Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Dagbani Wikimedians User Group 2024 Annual Programs/Final Report
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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.
As part of our continuous commitment to institutional growth and community impact, the organization has successfully implemented all key recommendations in the project review.
We reviewed and improved our governance structures, empowered our volunteer leaders, and restructured our micro-granting system. Equity in role resourcing was achieved through internal review, and a full financial audit enhanced our accountability and compliance. These changes have positioned the organization for long-term impact and sustainability.
For the User Group to have a successful implementation of its programs, we outlined a number of strategies that would help us achieve our stated objectives in the project proposal. Explained below are the strategies that were tremendous in getting the whole project executed:
Editathons and Contests:
This is a unique strategy that continuously keeps volunteers engaged and working; the objective of using it was to keep the community busy, and we really achieved the intended objective. Editathons such as the Art and Feminism program and lexeme cleanup are a fewsuch programs. Contests are usually loved by the experienced Wikimedians; it was noticed that they take less than the allocated contest duration to complete the whole task in most cases. This enthused the less experienced ones to learn more and also become experts. But, learning of the situation, we created a separate award category for newbies in all our contest programs. Female categories were not left out; we created enticing female award categories. This buttresses the fact that the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group horns for the realization of the agenda that “the female voice must be heard.”
Community engagement:
Volunteers are fuel for community growth, and creating avenues that would engage them more creates room for shared knowledge and continuous support. We engaged in the following carefully selected activities that kept the volunteer base:
1. Bi-weekly online community training - This birthed the opportunity for community members to refresh their minds on knowledge they already have and learn new ones to become abreast with the requisite skills of the movement. Every other weekend an experienced facilitator comes out with a relevant topic and trains volunteers to acquire knowledge.
2. Quarterly meetings: It intended to have community members be updated with the happenings of the user group and the movement at large. Volunteers met online quarterly and got updated and learned more about opportunities in the movement.
3. Team retreat and capacity building: This happens annually, and 2024 was not left out. The User Group, in its efforts to enhance the capacity of the team members, organized a retreat and capacity-building workshop outside of its birth region. The choice of the venue was strategically done to give participants a feel of a different environment, Mole Game Reserve, Damongo. All five language communities under the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group took part and were empowered to further share their respective community members.
Translations:
A series of translations were done to increase the content and improve on the quality of articles of the various language Wikipedias; we recorded an increase in content through the Art and Feminism Editathon and Article of the Week programs. Female-related articles were selected from English Wikipedia and had their content translated to Dagbani.
Capacity Building:
Capacity building is the cornerstone of knowledge enhancement. A movement like ours requires refreshing our minds on knowledge that is already acquired and onboarding new knowledge as well to be abreast with the skill dynamics of the movement. The User Group prioritizes investing in its members in knowledge acquisition. We make it a necessity to have at least one capacity-building workshop every year. This year’s capacity is great and impactful, as explained under Community Engagement earlier.
Hub Activities:
Hubs members are mostly students; this is not different in our case. We have a substantial number of members of hubs being language students; hence, it is not surprising that we engage our Hubs members with activities both online and in person. The Bagabaga College of Education (BACE) Hub, Tamale College of Education (TACE) Hub, Bimbila College of Education Hub, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science (KNUST) either had an in-person workshop or took part in an online training session. The Hub Activities idea makes members become active in contributing to open knowledge.
Media Outreach:
It is not far-fetched that the media is paramount in serving people far with our goal of populating the internet with the Mabia languages. We rely heavily on media such as TV and radio for advocacy. Wikipedia Saha remains one of our flagship programs that reaches a lot of audiences that are unable to participate in our in-person training sessions. Our partner T.V station, Sagani TV, has been very instrumental when it comes to advocacy, and they have supported the user group. Through media outreach, volunteers are able to learn about and even contribute to Wikipedia without attending in-workshops to learn.
Micro Grant:
To support individual growth and development and tap into the innovative and creative ideas of our community members, micro grants serve a great deal in that. Community members were able to implement their unique programs, which were not captured in the general support fund. An application form was created, and a link was shared for communities to apply. An independent committee was constituted; it had two members from each language community. Four of our language communities applied. The committee reviewed and granted them the grant to implement their unique programs. There was a sub-grant under the Micro Grant dubbed “Individual grant”, this served individuals with special programs outside of their unique language programs. Same procedure for accessing as microgrant. Random community members from the language communities applied; the applications were reviewed, and those who met their requirements got funded.
Collaboration and Partnerships:
As a language community, we understand the impact of collaboration and partnership in implementing programs. In the past years we have had very supportive partners, including Sagani TV, Leadership Development Through Partnership (LDP), Art and Feminism, Language Diversity Hub, Mozilla Common Voice, Ghana NLP and so on. These partnerships have been instrumental in helping us get more volunteer editors to champion our course.
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)
The Article of the Week (AoW) - This was one of our top community engagement activities that contributed a voluminous amount of content and improved content on the various language Wikipedias. It yielded the following catchy results:
No of programs : 20
No of Editors : 305
No of Articles Edited : 1.03k
No of Articles created : 121
No of uploads(Commons) : 311
We plan to build on the successes of this strategy by replicating it in modified form.
Weekly Community Engagement : This strategy was implemented under the community engagement activities, where community members were given online training by experienced Wikimedia facilitators. It empowered volunteers with wiki skills that translated into edits on their respective language wikis. The strategy lasted for 19 weeks and had a lot of volunteer participants across all the language communities and recorded 430 participations. Weekly Community Engagement is very effective in empowering volunteers with knowledge; hence, we intend to implement it again in future programs.
Team Retreat and Capacity building : This program worked for us, as it allows team members to be empowered, and they get the opportunity to meet in person and share experiences. We would have implemented it as we always do annually.
Micro Grant : This also worked well, and it’s worth continuing with. As indicated earlier, it allows for language communities to access resources to implement unique programs, and the same for individuals with great ideas.
Travel Support : This an initiative that supports volunteers from our community to participate in Wikimedia in-person conferences. It allows the user group to cover the full trip cost of selected volunteers. It gives volunteers the opportunity to participate in Wikimedia large gatherings to learn and share experiences with other participants. Through this, the current Finance Manager of the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group was sponsored and was able to take part in the WikiIndaba 2024.
End-of-year strategic meeting and awards ceremony: It is an annual event that is hosted to celebrate our achievements, recognize volunteers, and deliberate on the way forward. The program gathers participants from the 5 language communities, and we socialize, connect and share experiences.
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).
Joy FM publication on Team and Capacity program - [1]
2024 Annual programs Campaign outreach dashboard : [2]
BIMBICO Wiki Hub Launch : [3]
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)
Yes, we are interested in sharing our achievements and lessons through peer learning platforms like Let's connect and Diff. We believe our experience language promotion and community engagement can benefit others and also help us learn from fellow communities.
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.
In our commitment to community-centered programming and continuous improvement, we prioritized gathering structured feedback from our volunteer participants. It was deemed necessary and imperative as it did not only helped us measure outcomes but also provided rich insights, challenges, and aspirations of community members. Linked here is a report on "Community Feedback and Impact Assessment": [4]
The above is one from the many feedback forms that volunteers responded to. For security precautions we have taken away the personal data of the responders. Below is the link to the raw responses: [5]
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, young people, speakers of minority languages
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, speakers of minority languages
- 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)
We employed different effective approaches in dealing with the selected groups above. Below include some of them:
1. During workshops, when dealing with speakers of the minority language in our case Dagbani language. We observed that switching the interface of the Dagbani Wikipedia and used them in the local language yielded great results.
2. Partners are very useful stakeholders in any established institution, Dagbani Wikimedians User Group is no exception. Our partners are supportive to our work of documenting the Mabia languages on Wikipedia. We learned that being in regular contact with them make them feel included in achieving our goals, we always prioritize that and it benefits the User Group. For instance, Sagani TV most times offers us free TV time for advocacy and they grant us discount in airing our flagship program, Wikipedia Saha. This way, it makes our partnership stronger. Dagbani Teachers Association (DTA) always make available to us when we need them for training, this saves us the stress in looking for them. This contributes heavily recruitment of editors.
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, Volunteers from our communities, Partners proactive interest
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]| Metrics name | Target | Result | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 100 | 643 | Outreach dashboard. The community members are very passionate about having their populated on the internet space, and that keeps them motivated. |
| Number of all editors | 100 | 643 | The project surpasses the set target and due to the hard work.
Link to Dagbani active editors : https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/dag.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Ctable%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly Link to Kusaal active editors: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/kus.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Ctable%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly Link to Dagaare active editors: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/dga.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Ctable%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly Link to Gurene active editors: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/gur.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors/normal%7Ctable%7C1-year%7C(page_type)~content*non-content%7Cmonthly |
| Number of new editors | 60 | 168 | |
| Number of retained editors | 40 | 373 | |
| Number of all organizers | 15 | 20 | The Individual Micro Grant initiative opened doors for volunteers to access funds to implement their creative ideas. This resulted to the User Group recording more new organizers. |
| Number of new organizers | 5 | 6 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages | Target - Number of improved pages | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 1200 | 1000 | 162000 | 378000 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 500 | 100 | 891 | |
| Wikidata | 4000 | 1000 | 727 | 4149 |
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | ||||
| Wikimedia Incubator | 500 | 400 | ||
| Translatewiki | 1000 | 100 | ||
| MediaWiki | 100 | 50 | ||
| Wikiquote | ||||
| Wikivoyage | 50 | 20 | ||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia | 700 | 3000 |
11. Did you set other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): No
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 name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New volunteer recruitment | number of new volunteers recruited | 60 | ||
| Number of teachers trained | Number of teachers trained for our 'Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom' project. | 40 | ||
| Capacity building programs | Total number of capacity-building programs (quarterly capacity-building training) | 3 | ||
| Dagbani Wikipedia Saha TV program | Total number of Dagbani Wikipedia Saha episodes to be aired on Sagani TV | 16 | ||
| Number of new projects launched | Total number of new projects and programs to be launched | 3 |
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).
Yes, the grant supported meaningful skills development that directly contributed to the success of both our programmatic and organizational work. Through the support of the grant our team members received training in project management, facilitation skills, development of Open Educational Resource (OER), Wikipedia as a teaching resource, and Wikimedia tools. Under the Wikimedia tools, participants gained hands-on experience on Wikimedia Outreach Dashboard and Event Metrics, which improved our capacity to track participation, measure impact and manage data effectively.
Additionally, our leadership team engaged in peer learning session on community engagement and volunteer retention, which led to increased participation and stronger partnerships within our language community.
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)
In the coming year, the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group aims to strengthen our capacity in advanced storytelling and impact documentation within the context of indigenous language communities. While the Dagbani User Group has made significant progress in promoting open knowledge and increasing local content, we recognize the need to better capture, document, and share the impact of our work and the voices of our community members.
To achieve this, we plan to organize and participate in relevant training workshops, collaborate with experienced wikimedians, and invest in basic tools that support quality documentation. This focus will enhance our visibility and long-term impact.
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).
We extend our sincere gratitude to the Wikimedia Foundation’s General Support Fund for its invaluable support, which has significantly enhanced our capacity and deepened our impact across the Mabia communities. This grant has empowered us to promote open knowledge, strengthen our editor base, and cultivate meaningful partnerships.
Throughout the grant period, we witnessed growing interest from educators and youth, an encouraging sign of the relevance and resonance of our work. While we faced challenges such as internet connectivity issues and IP blocks, these experiences allowed us to refine our strategies and reinforce our long-term sustainability plans.
Looking ahead, we are committed to advancing our community storytelling, improving project documentation, fostering information and digital literacy, and expanding translations into Mabia languages. These efforts are integral to contributing high-quality content for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that reflect the richness of our linguistic and cultural heritage.
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 | Planned / received budget for this category (GHS) | Amount spent (GHS) |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 393792 | 279820.4 |
| Operational costs | 188500 | 214580 |
| Programmatic costs | 284800 | 303388.43 |
| Total General Support Fund | 740737.95 | 797788.83 |
| Other revenue | 264002 | 264002 |
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | 4070 |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
797788.83 GHS
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- Operational costs: 214580 GHS
- Programmatic costs: 279820.4 GHS
- Staff and contractor costs: 303388.43 GHS
17. Did you have any other revenue sources (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): Yes
- 17.1. Provide the total amount received from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 264002 GHS
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 264002 GHS
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.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
The link above includes report on an unspent fund of 25,738.43 ghs from the 2023–2024 fiscal year's grant.
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?: Yes
- 19.1. Please list the amount of unspent funds in your local currency. (required)
- 4070
- 19.2. Explain why you did not use the amount. (required)
- We did not use the unspent funds because some planned activities were adjusted or merged, leading to reduced expenses. We are committed to transparent financial management and will ensure that any unspent funds is accurately reported and handled according to Wikimedia Foundation's grant policies.
- 19.3. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
- B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future request with PO approval
- 19.4. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
- We prose use the unspent funds support low-cost but high impact community training.
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
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