Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Knowledge Equity:Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects/Final Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2023-07-30T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Final
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 midpoint 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.
General information[edit]
This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving Wikimedia Community Funds or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their final results. See the midpoint report if you want to review the midpoint results.
- Name of Organization: Wikimedia Norge
- Title of Proposal: Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects
- Amount awarded: 239925 USD, 2089973 NOK
- Amount spent: 2575138 NOK
Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]
1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.
The first half of this funding period we worked closely with the WMNO board on our new five-year strategy, which was unanimously passed at the Annual General Assembly in February. The AGA also passed a fairly detailed Annual Plan for 2023-2024, which ensures that our members are included in the overall priorities for our day-to-day operations.
Up until April, our activities were more or less according to plan, but we stepped up our professional communications efforts and our wiki outreach activities. We also made a start at improving some of our administrative functions, including data collection and analysis. The WMNO Executive Director (ED) was on leave until April, but just a few weeks before she was due back, she resigned. At the same time, one more staff handed in her notice. So, we then had two staff working through their three-month paid notice period, and April-June general staff output dropped to a minimum. The interim ED was released from her contract for a month, then was hired as the new ED.
Staff changes slowed us down, but also meant an opportunity to adjust our staff competence to current needs by hiring, and not just training. Up until this spring, WMNO had 2,8 staff; the ED and two project managers. For the future there will be three full staff positions: The ED, a Community Outreach Specialist and a Communications Coordinator. In May-June we advertised a vacant position, and making it a full position rather than 0,8, gave us a large pool of highly qualified candidates. We received 89 applications, and our new team member will start in September.
This spring, adding to the workload, we were presented with a potential legal dispute that requires close attention. This work will continue into autumn-winter.
Our activities are described in detail in a separate report: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/no/b/b4/WMNO_Activities_2022_2023.pdf.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?
Communications efforts and community outreach is starting to yield results. Our approach has simply been to up the professional level and devote more staff time. Long-term, a more visible public profile will help us achieve our activities’ goals as well as open up opportunities for strategic partnerships and external funding.
3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?
Quite the contrary, our work this year has been a return to basics rather than innovative efforts. We are building a firm foundation for future development, by strengthening our core functions.
4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.
We work with (at least) three local wiki communities. In Norway and Sápmi, most Wikimedians contribute to Wikipedia, and there are separate communities for the three language versions we follow-up on: Norwegian Bokmål, Nynorsk and Northern Sámi. There isn’t that much interaction between the three, but apart from the Northern Sámi one, they are vibrant and productive. The communities took part in our outreach activities, and they were informed in our different channels: Our website wikimedia.no, no.wikimedia.org (the wiki where we share reports, minutes from meetings and similar), our newsletter and our Social Media. Also, the growing media attention we’re getting, will help us recruit community members.
Our efforts in the Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub, meant interaction with 14 different language communities throughout the world. This work was communicated at Wikimania 2022, on Meta and in various Wikimedia forums. Potentially, the hub could pool the movement resources available to support under-represented languages. To be able to pick up the pace and start to break down some of the barriers we know exist, we have recommended that the hub sets up a more robust operational and governance structure. Also, today, support for small languages largely depends on individuals stepping up, and communication often happens in Telegram groups or individual inboxes. E.g. a formal helpdesk, or a peer-to-peer open forum with a wide reach, would help inform and assist communities.
5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Neither agree nor disagree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement. | Agree |
7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
Our project to translate MediaWiki and the Wikipedia apps into Northern Sámi will hopefully put us in a better position to recruit and train volunteers. Sámi content production and contributors’ numbers are at an extreme low: no.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statistikkbank/en#Wikipedia_-_volunteer_efforts_and_results
In the past, recruitment activities have been few and far apart, but we are stepping up our outreach efforts.
Part 2: Your main learning[edit]
8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?
We learnt the most in the first half of this funding period. We wanted to use our work with Sámi content as a model for our international efforts to support small language communities. The Northern Sámi Wikipedia was started as early as 2004, but the editing activity level and the number of contributors are now so low we need to take firm steps. Perhaps we will have to shift our focus in the Language Diversity Hub: How can we learn from small language communities that do better than us in their efforts to recruit, train and retain contributors?
With the Language Diversity Hub we also learned that it was unfortunate to take on the responsibility as fiscal sponsor for a project at a time when we had no Executive Director. Lack of financial management and unclear definitions of volunteers versus contractors caused time-consuming challenges for our accounting and tax responsibilities. On the positive side, the hub work yet again confirmed the value of joint capacity building for small language communities within the Wikimedia projects.
When it comes to our communications work we have learned that we can easily reach a much wider audience than before. That can help us market our community outreach activities better, and to recruit members. Also, some of our community support schemes, such as micro Wiki grants and the Wiki Library, have failed to benefit more than a handful of Wikimedians. By evaluating and modifying these schemes we can distribute our resources more wisely.
9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?
Our communications efforts have started to yield results sooner than expected: https://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statistikkbank/en#Communications On the negative side, our content partnership metrics have dropped, because there haven’t been any large-scale upload projects. We will try to find new ways to identify and secure content that ought to be included in the Wikimedia projects.
10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?
At this point, it’s important that we now give our strategies and activities the resources they require, and the time it takes, to generate results. We will be monitoring our successes and failures closely, so that we can make informed decisions moving forward.
11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?
Despite a long transitional period for our chapter, from February 2022 and stretching into autumn 2023, we have a number of wonderful opportunities ahead. And most importantly, we are striving to move forward more closely aligned with.the needs and visions of our local communities.
12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
Part 3: Metrics[edit]
13a. Open and additional metrics data
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | We intend to consistently send out standardized surveys to event and course participants on what their experience was like, asking about their motivations to join the event, and how much they got out of it – and how they plan to use what they've learned. Our target is to send out surveys to all participants of such events. | N/A | N/A | A routine for sending out surveys has not yet been introduced. Feedback was collected after a couple of our activities, but in a descriptive, qualitative form that makes it difficult to generate metrics. | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | With this metric we want to find out how many language versions of Wikimedia projects we work with through our international and national work. We will only focus on language diversity for this metric, as other diversity markers (such as gender or orientation) are more sensitive to measure. This metric will be very interesting to follow up for the future, to monitor the global reach of the Language Diversity Hub. Our target is to involve speakers of at least 20 different languages in this work. | 20 | 17 | This number is difficult to quantify, as several factors are open to interpretation. The Language Diversity Hub worked with 14 different language versions of Wikipedia. Nationally, we worked with Wikimedia projects in Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) and Northern Sámi. One of our staff was involved in or contributed to a large number of language versions, particularly in the Wikimedia Incubator, but those have not been included in this metric. | Counting the main languages of participants in regular Language Diversity Hub meetings and other national and international partnerships. |
| Number of new WMNO members | It was decided during the general assembly 2022 that we should focus more on getting new members to the organization, in order to have a more solid membership base to draw input and talent from. The board will put together a commitee that will focus on this, with staff support. | 70 | 55 | Our Annual General Assembly has passed a target of 40 % membership growth per year. Autumn 2022 and spring 2023 our membership registry was vetted and non-paying members were taken out of our records. By the end of June 2023 we have 55 paid-up members, and by the end of the year we aim to have 70. | Our membership registry. |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Like we said above, we are planning to sustain the existing major partnerships we have nationally, but also to expand internationally with the Language Diversity Hub work. The target of 10 reflects the number of partners we expect to work closely with for various projects, but it may turn out that this number is too low. | 10 | 3 | We are working to make a a shift from lower level cooperations on for example content uploads or training activities to long-term strategic partnerships at managerial level, particularly within GLAM and the educational sector. This funding period we have completed an image upload project with one GLAM partner, three non-profits were represented in our Wiki Loves Monuments jury, and we organised activities with three other non-profits and two universities. We were awarded small grants from one charity and two public institutions. Yet it would be stretching it to name any of these strategic partners. In our language diversity work we have, however, had two strong strategic partnerships: Wikitongues (https://wikitongues.org) and Giellatekno - the Research Group for Saami Language Technology at The Arctic University of Norway (https://giellatekno.uit.no/index.eng.html). Also, since spring 2023 we have been working closely with Arts and Culture Norway (https://www.kulturdirektoratet.no/english) on the Wiki Loves Living Heritage campaign, and this partnership is starting to take on a more permanent, strategic nature. | Manual counting. |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | (Used as a main metric) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | (Used as a main metric) | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | This number includes readers of blog posts, views on Facebook posts, YouTube video views, Instagram likes and Twitter interactions. | 12000 | 69869 | This number is, unfortunately, a messy mix of parameters that aren't comparable. The total sum doesn't say much, but if we break it down it makes slightly more sense: Website visitors ("readers of blog posts") 8971, Facebook reach ("views") 57435, YouTube plays (not views) 1119, Instagram likes and reactions 2169, Twitter interactions 175. For a better understanding of our communications efforts, please refer to our Annual Report 2022 and our quarterly communications reports (https://no.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kommunikasjonsarbeid_per_kvartal). The reports will be revamped autumn 2023. | Website and social media statistical tools. |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
13b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 1000 | 351 | The number of participants includes only those that took part in activities hosted or organised by Wikimedia Norge (staff and volunteers), and not by independent volunteers from the Norwegian Wiki community in general. The activities were: The Annual General Assembly, 5 Wiki Lunch Breaks, WikiNobel, 4 Wiki Meetups, 7 workshops or training sessions, 6 lectures or panel discussions, 4 Wikipedia Kickstart sessions, Wiki Loves Monuments: National photo and editing competition on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia, 2 Women in Red editing competitions on Wikipedia, 1 student project at OsloMet and the Wiki Loves Living Heritage campaign. | Manual counting, various edit counters, dashboards and the UKBot tool. | |
| Number of editors | 250 | 273 | 203 were returning editors. The other 70 were new to wiki projects, but we don't have dependable stats about how many actually created accounts and what the retention rate was. Unfortunately, detailed stats beyond counting heads were only registered for some of our activities. | Manual counting, various edit counters, dashboards and the UKBot tool. | |
| Number of organizers | 20 | 23 | We have counted the number of individuals involved. Some of them organised or contributed to more than one activity. | Manual counting. |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | N/A | 7000 | 1508 | July 2022-June 2023, WMNO activities generated 1508 article edits or new articles on the two Norwegian, the Northern Sámi or the Inari Sámi Wikipedias. The content was a result of three editing competitions, an Art&Feminism workshop and the Wiki Loves Living Heritage campaign. | Dashboards and the UKBot tool. |
| Wikimedia Commons | N/A | 5000 | 556 | Images were uploaded as part of Wiki Loves Monuments and our project to add images from The National Archives' collection "The Reindeer Pastures Commission of 1913". | Manual counting. |
| Wikidata | N/A | 7000 | 0 | Autumn 2022 Wikimedia Norge organised two workshops to celebrate the Wikidata 10th anniversary, but Wikidata content generation after the events was not measured. | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?
Yes
15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.
We have started to professionalise several aspects of our operations, particularly outreach and communications efforts, but we still have a long way to go. Our Annual Report 2022, the Strategic Plan 2023-2028 and the Annual Plan 2023-2024 illustrate a new approach to analysing our operations and setting firm targets. We simply need time and firmer leadership to build systems that will help us collect and analyse data, and to increase staff competence through training and hiring.
16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships[edit]
17. Organizational Capacity
| A. Financial capacity and management | This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it |
| B. Conflict management or transformation | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values) | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| D. Partnership building | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| E. Strategic planning | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| F. Program design, implementation, and management | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) | This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it |
| I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| J. Governance | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| K. Communications, marketing, and social media | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability | This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it |
| M. On-wiki technical skills | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| N. Accessing and using data | This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it |
| O. Evaluating and learning from our work | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| N/A | |
| N/A |
17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Other
17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Lack of awareness of capacity building needs, Lack of staff time to participate in capacity building/training, Lack of a need or interest in building these capacities
18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?
Staff changes, although time-consuming and costly, put us in a good position to adapt our joint staff competence to our strategic direction by recruiting and hiring rather than just by training. Starting September 2023, new staff members will be in place to cover our core functions better than before.
19. Partnerships over the funding period.
| A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame) | Agree |
| B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups | Disagree |
19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Permanent staff outreach, Board members’ outreach
19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Lack of staff to conduct outreach to new strategic partners, Lack of staff capacity to respond to partners interested in working with us, Lack of knowledge or capacities to reach out to strategic partners
20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?
We are working towards partnerships that aren't simply lower-level cooperations on isolated tasks or projects, but where equal partners donate time and resources to shared strategic planning and long-term cooperation. We have to a larger degree than before sought such partnerships with other non-profits, and not just GLAM and the educational sector. So far, we have a handful of budding new partnerships that we hope to nourish autumn 2023 and onwards.
Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration[edit]
21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?
Our staff and board have a strong sense of belonging to the Wikimedia movement, but not all members feel the same way. Members, and the local wiki community in general, tend to focus on the particular project and language version that they contribute to. But we all share a passion for free knowledge, and there is a wonderful potential to increase the awareness of how we can all benefit from working more closely with the Wikimedia movement as a whole.
22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Stayed the same
23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
Wikimedia Norge is actively sharing opportunities for learning and cooperation within the Wikimedia movement, e.g. by offering members travel grants to attend conferences and meetings. We are also trying to involve volunteers in movement strategy discussions and WMNO's international language diversity work, but we probably need to work on this consistently over time in order to spark more interest.
24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Stayed the same
25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
N/A
26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.
WMNO is highly commited to include and support minority groups on the Wikimedia projects, in Norway, particularly speakers of Sámi languages and Norwegian Nynorsk. Language activism dates back to the 1800s in Norway. Also, we are stepping up our efforts to counter the gender gap on the Wikimedia projects, and we will be offering courses and workshops to feminist and equal opportunities groups.
Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration[edit]
We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.
27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
Yes
27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?
We are actively sharing our results and priorities with WMNO members and the wiki community in general at our annual general assembly, wiki meetups and members' meetings. We are also collaborating with individuals and groups that offer feedback and advice throughout the year. And, of course, our activities and results are communicated through our communications efforts, which we are stepping up.
28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?
We do this regularly (at least once a month)
29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?
We take part in ED group calls, we contribute to the Language Diversity Hub, we are part of Wikimedia Europe and we take part in a number of collaborative groups and formal/informal networks. It can, however, be quite draining on our staff resources to take part in so many learning opportunities. Also, the multitude of different communication channels and forums makes it incredibly time-consuming to stay updated on what's going on in the movement. In a small staff all this can easily draw resources away from core functions and responsibilities, which was an issue for us up until summer 2023. Hopefully, our staff changes and more clearly defined roles and responsibilites, will help us administer our time-resources better.
Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]
30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
2575138
31. Local currency type
NOK
32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
Our accounts for the 2022-2023 funding period show a final profit of NOK 261 277 / USD 26 321, which is higher than budgeted. This year we cut our rent and cleaning expenses by almost NOK 100 000 by moving office. Also, our payroll expenses tied to project hires and the costs of meetings and courses were a lot lower than expected because some of our projects did not progress at the planned pace, particularly during the second quarter of 2023. These expected costs will incur autumn 2023.
34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.
36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
37. 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
38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.