Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Community User group Uganda Multi Year Grant 2025/27/Yearly Report (2025)
|
|
Part 1: Understanding your work
[edit]Per the recent update on the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy process, Wikimedia Affiliates that are General Support Fund grantees will fulfill their affiliate reporting requirements through their final or yearly grantee report.
If you are a Wikimedia Affiliate, you will use this form for your affiliate reporting and to address the affiliate health criteria. You do not need to submit a separate report to AffCom. Follow the guidance in the green boxes to report on how you met the corresponding affiliate health criteria.
If you are not a Wikimedia Affiliate, aligning your responses with the affiliate criteria is optional and not required.
1. Please share to what extent your programs, approaches, and strategies contributed to addressing the challenges you shared in your proposal. If they did not contribute as you believed they would, please share what obstacles you faced and what, if anything, you learned from them? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 1.) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 1.1 (Goal delivery). Describe how you actively delivered on mission goals, e.g. content creation.
We successfully addressed our identified challenges to a significant extent, as detailed below:
- Community Development & Growth: To address the limited pool of contributors and lack of skill diversity, we aimed to expand our membership by engaging various demographics, including students and local experts. Through initiatives such as Wiki University clubs, the Runyankore language incubation, and GLAM projects, we successfully recruited 307 new members. These new contributors come from diverse backgrounds, including enthusiastic students, photographers, and academicians.
- Content Creation & Improvement: Tackling the insufficient quantity and quality of Uganda-relevant content, we focused on documenting Uganda's culture, history, and languages. Our content creation drives resulted in 1,565 new articles. Following a content gap analysis that identified over 1,000 Ugandan stub articles, we launched the "Community Mega Wikipedia Edit-a-thon," which improved 678 distinct pages. In total, 1,274 articles were improved in 2025. Additionally, 2,003 articles were translated into Luganda and Runyankore.
- Organizational Capacity & Sustainability: We focused on building robust governance and operational structures. Significant milestones include:
- Board Elections: In early 2025, WCUGU held its first fully elected board cycle, selecting five volunteers for the 2025–2027 term.
- Leadership Training: Board members completed the Issroff Family Foundation Board governance training (focused on oversight and financial accountability). Simultaneously, the management team completed the 10-month Collaborative Learning Initiative (CLI), a capacity-strengthening program for leaders of community-based organizations in East and Southern Africa.
- Policy & Compliance: We developed core policies and manuals, streamlined governance procedures, and successfully held our Annual General Meeting (AGM) to report on strategic implementation and financial accountability.
- Board Elections: In early 2025, WCUGU held its first fully elected board cycle, selecting five volunteers for the 2025–2027 term.
- Leadership Training: Board members completed the Issroff Family Foundation Board governance training (focused on oversight and financial accountability). Simultaneously, the management team completed the 10-month Collaborative Learning Initiative (CLI), a capacity-strengthening program for leaders of community-based organizations in East and Southern Africa.
2. Is there a plan to build on the key successes you had? If yes, please describe the plan and if no, please share the limitations to do so. For instance, did the activities lead to any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future? (required)
Yes, we plan to maintain our strategic priorities of community growth, content improvement, and organizational excellence. Key plans for 2026 include:
- Wiki University Clubs: We will strengthen this initiative by implementing structured leadership development, continuous training programs, regular edit-a-thons, and targeted advocacy campaigns to deepen student engagement.
- Language Diversity: We aim to meet the requirements to graduate Runyankore Wikipedia from the Incubator and increase Luganda translations to ensure knowledge equity. We will also launch language mentorship programs.
- Continuous Learning: We will host post-event learning sessions following major conferences (e.g., Wikimania, WikiIndaba) to facilitate insight sharing.
- Quarterly Events: We will host quarterly edit-a-thons targeting gaps identified in our content analysis, with a focus on English, Luganda, and Runyankore Wikipedia.
- Expanded Partnerships: We plan to collaborate with cultural institutions such as the Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC), Fun Factory Uganda, Pearl International Film Festival (PIFF), Swangz Avenue, and others to promote artistic forms and preserve cultural heritage.
3. Please provide a link to reports that detail the activities that took place in the last year. This can include an annual report, Meta pages, and websites. If there are no links available, briefly describe the implemented activities and programs below or upload any files. (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 3.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.1 (Affiliate health & resilience), 4.1 (Internal engagement), 4.2 (Community connection), and 4.3 (Partnerships and collaboration):
- Describe your activities engaging new users, new members for your decision-making body(ies), and developing leaders and organizers (2.1).
- Describe your activities creating or hosting spaces to encourage greater collaboration and engagement among your members (4.1).
- Describe how you engage with the contributing community that you serve and/or support (4.2).
- Describe your partnerships with other affiliates or with non-Wikimedia entities (4.3).
'Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Annual Activity 2025 Report '[1]
Describe your activities engaging new users, new members for your decision-making body(ies), and developing leaders and organizers (2.1).
Our governance structure, membership criteria, and election procedures are publicly documented to ensure transparency and accountability. In January and February 2025, we successfully conducted a board election process managed by an independent committee, installing a new Governing Board for a two-year tenure (2025–2027). The full details of the election guidelines, leadership structure, and voting process are available here:
4. Are you interested in sharing what you achieved or learned this year with the wider community through different peer learning programs (e.g. Let's Connect program, Diff)? (optional)
We are highly interested in sharing our learnings and achievements with the wider community. We are eager to participate in the Let's Connect program, contribute articles to Diff, and share insights at upcoming regional and international conferences.
5. Did you collect feedback from your community or target groups on how the activities implemented impacted them? If yes, please attach/provide information on the results (e.g. community surveys, stories, impact booklets/reports, interviews with partner institutions, etc). Did you collect other impact-specific data? (required)
For affiliates, the response to Question 5. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criteria 4.1 (Internal Engagement), 4.2 (Community Connection), or 4.3 (Partnerships & collaboration), where applicable.
We carried out a post wikimania survey to understand our participants experiences at Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi, what they learned, what worked well, and how future participation can be improved.
We held post wikimania learning event with community members with the intention of the attendees sharing their learnings from the conference with the wider community
We carried out a post AGM feedback survey to understand what worked well and how we can improve next year’s AGM and overall community experience.
We carried out a community satisfaction survey to understand how community members perceive WCUGU’s performance, whether they feel supported and included, what we are doing well, where we need to improve and how we can better serve the Wikimedia community in Uganda.
6. During the fund period, did your efforts do any of the following? (required):
For affiliates, the response to Question 6. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criterion 2.2 (Diversity balance).
- 6.1 Bring in participants from the following groups: women, indigenous groups , people from lower socioeconomic status, young people, other
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, speakers of minority languages, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.3 Support the retention of: Editors, Organizers, Partnerships
7. What, if any, effective tactics or approaches can you share that worked well when dealing with the programs under points 6.1-6.3 that you selected? (optional)
- Keeping partners and volunteers informed on every development in the user group and the entire Wikimedia movement.
- Running mentorship programs has been useful in keeping the different categories of people engaged
8. If you developed partnerships, which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors (optional):
Permanent staff outreach, Board members’ outreach, Staff hired through the fund, Volunteers from our communities, Partners proactive interest
Part 2: Metrics for Year 1
[edit]| Wikimedia Metrics | Target (Year 1) | Results (Year 1) | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 300 | 580 | Outreach Dashboard, Hashtag tool, Wiki source registration tool, Meta Registration tool, and the Wiki loves tool forge. |
| Number of all editors | 100 | 550 | Outreach Dashboard, Hashtag tool, Wiki source registration tool, Meta Registration tool, and the Wiki loves tool forge. |
| Number of new editors | 50 | 307 | |
| Number of retained editors | 50 | 273 | |
| Number of all organizers | 20 | 31 | Outreach Dashboard and the meta Registration tool |
| Number of new organizers | 5 | 14 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages (Year 1) | Target - Number of improved pages (Year 1) | Result - Number of created pages (Year 1) | Result - Number of improved pages (Year 1) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 300 | 500 | 1565 | 1952 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 700 | 300 | 7509 | |
| Wikidata | 300 | 200 | 2586 | 2602 |
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | 150 | 50 | 1941 | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | 521 | 0 | 525 | 525 |
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | ||||
| Wikivoyage | ||||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
Tool used and comments (optional):
Outreach Dashboard, Hashtag tool, Wiki source registration tool, Meta Registration tool, and the Wiki loves tool forge. The above tools helped us gather and compile the figures shown above.
11. Did you set other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): Yes
11.1. Other Metrics.
In your application, you outlined some other open metrics that you would like to measure. Please fill out the achieved results for each of the open metrics you defined.
| Other Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partnerships | New partnerships established | 4 | 8 | The following Partnership were established
1) Sunbird AI-Partnership to support machine translation in the Runyankore wikipedia incubator plus other local languages. This partnership led to the development of the Wiki translate tool which allows the translation of unlimited characters. This has quickened translations in the incubator 2) Uganda Premier League-Partnership to work together to ensure that all information regarding UPL and member clubs is published on Wikipedia platforms to increase the visibility of the league, the member clubs and individual players globally. This partnership helps in enhancing and enriching the coverage of the league on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia platforms, increase the visibility and accessibility of key information about the league and its stakeholders, give WCUGU access to the stadiums during matches for purposes of documentation and information for use in updating Wikipedia about Ugandan football including but not limited; Player biographies, Career statistics, Media Files, Club History, Stadiums, Coaches, Federations & Associations and other publicly available information that may be useful for documenting and archiving Ugandan football history. This partnership is under our Wikiloves sport project 3) Kabale University; This collaboration introduced students and local scholars to Wikimedia projects, built a community of volunteer editors and translators, and kicked off the development of a Runyankore Wikipedia (ISO 639‑3 code nyn). 4) Lira University; Helped us establish a Wikipedia Club at the University 5) Makerere University; Helped us establish a Wikipedia Club at the University 6) Uganda Community Museums Association (UCOMA); Partnership to map museums in Uganda to enhance their visibility and accessibility hence contributing to the preservation of national heritage. After the mapping exercise that was done by volunteers from the user group, the team embarked on creating articles for notable museums as a contribution towards the open knowledge movement. 7) Community Libraries Association of Uganda (COLAU); Partnered on the Libraries mapping exercise and we are establishing 10 Wikimedia clubs around the mapped libraries to train different communities around these libraries on how to edit Wikipedia plus the different aspects of Wikimedia projects. All the community libraries have computers that are connected to the internet. This partnership will also run projects like 1 Lib 1 ref among others 8) Zebra Boxing Club; We were also able to partner with Zebra Boxing Club and documented a number of boxers with images uploaded to commons under the following category Zebra Boxing Club. Wikimedia Sudan Fiscal sponsorship; We signed an agreement with Wikimedia Community User Group Sudan, a recognized user group within the Wikimedia movement as their fiscal sponsor, wherein we will receive funds on their behalf from the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and disburse these funds in accordance with the agreed terms. |
We made MOUs with most of the partnerships we made. |
| Local languages | One Uganda local language is taken into the incubator | 1 | 1 | One Uganda local language is taken into the incubator. The stats reflect a speedy growth of Runyankole content due to a consistent and large group of recruited contributors. | Outreach Dashboard |
| Governance | New governing board elected by the membership will put in place | 1 | 1 | New governing board was elected by the voting members | Board election proceedures https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Community_User_Group_Uganda/Board_Elections_2025 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Part 3: Skill Development / Capacity Building
[edit]12. Reflecting on your programmatic (external) and organizational (internal) work, did your grant support you to undergo any skill development that made a difference to your success? If yes, what skill was developed, and how did it lead to success? (e.g. received coaching on public speaking, attended training on nonviolent communication, hosted professional development conversations on leadership, learned and used a new tool for project management, etc.)? Can you share any materials? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 12.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.2 (Diversity balance) and 3.1 (Diverse, Skilled, and Accountable Leadership):
- Describe actions taken to prioritize gender balance in affiliate leadership, as well as any areas of diversity relevant to your affiliate's context (2.2).
- Describe the management, financial, or other leadership skills of your affiliate leaders. If you have a succession plan, please include it here (3.1).
- Describe any training or skill development (as outlined in the question above) (3.1).
- Incorporate into the annual report a disclosure of conflict of interests (if any) from the leadership (3.1).
- WCUGU promotes gender equity through., WikiGap, Art+Feminism and involves youth, women, and underrepresented groups in planning and leadership roles.
- Our Board of 5 has 2 women members, our 3 full-time staff are composed of 2 women and one man.
- At Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda, we prioritize inclusive leadership by actively listening to our diverse community. Through open communication platforms, collaborative planning, and intentional outreach to underrepresented voices including women, youth, and rural contributors we create safe, participatory spaces.
- We ensure community-led programming, reflective decision-making, and continuous feedback integration, aligned with the Wikimedia movement’s principles of equity and decentralization.
- The Governing Board provides strategic oversight and guidance to the user group. The Executive Director provides overall leadership and operational management of the organization. The ED is responsible for translating the strategic plan into actionable programs, supervising staff and volunteers, coordinating Wikimedia-related initiatives, and strengthening partnerships with the Wikimedia movement, donors, government institutions, and civil society organisation works with 2 other staff members in collaboration with the volunteers.
- Two of our Board members attended the CLI training in 2025, focused on organizational leadership and systems strengthening. The CLI strengthened organizational leadership capabilities, strategic oversight skills, financial planning, fundraising readiness, and impact articulation plus peer learning among the leaders.
- All Board members are volunteers and do not hold any staff roles to avoid conflict of interest.
- The Issroff Family Foundation delivered a Board governance training specifically designed for board members and senior management of WCUGU. This training focused on strengthening nonprofit governance, enhancing board effectiveness and accountability, improving financial oversight, and clarifying the board’s role in advocacy and resource mobilization.
- The Collaborative Learning Initiative (CLI) is a 10 months leadership and organizational capacity-strengthening program designed for founders and senior leaders of early-stage, community-based organizations in East and Southern Africa. Two of our Board Members, Geoffrey Kateregga and Erina Mukuta participated in the program on behalf of Wikimedia Uganda from January 2025 to October 2025.The CLI and the Board Governance Training delivered complementary and reinforcing benefits to Wikimedia Uganda.
- The CLI strengthened organizational leadership, strategy, financial planning, fundraising readiness, and impact articulation, while the Board Governance Training enhanced board effectiveness, accountability, and oversight. Running in parallel, the two programs improved alignment between board and management, ensured institutional rather than individual learning, and positioned Wikimedia Uganda for more sustainable growth and partnerships.
13. What is one capacity/skill area that you would like to focus on for the next year? And how do you plan to achieve this capacity? (required)
Since the CLI training was largely attended by 2 Board members, we are recommending 2 full-time staff members to attend the same training this year so that their leadership skills can be strengthened particularly in strategy, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, and fundraising for ongoing operations.
14. If you have additional information or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. Use the space below to upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your report.
For affiliates, also use this section (Question 14) to fulfill the Affiliate Health Criteria requirements.
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for affiliate governance, including affiliate leadership and membership with a breakdown of the demographics; how elections are conducted; how conflicts of interest are declared; and how decisions are made and communicated (2.2, 2.3, 3.1).
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for activities incorporating, promoting awareness about, or enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct in your affiliate's activities (3.3).
- Describe and link to any public-facing documentation for internal membership engagement, such as notes from your regular meetings and how you communicate to or involve your membership (4.1).
Our governance structure, membership criteria, and election procedures are publicly documented to ensure transparency and accountability. In January and February 2025, we successfully conducted a board election process managed by an independent committee, installing a new Governing Board for a two-year tenure (2025–2027). The full details of the election guidelines, leadership structure, and voting process are available here: [2]
Adherence to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) is mandatory for all WCUGU activities. We actively promote awareness by briefing participants on UCoC standards at the commencement of every event and training session to ensure a safe and inclusive environment. While we currently rely on verbal communication and standard movement policy, we aim to formalize our local documentation and enforcement protocols. We would highly appreciate any guidance or specific capacity-building training from the Foundation to help us document and enforce these standards more effectively.
We maintain consistent engagement with our membership through regular communication channels and our Annual General Meeting (AGM), which serves as the primary forum for strategic updates, financial reporting, and community feedback.
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]For affiliates, also use this section (Part 4: Financial reporting) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 3.2 (Financial & Legal Compliance).
| Description | Amount spent (UGX) |
|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 149512684 |
| Operational costs | 50723734 |
| Programmatic costs | 237853582 |
| Total (Year 1) | 438000000 |
| Other revenue | |
| Remaining funds (Year 1) | N/A |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
438000000 UGX
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- Operational costs: 50723734 UGX
- Programmatic costs: 237853582 UGX
- Staff and contractor costs: 149512684 UGX
17. Did you have any other revenue sources (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): No
- 17.1. Provide the total amount received from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): UGX
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): UGX
18. Provide a financial report document which will provide the details of funds received and spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda Audited Financial Report 2024.pdf
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
18.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
N/A
19. Do you have any unspent funds from this funding?: No
20. Final confirmations (required)
- 20.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement? You must be in compliance with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement. In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- Yes
- 20.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
- Yes
- 20.3. 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 Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- Yes
This is an automatically generated Meta-Wiki page. The page was copied from Fluxx, the web service of Wikimedia Foundation Funds, where the user has submitted their report. 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.