Community Insights/2018 Report/Partnerships & Global Reach

The Partnerships and Global Reach team believes in free knowledge and in the potential of human relationships to achieve great things. In this respect, the team aims to make sure Wikimedia projects are known, accessible, and widely used in the Global South through local and global partnerships with organizations aligned with Wikimedia values, as well as Wikimedia affiliates and communities.

For this survey, the Partnerships and Global Reach wanted to answer the following questions:

What are the Wikimedia contributor attitudes towards upcoming partnership opportunities?
What are some of the characteristics of partnerships among affiliate organizers in terms of quantity and quality?
Are affiliate organizers aware of support for their partnerships work?

Results

1. What are the community attitudes towards upcoming partnership opportunities in order to improve alignment with expectations, desires and values of Wikimedia contributors?

Community of different types of partnerships at the Foundation

Contributors agreed that the Partnerships and Global Reach team at the Foundation should pursue partnerships with non-Wikimedia organizations to address the digital gender gap (GR27).

About 65% of participants "Agreed" or "Strongly Agreed" with the statement and only 14% "Disagreed" or "Strongly Disagreed".

Contributors agreed that partnership programs are needed to build skills among Wikimedians so they can help address gender inequality in the Information and Communication Technology sector. (GR27).

About 67.7% of participants "Agreed" or "Strongly Agreed" with the statement and only 11% "Disagreed or "Strongly Disagreed".

Contributors mostly agreed that pursuing partnerships focused on addressing the digital gender gap is useful for our movement in achieving knowledge equity (GR27).

About 68% of participants "Agreed" or "Strongly Agreed" with the statement and only 13% "Disagreed" or "Strongly Disagreed".

For a partnership that allows users to use text messages to access information from Wikipedia, 69.6% of respondents "Supported" or "Strongly Supported" this partnership, while 8% "Opposed" or "Strongly Opposed" the partnership (GR08).

The team has partnered with an organization to test a project to reach users without internet access on their mobile phones. In this partnership users would be able to use their mobile phones without internet capability to receive Wikipedia content via text messages. In some cases users would be required to pay a standard or subsidized text message fee.^[1]

For this question, 22.4% neither "Supported" nor "Opposed" the partnership. We analyzed responses to this question by gender and country of origin. We found no statistically significant differences. ^[2]

2. What are some of the characteristics of partnerships among affiliate organizers in terms of quantity and quality?

A majority of affiliate organizers (72%) who have formed partnerships with non-Wikimedia organizations feel successful in those partnerships (GR23).

28.6% reported being "Very Successful". 43.6% reported they are "Somewhat Successful". 6.0% reported being "Somewhat Unsuccessful". 1.5% indicated being "Very Unsuccessful", and 20.3% "Neither successful or unsuccessful". No significant differences were found between regions. ^[3] We need further analysis of the qualitative responses to draw conclusions.

Word clouds from open-ended responses.

3. What support do Wikimedia Affiliates need in order to grow partnerships in the movement?

Among affiliate organizers 55% reported that they need help with their partnership or they would like help getting started (GR22).

The partnerships team is interested in supporting Wikimedia Affiliates with their partnerships in order to help grow the reach of the Wikimedia movement.

Among the reporting affiliate organizers:

19.4% reported they are interested but haven't done a partnership
35.8% reported they have done partnerships but could use help
37.3% reported that they do not need any particular help, but are happy to share experiences
2.2% they are not interested in partnerships.

We analyzed the question by region and found no significant differences. ^[4]

The majority of affiliate organizers (60.6% of 99) were unaware of the Global Reach and Partnerships team (GR25). 74.1% affiliate organizers reported being unaware that the Global Reach and Partnerships team could help support the creation of partnerships (GR26).

Emerging countries reported being more aware (59%) than program organizers from Global North countries (41%) of the Partnerships and Global Reach team.^[5] We asked all organizers whether they were aware that the team is available to help with partnerships. Only 26% of all organizers reported being aware of this support resource. More organizers from emerging communities reporting being aware of this support (41%) than organizers from the Global North (19%).^[6]

Most useful results

Attitudes towards partnerships. Respondents in the survey supported two kinds of partnerships related to Gender equality. They also supported SMS access to Wikipedia.(GR27 & GR08)
Awareness of the Partnerships & Global Reach team. Across all regions there is less than expected awareness among Wikimedia affiliate organizers of the Partnerships and Global Reach team. Awareness among organizers from emerging communities is higher than in Global North communities. (GR25)

Next steps

Based on this report, the Partnerships & Global Reach team will

Get a better understanding of the affiliates that indicated needing partnership support and discuss how we can best do this
Do a scan of upcoming partnership themes or projects we are/want to pursue and develop questions to include in next year’s survey
Discuss expanding Office Hours to include cross-departmental collaboration for regional support and expert advice to raise awareness and provide capacity
Discuss how to build awareness of the team and how it can support affiliates with partnerships; especially affiliates in our target regions

Notes

↑ The full text of the survey question was: "The Wikimedia Foundation partnered with mobile service providers to test a new project. This project allows mobile phones without internet capability to receive Wikipedia content via text messages. This expands the reach of Wikipedia content to people who do not have smartphones or cannot afford mobile data charges. In some of these partnerships, users would be required to pay a text message charge (standard SMS fee or subsidized in some cases) per response. To what extent do you support or oppose this kind of partnership?"
↑ We analyzed region by grouping participants into Global North or emerging communities.
↑ We checked for differences among regions as well as between Global North and emerging communities. We found no differences in either.
↑ We checked for differences among regions as well as between Global North and emerging communities, but found no differences in either.
↑ chi-square, p-value<0.05
↑ Chi-square, p-value>0.05

[1] The full text of the survey question was: "The Wikimedia Foundation partnered with mobile service providers to test a new project. This project allows mobile phones without internet capability to receive Wikipedia content via text messages. This expands the reach of Wikipedia content to people who do not have smartphones or cannot afford mobile data charges. In some of these partnerships, users would be required to pay a text message charge (standard SMS fee or subsidized in some cases) per response. To what extent do you support or oppose this kind of partnership?"

[2] We analyzed region by grouping participants into Global North or emerging communities.

[3] We checked for differences among regions as well as between Global North and emerging communities. We found no differences in either.

[4] We checked for differences among regions as well as between Global North and emerging communities, but found no differences in either.

[5] -square, p-value<0.05

[6] Chi-square, p-value>0.05

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