Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/2024 National Book Awards and Nobel Prizes WikiPortraits Coverage (ID: 22741191)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
The WikiPortraits team was able to successfully cover both the 2024 National Book Awards and the 2024 Nobel Prizes. Not only did we achieve significant photo and page coverage as intended, but given that these were our first instances of going to both events, we were able to learn a lot on the ground and document strategy for future occasions.
At the 2024 National Book Awards, we successfully photographed a finalists reading where we took high-quality photography of dozens of finalists and translators. At the actual ceremony itself, we took headshots for several writers and editors in addition to certain featured acts like Jon Batiste and Kate McKinnon. Not only did we achieve high output of photography, but team member User:Phibeatrice wrote over fifty pages pertinent to the National Book Award's winners, nominees, and honorees. That same user also got to practice photography on-site for the first time, after which they became a seasoned WikiPortraits photographer for several future literary events like the L.A. Times Festival of Books and AWP.
At the 2024 Nobel Prizes, we had several photographers attend programming in both Oslo, Norway (Peace Prize) and Stockholm, Sweden (all other categories). We were able to take high-quality photographs of every single Nobel laureate, as well as many laureates from the previous years. For some 2024 laureates, we got to photograph them several times, in numerous different venues, thus diversifying our coverage of those high-profile individuals even more. For some non-laureates, such as Jessie Sommarström, we were able to write pages and place our photos on them, and we also trained some of our team members to edit Wikipedias on other languages (specifically Japanese and Korean) to add WikiPortraits photos to laureate pages. Finally, we also created hub pages for each Nobel Prize year from 1990 to 2024.
Our success at the Nobel Prizes was dependent on using spreadsheets and schedules to effectively direct our photographers. Given that programming was split in two countries, such coordinating efforts were crucial to ensure as wide of coverage as possible. Ultimately, we were able to cast a wide net and photograph high-profile individuals in both areas.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
Our images can be seen at Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 National Book Awards and Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 Nobel Prizes
We use GLAMorgan to document our impact via monthly page views on articles with our images. Here are some highlights from both events.
- 274 files, with 34 used on 83 total pages across 28 Wikis
- A photograph of Percival Everett who not only won the National Book Award that year but the Pulitzer Prize months later
- A photograph of Anne Carson, one of the most important American poets of our time but who did not have a photograph in her infobox prior
- Improved images of bestselling authors from diverse backgrounds like en:Kaveh Akbar:Kaveh Akbar, Kiran Desai, Fady Joudah, Miranda July, Hisham Matar, and many others who had very outdated or low-quality photos
- Photographs and pages for Yang Shuangzi and Lin King, the first-ever Taiwanese winners of a National Book Award in history
- 354,720 views total even in July 2025
- High-quality photos of every Nobel Prize laureate for 2024, most of which had old or outdated photos prior
- In particular, high-quality photos of Han Kang, the first South Korean woman to ever win a Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as of Japanese anti-nuclear organization Nihon Hidankyo
- Many high-quality photos of laureates in previous years
- 472 files, with 121 used on 493 pages across 76 Wikis
- 825,743 views total even in July 2025
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
While we didn't create any materials or resources, User:Phibeatrice was trained in photography at the 2024 National Book Awards and has since become a consistent WikiPortraits photographer at other literary events like AWP and the L.A. Times Festival of Books. They have since been very dedicated to both writing pages and taking photographs of writers from underrepresented backgrounds, specifically Asian and Asian American backgrounds.
We didn't need materials and resources because all the other photographers were already highly experienced and knew how to photograph events on their own, though we did build spreadsheets from schedule data to organize them and delegate them efficiently.
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: This project — in conjunction with our film festival work at Sundance, SXSW, and Cannes film festivals in 2024 — is our first that emphasizes awards versus festivals.
It continues to build a repeatable and scalable template for experienced Wikimedia Commons photographers to get press credentials at well-established cultural awards events.
The Nobel Prizes may be the first where we have reached out to a wiki affiliate, Wikimedia Sverige, to get contacts for how to get credentialed. In most other cases, including film festivals, the credentialing process is explained on a website.
Our intent with this, as with our previous projects, is to elevate the Wikipedia presence at global-level cultural events.
Historically, volunteer Wikimedian photographers are not plugged into the media infrastructure that is built around credentials. Given the support of credentialing letters, we hope that the press office decisionmakers of these awards events will become more receptive to having Wikimedia photographers participate, as it only serves to amplify the cultural impact of their events across the many language wikis. This involves helping photographs build their portfolios to be submitted to the credentialing offices.
We thought the best way was to reach out to the affiliates at Wikimedia Sverige to get photographers recommended or find active Wikimedian photographers on Commons, but that turned out to be time-consuming and not effective for us. After WikiPortraits was covered via the BBC and 404Media in spring of 2025, we've had over 150 photographers worldwide reach out to us, the vast majority of whom were new to the Wikiverse. We find now that we should find photographers and then bring them into the Wikiverse by onboarding them onto Commons and to our active WhatsApp groups. Now, we have a very strong base of photographers based in Europe who can go to future instances of the Nobel Prizes, as well as other events in the region that we are applying for credentialing for.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
We found it difficult to photograph the National Book Awards since we were not given access to the step-and-repeat preceding the actual ceremony. However, we were still able to adapt and take photographs in the venue, as well as connect with attendees one-on-one to photograph them. In the future, we will see if we can get official credentials for access, but we were mostly happy with the outcomes achieved even in lieu of them.
We could not get credentialed for the ceremony in Sweden, but we were able to successfully get credentialed and provide coverage for for the ceremony in Norway and press conferences, lectures in Sweden. Again, we hope to be more successful across the board with credentialing, but we were still very happy with our first-time efforts and what we were able to get with our access.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
We have hundreds of photos from both events at Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 National Book Awards and Category:WikiPortraits at 2024 Nobel Prizes, many of which have improved photo quality on over a hundred Wikipedia articles across many language Wikis.
We intend to promote and demonstrate WikiPortraits at numerous Wiki events. In the past, we have already done so at WikiCredCon, as well as WikiCurious and Wiki Day events in places like Sundance or SXSW; our team was just at Wikimania 2025. We also have programming lined up for the upcoming WikiConference North America.
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 50 | 100 | |
| Number of editors | 5 | 5 | |
| Number of organizers | 7 | 7 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 25 | 50 | 150 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 100 | 500 | 500 |
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| photos | 100+ photos of people uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, which will be used in different language wikis | 100 | 600 | Over 200 from National Book Awards, over 400 from Nobel Prizes. |
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
5000
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
5000
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hFAyfL25U7X8JXeX8lBLznpbD27gSTXMreRI93RFmOk/edit?usp=sharing
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. 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
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A