Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Basque Wikimedians User Group - 2025 (renewal in 2024-25)

statusUnder review

Renewal of General Support Fund

Basque Wikimedians User Group - 2025

Fluxx IDR-GS-2408-16810

start date2024-01-01

end date2024-12-31

budget (local currency)85000 EUR

grant typeWikimedia Affiliate (chapter, thematic org., or user group)

funding regionNWE

decision fiscal year2024-25

funding program roundRound 1

organizationEuskal Wikilarien Kultura Elkartea

give feedback on discussion page

Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Basque Wikimedians User Group - 2025 (renewal in 2024-25)

Applicant information

Organization name or Wikimedia Username for individuals. (required): Euskal Wikilarien Kultura Elkartea

Do you have any approved General Support Fund requests? (required): Yes, I have already applied and received a General Support Fund

You are applying as a(n). (required): Wikimedia Affiliate (chapter, thematic org., or user group)

Are your group or organization legally registered in your country? (required): Yes

Do you have a fiscal sponsor?: No

Fiscal organization name.: N/A

Main proposal

1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be a title for the Meta-Wiki page. (required): Basque Wikimedians User Group - 2025

(Multi-year funding questions skipped)

3. Proposed start date. (required): 2024-01-01

4. Proposed end date. (required): 2024-12-31

5. Does your organization or group have an Affiliate or Organizational Annual Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): Yes; https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Basque_Wikimedians_User_Group/Annual_plan/2024

6. Does your affiliate, organization or group have a Strategic Plan that can help us understand your proposal? If yes, please provide it. (required): Yes; https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Basque_Wikimedians_User_Group/Strategy/2024-2027

7. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required): Regional (more than one country in the same continent or region); We work to promote Basque content in Wikimedia, so the countries will be:

Spain (primarily)
France
Any other international place where there are Basque speakers

8. What are your programs, approaches, and strategies? What are the challenges that you are trying to address and how will your strategies support you in addressing these challenges? (required)

In the last six years, the Basque Wikimedians User Group has built a sustainable project that started with education, and has expanded to multimedia, GLAM, communications and other affairs. Starting from the idea that secondary students should have content in their language, we have made projects involving 1% of the Basque speaking population, adding more than 12% of the Basque Wikipedia content, creating the first children Encyclopedia inside Wikipedia (Txikipedia) and a pedagogical video platform called Ikusgela. This have been possible without asking money to the Wikimedia Foundation, because we have a grant from the Basque Government and, recently, another one from the Government of Navarre that allows us to make GLAM contributions.

This funding is stable, but also fixed, which makes more difficult by the year to continue with our activities, due to inflation. When we started, we had plenty of opportunities to make things out-of-the-box, but now we have to be very tight with the things we can make, with no room for improvement. This is now a problem: some of the projects we used to make can't be done anymore, because we don't have money to accomodate them and we can't justify them within the government funding.

Examples of this issue are evident: we can't make education projects in Navarre, as the grant covers only GLAM; we can't do GLAM in the Basque Autonomous Community, as the grant covers education; we can't continue funding the capacity building for teachers in the Ikastola schools net, which brings nearly a thousand students every year... in the last two years we have covered some of the expenses with an Erasmus+ grant, whil will end by the next year, adding more stress to our budget.

In the last years our expense on communications have been shrinking, as we prioritize expending on salaries. But this causes our project to be less efficient, as we can't communicate as we used to do. In the same way, external and international communications in conferences are now reduced to zero, as the Basque Government is not covering these expenses that are regarded as external to the education effort itself.

We are applying to this General Support Fund because we think that it will solve some of this issues, adding stability to our budget and projects. This General Support Fund will help us adding new opportunities besides the constraints of the current grants.

As stated in the strategy (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Basque_Wikimedians_User_Group/Strategy/2024-2027) we will have the opportunity to recover some of the projects that we can't do anymore because of the lack of funding:

Our education program will grow to new sectors, especially on Secondary Education and the province of Navarre.
We will recover our Digital Humanities research grant and project.
The agreement with Euskal Herriko Ikastolak can grow to add new teachers and students, which will give us hundreds of new young editors and more knowledge about Txikipedia.
We will be able to explain our work and learn from others at international conferences: Wikimania, Hackathon and Education Conference.
We will be able to organize edition and photo contests (WikiLovesEarth, WikiLovesMonuments, Asia Month...), which are now out of scope.
The administration burden will decrease for our administrative worker. Currently, asking for smaller grants creates more work than it solves.
Staff members will enjoy more freedom to address other issues not covered by the current grants.

Projects we will cover in 2024

Increase the sustainability

In January we will hold our annual meeting and launch our new organization model, with an Executive Director. This will allow us to make changes in the way resources are allocated inside our other grants, allowing more projects in Education, GLAM and multimedia.
We plan to design a Pedagogy Proposals unit who will work with special proposals for primary and secondary schools, designing and testing them, before publication and publicity. This process will launch in 2024, and we thing that will be fully developped by the end of the year.
We also plan a Summer Wikimeeting for Basque wikimedians to share knowledge and experiences. It will be the first of it's kind.

Invest in skills and leadership

We plan to make online learning days for wikimedians and members of the User Group, in order to grow their capacities and skills. Our plan is to make one every three months, but it could be more often, if demanded.
We will send members of the User Group to three conferences: Wikimedia Hackathon, Wikimania and WikiEdu Conference, in order to have more community members learning about the movement-wide projects.

Improve user experience

We will work in the 10.000 articles every Wikipedia should have, making edition contests and education projects in order to improve these articles, so the presence of Basque language grows in Wikipedia. We want to go up at least 2 positions in the language ranking per year in the next 4 years, so we turn Basque in one of the top 10 languages.
We will launch Wikiproject:Wikiproject, a research for the usability of Wikiprojects in languages where there are fewer contributors and resources. Our aim with this project is to know if there are fewer contributors to Wikiprojects because they are complex to use or the opposite: if the users find them useless. We want to improve the usability in order to test the first case.
We will launch a contest to improve Commons maps and other vectorial contents using SVG Translate tool. Our goal will be to translate around 500 images during the contest.

Identify topics for impact

Our project to involve schools with Txikipedia will be able to expand with this grant, as it has been contracting in the last two years due to lack of funding. With this project we will have around 1.000 secondary students and teachers learning about edition and improving Txikipedia, the children encyclopedia.
We will create a group of volunteers at the University to work on Women's Health, a huge gap in most of the languages and especially at Basque Wikipedia.
We plan to launch Zumaiapedia, a local encyclopedia experience.
We will participate in WikiForHumanRights, WikiLovesEarth, WikiLovesMonuments and WikiAsiaMonth using this grant, so we can improve knowledge in a wide range of topics.
In Summer we will make a WikiCamp with Euskarabentura, in order to add images from the Camino de Santiago with secondary students.

Innovate in Free Knowledge

We will make new series for Ikusgela thanks to this grant, as we can allocate more money to this project. We will launch videos on Universal Literature, Economy, Ecology and History, along with our Philosophy and Basque Culture series.
We will design a Podcast model for Ikusgela
We will recover our Digital Humanities grant with UEU.

Coordinate across stakeholders

We will host the Erasmus+ wikithon at the Basque Country with students from Ireland and the Netherlands.

9. What categories are your main programs and related activities under? Please select all that apply. (required)


Category	Yes/No
Education	Yes
Culture, heritage or GLAM	Yes
Gender and diversity	Yes
Community support and engagement	Yes
Participation in campaigns and contests	Yes
Public policy advocacy	No
Other	No

Education

9.1.1. Select all your programs and activities for Education. (required): Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom or other Reading/Evaluating Wikipedia Training, Editing Wikipedia Training, Translation, Research, Wikidata programs, Other Wikimedia project programs; Other programs and activities if any: N/A
9.1.2. Select all relevant audience groups for Education. (required): Primary school students, Secondary school students, Vocational, tertiary, or higher education, Teachers or professors; Other groups if any: N/A

Culture, heritage or GLAM

9.2. Select all your programs and activities for Culture, heritage or GLAM. (required): Introducing new approaches to underrepresented culture and heritage, e.g. decolonising or reparative work; oral and visual knowledge; outreach to communities of origin, indigenous and first nations self-determination, Supporting institutions to open up their collections, data, metadata, and research, Partnering with institutions, professional associations, and allied organizations to raise awareness of open culture, ethical sharing, and related issues; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Gender and diversity

9.3. Select all your programs and activities for Gender and diversity.: Bringing in women and/or gender diverse participants and editors, Focusing on creating content about women and/or gender diverse groups, including biographies, intersectional topic areas and/or adding images, Focusing on knowledge equity by bringing in contributors from underrepresented communities; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Community support and engagement

9.4. Select all your programs and activities for Community support and engagement.: On-wiki training of community members, Off-wiki training of community members, Organizing meetups, conferences, and community events, Supporting community members' participation in events and conferences; Other programs and activities if any: N/A

Participation in campaigns and contests

9.5. Select all campaigns that apply. (required): Wikipedia Asian Month, Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monuments, WikiForHumanRights; Other programs and activities if any: N/A
10. Please include a link to or upload a timeline (operational calendar) for your programs and activities. (required): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Basque_Wikimedians_User_Group/Annual_plan/2024

11. Describe your team. (required)

PROJECT COORDINATOR (LEAD): Galder Gonzalez (Theklan), full-time salaried. In post since 2017. ADMINISTRATIVE: Edurne Agirre (Edagit), full-time salaried. In post since 2017. OFFICER - EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION: Aiora Mujika (Aioramu), full-time salaried. In post since 2018. OFFICER - IKUSGELA: Ander Bolibar (Demonocrazy), full-time salaried. In post since 2022. OFFICER - NAVARRE: Anabel Arraiza, part-time salaried (%75). In post since 2022. ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE: Chair: Luistxo Fernandez, Treasurer: Etor Salazar, Secretary: Gorka Azkarate, members of the board: Jon Alkorta, Mikel Arroiabe eta Mikel Iturbe.

The staff members report to the chair, treasurer and secretary of the BWUG, along with the members of the board. All plans are based upon the guidance of the strategic plan and the interpretation of that plan by the officers and the board. The staff report to the board once a month, with on-going communication with the chair as and when needed. The staff report to the full association once a year.

More information; https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Basque_Wikimedians_User_Group#Members

12. Will you be working with any internal (Wikimedia) or external partners? Describe the characteristics of these partnerships and bring a few examples of the most significant partnerships. (required)

Most of our work is done with external partners.

In education we will be working with the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) where most of our education program happens. We have a strategic agreement with them, as we have been working with them for five years. Besides the UPV/EHU, we will work with the University of Deusto, University of Mondragon, Public University of Navarre, Udako Euskal Unibertsitatea and Université de Pau et Pays de l'Adour. We hope to work with ESTIA university. Along the work with these universities, we will work with secondary schools, mostly with an agreement between us and Euskal Herriko Ikastolak, a net of Basque schools. We will work with Berritzegunea and Ingurugela, two public institutions devoted to pedagogical innovation and enviromental education.

In Navarre we will work with libraries and museums, and also with some city halls. We are also working with Tokikom, an entity which co-ordinates local newspapers in Basque language and we hope to continue working with them next year.

We work with HDGunea in Errenteria to promote digital humanities research. This research is also carried together with Badalab. We are making an Ikusgela video series with Badalab, about technology and their social impact. For Ikusgela we are working with the Joxe Azurmendi cathedra in the UPV/EHU, with Agora (the association of secondary phillosophy teachers), with Jakinbai (professional education teacher's association), with Jakindun (math, physics and chemistry videos), with Neiker (ecology and environment videos) and others. We work with Hiru Damatxo for technical work in those videos.

Internally, we co-ordinate some issues with Amical Wikimedia, mostly about Ikusgela. We are also working with Wikimedia Spain and Wikimedia Argentina in some projects.

13. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select all that apply. (required): Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Improve User Experience, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development, Manage Internal Knowledge, Identify Topics for Impact, Innovate in Free Knowledge

Metrics

Wikimedia Metrics

14. Please select and fill out Wikimedia Metrics for your proposal. (recommended)

14.1. Number of participants, editors, and organizers.

All metrics provided are optional, please fill them out if they are aligned with your programs and activities.

Participants, editors, and organizers
Metrics name	Target	Description
Number of all participants	N/A	N/A
Number of all editors	N/A	N/A
Number of new editors	N/A
Number of retained editors	N/A
Number of all organizers	N/A	N/A
Number of new organizers	N/A	N/A

14.2. Number of new content contributions to Wikimedia projects. (recommended)

Contributions to Wikimedia projects
Wikimedia project	Created	Edited or improved
Wikipedia		1000
Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata
Wiktionary
Wikisource
Wikimedia Incubator
Translatewiki
MediaWiki
Wikiquote
Wikivoyage
Wikibooks
Wikiversity
Wikinews
Wikispecies
Wikifunctions / Abstract Wikipedia

Description for Wikimedia projects contributions metrics. (optional)

As we run a wide range of projects, giving total metrics is a difficult task. Instead, we think that we will have some metrics for each of the project to report, as stated below.

Other Metrics

15. Do you have other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): Yes


Other Metrics	Description	Target
Secondary-school participants in Txikipedia	In the last 3 years we have run a project to teach secondary students the use of Txikipedia, engaging them with content creation. We plan to extend this project, adding more students and teachers. The number of participants for this year will be one thousand.	1000
Pedagogy proposals program	We plan to run a pedagogy proposals office, centered in projects creation and evaluation. Knowing how many students will participate is difficult, but we plan to build and test one proposal per season. Total proposals should be, at least, 4.	4
Online learning activities	We plan to give users the possibility to learn online. We expect to have a total of 20 editors doing these capacity building sessions.	20
Summer Wikimeeting	At least 20 Basque editors should participate in this meeting where we will share knowledge, projects and experiences.	20
Ikusgela series	We plan to improve our Ikusgela video series, as we give stability to our current budget, allocating more money to this project. This will allow us to create or publish one video per week during 2024.	52

Budget

16. Will you have any other revenue sources when implementing this proposal (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): Yes

16.1. List other revenue sources. (required)

- Eusko Jaurlaritza/Basque Government

Nafarroako Gobernua/Government of Navarre
EU Erasmus+ Programme

16.2. Approximately how much revenue will you have from other sources in your local currency? (required): 398748

17. Your local currency. (required): EUR

18. What is the total requested amount in your local currency? (required): 85000 EUR

19. Does this proposal include compensation for staff or contractors? (required): Yes

19.1. How many paid staff members do you plan to have? (required)

Include the number of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include them separately and mention their terms.

2

PROJECT COORDINATOR (LEAD): Galder Gonzalez (Theklan), full-time salaried. This grant would cover the 50% of the total cost.

OFFICER - NAVARRE: Anabel Arraiza, now at %75 of time, would become a full-time salaried. This grant would cover the 50% of the total cost.

19.2. How many FTEs (full-time equivalents) in total? (required)

Include the total FTE of staff and contractors during the proposal period. If you have short-term contractors or staff, please include their FTEs with the terms separately.

1

19.3. Describe any staff or contractor changes compared to the current year / ongoing General Support Fund if any. (required only for returning grantees): N/A

20. Please provide an overview of your overall budget categories in your local currency. The budget breakdown should include only the amount requested with this General Support Fund (required).


Budget category	Amount in local currency
Staff and contractor costs	49000 EUR
Operational costs	8000 EUR
Programmatic costs	28000 EUR

21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kePjvz51-aacjsCHNTcyclAAhbK0utsF/edit#gid=538780841

Additional information

22. In this optional space you can add any other additional information about your proposal or organization that you think can help us when reviewing your proposal. (optional)

In the last years we have been funded by the Basque Government (mainly) and the Government of Navarre (partially), and we haven't applied for WMF grants. As the inflation is going up and the funding is stalled, our operational costs are taking nearly all the budget, so we can't run projects that we used to run. This proposal triest to stabilize some of our operational costs, giving us space in the budget to continue with the projects we used to make and those that couldn't be made because they were out of the scope of the government funding.

By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.

We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes

Feedback

Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.

This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the grantmaking web service of Wikimedia Foundation where the user has submitted their application. Please do not make any changes to this page because all changes will be removed after the next update. Use the discussion page for your feedback. The page was created by CR-FluxxBot.