Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Estonia Community Fund General Support Application for the year 2023

Feedback from Regional Committee

@K2suvi and Kruusamägi: Hello Wikimedia Estonia, and thanks for your General Support Fund proposal for your work in 2023. I am writing to summarize some initial feedback from the CEE/Central Asia Committee on your proposed work and needs for next year:

• The committee felt that your chapter is doing robust and reliable work with respect to your Education program. In particular, 1) you have been successful at resourcing this program through your relationship with the Ministry of Education and Research as one of its strategic partners, and 2) you have shown good efforts and covering a broad spectrum of educational opportunities both for adults and youth. The upcoming work with Tartu Public University is of particular interest, as well as some planned work with seniors and older adults in Estonia.
• Another important strength are your general partnerships which span both government and GLAM domains, and it is clear you have been able to demonstrate important services and benefits your organization can provide these institutions, such as supporting better accessibility to exhibition works/materials and to train staff on interacting with Wikimedia projects. The committee supports your efforts to seek partnerships at a local government level where possible over the next year.
• The committee also had a few questions and places where more clarity could be provided:
  • You identified turnover and communication practices as major challenges for your organization, and that you want to address this issue by creating a friendly atmosphere for staff, volunteers, and board members. One way you'll be doing this is to provide greater clarity around roles & responsibilities and supporting people's individual motivations. What else will you be doing to create a more welcoming environment in your organization?
  • In terms of the work on sister projects, like Wikiquote and Wikidata, how will your program focus on these projects, and how will participants interact with them?
  • Regarding this response: As usual, when writing this application, we have always taken into account the wishes or opinions of the members of our NGO and Wikipedians, which can be submitted throughout the year. can you describe in what ways individuals members can submit opinions, ideas, or feedback on the application? What communications methods or approaches do you use to invite feedback from community members?

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi! Nice to hear from you and thank you for the feedback provided.

Answers to given questions:

1. At this point, it is definitely very important to keep and grow the motivation of existing people. First of all, so that the existing people do not leave in the wake of the previous ones. Secondly, it is always motivating to meet people who believe deeply in what they do, and motivation plays a key role here - if you are a motivated Wikipedia ambassador, it is easy to convey this as a positive thought. Highly motivated people are also able to collaborate better and form a team that newcomers want to work with. For this purpose, we have now organized ideas and motivation days for employees a few times, when stronger teams can be built. Motivational days will be extended to the voluntary board as well.

2. This year, we have focused on the Wikiquotes project as part of the Year of Libraries. In the upcoming year, we have thought of testing a similar project in cooperation with archives - archives contain materials that are quite easy to put up as quotations.

In terms of Wikidata, we got inspiration from the CEE conference. If otherwise Wikidata has not received enough attention from us, one possible way to continue working with Wikidata is lexemes. We plan to discuss the possibility of using lexemes to the Estonian Language Institute, whose goal is to contribute to the long-term survival of the Estonian language. In addition, with the help of newly produced educational materials, we can also advertise Wikidata in the broader sense in schools.

In addition, we are also working on other projects, such as creating virtual exhibitions, etc.

3. NGOs registered in Estonia are obliged to meet at least once a year as part of the general meeting. Every year, the general meeting has been the place where we ask the members' thoughts and opinions (in the form of a round table), but we have also taken into account the thoughts and ideas sent to personal email addresses.

In addition, we have organized meetings throughout the year, for example, Christmas parties and a big summer meeting, where the topic of discussion is often wiki-related, as this is what unites us the most. We also have Slack channels open around the clock, where you can also contribute to the work and planning of the NGO. In recent years, we have also been working on a strategy/strategic plan, for which we asked more specifically and specifically for input from our own NGO members.

If you have any additional questions, we'd be glad to clarify even more.

Best, K2suvi (talk) 07:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 72,148 EUR

@K2suvi and Kruusamägi:: Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 72,148 EUR (~74,598.87 USD) with a grant term starting 1 January 2023 and ending 31 December 2023.

The committee is pleased to continue supporting Wikimedia Estonia in its programmatic work over the next year. During its review, the committee was especially supportive of your chapter’s work in supporting engagement with different language communities across the country, that your work in education facilitates better access to knowledge and Wikimedia projects for both educators and students, and that this work is supported through important partnerships, such as with the University of Tartu and the Ministry of Education. Furthermore, the committee appreciates that Wikimedia Estonia has demonstrated important outreach work and cooperation to other affiliates in the region.

The committee is also glad to see the completion of your 2030 strategic plan, and encourages you to consider multiyear funding as an option for next year, as the main eligibility need for multiyear funding is a strategic plan outlining your organizational and priorities for the future beyond the immediate proposal. Please feel free to reach out to your program officer if you have questions around multiyear funding.

The committee had a few minor requests and needs for clarity around the proposal:

• The committee is supportive of your work to reach out to Russian-speaking communities in eastern Estonia, as their ability to participate in the Wikimedia movement has been substantially reduced. Can you elaborate more on how you will be engaging or including these communities in your programmatic or outreach work?
• Do you have an idea of what schools will be involved with your media literacy program at this stage? It’s great to see this work will involve supporting students to practice academic writing. Are there other skills that this program will teach to students? Will it also involve teaching any skills to educators?
• For your next proposal, it would be helpful to have a little more detail around the descriptions of your programmatic work in Question 4 (regarding Education, GLAM, Open culture and Outreach). Rather than listing out all activities that might be a part of these programs, another approach that can summarize the program is to focus on the most important events or activities associated with that program and providing more detail around implementation. If not already doing so, the committee recommends involving programmatic staff in preparing these summaries if possible.

When you're able, please respond to the questions above to support the committee's understanding around your work in these areas.

The committee looks forward to Wikimedia Estonia’s work over the next year, and is pleased to continue supporting your contributions to the Wikimedia movement and its communities.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 14:53, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Big thanks! We are very happy that you are satisfied with the direction we have taken.

1. One contact that we have gradually created and which still needs to be strengthened is the Estonian language house in Narva. Namely, the Republic of Estonia has created an Estonian Language House in Narva (our easternmost city), where those interested (mainly russian-speaking population) can learn the Estonian language and, in addition, other activities supporting language learning are carried out. Also, the Narva Estonian state high school is currently being established, with which we see ourselves cooperating in the future.
2. The topic of media literacy is becoming more and more relevant in Estonia every day, and therefore this fall we have also actively participated in the work of the media literacy network: we participate in the network's monthly meetings and offer the opportunity to use Wikipedia as a platform for developing digital skills. This year, we have become a cooperation partner, for example, with Kehra school, where our representative is giving lectures about Wikipedia during media literacy week. Our ultimate goal is to train teachers as well, so that they can successfully connect work on Wikipedia with teaching in the classroom.

Finally, thank you for the guidance regarding next year's application. The employees are already fully involved in writing our application (especially the part about programmatic work), but we will take these comments into account when preparing the next year's application.

K2suvi (talk) 11:33, 29 November 2022 (UTC)