This project is funded by a Project Grant

Report accepted

This report for a Project Grant approved in FY 2020-21 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Wiki Loves Monuments international team/2021 coordination.
You may still review or add to the discussion about this report on its talk page.
You are welcome to email projectgrantswikimedia.org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the grantee's project.

Part 1: The Project[edit]

Summary[edit]

Wiki Loves Monuments was a successful edition again in 2021. The competition itself had little problems and ran mostly on 'automatic' (both an advantage and disadvantage), but we did encounter a number of challenges in the more structural changes that we were looking at. There were 36 participating countries this year.

Project Goals[edit]

The international team has three main goals, as stated in our mission statement. These goals are:

to freely document and raise awareness of built cultural heritage
to increase contributions to the Wikimedia projects
to bolster local Wikimedia communities.

Like previous years, we do this through a federated model, supporting local national organizers to do what they are best at. This year, we want to pay special attention to making Wiki Loves Monuments more future proof.

These goals are the same through the years, and we have worked the same way to achieve them: by organizing a photo competition and supporting Wikimedia communities with their monuments data sets.

We increased contributions and documentation of cultural heritage by welcoming 3191 new-contributor-participants through our competition with at least one upload on Commons. In total we have 4902 participants contributing over 172,285 photos through 36 competitions.

We continued to provide a framework to welcome communities that were familiar with WLM, but welcomed new organizers from Maldova, Republika Srpska, Zimbabwe, and Qatar.

Project Impact[edit]

Targets[edit]

Planned measure of success (include numeric target, if applicable)	Actual result	Explanation
Total participating countries	Partially successful (35 countries submitted to the international finale, one country participated but did not submit)	We set a goal to have at least 40 countries participate in Wiki Loves Monuments in 2021.
Number of newly registered users	Primarily an achievement for national organizers. In 2021 a total of 3191 participants created their account during the competition month (65%).	This is a metric that is expected to be largely driven by the national organizers. Therefore, we are not setting a target to meet for this metric. However, the international team is interested in this metric as a measure of the health of Wiki Loves Monuments ecosystem and we will monitor this number throughout and after the contest. There are underlying participation currents at work that we cannot explain - possibly related to the banner infrastructure.
Number of images uploaded	Primarily an [https://wikiloves.toolforge.org/monuments/2021	Similar to the above metric, the number of uploaded images is a metric that the international team does not have direct control over. We also support the migration of datasets to Wikidata, but due to this being primarily joint efforts, it is impossible to determine which are thanks to the WLM international team. Note that these numbers are for a good amount driven by small groups of super active uploaders, which make these numbers high-variance. A downward trend is expected, as these high volume participants tend to focus on not yet or poorly photographed sites, which get harder to find over time.
90% of the participating countries nominate at least 1 image to the international finale	Succeeded	35/38 countries submitted at least 1 image to the international finale.
All critical infrastructure necessary for the start will be ready before September 1, 2021	Succeeded
The international team will ensure the availability of critical tools developed and/or maintained by the team throughout the contest and will monitor all other critical tools throughout the contest.	Succeeded
The international jury process is finalized and a jury report is published before the end of the year	Not Achieved	Winning pictures were posted on the wiki on 12 April. We did not complete a traditional jury report but only published a blog post.

Story[edit]

We're proud as every year of all the work that has been achieved by the national teams, and that we are able to facilitate that. The international team is struggling to continue to maintain sufficient energy to achieve its ambitious goals to better document and engage. This sometimes leads to complex choices that need to be made. We looked into opportunities to improve the reliability of the participant workflow.

With over 11 years of Wiki Loves Monuments, suggestions for revisiting earlier decisions continue to pop up. This may range from the definition of what heritage sites should be allowed to participate, what constitutes a 'national competition' to questions about the judging practices. With dozens of national teams that have become important stakeholders over the years, and thousands of participants every edition, such changes never come easy, never come fast. We ask for everyone's patience and endurance as we look to consider constructive proposals and appreciate how different the challenges are across the world. The international team has also especially recognized the need to better support a cultural and geographical diversity of participation and continues to welcome proposals to improve broader participation.

Methods and activities[edit]

Most of our processes related to the campaign are documented at Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2021/Organise.

Project resources[edit]

While most of the documentation and instructions for various processes are documented and maintained through the years. This year, we took-up a project to develop an onboarding guide for newcomers, Commons:WLM/Onboarding

Learning[edit]

In 2021/2022, the team with the support of an external consultant took up a major project to evaluate the campaign from diversity, equity, and inclusion perspective. The full report is available at: Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/DEI_research_2022/Final_report, and a detailed interim report at Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/DEI_research_2022/Interim_report. A blogpost to provide the narrative for the final research report was published on Diff.

Part 2: The Grant[edit]

Finances[edit]

Actual spending[edit]

Expense ^[1]	Approved amount	Actual funds spent	Difference
1 - Prizes and diplomas	11,500 EUR	6,998.38 EUR	-4,501.62 EUR
2 - Support of national competitions	9,958.00 EUR	6,286.31 EUR ^[2]	-3,671,69 EUR
3 - Travel	0 EUR	0 EUR	0 EUR
4- Micro-grants	792.00 EUR	493.82 EUR	-298.18 EUR
5 - DEI consultation and review	9,000 EUR	12,680.74 EUR	+3,680.74 EUR
6 - Admin and Overhead	5.250.00 EUR	5,250.00 EUR	0 EUR
Total	36,500 EUR	31,709.25 EUR	-4,790.75 EUR

Notes[edit]

↑ The allocation of approved amounts to the categories of expenses differs from the originally approved budget. The changes have been requested, discussed and approved here.
↑ Including designer working on newcomers guide to WLM and translations.

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

No. The first installment has been received and the money has been spent.
EUR 4,790.75 of the approved overall budget have not been used. Mostly because there were far less micro grants and supporting payments for national competitions requested than offered and expected.
The second installment of the grant has not not been paid out. We would like to request EUR 13,459.25 to cover the spendings.

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation[edit]

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadminwikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

The invoices and receipts are collected and prepared. Can/will be sent in the coming days.

Confirmation of project status[edit]

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

Please answer yes or no.

Yes

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

Yes

Grantee reflection[edit]

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being a grantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the Project Grant experience? Please share it here!

[1] The allocation of approved amounts to the categories of expenses differs from the originally approved budget. The changes have been requested, discussed and approved here.

[2] Including designer working on newcomers guide to WLM and translations.

[1]

[2]