Grants:Project/Rapid/TRahman/Technical and administrative resources for Bangladeshi Wikimedia community/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2021-2022 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Goals[edit]

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes. The main goal of this grant was the sustainability of the Wikimedia community in Bangladesh and to provide high-quality supporting content and administrative support to the community.


Outcome[edit]

The grant is not for organizing events or contest as we normally do rather it was an administrative and technical grant thus providing numbers to the outcome will be hard in the general sense. The major work was done to upgrade the website of Wikimedia Bangladesh which is a used as an important platform for Wikimedia Volunteers in Bangladesh.


Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
Technical/online resources
  1. The main website has been upgraded with a new user-friendly and mobile-device-friendly design.
  2. Easier, user-friendly way to disseminate information and build awareness
  3. Enabling the volunteers to have efficient communication channels
  4. Maintaining a sustainable platform for volunteers to use to perform better online outreach
  5. Protecting Wikipedia and Wikimedia brands via domain parking
We have hired a freelance professional to upgrade the website’s aged technology and update the design.

We have also updated the design of our community magazine site within the same budget.

We have been publishing and circulating various Privacy & Safety related content, and FAQs through our social media. We have already observed a positive impact on alleviating misconceptions and better awareness about Wikimedia Projects.

Sensitive ccTLD like wikipedia.org.bd and language-specific TLD like উইকিপিডিয়া.বাংলা was been registered in Bangladesh and redirected to the main wikipedia.org domain to safeguarding against possible scamming attempts and increase community resilience.

Increase in the total number of online events The number of online events increased significantly Due to the pandemic, many people were staying at home and were more interested in participating in the online events. Frequent edit-a-thons, online workshops, topic-based discussion sessions, and online meet-ups happened. These activities were possible to well co-ordinate with the technical resources we got through this grant.
growth of the community
  1. The number of new members joined doubled from the previous year
  2. We retained 85% of the members. The previous year it was about 50%.
Through the increased amount of online activities, we were able to engage more with existing members and newcomers.


Learning[edit]

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?
We had technical experts in our team. That helped us to coordinate things well. We feel that with the new user-friendly design, the contents are more accessible to the people and more engaging. We were also able to maintain the press engagements through better brand visibilities and a more professional approach to our communications.
  • What did not work so well?
When we work in a small volunteer group and some of the leading volunteers are unable to spare adequate voluntary time the overall work slows down significantly.
  • What would you do differently next time?
We will try to establish a better hierarchy of leadership and try to have some better time management.

Finances[edit]

Grant funds spent[edit]

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Sl.No Item Quantity Rate (BDT) Total (BDT) Total (USD) Notes
Transfer Charges
1 Bank charge and conversion loss 32.81
Domains
2 Domain renewal: wikimedia.org.bd (5 years) 1 920 4600 55.2 Main domain of Wikimedia Bangladesh
3 Domain renewal: wikipedia.org.bd (5 years) 1 920 4600 55.2 Parked domain
4 Domain renewal: উইকিপিডিয়া.বাংলা (5 years) 1 2300 27.6 Parked domain
5 Domain renewal: উইকি.বাংলা (5 years) 1 2300 27.6 Parked domain
6 Domain renewal: wikiloves.org (3 years) 1 2577 30.92 Parked domain
Hosting
7 Site Hosting 1 year 1 27200 27200 326.4
8 Premium DNS Hosting 1 year 1 7480 7480 89.76
9 Anti Spam service renewal 1 2550 2550 30.6
Website Overhaul
10 Service Charge for 2 websites overhaul 75000 900
11 New Theme 1 5015 5015 60.18
12 Page Builder Plugin 1 4165 4165 49.98
Official Pad and Envelop
13 A4 size envelope 1000 6 6000 72
14 Offical Pad + stationary 2500 30
FAQ Booklets
15 8 page FAQ Booklet 500 8000 96 A FAQ booklet containing information about Bangla Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects.
Logistics
16 Taxi fare 1000 12
17 Snacks and others 650 7.8
TOTAL 155937 1904.05

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

After all expenses, USD 25.95 remains. We would like to retain the remaining fund and use it for refreshments for our next in-person Wiki-meetup.


Anything else[edit]

Anything else you want to share about your project?