Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/WMEE Grant Application for 2026/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 started 2026 by adjusting our team — shifting our Communication and Office Manager roles to 0.7 and 0.3 FTE respectfully — which allowed us to put more energy into communication and wiki trainings. This move paid off when, for example, we had to handle a major international media storm regarding Russian-biased edits on Estonia's history and personalia in English Wikipedia. We managed the situation by giving numerous interviews to TV, radio, and press both in Estonia and across ten other countries. We also kept Wikipedia in the spotlight through a regular column in the Estonian science magazine Horisont, traveling science photo exhibitions, and highly cross-wiki edit-a-thons with Malaysia and Spain, where hundreds of new articles were written.
We expanded our internship program to 8 interns, focusing on translation and language editing, and promoted opportunities to thousands of high school and university students at events like University of Tartu Career Day and the Estonian Students' Science Festival. We also held a wiki training for over 70 officials at the Estonian Government Office. Our March general meeting was productive: we adopted a localized version of the Friendly Space Policy, approved the Universal Code of Conduct translation, and introduced a Goodwill Chancellor into our system. Moreover, we welcomed a new board member.
This May, however, brought a major shift in our expectations due to the loss of funding. Because the WMF did not fund our grant request for the latter half of 2026, we faced the painful reality of laying off our entire staff, scaling back our program work, and giving up our office in Tartu's Aparaaditehas. While some key campaigns like Wiki Loves Earth and the Science into Wikipedia event are moving forward, thanks to reserves and our partners, this year has been a tough lesson in how vulnerable we are to sudden funding changes, showing us just how crucial it is to find more diverse income sources in the future.
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)
Due to the complete lack of core funding for the second half of 2026, our ability to build on most of our recent successes is severely limited. Having to lay off our staff, scale back program work, and give up our physical office space means we cannot sustain or expand our regular educational workshops and internship program as originally planned. Furthermore, our ambitious goal to build on the "125 Years of Estonian Encyclopedias" exhibition by publishing a special book for the 25th anniversary of Estonian Wikipedia in 2027 has been rendered unrealistic due to these sudden financial constraints.
However, we are adapting and trying to keep the momentum alive where our financial reserves allow. The biggest success we can directly build on is our highly successful Science into Wikipedia event in November-December, as we have secured external funding for it. Additionally, our traveling "125 Years of Estonian Encyclopedias" exhibition requires fewer operational costs now that it is assembled. The International Science Photo 2025 exhibition is currently at AHHAA Science Center and will stay there until October 2026. The encyclopedia exhibition will travel to Võru and Tallinn later this year.
This funding crisis has strongly shifted our priorities and given us a clear goal for the future. While we will try to maintain low-cost visibility through our ongoing partnership with Horisont magazine and rely heavily on our newly expanded board and volunteer structures (like the Goodwill Chancellor), our main priority has changed. Moving forward, we cannot rely on a single unreliable funding stream. Our goal now is to redesign our operational model, focusing entirely on financial diversification and finding new ways to support our chapter without depending on WMF grants.
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).
Meta Activity: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Eesti_activity_reports#2026_(H1;_H2)
WMEE website: [1]
Detailed Metrics Table with 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.
Rather than relying on structured surveys, written data or questionnaires from our NGO members and event attendees, we evaluate our initiatives through a more hands-on approach. We monitor attendance figures and measure success based on real-time observation and casual, verbal feedback gathered during and after our events. This allows us to determine whether our goals were achieved and spot areas for future improvement. By looking at which activities spark the most enthusiasm and engagement, we can decide what to replicate in future. While formal data collection is not our standard practice, we do capture impact-specific qualitative data on an irregular basis and feedback from our interns.
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, people with disabilities, 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, other, 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)
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
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]| Metrics name | Target | Result | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 500 | 5939 | Out of these 5,687 new participants, approximately 3,600 are from the WSC traveling exhibition, and 2,000 are from the Estonian Students´ Science Festival. If we do not count exhibition visitors, then 339 participants. That is short of the target of 500, but that target was for the whole year, and the funding (and thus reporting) covers only half the year. |
| Number of all editors | 1500 | 70 | 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. We were also relying more heavily on media outreach, increasing the number of interns, and conducting more trainings. Bigger events are planned for the 2nd half of the year, but we are not counting them in this report, even though the target was set for the whole year. |
| Number of new editors | 800 | 40 | |
| Number of retained editors | 600 | 30 | |
| Number of all organizers | 27 | 32 | We are counting organizers based on the number of events not individuals, so some off those are repetitive. |
| Number of new organizers | 16 | 6 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages | Target - Number of improved pages | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 4000 | 3300 | 479 | 246 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 1460 | 900 | 507 | 0 |
| Wikidata | ||||
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | ||||
| Wikimedia Incubator | ||||
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | 170 | 215 | ||
| Wikivoyage | ||||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
Tool used and comments (optional):
We count only Wikipedia pages created or edited as a result of WMEE's direct action. The actual number remains unknown, as we cannot evaluate how many were retained indirectly as a result of our actions. 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). Regarding Commons, we are counting only photos submitted to WLE and added as part of wikiexpeditions.
We expect about 1000 more images and ca 100 articles to be added in the 2nd half of the year, that would happen outside the grant funding. We have not managed to move forward with the data-adding projects that would have added altitude data for all villages in Estonia and Estonian climate data, involving thousands of articles, and thus falling short of the yearly target.
It is important to note that we mainly focus on popularizing Wikipedia and its sister projects, not on holding competitions, which are just one part of our activities. For example, in the 1st half of the year, we had more than 600 views on our YouTube tutorial videos, welcomed 9 new interns, posted more than 70 times on our FB and IG pages, and had 5 volunteers, most of whom were new.
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 supported critical skill development in two key areas that directly shaped our outcomes this year: (1) high-level public speaking and institutional training delivery, and (2) international media crisis management. As our team adjusted roles to focus on media and outreach, board and staff enhanced their communication and public relations skills. This was put to the test when we successfully navigated an international media storm regarding Russian-biased edits on English Wikipedia about Estonia, handling press, radio, and TV interviews across more than ten countries. In parallel, our expanded education program allowed us to sharpen our facilitation skills for different audiences, successfully running wiki training sessions and engaging thousands of students at various major national festivals.
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 would focus more on acquiring external resources and expanding volunteer work. This would be achieved because there is no option to fail.
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 | 80280 | 57057.86 |
| Operational costs | 19705 | 7963.15 |
| Programmatic costs | 19500 | 14200 |
| Total General Support Fund | 58115 | 79221.01 |
| Other revenue | ||
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | N/A |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
79221.01 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: 7963.15 EUR
- Programmatic costs: 14200 EUR
- Staff and contractor costs: 57057.86 EUR
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): EUR
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 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.
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QEMQ6EZCws9QXhxLYpybwBs6jGg2q9r3vPhgvcx-jC4/edit?usp=sharing
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
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