Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 2/Wikimédia France/Proposal form

Proposal by Wikimédia France to support its annual plan with 450,000€.

Since September 2017, the new elected Board and the staff have dedicated their energy on the improvement of the governance and organizational restructure. We also worked on how to better measure our actions and improve our impact.

Most of the governance reforms will be done after the submission of the governance audit report asked by WMF and our members, and some changes will need a vote of the Annual General Meeting. But our first observations led us to carry out the following reforms:

improve transparency so that management is accountable and members can question management throughout the year (and not only during our Annual General Meeting) ;
distribute power and control within the chapter.

Transition to a flat organization. In order to ensure that the charity is best resourced to deliver impactful projects we have made a number of staff role changes, and the total staff headcount has been reduced from 11 to 8 FTE (-223,000€ / -33% of the staff total expenses). The Board decide to recruit only one person, a Junior Fundraiser, and replace the previous direction by an internal reorganization (see more information below).

A clear budget given priority to program expenses. We put in place a revised budget structure to be more intelligible, and also allocate time to lower operating costs (see more information below).

Useful metrics and credible targets. To achieve our objectives, we decided to put in place a Performance Report inspired by Wikimedia UK (see more information below).

Community on board. On the same principle as the Board of Trustees of WMF which has seats for people nominated by the Wikimedia community, we are thinking about reserving 1-2 seats to non-members wikimedians at the micro-grant committee and at the Board of Trustees.

On behalf of Wikimédia France, we would like to thank the Funds Dissemination Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation for they continued support this year and during the previous proposals. In this proposal, we tried to take into account most of the criticism of the last two APG and good practices from other chapters. Last but not the least of our reforms put in place during the past 7 months is to welcome criticism and accept failures. We will be happy to have a lot of comments on our actions plan. I can assure you that we will take on board your suggestions.

Comment on Wikimédia France's proposal here

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Use this form if you are eligible to submit a proposal in the current round, to request funding in the current round.
This form must be published on Meta by the proposal submission date for each round to be considered, and no changes may be made after the submission date without staff approval.
This form complements your organization's annual plan, detailed budget, and strategic plan. It won't be considered complete without a detailed budget and strategic plan.
Organizations may apply for a funding period that does not exactly match their fiscal years. Follow the instructions carefully to understand what time period each question refers to.
Refer to the framework, guidance from the Board, and the FDC's recommendations before using this form, so you have an understanding of the Annual Plan Grants process.
Please Email FDCSupport@Wikimedia.org with questions about using the form.

A few terms used in the form:

FDC proposal form terms	Wikimedia terms	Learning & Evaluation terms
Revenue Spending or Expenses Currency requested Staff Long-term contractors Rate of change Annual plan Funding period Fiscal year	2016 Draft WMF Strategy Wikimedia project	Grant metrics Program Objective Goal Target Needs assessment Logic model Impact

Overview

1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organization's work in the upcoming funding period.

Since September 2017, the new elected Board and the staff have dedicated their energy on the improvement of the governance and organizational restructure. We also worked on how to better measure our actions and improve our impact.

Most of the governance reforms will be done after the submission of the governance audit report asked by WMF and our members, and some changes will need a vote of the Annual General Meeting. But our first observations led us to carry out the following reforms:

improve transparency so that management is accountable and members can question management throughout the year (and not only during our Annual General Meeting) ;
distribute power and control within the chapter.

Transition to a flat organization. In order to ensure that the charity is best resourced to deliver impactful projects we have made a number of staff role changes, and the total staff headcount has been reduced from 11 to 8 FTE (-223,000€ / -33% of the staff total expenses). The Board decide to recruit only one person, a Junior Fundraiser, and replace the previous direction by an internal reorganization (see more information below).

A clear budget given priority to program expenses. We put in place a revised budget structure to be more intelligible, and also allocate time to lower operating costs (see more information below).

Useful metrics and credible targets. To achieve our objectives, we decided to put in place a Performance Report inspired by Wikimedia UK (see more information below).

Community on board. On the same principle as the Board of Trustees of WMF which has seats for people nominated by the Wikimedia community, we are thinking about reserving 1-2 seats to non-members wikimedians at the micro-grant committee and at the Board of Trustees.

On behalf of Wikimédia France, we would like to thank the Funds Dissemination Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation for they continued support this year and during the previous proposals. In this proposal, we tried to take into account most of the criticism of the last two APG and good practices from other chapters. Last but not the least of our reforms put in place during the past 7 months is to welcome criticism and accept failures. We will be happy to have a lot of comments on our actions plan. I can assure you that we will take on board your suggestions.

2. Name, fiscal year, and funding period.

Legal name of organization: Wikimédia France, association pour le libre partage de la connaissance
Organization's fiscal year: 07/01-06/30
12-month funding period requested: 07/01/18-06/30/19
Currency requested: EUR (€)
Name of primary contact: Rémy Gerbet

3. Amount requested.

Table 1

	Currency requested (1 €)	US$ (1.22 $)
Total expenses for the upcoming year	952,000	1,161,400
APG funding requested for the upcoming year	450,000	549,000
Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year	343,000	418,460

4. How does your organization know what community members and contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments or consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?

In order to prepare the 2018-2019 action plan with regard to this proposal form, from February 12 to 25 Wikimédia France carried out a survey of its members and contributors to French language Wikimedia projects and those in the languages of France. The objective was to identify the main themes requiring work while at the same time discovering the community’s wishes after a year 2017-2018 marked by the internal crisis in the chapter with a change in management and the strategic reorganisation carried out by the Board. In order to allow as many people as possible to take part, the survey form was circulated by various means (mailing lists and Village pumps of all French language Wikimedia projects in addition to the versions of Wikipedia in the languages of France). The detailed results can be consulted on this page (in french).

Key data:

172 participants
50% are members of the Wikimédia France association
43.9% stated that they have already received support from Wikimédia France

Among the nine areas requiring work proposed in the survey, we asked the respondents to choose three areas which they feel should be a priority for Wikimédia France in 2018-2019. Using a threshold of 50 replies to this question, here is a summary list of the areas considered as priorities by the participants in the questionnaire:

Improving access to high-quality content (partnerships with cultural and scientific institutions, development of the Wikipedia Library): 107
Working with schools and universities to train and raise awareness among the various stakeholders in the Wikimedia projects (pupils, teachers, researchers): 86
Supporting training in the use of and contribution to Wikimedia projects: 79
Awareness building, advocacy, lobbying (communicating with the general public and elected representatives concerning issues related to the Wikimedia movement): 61
Improving financial and logistical support to contributors (micro-financing, the loan of equipment, accreditation): 51

Similarly, among the list of actions already performed or supported by Wikimédia France, we asked the participants to select those which they felt should absolutely be repeated for the year 2018-2019. Three answers clearly stood out from the rest:

Based on the replies obtained in the survey we decided to focus our FDC request on the three main areas mentioned below which should meet the key expectations of the French-speaking Wikimedia community.

5. Please provide a link to your organization's strategic plan, and a link to your separate annual plans for the current and upcoming funding periods if you have them.

Contrary to what was planned, the new strategic plan for 2017-2020 was not ready for our 2017 Annual General Meeting. The Board decided that it was not a priority for the first 6 months to elaborate a new plan. The crisis makes difficult to plan for the future without having previously settled certain points. The strategic plan 2014-2017 will be extended until next year. But as soon as the FDC proposal is complete, we will start working on our strategic plan. It will be ready in six months, for our next Annual General Meeting. For the same reason, the annual plan will exceptionally match the FDC proposal for the coming year. This will also permit us to take into our plans the draft strategic direction for the global Wikimedia movement to 2030.

Financials: current year

The purpose of this section is to give the FDC an idea of how your organization is receiving funds and spending funds toward your current plan. Your current funding period is the funding period now in progress (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 for most organizations).

Table 2

Financials for the current funding period
Revenues or expenses	Planned (budgeted)		Actual, until one month before the proposal due date		Projected
	Currency requested	US dollars	Currency requested	US dollars	Currency requested	US dollars
Revenues (from all sources)	986,000	1,202,920	701,216	855,484	832,149	1,015,222
Expenses	986,000	1,202,920	868,128	1,059,116	1,056,710	1,289,186

Table 2 notes:

During this year that required to cut many expenses, we followed budget variances on a quarterly basis and a reforecasted budget was realised in February. We plan to do the same next year on at least a semestrial basis (if it's not too expensive in terms of time and money, we would like to track expenses on a quarter basis).

Metrics

Table 3

Shared metrics

Participants: The number of people who attend your events, programs or activities, either in person or virtually. This definition does not include people organizing activities, social media followers, donors, or others not participating directly.
Newly registered: The number of participants that create new accounts on a Wikimedia project. These include users who register up to two weeks before the start of the event.
Content pages: A content page is an article on Wikipedia, an item on Wikidata, a content page on Wikisource, an entry on Wiktionary, and a media file on Commons, etc. This metric captures the total number of content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects.

Grantee-defined metrics

Volunteer hours: The time spent on activities by people involved in Wikimédia France activities.
Partners satisfaction: This result will be collected by means of an annual survey sent out to all partners having supported a contribution-related activity during the year.

Program	Participants	Newly registered	Content pages	Volunteer hours	Partners satisfaction
Axis 1. Partnerships and Content improvement	8,075	500	94,600	1,745	85%
Axis 2. Working with Communities	700	330	15,000	1,950	85%
Axis 3. Education and TRaining	5,300	1,350	21,500	460	85%
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS	14,075	2,180	131,100	4,155	85%

Table 3 notes:

To address the past remark that our "proposed targets do not appear to be feasible based on past results", we decided to put in place a Performance Report inspired by what is done by Wikimedia UK (example). The staff will do a report to the Board on a quarterly basis which highlights progress achieved against a full range of indicators, including but not limited to our Grant Metrics. We also concentrate our efforts this year to improve the reporting of actions from local groups. And after some tests, we will use the Program & Events Dashboard for most of our actions.

Programs: upcoming year's annual plan

Axe 1. Partnerships and Content improvement

Background and Overview

In keeping with the 2030 strategic vision and to improve the diversity and quality of the content available on the Wikimedia projects, we will continue to work to encourage the free sharing of knowledge through our network of partners but also through various initiatives such as taking photographs or the re-use of databases. Supporting the integration of institutions and people in possession of rare and high-quality content within Wikimedia projects is a major objective for the movement. For this reason, a new GLAM strategy derived from an analysis of the shortcomings, opportunities and the cohesion of the partnerships has been developed for this new year. We have shared a number of findings from the “partnership workshops”. Most of our activities are based on replicable and predefined models which do not take sufficient account of the potential impact on the partner and the various audiences. A lack of diversification concerning the actions was therefore noted and we felt it necessary to take account of our own adaptation to the partners. The challenge is to find common ground, to build up a relationship based on trust and confidence and to improve our relevance and impact in the eyes of the people we are in contact with.

The Ma Commune Wikipedia project corresponds to this aim. This tool should enable us to establish a common language with the public authorities to support them with the contribution of content concerning The French regions. Similarly, the Lingua Libre tool should allow for wider participation in Wikimedia projects by removing the barrier of the written language. Achieving the diversification of content therefore means increasing the means of access for contributors.

Quantitative indicators

Axe 1: Partnerships and Content improvement
Indicator	2018/19 Target	Explanation
Participants	8,075	This includes participants in the GLAM Projects but above all those in the photographic competitions and users of tools like Ma Commune Wikipedia and Lingua Libre, which will be entering an operational phase involving a great deal of communication and workshops organised around them.
Newly registered editors	500	Lingua Libre and the photographic competitions should generate most of the new accounts registered.
Pages added/improved	94,600	This includes the files uploaded from the photographic competition but also those regularly uploaded by members supported by Wikimedia France throughout the year, combined with the uploading of audio clips produced during the recording workshops with Lingua Libre.
Volunteer hours	1,745	We have included participation in working meetings, activities carried out within GLAM partner organisations and the time required for a photo competition jury.
Partners satisfaction	85%	This result will be collected by means of an annual survey sent out to all partners having supported a contribution-related activity during the year.
Images/media added to Commons	90,600	Wikimedia Commons will be one of the main beneficiaries of the actions carried out in this area.
% uploaded media used in content pages	50%	Among the GLAM activities, the photo competitions, Lingua Libre and Ma Commune Wikipedia, we have set a target of 50% of files reused in other Wikimedia projects.
Leading volunteers (WLM+WLE)	11	Here, we take account of people involved in the organisation of the competition, the selection of photos and participation in the jury’s decisions
Numbers of visitors/users of Ma Commune Wikipedia	5,000	We would like to measure the usage level of Ma Commune Wikipedia. With targeted communication aimed at local authorities, we hope to increase the use of Ma Commune Wikipedia as a gateway into contributing.
Numbers of visitors/users of Lingua Libre	2,000	This will concern everyone using Lingua Libre at least once during the year in France. Specific statistics concerning its use globally will be introduced during the year.
Numbers of recording session with Lingua Libre	10	Wikimédia France has committed to organising 10 recording workshops in various languages on its premises.
Number of photo accreditation granted	10
Leading GLAM partners of WMFr	5	We currently have three partners involved as ambassadors for the movement. We would like to see two other partners take on this role during the next financial year.
Contributing activities organized within a GLAM partnership	24	We aim to continue the process underway for the last two years by focusing on the diversity of the types of actions performed. For example, being more of a means than an end, the edit-a-thon model is showing its limits in terms of getting partners involved and guaranteeing long-term collaborations.

Outcomes and impact

Key activities

GLAM Program

Origin and description

As we have previously seen, the GLAM project came about through the need to review our vision of the partnerships and our strategy in light of the failings and weaknesses identified, of the challenges of the 2030 strategy, but also due to the opportunities a new approach to these partnerships could offer us. The following themes and activities will all provide opportunities to reach our objectives for the year and to set ourselves on a long-term path. The validation of partnerships will enable us to focus our work on long-term opportunities for collaboration offering the possibility to build a fully-fledged relationship between both parties. The goal here is to avoid “one-shot” partnerships by assessing the true intentions of our contacts, the scope of the sources, data or collections available to us and the value and urgency of this particular theme for our community. Here, we can draw upon projects with the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille (Lille Fine Art Museum), the National Archives or city of Toulouse. To inject fresh dynamism into the scientific projects and Wikimedia in general, collaborations with the Latmos laboratory and the Centre National des Etudes Spatiales (National Centre for Space Studies) are underway. Another factor, and a considerable one, is the availability of volunteers, which in turn has an impact on the launch of projects. Finally, the analysis tools will enable us to better plan and adapt the projects according to the community’s requirements and the profile of the partners concerned, and to ensure that we follow up actions and initiatives. The nature of the actions proposed is a crucial aspect as it must provide for both the stabilisation of the relationship between the partners and the availability of the volunteer community. We are striving to increase diversity within our activities with a view to adapting to our partners and to meeting the goals of ensuring the long-term future and reuse of content. Among other things, this balance can be achieved through the emergence of Wikimedians in Residence, whose work will be financed by the host organisation itself or by a sponsoring system. The creation of a GLAM “network” reflects our wish to unite our partners with the aim of involving them in participative and empowering processes and to encourage dialogue while also learning from one another mutually. We currently benefit from three partners spreading the word around them, like the National Archives for example. We would like to increase the number of these “ambassador” partners, particularly through the organisation of and participation in “professional days”.

Objectives

We would like to unite the various partners and boost the impact of our work by creating a “GLAM network” characterised by a shared wish to open up data and content. Our objective is to add a further two ambassadors and to improve “institutional” support for our projects.
We want to focus our actions on the reuse of digital content.
We aim to ensure the long-term future of these relationships, in particular by encouraging our partners’ autonomy. This can be achieved through the emergence of one or several resident Wikipedians, supporting projects for analysis tools such as CatUsage, Glamorous, pageviews or Dashboard, making it possible to provide both parties with effective monitoring, clarity and the possibility to look to the future.

Indicators

Global metrics:
- Number of participants: 250.
- Newly registered editors: 90.
- Pages added/improved: 1000.
- Volunteer hours: 700.
- Partners’ satisfaction: 85%
- Images/media added to Commons: 700.
- % uploaded media used in content pages: 35%.

According to our assessment, 26% of the media imported into Wikimedia Commons during these activities were reused for other Wikimedia projects. We envisage reaching the 35% threshold, with the same goal of ensuring the re-use of uploaded content. Given the statistical differences between each of the activities and the impossibility of channelling and controlling all the initiatives, we have decided to calculate this based on uploads produced via well-identified and well-monitored partnerships.

Specific indicators:
- Leading GLAM partners of WMFr: 5.
- Contributing/editing activities organized within a GLAM partnership: 24.

When selecting the specific indicators, the retention rate appeared particularly important to us in view of our wish to monitor our partnerships and ensure their long-term future. However, we prefer to test this type of metric during the first year of our new GLAM strategy to possibly incorporate it in the next cycle based on a coherent, tried and tested methodology.

Local and architectural heritage

Origin and description

For several years now, a number of the association’s activities have had the aim of raising the profile of French local and architectural heritage. Indeed, this theme, which combines history and culture, is of great interest to our volunteers and already accounts for a significant percentage of the articles on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, these articles often lack illustrations. However, heritage (particularly local heritage) is a subject likely to be of great interest to the general public as it concerns local matters. For this reason, Wikimédia France is trying to get the public involved in contributing to Wikimedia projects. Among other things, this involves taking photographs and uploading content to Commons, which is often simpler for beginners than writing encyclopaedic articles. In 2017, we published the "Ma Commune Wikipédia" tool (My Wikipedia District), a new tool making it possible to view the state of progress with articles on the various French districts. We would now like to upgrade this to make it an access point to our different initiatives at a local level. To begin with, we will incorporate the “Été des regions” (Summer of the regions) initiative into it: in July and August, the “participate” button in the “illustrations” section will link to the “Été des regions” campaign and similarly, our communication activities dealing with this initiative will invite local authorities to visit the page for their district on Ma Commune to encourage them to participate. Designed as a stepping stone to local contribution activities, “Ma Commune Wikipédia” will also provide direct access to the Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth photographic competitions. This will meet a very real demand from our community to continue these events but also to more closely link these international activities at a local level. Created at the initiative of volunteer contributors, the purpose of these competitions is to get Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons better known by the general public and even to recruit new volunteer photographers. They make it possible to inject new dynamism into existing communities and also to encourage people to improve Wikimedia Commons concerning a precise theme in a specific geographical area.The Wiki Loves Monuments competition will be continued with its extended perimeter. The competition will be open to all heritage-related items and features assigned a number in an official database run by the Ministry of Culture, and not only historical monuments. This decision was taken after careful consideration by the association’s members in order to encourage participation. A slight increase in the number of photos uploaded during the 2017 competition leads us to believe that this year we can attempt to break through the symbolic threshold of 10,000 photos published online. A working weekend has been organised for early April to involve and motivate contributors for the organisation of this 2018 event and to find partners and/or sponsors. Wiki Loves Earth will also be repeated in 2018. We are expecting the same number of contributions, i.e. approximately 1,600 photos for 140 contributors, in view of the fact that it is more difficult to access natural sites in comparison to historical monuments.

Objectives

We will continue to add to content concerning towns and villages via the "Ma commune Wikipédia" projects and the "Eté des régions" campaign.
We will support the evolution of Wiki loves Monument contest to diversify the photographic content collected.

Indicators

Global metrics
- Participants : 5,575
- Newly registered : 170
- Content Pages : 39,600
- Volunteer hours : 520
Specific indicators:
- Leading volunteers (WLM+WLE) : 11
- Numbers of visitors/users of Ma Commune Wikipedia : 5,000
- Number of photo accreditations granted : 10

Support the development of the oral contribution on Wikimedia projects

Origin and description

For two years now, we have worked to facilitate participation in Wikimedia projects by developing a new means of access to contribution, particularly for people who speak minority languages, for whom writing can be an obstacle to contributing. This initiative gave rise to the Lingua Libre project, initially run by a team of volunteers and more recently by a contributor 0x010C as part of a Grant Project. The original development team needed to take major technological decisions and having a person with precise technical skills available full-time was the only solution making it possible for Lingua Libre to fully flourish as a new contribution-related project. After two years’ work and several discovery workshops, we were keen to see the real potential of Lingua Libre. With the support of the original project team and aided by several linguistic institutions and associations, we are planning on the national and international deployment of this tool from summer 2018 onwards. This will begin with a special event organised in Paris with the Ministry of Culture before organising several dedicated contribution workshops throughout the year 2018-2019.

Objectives

Intended to be a new gateway into contributing, we aim to demonstrate the value of Lingua Libre for Wikimedia projects, particularly concerning minority linguistic communities who are often side-lined by Wikimedia projects. Consequently, Wikimedia Canada’s experimentation with the Atikamekw project, which is already using Lingua Libre, is a source of inspiration for us. We plan to produce a multilingual lexicon of 50,000 recordings in one year, to be made available on Commons.

Indicators

Global metrics:
- Participants : 2,000
- Newly registered : 200
- Content Pages : 50,000
- Volunteer hours : 225h
Specific indicators:
- Numbers of visitors/users of Lingua Libre : 2,000
- Numbers of recording sessions with Lingua Libre : 10

Support for Wikidata

Origin and description

In keeping with the objective of ensuring diversity where content is concerned, we support the free sharing and reuse of databases, particularly via the Wikidata project. Consequently, we are supporting this project through various initiatives aimed at improving knowledge of the way Wikidata operates within the community, and at getting Wikidata better known by the general public or by target audiences (students, hackers, scientists, archivists and researchers, etc.). Activities targeting the general public include participating in conferences or hackathons, and the organisation of more specific events targeting certain communities. This year, in addition to a new annual Wikidata event for science, we are planning on a French WikidataCon in the autumn. This project is part of the cycle planned by Wikimedia Deutschland, which involves a global event in Berlin and local events, these being held on an alternating basis every other year. This event seeks to strengthen the French language community on Wikidata while at the same time allowing certain contributors to benefit from feedback and input. These training opportunities aimed at the community, such as workshops to be held in the new Wikimédia France contributors’ area or those organised from time to time in other towns make it possible to build up volunteer management teams for the datathons. We are planning on five workshops of this type in 2018-2019. These workshops are aimed at aligning Wikidata content and an external database such as a thesaurus for example or official notices. These events provide an opportunity to introduce the data professionals working on the databases in question (archivists, researchers, documentalists, etc.) to Wikidata.

Objectives

Improving awareness of the existence of Wikidata and the way it operates, both within the movement and outside it.
Strengthening Wikidata’s position as a central hub for linked data through alignment with external databases.
We want to provide training for staff from institutions looking to publish their date as open data.

Indicators

Global metrics
- Participants : 250
- Newly registered : 40
- Pages added/improved : 4,000
- Volunteer hours : 300