Wikimedia South Africa/Wikimedia ZA annual grant 2024/25
This is a the draft grant application for Wikimedia ZA for 2024/25 and perhaps and perhaps beyond. To see the application form for the multi-year grant click here, or single year grant form here. Here is the 2024/25 draft grant budget.
Applicants[edit]
- Main User - Bobby Shabangu (User:Bobbyshabangu)
- Secondary User - Douglas Scott (User:Discott)
- Other applicants
- Jeremiah Pietersen
- Ingrid Thomson(User:User:IngridThomson)
- Jan du Toit (User:Lefcentreright)
- Deon Steyn (User:Oesjaar)
Applicant details[edit]
Wikimedia username(s):
- Main User - Bobby Shabangu (User:Bobbyshabangu)
- Secondary User - Douglas Scott (User:Discott)
- Other applicants
Twin Mosia (User:TwinMosia) Ingrid Thomson(User:User:IngridThomson) Jan du Toit (User:Lefcentreright) Deon Steyn (User:Oesjaar)
Organization:
- Wikimedia ZA
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Yes.
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- Yes
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- Open Society Foundation in 2014
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information[edit]
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- South Africa
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Regional
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
- Some projects will involve community support and outreach activities in countries surrounding South Africa such as Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and eSwatini. This funding will also assist in maintaining the administrative capacity to continue the chapter's logistical support for Wiki Indaba (the annual pan-Africa regional Wiki conference) in addition to other Africa wide community support initiatives.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- Website: www.wmza.org
Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/HwBwHWWurr Zulip server: https://wikimediaza.zulipchat.com/login/#narrow/stream/147876-Main-Chat Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaZA Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/wikimedia_za/ Twitter account: https://twitter.com/Wikimedia_ZA
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Proposal[edit]
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.” - Wikimedia Foundation
In a word: “Free-knowledge”
Wikimedia South Africa is a not-for-profit membership organisation that exists to actively participate in knowledge dissemination and the promotion of access for all to free knowledge. Both as in free of cost and as in free speech. The organisation also exists to promote the contribution of free knowledge by anyone to the body of free knowledge held on the internet. This includes, but is not limited to, access to the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia as well as to sister projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and many others.
The chapter's activities include supporting volunteer chapter members in activities to grow and contribute to these free knowledge projects as well as encouraging members of the public to make likewise contributions and so grow the volunteer contributing community. This involves running events that support the growth of the community of volunteers that participate in the free knowledge movement and that grow the body of free knowledge that is freely accessible to the public.
Activities are either done by the volunteer community that forms the base of our membership or are done by appointed administrative representative(s) on behalf of the organisation. The chapter members elect a board of trustees on an annual basis to direct the day-to-day activities of the organisation. These trustees are elected from the community of volunteer chapter members and perform their tasks on behalf of the organisation as unpaid volunteers in service of the free knowledge mission. The scope of Wikimedia South Africa's activities is primarily focused on activities in South Africa, secondarily focused on supporting free knowledge movement in the rest of Africa, and thirdly focused on supporting the free knowledge movement in the rest of the world.
Wikimedia South Africa is a non-partisan non-political organisation that operates within the prescripts of the South African bill of rights.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
We want to promote the creation, development, and distribution of free knowledge in South Africa. This includes supporting the growth of Wikimedia projects in local languages, fostering collaboration among volunteers within South Africa, SADC region and Africa
This financial year in particular, we want to see a noticeable increase in the South African small language Wikis, activate new users and collaborate with more mission aligned partners to advocate for open and free access to information.
The importance of these efforts lies in several key factors:
- Access to Knowledge: By creating and expanding content in local languages, WMZA aims to ensure that a diverse range of knowledge is accessible to people in South Africa. This is crucial for promoting education, understanding, and cultural preservation.
- Cultural Diversity: South Africa is a country with rich cultural diversity and multiple languages. Wikimedia South Africa's initiatives contribute to preserving and promoting the diverse cultural heritage of the country by making it available online.
- Community Engagement: WMZA emphasizes building a strong and engaged community of volunteers who contribute to Wikimedia projects. This not only enhances the quality of content but also fosters a sense of ownership and collaboration among local contributors.
- Advocacy efforts: We want to continue supporting the work we've already started advocating for the Copyright Amendment Bill. We believe this is an importnat effort which will enable South Africa to have Freedom of Panorama.
- Digital Literacy: Through our activities such as the schols writing competitions and projects, we want to plays a role in promoting digital literacy, encouraging people to participate in creating and editing content on Wikimedia platforms.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
We aim to outreach, community support and administration.
Outreach:
Commummunity Support:
Administration: We believe having an additional staff member will allow us to achieve these goals, we think this will also enhance Wikimedia ZA's capacity to execute its mission effectively and efficiently. In these past 4 years we've also had more responsibilities providing fiscal sponsorship to a number of communities within Africa and our region. We've also provided guidance and mentorship to Community Usergroup Botswana. We believe that having an additional staff member will allow us to broaden our reach and deepen our impact.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
Not this year, but certainly in the future.
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Geography, Language, Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
All of our projects are focused on addressing the content gap. Specifically the Africa content gap. Both for content on established language Wikipedias such as English, where we exist to encourage the creation of African content, and the creation of content generally on African language Wikipedias. African language Wikipedias in particular are in need of community cultivation to create a body of volunteer Wikipedia editors. In summary, our language support projects seek to address the gap with African language Wikipedias. Our diversity specific projects seek to address the ethnic and racial knowledge gap on English language Wikipedia. All of our projects seek to address the geographic gab between Africa and the rest of the world as well as addressing the geographic gap between the better represented metropols of Cape Town and Johannesburg and the rest of South Africa.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Advocacy, Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Linguistic / Language
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
The chapter has two strategies for engaging participants that are currently not members of the Wikimedia community. A program specific strategy that seeks to introduce participants to editing Wikipedia and thereby join the editing community through direct training and/or community involvement. The second is a general awareness campaign to increase the public's awareness of Wikipedia, how it works, and how to get involved.
The general awareness campaign relies on community members making public appearances as often as possible in the media and publishing opinion pieces in the media.
The program specific strategy is made up of the following programs. The Internship program which seeks to cultivate a strong connection with the movement and our free knowledge principles with its project participants and address the age gap as the young are an underrepresented group.
The diversity projects (such as WikiGap, Afrocrowd, LGBTQ+ outreach, ect) seek to engage a more diverse group of participants with the intention of growing the local Wiki community in a more diverse way and thereby address the diversity gap. This is an effort to address the racial, gender and sexual orientation gap within the local community.
1Lib1Ref and library outreach projects seek to engage librarians and introduce them to editing Wikipedia.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
Yes
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
As the main representative Wikimedia organisation for the southern Africa region and the representative Wikimedia organisation for South Africa we have extensive connections with other Wikimedia communities around the world. The chapter also engages in a number of activities to support the growth of Wikimedia communities in Africa the most notable activity being the annual hosting of Wiki Indaba (the Africa region focused Wiki conference event). We are also involved in assisting the global Wiki community's free knowledge advocacy efforts, most notably in the area of copyright reform. These are in addition to the multiple smaller Wiki projects we co-host with other Wikimedia communities, thematic groups and chapters around the world.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
A significant project we will be hosting is a language support and outreach project with a partner organisation SADiLaR that will target as many South African universities as possible. The aim of the project is to work with South African language experts to translate Wikipedia pages into as many of South Africa's nine official language versions of Wikipedia as possible.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
Most chapter activities are continuous so we will be applying again in 2024/25 thereby allowing us to continue many of these projects. The chapter's most successful projects are ones that have been worked on for a number of years before they reach a launch period of success. Good examples of this are the copyright advocacy, WikiIndaba, Afrikaans Wikipedia growth and support projects. We would like to repeat these successes with other African language Wikipedias, university and science outreach projects.
Once the chapter is more familiar with the process and prepared we would like to apply a multi-year project grant to better plan for long running projects. Ideally in the 2024/5 to 2027/28 three year period. Additional projects are intended to be continued by volunteers and/or spin off other projects to stakeholders.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Coordinate Across Stakeholders, Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Participants | The number of individuals who attend or benefit from our project activities, either in person (offline) or virtually (online). This will be measured by the dashboard. | 200 |
| Number of new chapter members | Number of new members to the Wikimedia South Africa chapter. | 40 |
| Number of new Wikipedia articles | The number of new Wikipedia articles created in any of South Africa's 11 official language Wikipedias. | 3500 |
| Wikimedia Commons uploads | The number of content items (photographs, videos, etc) uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Most of this content is likely to come from the Wiki Loves events. | 4000 |
| Number of new Wikipedia editors | The number of new editors to Wikipedia with a specific focus on new Wikipedia editors on African language Wikipedias. | 10 |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | The number of WMZA members who continue to stay involved in chapter projects and events. | 9 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Success of the SADiLaR partnership to grow African language Wikipedias
Build partnerships with science and technology organisations to improve articles on Wikipedia |
2 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | This is a controversial metric that will require introspection and debate within the WMZA chapter to agree on what an appropriate measurement looks like. At the moment there is agreement that the chapter needs a better gender balance as well as racial representation. There is also agreement that at least two board members need to be Afrikaans language Wikipedia editors to give better representation to that Wiki community. More young (below the age of 30) board and chapter members are also needed to increase the chapter's diversity. | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | Number of activities developed by the chapter. | 5 |
| Number of volunteer hours | Number of volunteer hours donated to the chapter by community members for chapter activities. | 5000 |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | N/A | N/A |
| Number of editors | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers | Ten (10) organisers are involved to some degree or another in the projects WMZA intends to implement in the 2023/4 FY. These organisers are all either chapter board members, chapter volunteers, or chapter administrators. WMZA defines an organiser as an individual that is directly responsible for the successful implementation of a project. Each project has an assigned organiser. These organisers are:
The Administrator Jan du Toit Coenraad Loubser Michael Graaf Khetiwe Marais Twin Mosia Bobby Shabangu Douglas Scott Deon Steyn Ingrid Thomson |
10 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
Programs & Events Dashboard Wiki Loves Competitions Tools Event Metrics The chapter administrator will also compile and maintain a spreadsheet of activities, volunteer time, and partner feedback. Informal conversations will be had with partners to qualitatively gauge their feedback.
Financial Proposal[edit]
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message[edit]
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes