Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Thailand 2023/Final Report

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Final Learning Report

Report Status: Under review

Due date: 2024-01-31T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Final

Application Midpoint Learning Report

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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.

  • Name of Organization: Wikimedia Thailand
  • Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Thailand 2023
  • Amount awarded: 36735.54 USD, 1459000 THB
  • Amount spent: 1154431.37 THB

Part 1 Understanding your work[edit]

1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.

Our proposed activities were divided into four areas including content campaigns, media campaigns, technical campaigns and face-to-face out reach. This is in accordance with our annual calendar (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar_2023). Some of the activities or successes which were not proposed in the grant application were also explained below

Our planned objective for content campaigns was only to narrow down the gender gap using the WikiDiversity campaign. However, we ended up launching three campaigns including WikiDiversity, WAM, Wikivoyage contest WikiFoodtival were launched as well, to diversify content not just related gender but also about tourism and cultural heritage. These three campaigns led to the creation or revision of more than 500 pages.

Thee media campaigns were launched last year, including Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Science Competition. Most remarkably, the WLM contest received 4,553 submissions which is our highest record.

Several face-to-face meetings were hosted in 2023, including 3 Wikicamps, 2 Wikipedia writing workshops, and 2 photowalks. Wikicamps and photowalks were new events which had never been launched before.

Governance wise, we were able to recruit two more members from the Thai Wikipedia community to join our board, thus finally narrowing gap between the affiliate and the editing community

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?

For content campaigns, advertising photo contests on photographers' groups/pages might be on point. This might explain why last year's WLM hit a new record high for number of submissions.

We also provided 10 scholarships to attend Wikimania Singapore. Three were members and/or administrators from the Thai Wikipedia community. This let to new community members joining the affiliate, narrowing the gap between the affiliate and the editing community.

In 2022, we acknowledged that our use of social media was not satisfactory. So in 2023, we were more actively engaged on our Facebook page. The results are described in question 3.

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?

There are three things we want to share:

  • Effective management of social media
  • Improved documentation
  • More inclusive governance

Overall, our use of social media has improved considerably thanks to user:Azoma, user:OraMAAG, and user:Tvcccp.We posted 84 times (500% increase) in 2023 using words and media that attract users' attention. According to Meta Business Suites, this led to 351.9% increase in reach, 260.5% increase in visits, and 480% increase in messaging conversations and 451.3% increase in content interaction.

User:Athikhun previously acknowledged the lack of documentation in our affiliate. In 2023, we required that there must an activity report for every activity launched. User:Taweetham

In terms of governance, the gap between the affiliate and the editing community is more narrow than before. Two members from the Thai Wikipedia community joined our board. This led to more engagement within the affiliate and more constant communication between the editing community and WMTH. This led to a more inclusive governance and a draft of our strategic direction for 2024 and beyond. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dr50q27ePPmPBuf73hrRL6ZYRgY7iOfpmGUigaOr82Y/edit?usp=sharing

4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.

We used different channels of communications including Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, site notice, Discord and Facebook page. As we explained earlier in question 2, our use of social media has improved substantially, resulting in a positive impact on reach and page visits.

Group calls on Discord are more regular than ever.

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.
WMTH strategic direction (not yet posted on Meta)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dr50q27ePPmPBuf73hrRL6ZYRgY7iOfpmGUigaOr82Y/edit?usp=sharing

Analysis of Wiki Loves Monuments (credits to user:Taweethem) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2023_in_Thailand#%E0%B8%81ารศึกษาผลของการเชิญให้เข้าร่วมการประกวด

2023 calendar https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar_2023

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.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
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 Agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors Agree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers Neither agree nor disagree
G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement. Strongly 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?

N/A

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?

- Will Wiki Loves campaigns reach a saturated point some day? Any replacement in the future? In 2023, we targeted photographers' groups on social media to advertise our events. This strategy is similar to what is done by photo contest organizers in Thailand. This strategy led to a ~200% increase in submissions and ~250% increase in the number of uploads.

  • Will Wikimania 2023 increase the visibility of Wikimedia movement in Thailand and the ESEAP region?

Definitely. Part of the reason is due to Wikimania scholarships we provided. This led to initiation of various projects by the attendees, who mostly were representatives from our partners or from mission-aligned organizations. The amount of budget on Wikimania scholarship may be high, but it effectively served as catalyst for future initiatives.

  • How do we increase sustainability and robustness of Wikimedia Thailand as a Chapter?

We learned a few important strategies. First, make the organization more agile. This reduces bottleneck and decision making does not rely on a single person. Second, each organizer must have the interest or specific skills needed for their assigned tasks. Third, we brought in two community members who are willing to help our affiliate. Although there skills may be limited at the moment, their eagerness and motivation are there. Our next plan is to up-skill them. This approach also solves one of our longstanding problem, which is the gap between the editing community and the affiliate.

9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?

Athikhun personally commented on the lack of manpower in 2022. We learned that providing scholarships to attend Wikimania had an unprecedented impact on man power. Scholarship inspired recipients to contribute more in the long term. Two scholarship recipients from the Thai Wikipedia now joined the affiliate and

Communication does not always have to be face-to-face. We know that in our local context (not just Thailand but also the ESEAP as a whole) that many editors/community members are not comfortable meeting people in person. This is when we found Discord group calls hosted by WMTH beneficial, thanks to user:Azoma and user:Tvcccp. People are more comfortable this way talking to one another, sharing their own thoughts while maintaining their anonymity. Also, when people finally listened to each other's voice, it led to conflict resolution in many cases.

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?

WMTH members are more diversified than ever. Not just in terms of numbers, but also in terms of skills. An immediate step to take is to do skills mapping. We will carefully identify the strengths and weaknesses of each member. Identify the skills that we lack, and reach out to the editing community for help.

User:Taweethem led a group of students to analyze the effectiveness of talk page invitation to participate in Wiki Loves Monuments (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2023_in_Thailand#%E0%B8%81ารศึกษาผลของการเชิญให้เข้าร่วมการประกวด). Credits to user:Taweetham, this lead to a documentation, several learnings and a change of action plan for future photo contests. Also, this directs us to the possibility of internship programs in collaboration with schools and institutions. This internship program will help will help man power, fill the gap in skills, and lessen the weight on the the affiliate members who work on a volunteer capacity.

We provided one Wikimania scholarship to a representative of the Siam Society, one of our long sponsors. This led to a thorough conversation on the preservation of cultural heritage. One big project we plan to do this year is the digitization of books at the Siam Society library, some dated 300 years. More information on this project is available in our 2024 grant.

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)?

We lost momentum during 2020-2022 due to the lack of manpower.

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
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of partners Number of partners in 2023 including new partners and renewed partners. 5 5 We have renewed and/or initiated a total of 5 partners including Siam Society, Gypzy publisher, Princess Maha Chakri Award, Dtac, and Equitable Education Fund manual data collection
Number of reports Number of reports written by Wikimania 2023 scholarship recipients 10 5 We only got 5 reports from 6 attendees (83.3%) who received full funding from Wikimedia Thailand to attend Wikimania Singapore. manual data collection
N/A Percentage of participants satisfied with each activity 80 100 100% of attendees were satisfied (scored at least 4 out of 5) with the activity they attended. Google form was administered for all face-to-face events. Results are posted on Meta. Please see one example below:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/WikiCamp_2023

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
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 There are five main organizers in WMTH. We expect all of them to continue to participate after activities. 5 4 Only 4 organizers remained in WMTH due to personal reasons. manual data collection.
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability We expect at least three long-term partnerships that contribute to sustainable growth of WMTH. 3 N/A N/A N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications Number of event reach on Facebook = 3,000. This is based on this year's number at ~2,500. This number was obtained from Wikimedia Thailand Facebook account information. 3000 N/A N/A N/A
Number of activities developed There are 11 activities to be hosted in 2023 according to our calendar.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Thailand/Calendar

11 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 Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants Number of people participating in Wiki Loves campaigns, editing contests and edit-a-thons. The number is obtained from manual counting, Wiki Loves tools and Programs and Events Dashboard. 100
Number of editors Numbers of editors participating in our events, edit-a-thons, meet-ups and etc. The number is obtained from manual counting, Wiki Loves tools and Programs and Events Dashboard. 50
Number of organizers Number of people who participate as jury members, organizers and volunteers. 15
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Wikimedia Commons Number of uploads to Wikimedia Commons as part of Wiki Loves campaigns. Measured by determining number of items in selected categories. 3000 N/A N/A N/A
Wikipedia Number of articles created 120 N/A N/A N/A
Wikipedia Numbers of articles edited 300 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 N/A N/A

14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

No

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.

N/A

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.
N/A

Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships[edit]

17. Organizational Capacity

Organizational capacity dimension
A. Financial capacity and management This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
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 capacity has grown but it should be further developed
H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
J. Governance This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
K. Communications, marketing, and social media This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
M. On-wiki technical skills This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
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.

Formal training provided by a Wikimedia Movement organizing group (i.e., Affiliates, Grantees, Regional or Thematic Hub, etc.), Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Using capacity building/training resources online from sources WITHIN the Wikimedia Movement

17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Lack of staff time to participate in capacity building/training

18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?

N/A

19. Partnerships over the funding period.

Over the fund 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 Neither agree nor disagree
C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups Neither agree nor disagree

19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Board members’ outreach, Volunteers from our communities, Partners proactive interest

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 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?

Allocating a few Wikimania scholarship seats to partners was effective as we explained in one of the previous questions. We learned one important thing that there must be a win-win scenario for both parties. Common goals must be planned from the beginning.

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?

Sense of belonging means a lot to us. What we really appreciate is the mid-term conversation with the grant committee. To our understanding, this replaces the mid-term report. Having conversation with the grant committee and other grantees did promote the sense of belonging, and gave us the opportunity to learn and share.

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?

Somewhat increased

23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

N/A

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.

N/A

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?

No

27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?


28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?

We do not do this at all

29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?

N/A

Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance[edit]

30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

1154431.37

31. Local currency type

THB

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.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zd8Duw8lIua5vyk-U-VzRyVqPCj667t6/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117323958563367064425&rtpof=true&sd=true

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.

N/A

34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?


34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

252,167.87 THB (contingencies, technical campaigns)

34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future grant request with PO approval

34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

More details can be found in Wikimedia Thailand 2024 grant application

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.