind	ILS	50,000	11,733	31,567	22,680	555,115	621,095	13,888	172,526
WLM International Competition	ILS					35,763	35,763	0	9,934

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Spending[edit]

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)

Expense	Currency	Budgeted	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Budgeted ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Percentage spent to date	Explanation of variances from plan
Community	ILS	56,000	6,406	3,345	22,905	8,354	41,010	15,555	11,391	73%	Most community activities began after filling the posion of a community coordinator in April 2014 and low demand for Microgrants
Promoting free knowledge	ILS	114,400	2,485	41,882	2,586	42,789	89,742	31,777	24,928	78%	The mediawiki developers’ community didn't carried out
Global engagement	ILS	40,824	8,147	15,820	11,845	3,813	39,625	11,340	11,007	97%
Management and Administration	ILS	228,232	33,601	39,643	66,742	52,100	192,086	63,397	53,357	84%
staf	ILS	438,000	86,670	102,212	113,697	116,517	419,096	121,666	116,415	95%
TOTAL	ILS	877,456	137,309	202,902	217,777	223,573	781,562	243,737	217,100	89%

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Progress against past year's goals/objectives[edit]

The FDC needs to understand the impact of the initiatives your entity has implemented over the past year. Because the FDC distributes general funds, entities are not required to implement the exact initiatives proposed in the FDC proposal; the FDC expects each entity to spend money in the way it best sees fit to achieve its goals and those of the movement. However, please point out any significant changes from the original proposal, and the reasons for the changes. Note that any changes from the Grant proposal, among other things, must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

Strengthening our existing volunteer base.

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Increase participation: strengthening ties with the community led to a greater involvement of active volunteers in the initiatives of the chapter and the Foundation. We were successful in recruiting new volunteers from the Wikipedia community, sister initiatives and the general public. WMIL has expanded the recruitment of specialized volunteers, and all volunteers are engaged and have a great impact on the release and accessibility of open content.
Encourage innovation: our activities with other Wiki communities lead to new, innovative collaborations. In addition, we constantly encourage our volunteers to initiate new projects, bring up ideas for community gatherings, editing marathons, etc.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

Creating channels between the Israeli chapter and the Wikipedia community:

We created a chapter page in Wikipedia. This includes information about the chapter’s ongoing activities and projects, services, contact information, guides and instruction pages, and a platform to submit ideas for activities. This page is constantly updated.
A bi-weekly email sent to chapter members and volunteers sharing information about the chapter’s activities in the last two weeks, invitation to future activities and more.
We have expanded our Facebook activity. The chapter’s Facebook page is more active, and includes routine updates on our activities. The Community Coordinator is active in Wikipedians Facebook groups and other groups too.
Ongoing and open communication between the Communities Coordinator and Wikipedians.
In 2014 addressed every application for assistance that was submitted to us:
- Number of applications made through the communities Coordinator's talk page: 25.
- Number of applications made through online library reference desk: 40
- Number of requests to deal with copyright infringements: 3.
- Personal tutoring sessions: 31.
- Number of applications made through email to the volunteers:26
- Total: 125
Developing and strengthening ties between additional Wiki initiatives. For the first time, following an activity initiated by the chapter, we established ties with two additional Wiki communities: Wiki Women and WikiSource (this activity is detailed further below). In addition, we set in motion a comprehensive collaboration with Wiktionary, which will bear fruit in 2015.

Towards the end of 2014, in a discussion held in the community Village Pump, one of the active Wikipedians wrote the following:

I’m tagging the user:Lester in this discussion. This is a good opportunity to thank her and the user:Chenspec for what they have done this year. I don’t know about you, but I feel the relationship between the chapter and the community has improved
— User: Gilgamesh, talk page from November 5, 14:34, 2014 (IST)

Community gatherings:

In 2014 twelve community gatheringss were held which included tours, edtior meetings, community meetups and so forth.

In the Thousand Words photography project WMIL volunteers held five guided tours. 590 images were consequently uploaded to Wiki Commons.

Major community gatherings held in 2014

January 2014: 13th anniversary celebration of Wikipedia. 100 Wikipedians and Wikimedians attended the event.

January 2014: meeting with Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.
July 2014: a picnic to celebrate the anniversary of the Hebrew Wikipedia.
November 2014: a meeting with software developers to promote Wikipedia research: the meeting was organized in cooperation with the R users community in Israel and supported by The Israeli Statistical Association and Digital Humanities Israel.

Editors’ meetings (Lecturing Wikipedians)

Editors' meetings are editing sessions initiated by community members. They focus on the fields of one of each participant who run the gathering. The purpose of these meetings is to strengthen the social ties between community members, enrich the participants with knowledge from different fields of interest and encourage editing on focused subjects. An editors' meetings project page was established. In it, participants can offer new ideas for meetings, join scheduled meetings and subscribe to a mailing list detailing future meetings.

In 2014, two such meetings were held. The first meeting focused on Jewish music and was attended by ten Wikipedians. The second meeting focused on anti-Semitism in Romania and was attended by 13 Wikipedians.

Wiki Women meetings

These meetings evolved from our collaboration with the active Wiki Women Facebook group (to be detailed further below). Following the success of these meetings, we opened a project page for the group’s activities. In 2014, two meetings were held. The first meeting focused on art and gender and was attended by 13 women. The second meeting focused on women in science and was attended by 15 women.

WikiSource meetings

In 2014, two such meetings were held. The first was WikiSource’s 10th anniversary celebration, attended by seven editors. The second meeting focused on OTRS instruction and was followed by the creation of an OCR page.

Micro-grants:

During 2014, WMIL Micro-grants committee approved three grants, but only two requested financial support.

As part of the Academic course “Sports as a Cultural Phenomenon", 35 students from Sapir College wrote 17 new articles about Israeli athletes. Two chapter volunteers were assigned to lecture, lead a Wikipedia editing workshop and facilitate the project until the articles were moved to mainspace. The course professor applied for a micro-grant for travel expenses but the project was concluded with no need for funding.

The Public Figures Photography: the aim of this microgrant was to improve the amount and quality of images of public figures in Wikipedia articles, and to photograph and release new images. During 2014, 120 high-quality images were added as part of this initiative. The microgrant funding was used to purchase photographic equipment and to borrow accompanying equipment. A volunteer arrived at the subjects’ residence with the aim of photographing those figures in a relaxed environment. In addition, dozens of applications were made to political and cultural figures to receive images under a free licence. During 2014, more volunteers joined the project. Today, the Wikimedian who initiated the microgrant request is an active volunteer in other Wikimedia initiatives, as well as in editing workshops, etc.

Category of images for the Public Figures Photography project

Purchasing an OCR software: following the contact established by the Community Coordinator with WikiSource community members, they requested that the chapter purchase an OCR software to convert scanned images to text, and save many volunteer hours. The software was purchased and installed on the chapter’s computers for the use of the community, and remote access is granted to WikiSource volunteers. Nine text files were converted so far. They created a database of scanned texts intended for conversion.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

Allocation of micro-grants: calls for proposals for micro-grant applications were published in various channels throughout the year. Once in each quarter, calls-for proposal were published in the chapter’s Facebook page and other Facebook pages, the chapter’s website, the chapter’s mailing list and through a site notice for Wikipedia users in Israel. Excepting two specific applications, there was no response from community members and volunteers. Most of the applications submitted by members of the general public did not meet the basic criterion for grants – namely the promotion open content – and were therefore rejected.
Recruiting inactive members back to the community as active editors: every community wishes to bring back its cherished veteran members who left for different reasons. The Hebrew Wikipedia community is no different. This action was initiated and led by one of the community’s veteran volunteers. First, a list of inactive Wikipedians was created. They were then approached by the Communities Coordinator via email. Some responded, and a short correspondence ensued. However, this effort was eventually stopped as it became apparent that most responses originated from politeness or a sense of past commitment rather than a true wish to come back as active editors. Consequently, it was decided that a different approach will be taken, and that the contact would be informal in nature – such as a personal invitation from one of the community members to participate in an editors’ meeting. From some initial responses, this approach has proven to be more effective. Its effectiveness will be better gauged throughout 2015.

Any additional details:

Recruiting new volunteers

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

In 2014, WMIL’s main objective was to recruit new Wikipedia editors as volunteers. To achieve this objective, we have upgraded our instruction tools to improve our instructors’ skills, and created an established procedure to follow up on new editors and encourage them to continue their activity.
12 new editors joined Wikipedia following participation in the chapter’s activities and some became WMIL volunteers.
19 new volunteers joined us! One of the most effective ways to recruit volunteers this year was through editors’ meetings.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Increase participation: recruitment of new volunteers - either from Wikimedia initiatives or elsewhere – increases the amount of open content created and the number of active members acting in the interest of open content.
Improve quality: when we recruit volunteers from diverse fields of interest, we significantly enhance the range of voices which contribute to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia initiatives.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

Conducting lectures and editing workshops

321 new articles were written and 1,250 articles were expanded.
55 lectures were held, attended by 1,810 participants.
51 editing workshops were held, attended by 1,077 participants.
Towards the end of 2014, we decided to reduce the number of one-time editing workshops. The content that produced in these workshops was limited – too few articles were written, and the number of participants who continued to edit was negligent. However, the one-time format promotes the message of Collaborative Writing and open content, and the decision was not to eliminate it completely but to reduce its numbers.

An exciting and productive event we had this year was the advanced editing workshop, held on October 2014. This workshop enabled participants in one-time workshops to meet with Wikipedia community members for a get-together and a shared editing session. 30 people took part in the workshop, producing 15 new articles. This was a great opportunity for the new editors to meet community members, and helped strengthen ties between them. A detailed overview of the workshop can be read here.

Towards the creation of comprehensive instruction tools

This year we've started a two-year effort to create better instruction tools to allow volunteers and other "Wiki ambassadors" (e.g. lecturers in the Academia) to deliver high quality lectures, to various audiences with diverse backgrounds. We are approaching this effort in a holistic view - cater to then instruction needs of as many types of lecturers as possible, while putting an emphasis on minimizing volunteer time. To demonstrate: We're developing resources for professors in the academia, who are encouraging their students to write Wikipedia articles. These are aimed to be used without a Wikipedian/Wikimedian present, so we can divert our volunteers to lecture elsewhere; we're developing uniform lectures for our volunteers - while we're encouraging the use of the Visual Editor, some of our veteran volunteers are not adapting, so we're developing lectures for both visual and non-visual editing; we're developing materials for newcomers arriving to our workshops (e.g. videos), so that our volunteers can focus on helping new editors with their issues rather than explaining the basics every single time; we've created an online course for teachers to help them understand Wikipedia better (described below, as part of our cooperation with the Ministry of Education). We have even started developing an online tutorial (to be finalized in 2015) for people who cannot arrive to our workshops, for self learning. Using this multi-faceted approach, we are hoping to maximize the range of potential editors that can join our community.

The instruction tools developed in 2014 are:

Presentations:

Presentation for instructors in one-time workshops using the visual editor.

Videos:

Articles:

Tali Gal-Appel, private consultant and expert in the development of instruction tools, writes on instruction methods and public speaking as well as constructing and planning units of instruction.

Miscellaneous:

Wikipedia race page.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

There was difficulty in implement the new instruction tools among the veteran workshop instructors; however, the new tools are already being used successfully in the WikiWomen initiative. In addition, the presentations can be used for self-learning too. In light of the recruitment and training process of new instructors, we expect their use will be increased in future.

Any additional details:

Organizational strengthening

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

From the 3rd quarter of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, we emphasized the formation of organizational mechanisms to create a work routine in WMIL, and this has improved both the work done by WMIL staff and the activity of our volunteer. Moreover, our organizational stability has enabled us to expand the chapter’s activities. During 2014, we wrote and established work procedures, instruction tools, followed up on activities and effectively measured results.

Furthermore, our organizational stability has enabled us to plan forward and build a 3-year strategic plan.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Stabilizing infrastructure: driving organizational processes in the chapter leads to stability, which in turn enables focused work, division of resources and team work that affects change.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

Hiring a Community Coordinator (50% FTE).
Rewriting micro-grants guidelines.
In 2014 a micro-grant committee was formed. It included two board members, two Wikimedia volunteers and the Activity Coordinator. The committee discuss all applications and vote in accordance with the guidelines established.
Conflict of interest procedure
Launching a 3-year strategic planning – . This can viewed here.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

Activity is progressing as planned.

Any additional details:

Increasing the chapter’s resources

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Stabilizing infrastructure: increasing the organization’s resources has enhanced stability, which in turn has led to the expansion of our activities.
Increased reach: fundraising promotes partnerships and collaborations with new organizations, government entities and institutions.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

Fundraising to the amount of $25,000 - 60% of the amount was raised.
Fundraising In-kind donations to the amount of $15,000 – 187% of the amount was raised.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

In 2014, we applied for funds from four foundations. All of our applications were rejected.

Any additional details:

Creating long-term strategic partnerships

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Creating long-term strategic partnerships with cultural and education entities has expanded the activities of WMIL, increased resources and led to impressive results in the amount and quality of generated open content.

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Increased participation and increased reach: partnerships with open content initiatives and large organizations promote greater engagement from veteran and new volunteers. Projects that were done in partnership with large, known organizations, enable increased advertising of the project and the dissemination of the message of open content.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

Cultural institutions:

At the beginning of 2014, WMIL concluded GLAM activity of Wikipedian in Residence at the Israeli Cartoon Museum. This activity generated 150 images and 22 articles.

Wiki Loves Monuments:

This contest took off on September 24 and lasted one month. 6,200 images were uploaded by 412 photographers to Wiki Commons from a list of 1,150 archeology and antiquity sites. Approximately 250 people participated in 15 guided tours of the sites. In addition, two photography workshops were held in Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva.

WMIL volunteers expanded the list of monument sites with hundreds of additional sites. The list of sites can be viewed here. Israel maintains the 15th place in amount of images uploaded for the third year in a row. In 2014, WMIL volunteers organized the international contest as well.

Category of the winning images for 2014

The image that took 1st place in the Israeli contest reached 5th place in the international contest.

WMIL as a springboard for strategic partnerships: in 2014, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israel Antiquities Authority joined the contest as partners.

The Israel Antiquities Authority: in addition to financial support of 40,000 NIS, the Antiquities Authority has approved the mass release of images from its past press releases. All press releases are now being sent to a WMIL volunteer who in charge of uploading images to the corresponding articles. Also, a direct channel of communication has opened for the request of information, material and specific images. The category for all images released by the Antiquities Authority can be viewed here. At the end of 2014, the Antiquities Authority held a photography contest for its employees. 130 images of archeological sites, digs and findings were consequently released. All the images will be sent to Wiki Commons for free use. The Antiquities Authority is interested in holding an annual photography contest, in partnership with the chapter.

The Digital Diplomacy Unit in the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: in addition to financial support of 10,000 NIS, the foreign Ministry has assisted in publishing the contest in the media. This is a significant expansion of the partnership between the ministry and the chapter, which has hitherto focused mainly on editing workshops for the Foreign Ministry Cadet Course and Foreign Ministry employees, as well as meetings with representatives of foreign delegations and embassies and the like. In 2015, we aim to expand the partnership to new projects. Ministry of education

Education

In 2014 WMIL expanded significantly its activities with all levels of the Israeli Education System: We have tightened the collaboration with the Ministry of Education; principals and teachers explored using Wikipedia as pedagogical tool which can enrich their students’ communication skills and their media and information literacy, as well as develop their critical thinking. In addition, hundreds of students edited Wikipedia during 2014. The major achievement is the strong partnership we built with Ms Dalia Fenig, Director of Pedagogical Development in the Pedagogical Secretariat at the Ministry of Education. Ms Fenig became a "Wiki ambassador" in the Ministry, and now advocates for the integration of Wikipedia in the National Curriculum.

In addition to these accomplishments, gained by working with the Ministry of Education, eight academic courses offered academic credit for Wikipedia editing assignments. These courses were in variety of subjects: Gender Studies, History, Geography, Sociology, Law, Medicine Teacher Training and the Communication. The courses took place in four universities and two colleges.

Kfar Kama project:

WMIL volunteers took in themselves a special project in Kfar Kama – writing a new Wikipedia in Adygha. During 2014 they conducted four workshops for 9th grade students. The students wrote two new article in Hebrew and 22 short articles in Adyghe. Unfortunately, changes in the school administration didn't allow us to continue this project.

Projects for gifted and excellent students:

{{

No. of class	No. of students	No. of new article	No. of significant expansions
15	434	26	27

}} The Be'er Sheva Educational Initiative started its second cycle. Another ten excellency classes are participating in the project this year. The second cycle started after a summing up the process and results of the first year. Only 25 articles (the goal was 40 articles. 75%) were written although the significant volunteers’ hours were put in the project. The major change will be in the schedule of the program. The students will have an editing workshop only after they finish their studying and writing a first draft of the articles in a non-wiki environment.

A special event for the project was a meeting with the mayor of Be'er Sheva, Mr. Rubik Danilovitch. Representatives from each class from the first cycle, the head of the Education department, teachers, the volunteers who led the project and the chairperson and ED of WMIL met the mayor and told him about their experiences and the importance of the project. The mayor thanked the volunteers and encouraged all of the partners to continue writing articles about the city and its surrounding area.
A summary of the activities held in Be’er Sheva can be read in the international blog.

Our activities with gifted and excelling students have produced high-quality articles. The students enjoy the challenge, and the schools support the projects. None of the participating students, however, went on to edit routinely six months after the project concluded. This is a challenge we will seek to address in 2015.

Partnership with the Ministry of Education

Following the meeting with Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and Rabi Shai Piron, Minister of Education, we developed an online course for teachers on the use of Wikipedia. The course was held in the second half of 2014, and the teachers began teaching the material to their students starting December 2014. The goal of the course is to present the concepts of open content and shared writing, and to encourage the use of Wikipedia as an educational tool. More than 250 teachers signed up for the first online course.

The course was developed by CET, the largest education-related NFO in Israel, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education. The course syllabus and the instruction units were developed by the Community Coordinator and a veteran volunteer who participated in the Be’er Sheva project.

These are the instruction units:

Culture of sharing information - stressing copyright issues.
WMIL activities and an initial presentation of Wikipedia and its sister initiatives.
The Wikipedia homepage and article structure.
A critical reading of an article using "view history" and "talk pages".
The usage of Wikipedia as a learning tools.
The strength of the Wikipedia community and becoming part the community.
Getting to know the Wikipedia community.

A second online course in planned later in 2015.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

Our partnership with the National Library has not developed as expected. Of all the planned activities, only the one time editing workshops are in progress, led by a librarian who also acts as Wikipedian in residence. Except for a few files released for OCR conversion as requested by the WikiSource community, there was not much of a release from the Library’s collections.
As reported in our last quarterly reports, there were not enough volunteers ready to establish and lead the mediawiki developers’ community.

Any additional details:

Strengthen public awareness of Wikimedia and its mission of open data

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)

Raising awareness of open content through conference, public activities and partnerships.

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?

Increased participation: raising awareness to the importance of open content will increase participation in Wikimedia initiatives.

What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?

The American court decision concerning URAA led to the deletion of many images from Israel. Wikipedians, Wikimedians, were very involved in the discussion held on the deletion of the images, and WMIL board called the Wikimedia Foundation to intervene. More chapters then joined the call. In addition to the international efforts, we conducted a dialogue with the Justice Ministry in Israel to see if we can adapt the release of images to the new American law decision.
Wiki-Academy conference: approximately 100 people attended the conference, which focused on the future of Wikipedia as the largest database of knowledge. The conference was attended by three international lecturers.

In the conference, we presented survey results on Wikipedia use. To see the results in Hebrew, click here. To see the results in English, see here.
The conference gained wide publicity which included 12 mentions in the local media. Jan-Bart de Vreede’s participation contributed to the acceleration of our partnership with the ministry of Education.

If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?

As a consequence of an organizational overload, we were not able to create long term collaborations with other open knowledge organizations in Israel. We will be seeking to change this in 2015.

Any additional details:

Lessons learned[edit]

Lessons from the past[edit]

A key objective of the funding is to enable the movement as a whole to understand how to achieve shared goals better and faster. An important way of doing this is to identify lessons learned and insights from entities who receive funds, and to share these lessons across the movement. Please answer the following questions in 1–2 paragraphs each.

1. What were your major accomplishments in the past year, and how did you help to achieve movement goals?

Wiki Women: our partnership with the Wiki Women group is one of our biggest accomplishments in 2014. This partnership helps to reduce the gender gap in Wikipedia. The Facebook group and the meetings in the chapter’s offices provide an empowering, safe and supporting venue for women who seek to contribute to Wikipedia. The meetings include a brief editing workshop and a lecture and editing session. The connections created in these meetings continue to prosper in the Facebook group. The group, established and led by Tzipi Eran. She was warmly welcomed in the Wikipedia community and among veteran editors. These editors provide online support and assistance in face-to-face meetings.

WikiSource: The Community Coordinator invited the Hebrew WikiSource community to celebrate its 10th anniversary in the chapter’s offices. This was the first meeting of the editors of this community outside the virtual world in many years, and another meeting followed. Both meetings contributed significantly to the strengthening of social ties in the community, and the coordination of activities between editors and the chapter on a myriad of issues that the community is interested in promoting. The editors were introduced to the variety of support options in the chapter so they can expand their activities, such as the purchase of an OCR software for remote use.
Partnership with the Ministry of Education: our ties with the Ministry of Education have enhanced the potential of Wikipedia as an educational tool, and have raised awareness for the concept of shared and open content. The online course we created for teachers allows us to reach many potential writers and readers, as every teacher can pass on his or her knowledge and newly-learned skills to numerous students. The positive attitude of the Ministry of Education to Wikipedia as a useful teaching tool, and its allocation of resources to promote the use of Wikipedia among teachers, contributes greatly to the positive image of Wikipedia among educators and the general public.

2. What were your major setbacks in the past year (e.g., programs that were not successful)?

Establishment of a media wiki developers’ community: after several attempts to establish a developers’ community, both among Wikipedia volunteers and outside of Wikipedia, we have reached the conclusion that we lack the professional and human resources to do so at present.
Despite the fact that much time and effort was invested in fundraising from foundations, we have not succeeded in that endeavor. However, we have gained valuable experience and knowledge in the field, and hope to do better in that regard in 2015.

3. What factors (organizational, environmental) enabled your success?

Our collaboration with the Ministry of Education: the commitment of the ministry to train teachers in the better use of Wikipedia and the editing workshops to gifted students.

One of the main success factors is the increase in the number of new volunteers, who have put in many hours and a great deal of effort in the activities of the chapter. For instance, a volunteer who helps us in fundraising efforts; another who participates in the Public Figures Photography project and also photographs some of our meetings; a volunteer who invests time in tutoring new editors one-on-one and in small groups; and many more.
An active board

4. What unanticipated challenges did you encounter and how did this affect what you were able to accomplish?

We have encountered difficulty in eliciting information from the volunteers about their activities. It seems there is a gap between the activity and its administrative aspects involved. Consequently, the staffs spends valuable time in gathering information about number of volunteer hours, chasing reimbursement applications for travel costs, eliciting reports on products and follow up on participants.

A more significant challenge is the lack of awareness to the significance of open content and freedom of information in Israeli institutions. The concept of free information and its release under free license is not yet internalized in Israel. Consequently, the process is frequently a long and complex one.

5. What are the 2–3 most important lessons that other entities can learn from your experience? Consider learning from both the programmatic and institutional (what you have learned about professionalizing your entity, if you have done so) points of view.

Establishing the chapter page in Wikipedia has opened channels of communication and served to introduce our activities to the community, new editors and new potential collaborators. Wikipedians assist in maintaining and updating the page. For new editors, the page serves as a friendly gateway to Wikipedia and its interface, thereby assisting in a better onboarding process.
Motivation and Recognition of volunteers: investment of time, resources and attention to our volunteers maintains their goodwill and encourages their continued engagement. Professional training is the one of the most significant tool in nurturing volunteers. During 2014, we held one of two planned training sessions to volunteers. During the Jewish New Year, WMIL awarded holiday merchandises to its most prominent volunteers, accompanied by a personal greeting.
Relationship with new editors: the development of support system for new editors system assists us to foster our relationship with new editors and enables us to maximize the efficiency of one-time editing meetings.

Lessons for the future[edit]

The Wikimedia movement grows as each entity in the movement reflects and adapts its approaches to changing needs and contexts. The questions below encourage you to apply your thinking in the sections above of "how well have we done" and "what have we learned" to the development and execution of future organisational and program strategies. The questions below can be informed both by your own entities' learnings, as well as the learnings of other movement entities (e.g., adding a new program that appears to have caused significant impact in several other countries or communities).

1. What organisational or program strategies would you continue?

WMIL will continue to foster ties with communities as well as nurture relations with existing groups and communities: Wikipedia, WikiWomen, Wiktionary and WikiSource.
WMIL seeks to expand its activities with teachers, gifted students and academic institutions.
WMIL will continue to develop instructional tools to answer the needs of different groups: tools for self-learners, lesson plans for teachers in academic institutions, tools for workshop instructors, and more.

2. What might you change in organisational and program strategies in order to improve the effectiveness of your entity?

In 2015, we will reduce the frequency of one-time editing workshops, in light of their low effectiveness. We plan to replace them with editing session for groups around specific subject matters. Our goal is to create a short course of three or four meetings, which will include instruction on editing and relevant content to specific target groups. In these courses, our goal is to produce as many articles as possible on a specific subject. We will also work on the social aspect and mutual support when editing in Wikipedia.

In addition, we are interested in developing and disseminating online tools for self-learning. These can be used by anybody who wishes to learn editing Wikipedia whether he or she takes part in WMIL training program or not.

3. Please create at least one learning pattern from your entity's experiences this year and link to it here.

Advanced editing workshop

Stories of success and challenge[edit]

Of all the accomplishments highlighted through this report, please share two detailed stories: one story of a success and one story of a challenge that your entity experienced over the past year in a few paragraphs each. Provide any details that might be helpful to others in the movement on the context, strategy, and impact of this initiative. We suggest you write this as you would tell a story to a friend or colleague. Please refrain from using bullet points or making a list, and rather focus on telling us about your organization's experience.

Case study: success[edit]

Wiktionary

The Hebrew Wikitionary suffered in the recent years for low numbers of volunteers and therefor the Dictionary didn't prosper. Our goal is to give new life to the Wiktionary initiative and expand the number of active editors in the community. We created a technical and professional course in the subjects of lexicography, linguistics and writing in the Hebrew Wiktionary.

At the end of 2014, we began the process of creating a course in collaboration with the Academy of the Hebrew Language - the world’s premiere institution for the Hebrew language, and the final authority on linguistic matters in Israel.

WMIL did not have previous contact with the Wiktionary editors, a community comprising five to ten active editors. The Activity Coordinator approached Wiktionary editors. At the same time, we contacted the Academy of the Hebrew Language and met with a representative to talk over the concept of the project. After several attempts spanning two months, we located a Wiktionary volunteer who took on the project, and assisted in recruiting veteran volunteers. In the next stage, we met with all parties involved to develop the course: representatives of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, Wiktionary volunteers and a Wikimedian. The objective of the course is to enrich the Wiktionary initiative with new dictionary entries, and assist the course participants with technical tools and knowledge for a successful integration in the community of editors.

It was decided that the course will include ten weekly meetings, to be held in the chapter office and a celebratory meeting at the end of the course at the offices of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. We developed a schedule, gathered a team of volunteers, wrote the course syllabus and created a course page. We sought to enlist 16 participants, and published a call-for-action in social media, linguistics departments of different universities, among known linguistic experts in Israel, etc. We received hundreds of applications, and built criteria for admission, after which we held telephone interviews for those applicants who met the criteria.

These criteria were:

Affinity to the concept of open content and shared writing.
Affinity to the field of lexicography and linguistics.
Computer literacy, internet proficiency.
Commitment to fulfill all written requirements: 7 new articles + 3 significant expansions.
A token fee.

After a month-long selection process, 16 participants were chosen and the course began.

Case study: challenge[edit]

Veteran Wikipedians

Our efforts to reinstate inactive editors were led by a veteran Wikipedian who is a member of our audit committee. The rationale was that the reinstatement of veteran Wikipedians as active volunteers would be relatively easy, as they are acquainted with the community and the editing process. First, we mapped the editors who left to locate the most active and popular ones. The list was then sent to several active members of the community to get their opinion and blessing. Then, the Community Coordinator contacted each of the 20 Wikipedians on the list via email. Only a few responded, mostly from politeness or a sense of past commitment. None returned as active editors, and the contact with the Community Coordinator was broken.

After speaking to several community members, the main reasons Wikipedians left the community were past social conflict or life circumstances (studies, family, career, etc.). Those who quit for social reasons have a hard time coming back as long as the involved parties are still active in the community, and the management of the community remains unchanged. To improve the social atmosphere in the community, we initiated editors’ meetings. In future, we hope to invite editors who have left the community to editors meetings. Another way of action attempted was to form a group of retired editors who get along well, but we were unable to map editors who are interested in coming back as a group. The last option we gauged in 2014 was an informal approach by one of the community members to join a social gathering or an editing session. At this stage, the response to this kind of approach is more favorable than formal requests. We will be able to gauge its effectiveness in 2015.

Additional learning[edit]

1. What are some of the activities that are happening in your community that are not chapter-led? What are the most successful among these, and why?

The chapter is unaware of activities in which it does not take part.

2. Provide any links to any media coverage, blog posts, more detailed reports, more detailed financial information that you haven't already, as well as at least one photograph or video that captures the impact your entity had this past year.

During 2014, there were 120 mentions – items and articles - in the media (print, internet, radio and TV).

Here are some of the most significant mentions:

Mention of the PhysiWiki contest.
Survey: 84% of the public trust Wikipedia: A survey done for the Wiki Academy conference.
June 9th: Exclusive interview with Jan-Bart de Vreede (in English), i24news website.
LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI Education Ministry and Wikipedia collaborate to write content for the internet site, The Jerusalem Post.
Thia Barak: Interview with Michal Lester, Wikipedia ED, Lady Globes.
Ynon Mills, Item on Wikipedia, The Magazine with Oshrat kotler, Channel 10.
All media mentions regarding the Hebrew Wikipedia, the WMIL and the WMF are concentrated in this page.
Israel’s Ministry of Education & Wikimedia Israel Agree On New, Unique Initiative, at the Wikimedia Blog.
Wiki-Med: The Story of the First Full Wikipedia Course in Israel, at the Wikimedia Blog.
June 2014, Israeli Ministry of Education and Wikipedia collaboration: teachers and students will be trained to write Wikipedia articles, Wikimedia Outreach.
July 2014, Haifa University students write Wikipedia articles for academic credit, Wikimedia Outreach.
October 2014, 9th grade students in Be'er Sheva, Israel conclude a year-long project on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Outreach.

Compliance[edit]

Is your organization compliant with the terms defined in the grant agreement?[edit]

1. As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

There were no deviations to the grant agreement.

2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Yes.

3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Yes.

Financial information[edit]

1. Report any Grant funds that are unexpended fifteen (15) months after the Effective Date of the Grant Agreement. These funds must be returned to WMF or otherwise transferred or deployed as directed by WMF.

No unexpended FDC funds.

2. Any interest earned on the Grant funds by Grantee will be used by Grantee to support the Mission and Purposes as set out in this Grant Agreement. Please report any interest earned during the reporting period and cumulatively over the duration of the Grant and Grant Agreement.

No

Signature[edit]

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.
Michal Lester לסטר (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2015 (UTC)