Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/WMEE Grant Application for 2025/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.
We contributed to the challenges identified in the proposal around Wikipedia’s visibility and trust. We strengthened regular communications (newsletter 1–2x/month, more focus on Instagram) and increased media presence, for example, via cooperation with the science magazine Horisont. One of the 2025’s top moments — the “125 Years of Estonian Encyclopedias” exhibition —combined outreach, GLAM, and education. It positioned Wikipedia strongly within Estonia’s encyclopedia tradition (150 printed mock-up volumes, old volumes of Estonian encyclopedias, etc.). The whole process and its result brought WMEE a lot of coverage in local and nationwide media alike.
In areas of education and community, we achieved more results that were also solid. We increased the number of Wikipedia trainings and workshops, introducing Wikipedia to more than 500 students all around Estonia (focus was put on article writing, source evaluation, and copyright). We also expanded our workshop formats (Finno-Ugric-themed meetings, hackerspace on Wikisource/Wikipedia) and kept learning materials relevant by updating even more instructional videos onto our YouTube page. Internships supported the contributor pipeline (altogether 6 interns in 2025).
The community was supported through recurring gatherings (Big summer meeting, Wikipedia birthdays, Christmas meetings, etc.) and competitions continued, for example, via the Language Editing competition ´Keeletoimetamistalgud´ (218 articles improved by 20 editors). In addition, we had success in cross-wiki cooperation with Wikimedia chapters from Malaysia and Spain, as we held several article writing competitions. Moreover, we are strengthening our connection within the Finno-Ugric wikispace as we met with Finnish Wikipedians last summer and are going to take part in preparing a big Finno-Ugric meeting next year.
Where outcomes did not match expectations: We were not able to renew our strategic partnership with the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research due to considerable government expenses cutting policy, and shifting priorities. Efforts to engage with foreign students in Estonia also had limited results (mainly in the shape of foreign students´ photo expeditions, 2 such were carried out), prompting us to start preparing cooperation with the European Solidarity Corps in 2026. Work on SLAPP advanced awareness and preparedness, but policy impact remains long-term.
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)
We plan to build directly on the year’s strongest visibility success: the "125 Years of Estonian Encyclopedias" exhibition. In 2026, it will be turned into a traveling exhibition, and we will also reuse the content virtually and on social media by linking it to Estonia's encyclopedia tradition. In addition, the best works from 2025 Science Photo Competition shall start travelling around the country as did the 2023's exhibition between 2024-2025.
Media outreach will be extended through ongoing communications (newsletter, Instagram) and cooperation formats like the Horisont article series. We will continue monitoring and scaling what worked in education and community building as well as taking notes of the necessary metrics. We also plan to continue with Wikipedia trainings and workshops in schools, collaboration with various Estonian universities and partner organisations. Internships will remain a contributor pipeline (some agreements already in place for Spring 2026), alongside recurring traditional community events. Education work will continue to rely more on already existing partnerships and networks; however, we constantly keep seeking new opportunities as well
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).
Detailed Meta activity report: [1]
Our website: www.wikimedia.ee
Detailed metrics with specific comments: [2]
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)
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 do not systematically gather written data, surveys, or formal feedback from our NGO members or from people who take part in our activities. Instead, we track attendance closely and evaluate each event mainly through direct observation, its participation in numbers, and informally via spoken feedback from participants during and after the activity. This helps us understand whether an event met its goals, how well it was received, and what could be improved next time. Using these impressions, we identify which events create a positive experience and the strongest engagement. We prioritize organizing similar activities again in the future. For instance, because the wiki-ball rolling competition in May 2024 was described very positively, we repeated it in 2025.
We do gather impact-specific data irregularly, for example, in 2024, within our NGO members, qualitative information about our wikipedians (Vikipeedia:Meie Vikipedistid), and feedback from interns in the form of blog articles (the last one being from January this year).
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, speakers of minority languages, other, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, indigenous groups, speakers of minority languages, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA), other
- 6.3 Support the retention of: Editors, Organizers, Partnerships, other
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 would share our tactics and approaches via Wikimedia conference presentations and posters.
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, Institutional support from the Wikimedia Foundation
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]| Metrics name | Target | Result | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 400 | 13092 | Out of these, 12,728 new participants, and respectfully out of these, approximately 9,700 are from the 2023 WSC travelling exhibition, and 2,000 from the "Estonian Encyclopedia 125" exhibition viewers. If we would not count exhibition visitors, then 1,392 participants. |
| Number of all editors | 1400 | 142 | We stress that these numbers only include the number of editors brought in and retained by competitions and workshops organized by us directly. The actual number remains unknown, as we cannot evaluate how many were retained by our actions indirectly.
We are not counting indirectly brought in (new) editors. However, if we added editors retained and newly joined as a result of WSC from around the world, the targets would most likely be exceeded greatly, as WSC had over 1,700 participants (we do not know how many of them were new). |
| Number of new editors | 750 | 107 | |
| Number of retained editors | 500 | 35 | |
| Number of all organizers | 24 | 87 | Note that we are counting organizers based on the number of events not individuals, so some off those are repetitive. |
| Number of new organizers | 15 | 23 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages | Target - Number of improved pages | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 3500 | 3000 | 188 | 572 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 1300 | 850 | 2685 | 0 |
| Wikidata | ||||
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | ||||
| Wikimedia Incubator | ||||
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | 125 | 200 | 2 | 6 |
| Wikivoyage | ||||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
Tool used and comments (optional):
We are only counting Wikipedia and Wikiquote pages that were created or edited as a result of WMEE's direct action. The actual number remains unknown, as we cannot evaluate how many were retained by our actions indirectly. We also do not count instances where we did not collect data (we have reduced data collection on articles created by university students, which means most courses would not be counted).
We were working on Wikiquotes as well, but our campaign there did not turn out to be popular, so the results were modest. We also aimed to collect altitude data for 4,462 villages in Estonia to improve more than 4.4k articles, but this proved more challenging than anticipated and has not yielded results in 2025.
Regarding Commons, we are counting only photos from Estonian wiki photographers, although if we took the WSC (which we arranged once again last year) photos from around the world into account as well (there are ca 12,430 of them), the numbers would be remarkably higher.
It is vital to say that we mainly focus on popularizing Wikipedia and its sister projects and not on holding competitions, which are just one part of our activities. For example, last year we had more than 1,400 views on our YouTube tutorial videos, 6 new interns, did more than 160 posts on our FB and IG pages, plus had 28 volunteers, out of whom most were new volunteers.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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 helped us build two vital areas that directly improved and affected our results: (1) wiki training and its delivery at schools, and (2) legal-risk awareness around SLAPP. As we increased Wikipedia-themed lectures and workshops, staff strengthened facilitation skills for teaching article writing and source evaluation. As a result we conducted higher-quality sessions that reached more than half a thousand students (e.g., Maardu Gymnasium). In parallel, our strategic SLAPP workshop at the 2025 CEE Conference developed practical skills to recognize, mitigate and respond to intimidation lawsuits.
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)
We want to strengthen our public-sector partnership and fundraising capacity by creating tailored value propositions for every ministry and relevant agency. The goal is to find more partners and diversify funding to ensure the sustainability of the association, increase its influence, and fulfill its goals more effectively than before so we are preparing value propositions for all those in our horizon. For example, we will use our 2025 outputs (500 plus students trained, the encyclopedia exhibition, Horisont media cooperation, SLAPP work etc.) to create sector-specific offers with clear impact metrics. Consequently, targeted meetings and pilot collaborations will follow.
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).
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 (EUR) | Amount spent (EUR) |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 73858 | 75864.6 |
| Operational costs | 6470 | 15376.54 |
| Programmatic costs | 4500 | 16239.48 |
| Total General Support Fund | 107607.6 | 107480.62 |
| Other revenue | 6350 | 6350 |
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | 127 |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
107480.62 EUR
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- Operational costs: 15376.54 EUR
- Programmatic costs: 16239.48 EUR
- Staff and contractor costs: 75864.6 EUR
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): 6350 EUR
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 6350 EUR
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.
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)
- 127
- 19.2. Explain why you did not use the amount. (required)
- We did not manage to get in contact with one of the winners of WLM, and we managed to spend overall a bit less than planned.
- 19.3. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
- C. I am planning to send them back to the WMF
- 19.4. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
- N/A
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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