Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia Argentina/Proposal form


Wikimedia Argentina received a funds allocation in the amount of US$175,000 in 2013-2014 Round 1. This funds allocation was recommended by the Funds Dissemination Committee on 15 November 2013 and approved by the WMF Board of Trustees on 31 December 2013.


Basic information edit

Overview of grant request edit

In order to support community review, in no more than one paragraph, please provide a brief description of your entity's forthcoming annual plan, with focus areas and key objectives. Please also include the total amount requested in US$.

  • For 2014, Wikimedia Argentina has decided to focus on two main areas: Education and GLAM activities. We want to incorporate a new officer to design and implement an Education General Plan that can replicate and improve the activities that have been done with different institutions from the country. We also want to create documents to help our activities on schools and universities and translate those that are already available, helping our activities and those from other fellow Ibero American groups. On GLAM activities, we want to organize a conference similar to GLAM-WIKI but on a local scale to promote our activities to new institutions, especially for those outside the Buenos Aires Area. We expect to continue the successful agreements of cooperation, organizing more edit-a-thons and making available more images and documents on Wikimedia Commons. Also, we want to continue supporting our local community, promoting the Wikimedia projects and encouraging participation on them. Finally, we want to establish a strategy that can help us to guide the future of our chapter in a more effective way.


Contact information edit

Table 1

Organization information Legal name of organization Asociación Civil Wikimedia Argentina
organization's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd) 2014/01 - 2014/12
12 month timeframe* of funds currently requested (mm/dd/yy–mm/dd/yy) 2014/01 - 2014/12
Contact information (primary) Primary contact name Osmar Valdebenito
Primary contact position in organization Executive Director
Primary contact username Osmar Valdebenito (WMAR)
Primary contact email osmar wikimedia.org.ar
Contact information (secondary) Secondary contact name Galileo Vidoni
Secondary contact position in organization President
Secondary contact username Galio
Secondary contact email galio wikimedia.org.ar

*Timeframe should ideally be for a 12 month period that begins after the FDC decision.


Amount requested edit

Table 2

Currency requested: U.S. dollars (USD)

Currency requested is defined as the currency in which you wish to receive funds (e.g., EUR, GBP, INR). Note that the FDC makes grants in local currency when possible.

Exchange rate used (currency requested to $US): 1.0

Please use Oanda.com on March 1 2014 to determine the exchange rate. Please use five decimal points.
Currency requested US$
Total annual expenses of organization 196,951.36 196,951.36
Amount proposed to the FDC for the coming year's annual plan 196,451.36 196,451.36
Amount to be raised from non-FDC sources 450.00 450.00
If applicable, amount of FDC funds allocated to organization last year 146,854.00 146,854.00
Based on the funding amount you are requesting, what is your entity's proposed rate of growth in budget since last year? Please explain your entity's rationale if your proposed budget will increase this year:
  • For this year, we propose a growth rate of 33,77%, which we understand is over the proposed guideline for growth. Wikimedia Argentina has been moving towards a professional institution in the past year, having for the first time a full-time employee since January 2013. As an institution in development, the growth rate is important in the first years while moving towards maturity; in comparison, the growth rate for past year was 44,6%. The main reason for growth this year is explained in the incorporation of two new employees to be in charge of Education and Administration, moving from 1,5 FTE to 3,5 FTE for 2014.

Note the FDC Framework funding guidelines on the rate of growth of year-over-year FDC allocations. These guidelines relate not to an entity's overall budget, but rather to movement resources (that is, what the entity received through FDC allocations or grants or what the entity retained via payment processing in the prior funding cycle).


Background, history, and mission edit

This section provides the FDC an overview of your entity's background and history. Please respond to each question below with 1-2 sentences to a maximum of a paragraph.

When was your entity established?
  • Chapter was funded on September 1, 2007 and approved by the Wikimedia Foundation on December 11, 2007.
What is the mission of your entity, and how does it support the strategic priorities of the Wikimedia movement (infrastructure, participation, quality, reach, and innovation)? We note that Wikimedia movement priorities will be interpreted and addressed differently in each context.
  • Wikimedia Argentina is a private non-profit association, governed by the regulations of the Argentine Civil Code, approved as a Wikimedia Foundation local chapter. Wikimedia Argentina is dedicated to actively contribute to the diffusion, improvement and progress of free knowledge and free culture in the Argentine. Its goals include the promotion and support for the projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, increasing its reach and participation within Argentina and improving the quality of the contents related to this country.
What is your current leadership structure (e.g., executive staff structure, board / governance structure)? Please explain how budgets are managed and programs are executed between board and staff.
  • The structure of our Association is composed as following:
    • The General Assembly of Members, with regular meetings every year.
    • A Board of Trustees composed by 9 elected members (2 alternative Board members are available in case of vacancy). It is in charge of the strategy of the Association, its overall administration, revision of its projects and supervision of the staff's performance.
    • An audit commission, composed by 3 members, and responsible for the financial accountability of the Association.
    • The staff, composed by the Executive Director (ED) and the Communications Manager (CM). Dedicated to the implementation of programs and projects, reportability and day-to-day administration of the Association.
Programs are designed and carried out by the staff (in particular by the Executive Director), with permanent communication with the President of the Board and periodical reports to the rest of its members, who are ultimately responsible of the implementation of the initiatives proposed for the year. Some activities can be led by Association members and volunteers, but they must report to the ED.
If applicable, how many members does your entity have, and how do you define membership (e.g., attendance at events, paying dues)?
  • Currently, Wikimedia Argentina has 63 members, including active (Wikimedians), adherents and honorary members. To be a member, an application must be approved by the Board and pay the annual member fees. Only when a member hasn't paid by several months and doesn't reply to the messages sent by the Treasurer, their membership is cancelled. Honorary members don't need to pay their duties.
What is the role of volunteers in your entity (e.g., help develop entity plans, participate in programs, edit Wikipedia)? Approximately how many volunteers does your entity serve?
  • There are around 30 active members and volunteers that participate in discussions, design projects and engage regularly in WM-AR's activities. Volunteers can propose a project anytime (but there is a special call before the design of the annual plan); it can subsequently be developed with the staff and approved by the Board. The project can be led by the volunteer with supervision of the ED or directly by the staff. Volunteers and members regularly support the activities, promoting them, being speakers, including content in Wikipedia as part of GLAM agreements, etc.
How do you know what the members of the community / communities you serve (including chapter members and broader online volunteers) need and want? How does this influence your strategic planning and decision-making?
  • Wikimedia Argentina has tried to stay in touch with the community of Wikimedians from Argentina and there are several activities to gather the community (edit-a-thons, photo safaris or simple meetings). We usually request input for a program to our members and volunteers and also we have opened special spaces where they can propose their own ideas. Also, in 2013 we decided to go step further creating the position of Communications Manager to be in charge of the contact with our volunteers, through our mailing list but also through our new website and social networks. Still, there are some challenges, especially with people outside Buenos Aires metropolis (where most of the activities take place) and we are trying to include them more. Also, Wikimedia Argentina has a larger audience as part of the Spanish-speaking Wikimedia community, so we have tried to be in touch with communities from other countries so we can work together in those programs where we can create synergy. In 2013, we implemented some activities (for example, videos about "Wiki Loves Monuments") that were useful in other countries so we requested input from community members of other Latin American countries; the result was a project that was not only useful for Argentina but for the whole region without spending any additional cent.

Reflection on past activities and innovations edit

This section provides the FDC with information about your entity's past programs, activities and strategies. Please answer the questions below with your reflections on the past fiscal year. Responses to each question should be one or two paragraphs.

How does your entity define and measure "success"?
  • Success of a project or program is evaluated comparing its results with the objectives set at the beginning, which are also in line with the overall goals of our Association. For a more complete analysis of this success, we usually think of the result along three dimensions: impact on the Wikimedia movement, local impact and internal impact on the Association.
The impact on the Movement is probably the most obvious: how much our programs have improved the Wikimedia projects incorporating new content, increasing its reach including new volunteers, etc. The local impact refers to how the relationship between Wikimedia Argentina and other institutions of their local environment has improved, whether it is the media, government, cultural institutions (GLAM), other educational NGOs, etc. Finally, the internal impact in the Association indicates how a project allows us to improve our own processes and continue the development and innovation within the Association. These dimensions also should be evaluated with a short and a long-term perspective, allowing us to see more fully the impact of our activities, including in many cases intangible results that are not apparent in a first approach.
Please give at least three examples of successful programs or activities that your entity has completed, and explain why they were successful. If available, provide links to information.
  • Edit-a-thons: In the past 12 months, three edit-a-thons have been hosted in Buenos Aires (Bicentennial Museum, Buenos Aires City Legislature and the Space for Memory and Human Rights). This type of activity has allowed us to achieve success in several fronts: the institutions have released various images and photos to Wikimedia Commons that are now illustrating articles in Wikipedia, people who want to join our movement have been educated, old Wikimedians have been reactivated and encouraged to join our chapter, community ties have been strengthened and relations with the institutions have been improved. Edit-a-thons have allowed us to build relationships with these institutions and has opened the door to more projects with them and other similar organizations.
  • Digitization program: From mid-2012, Wikimedia Argentina embarked on a process of building do-it-yourself scanners that have subsequently been lent to cultural institution in the area of ​​Buenos Aires. This has allowed them to upload several documents of important historical relevance or academic content that is not available on other platforms. Some of those documents are also available now on Wikisource. With this project, Wikimedia Argentina has not only broadened the content freely available in our platforms but has promoted the digitalization efforts of these institutions and encouraged other institutions to follow these steps.
  • Education activities: This past year, Wikimedia Argentina has managed to expand its educational activities, signing an agreement with the National University of Córdoba for conducting lectures and workshops to students, academics and researchers. We have been also involved in dialogue with different educational referents in order to obtain elements to develop a wider educational strategy. In addition, there have been more workshops with students and teachers in Buenos Aires Province, which triggered discussions that are now in development with its Department of Education to launch a large-scale project in 2014.
What are the plans/strategies that did not work for your entity in the past? What did your entity learn from those experiences? What changes were made after learning from these experiences?
  • The “Wikimemoria” event was an initiative in the city of Rosario with the Museum of the Memory of that place. The original idea was to bring together high school students and elderly people (already enrolled in the Free Faculty of Rosario) to edit together articles related to the museum. However, elderly finally didn't show up so the activity was finally focused on the students and it ultimately was very successful. After the event, we have thought the reasons behind the failure with the elderly and we think that we should have planned a different approach to this group.
  • Although the Education meeting that we hosted brought to us new and different ideas from a diverse group of people involved in Education, we weren't able to articulate those ideas to create a serious plan. For example, we didn't have someone to moderate the discussions so we didn't have time and space to wrap up the proposals neither we have someone specialized in Education, dedicated to do it once the meeting ended. For 2014, we expect to have a staff member dedicated exclusively to Education, who should be able to use these discussions in the construction of the Educational Plan of our chapter.
  • In March 2013, we had the visit of Cornelius Kibelka from Wikimedia Deutschland to start a tutoring program for WM-AR. The idea behind was to share experiences and learn good practices from one of the most successful chapters in our movement. Although the tutoring program was very helpful for us to start focusing on some issues inside our chapter, we think that the difference between WM-AR and WM-DE was too big, making more difficult to find common challenges. We think that this tutoring between peers is really interesting and should be expanded to other chapters, but it should be important to remark that the difference between chapters should be smaller and probably considering also other common factors (for example, cultural or organizational similarities).
What else has your entity learned or innovated upon that could benefit the broader Wikimedia movement?
  • Although the idea of international cooperation with chapters and other groups with common interests (especially, Iberocoop), only this year we could put into practice such cooperation. In the past, it had been difficult to implement programs that could benefit other groups within Latin America, because that takes time, which is generally scarce in the chapters, even for its own activities. However, this year we decided to include while designing a program on how to have an impact that went beyond the Argentina: a clear example was the video we did for Wiki Loves Monuments, made with neutral language that could be used by all chapters in the region instead of the local variant of Spanish ([1] [2]). Just having this in mind while we were working in one of our own projects, we reached a larger audience as we have done if we were just thinking in Argentina and we didn't spend more money or time.
  • One of the simple things that has generated a positive impact within the members of the Association is sending printed materials like an invitation, our annual report or other documents produced by WM-AR. Since most of our members are used to live in a digital world, receiving a letter generates a greater sense of belonging. The costs can be low and this greatly helps retention of the members, so it may be interesting to implement this for people that attends our events (like edit-a-thons) so we can encourage their continuity within our movement afterwards.

Please link to the following to provide supplemental information to the FDC:

How does your entity share its work with your community and with the wider Wikimedia movement? For instance, publishing case studies on Meta, blog posts, newsletters, speeches at conferences, etc.
  • We communicate our work to the Association's members and the general Wikimedia movement publishing monthly reports, available in English and Spanish. All our activities are also reported in our website (with a new design since August 2013) and social media. A newsletter for members and participants in past activities was developed in the past weeks and has been sent to them since September.
Also, we participate actively in the discussions within the Iberocoop initiative, particularly through its mailing lists (open and closed). This way we are sharing our experiences with other Ibero-American chapters that are developing in a similar way as we did in the past years.
Link to most recently completed fiscal year annual plan
Link to most recently completed fiscal year annual report and financial report
Link to most recently completed fiscal year grant report (if your entity has received funds from the FDC)
Link to your entity's strategic plan if you have one
  • N/A
Link to your organogram or organizational chart if one exists
  • N/A
Link to your entity's current fiscal year plan and budget


Key programs / initiatives and objectives of the upcoming year's annual plan edit

These tables are intended to provide an overview of your entity's upcoming year annual plan and its alignment with the movement's strategic priorities; please provide short phrases or 1-3 bullet points for each program below. You can also link to any other documents that you think might be helpful as context.

Please ensure that your proposed programs are SMART; that is, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

If you feel you have a program that fulfills a strategic goal that is not immediately identified with a movement strategic priority ('readership' rather than 'editorship', for instance), please add that in the table and offer us your rationale.

Finally, please also note which programs are the entity's priorities.

Program 1 edit

Education

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Education is, probably, the most relevant program for WM-AR in the coming year. Several opportunities have risen in 2013 but we haven't been able to make the most of them.
  • The main goal of this program is to increase adoption of Wikimedia projects on Educational environments (with a strong focus on secondary and higher education), promoting participation of students, teachers and academics on them and the use of Wikipedia as a teaching tool.
    For this, we expect to:
    • Go forward with the projects under development during 2013 with some institutions, in particular with the Department of Education of Buenos Aires Province.
    • Continue and strengthen the relationship with institutions that have signed agreements with us (National University of Córdoba) and sign new ones with other schools, universities or provincial departments of Education, for the realization of workshops, presentations, courses and other activities.
    • Re-start the design of an Education General Plan that was stalled in 2013 and progress its implementation.
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Increase reach: Working with consolidated educational institutions consolidated makes possible to reach larger communities and thus amplify the outreach of our projects.
  • Increase participation: Members of educational communities already known Wikipedia and use it passively, so through these activities we expected to encourage them to become editors (active members) of our projects and demystify preconceived ideas they have about Wikipedia and sister projects.
  • Improve quality: In particular through higher institutions, it is possible to incorporate experienced and qualified people into Wikipedia, so they can improve the general contents of Wikipedia or focus their efforts on poorly treated knowledge areas.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Contracting a new officer to design and implement the Education General Plan and be in charge of Education activities of the Association.
  • Publication of General Education Plan, using discussions held in 2013.
  • Design and publication of document "Wikipedia in the University" dedicated exclusively to activities in higher education.
  • Translation of materials produced by Wikimedia Foundation for use in Argentina and other Latin American countries.
  • Implementation of project of "local wikis" in schools with the Department of Education of Buenos Aires Province.
  • Conducting workshops and presentations (at least 5 each) in educational institutions of the country, with at least 4 activities outside Buenos Aires and Buenos Aires Province.
  • Creating a virtual teaching program, similar to Wikipedia Inside Courses (WM-RU).
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • With the inclusion of the new officer in charge of Education, periodic reports of activities will be produced, enabling greater monitoring of Wikimedia Argentina's work and the subsequent evaluation of the impact. We expect to start registering the participants in our activities (especially, workshops and edit-a-thons) in the coming weeks, so we can track them and give support if needed.
  • Some of the measures of success to be considered:
    • Number of activities realized (by institution, by geographic place, by type)
    • Number of participants (students/teachers/others, by level of knowledge of Wikipedia)
    • Number of institutions involved, agreements signed
    • Impact on the projects (images uploaded, bytes added, new articles; if it is possible, measured after the activity and few weeks later).
    • Level of satisfaction with the activities (once surveys are available).


Program 2 edit

GLAM projects

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • The main purpose of this program is to establish partnerships with cultural and heritage institutions (GLAM) for activities that promote the inclusion of content on Wikipedia. This can be achieved through three complementary lines of work :
    • Support digitization of GLAM institutions, promoting the preservation of heritage and culture.
    • Publication of images, photos, documents and other materials under free licenses on Wikimedia Commons, thereby supporting the sharing of heritage and knowledge.
    • Promoting incorporation of content related to these institutions by volunteers in our projects (mainly Wikipedia).
For this year, we expect to increase the number of institutions involved , continue and deepen relationships with those who already work with us and expand the geographic scope of our activities.
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Improve quality: Incorporating content from respected cultural institutions from Argentina improve the quality of the Wikimedia projects. In many cases, it is possible to obtain material (especially documents) that are not available elsewhere and that could be used to illustrate encyclopedic articles or being used as references, for example.
  • Increase reach: Through these activities, it is possible to contact professionals from GLAM institutions that are unused to Wikipedia or have some misgivings about it. Through them, we can access to information poorly disseminated. In addition, these activities tend to be attractive and easy to implement for institutions from around the country, which allows to extend the geographical coverage of our activities.
  • Increase participation: GLAM activities are very attractive to many people, so it is a good opportunity to recruit new volunteers to our projects. Also, many Wikimedia volunteers are attracted to those activities, so it strengthens their participation and reactivate those longtime editors that have gradually ceased to participate.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Release of heritage collections from museums, archives and libraries in the country (at least 2 new institutions, one of them outside of Buenos Aires).
  • Incorporating new institution for digitization projects and content publication on Commons/Wikisource, especially using the scanners built by Wikimedia Argentina between 2012 and 2013.
  • Conducting new edit-a-thons or other volunteer activity within GLAM institutions (at least 3 during the year, one of them outside of Buenos Aires).
  • Performing GLAM-WIKI Conference Argentina, in May-June 2014.
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • Along with the general channels used by Wikimedia Argentina to document and communicate their activities (monthly reports, blog posts, etc..), we will reactivate our participation in This Month in GLAM and incorporate some case studies on the Outreach Wiki as a way to disseminate our work for the rest of the Wikimedia community.
  • To measure the success of these activities, some indicators to consider are:
    • Number of institutions participating in GLAM projects (by type, by location).
    • Number of files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and impact (usage, views, etc..)
    • Number of participants at edit-a-thons, lectures and presentations, including GLAM-WIKI Conference.
    • Impact on Wikipedia after edit-a-thons (edits, usage of images, articles created, new editors attracted, etc.)
    • Press mentions, especially for GLAM-WIKI Conference.


Program 3 edit

Community support

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Our goal is to support the work done by the volunteers inside the projects and outside them, giving them tools to improve their performance. This way, we will be able to create a stronger relationship with the volunteers and members of the Association, extending their permanence within the projects and encouraging participation in the chapter.
  • We also expect to strength the relation between the Argentinian community of volunteers, our chapter and the global Wikimedia movement. We want to understand their motivations and challenges to participate in the projects and offline activities, so we can include their opinions in our work as a chapter.
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Improve quality: Giving tools to the volunteers will help them to have more quality in their contributions. For example, lending them a professional camera will improve the quality of pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
  • Improve participation: We expect to increase the commitment of the volunteers with our movement, trusting them and giving them more opportunities to enhance their participation. We especially want to promote the communities outside the Buenos Aires area and empower them to pursue projects within their local communities.
  • Encourage innovation: We want to encourage the volunteers to submit new and bold projects to our chapter that are in line with our goals.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Realization of Wiki-meetings, at least in three cities outside Buenos Aires.
  • Establishment of a system to lease professional equipment for registered volunteers (for example, photographic cameras).
  • Launch “La Semana en Wikipedia”, a small journal created with volunteers' support about Wikimedia and Spanish Wikipedia, similar to “Wikimedia:Woche”.
  • Survey for Wikipedia editors and readers.
  • Creating cards (similar to press passes) for volunteers to attend events or access restricted places.
  • Establishment of a micro-grants program for Wikimedia Argentina members.
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • For this program, we expect to measure the following indicators:
    • Number of people attending the editors' meeting.
    • Number of participants in the drafting of “La Semana en Wikipedia” and number of visitors to the journal.
    • Usage of the tools for community support (number of participants, times used, frequency of use) and impact on the project (image uploads, improved articles, etc.).
    • Number of new members of Wikimedia Argentina.


Program 4 edit

Contests

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • The objective of this program is to encourage volunteer participation through contests in different Wikimedia projects, attracting new editors, reactivating those that have retired and motivating the current ones. Such contests usually have good reception by the media and are a good opportunity to show to the general audience how crucial it is to involve volunteers to Wikimedia projects and continue to improve them permanently.
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Increase reach: With this kind of activities, it is possible to reach people that usually visit Wikipedia but don't know that they can participate and how to do it. This is especially interesting for people outside the larger cities of the country that can't participate in other activities like edit-a-thons or workshops.
  • Increase participation: These contests are a good opportunity to increase the participation of volunteers. If we can find a good motivation, a volunteer can become really involved and participate intensively, not only in the contest but also in the rest of the projects. In Wiki Loves Monuments, we have seen some participants that have uploaded hundreds of pictures and have become more involved in other activities and in the projects.
  • Improve quality: With the incentive of prizes and recognition, we can encourage volunteers to submit contributions of much more quality. This is particularly true in the photo contests but we expect to replicate this on the digitization contest.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Photo contest: We want to organize a photo contest by mid-2014. We are evaluating currently to continue with Wiki Loves Monuments or to start a new contest
  • Edit contest: Similar to Mujeres iberoamericanas, but with a more simple approach so new editors can join more easily. It can be focused on Wikipedia or Wikivoyage.
  • Digitization contest: There is a lot of old documents, books and photos (under PD) that people has in their homes but has never been encouraged to upload them to Commons. We expect that with this contest, we can enrich our heritage and avoid the disappearance of valuable documents.
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • The main indicators to measure the success of these contests are:
    • Number of participants (old and new contributors).
    • Impact on the projects (edits, articles created, images and documents uploaded, usage of them and visits).
    • Press mentions.


Program 5 edit

Outreach

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.

Part of our mission is to promote the usage of the Wikimedia projects by the general population. Although Wikipedia is very known and used in Argentina, there are still some deficiencies in the participation of several groups (for example, speakers of indigenous languages and women). On the other hand, sister projects like Wikimedia Commons or Wikivoyage are largely unknown, but we believe they are good opportunities to start working on wikis before jumping to a more mature project like Wikipedia.

Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Increase participation: We expect to incorporate new members to the Wikimedia community and especially promote the usage of other Wikimedia projects to those that are already used to edit Wikipedia.
  • Increase reach: One of our goals is to reach to new audiences or where is a low level of participation (like indigenous groups). Also, it is important to work for inclusion of people from other provinces that are usually relegated from activities, something particularly important in the case of a large country like Argentina.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Continue the realization of lectures and presentations about Wikipedia in different institutions, with a special focus on indigenous groups, women and cities outside Buenos Aires area.
  • Design of a new manual about Wikimedia Commons (or translation of an existing one) and a video.
  • Design of a new manual about Wikitravel and a video.
  • Publishing and printing other relevant documents and promotional materials.
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • Most of these activities are not really specific to a country and can be replicated in different places of the Ibero-American region. That is why it is important to us to document these activities and promote them to the rest of the Iberocoop initiative so they can use it and replicate. That is very clear, for example, in the case of manuals and videos.
  • The principal indicators to measure success for these activities are:
    • Number of participants and attendees to the activities.
    • Impact on Wikipedia of workshops (new users, new articles, bytes added, etc.)
    • Results of surveys done to participants.


Program 6 edit

Organizational strengthening

What are the objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • In the past year, Wikimedia Argentina continued a process of professionalization and strengthening, building capacities to become more effective in the design and implementation of programs. We believe that Wikimedia Argentina has achieved a gradual and sustainable development, but there are still some challenges that we want to address in the next period:
  • Design a long-term strategy that allows the Association to guide its next steps in the coming years.
  • Addition of new staff that can address projects more efficiently.
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) does this program address and how?
  • Stabilize infrastructure: We expect to continue building internal capacity to better support the movement, our members and volunteers, making more efficient our performance and making the most of the opportunities we have.
What key activities and/or milestones are associated with this program?
  • Construction of the Strategic Plan of Wikimedia Argentina, with the members of the Association and support of the Wikimedia Foundation, in line with the New Global South strategy.
  • Contracting a new officer in charge of Education activities of the Association and other dedicated to Administration.
How will your entity document, track, and measure successes and challenges of this program?
  • An important part of the process to design the new Strategic Plan of the chapter will be documented permanently, especially if we expect support from outside institutions (like WMF). Besides the proper achievement of the Plan, we can also consider the level of participation in the process (by volunteers and members of the Association) as a measure of success. One of the goals is to have a path of the Association defined by the members, so its participation in the design is crucial to have a legitimized strategy.


Additional context for the upcoming year's annual plan / SWOT edit

Please provide 1-2 paragraphs for each response below. SWOT stands for your organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

What organizational strengths enable your entity's plan (e.g., leadership, education program expertise, experience with outreach, governance structure, community participation, fundraising)?
  • Wikimedia Argentina has a strong leadership, with Board members that can track its participation to the founding Board of the Association. Most of them are active members not only of the Wikimedia projects but also of the movement overall, so they have a strong knowledge of the current development of our movement and are legitimized voices within the community.
  • This past year, the chapter has undertaken a process of professionalization, resolving pending issues, setting priorities, establishing processes and forming partnerships with cultural and educational institutions of the country. This gives us for 2014 a solid base to achive the above programs and concrete partnerships agreements.
  • The alliances established by the chapter with other organizations have been fundamental to the efficiency of our resources and to increase the impact of our programs. Thanks to these partnerships, Wikimedia Argentina has achieved several benefits that have minimized the expenses of our programs (eg, getting venue for our activities for free) or have allowed our publications to reach more places (like the case of the publication of our manual of Wikipedia to hundreds of libraries in the Buenos Aires Province through the respective provincial department).
  • Wikimedia Argentina has succesfully executed several programs in line with the goals of the Wikimedia movement and has organized large events in the past like Wikimania 2009 and Iberoconf 2011. There is a proven record of financial sustentability, organizational responsability and capacity of execution.
What external opportunities enable your entity's plan (e.g., socio-political context, community participation, fundraising)?
  • Being a member of Iberocoop has allowed Wikimedia Argentina to be part of an even larger community, receiving feedback and increasing the scoop of our activities. Our programs not only affect the local population of Argentina; they can impact on a continental scale and can be replicated by other groups, so we have decided to always consider this in the projects we are developing. Also, Wikimedia Argentina has become a role model for other chapters and has helped them to develop programs and improve their governance.
What are key risks or threats that would prevent you from achieving your plan (e.g., leadership turnover, governance challenges, lawsuits, fundraising, community participation, socio-political context)?
  • Argentina is in the middle of a difficult economic process, with a continuous devaluation of the Argentine peso and a high inflation, besides the bureaucracy for receiving funds from foreign sources. This have affected in the past the timely reception of funds and there is always the possibility of tighter regulations that can affect the disembursment of funds.
  • Although the professionalization of the chapter has allowed a better implementation of processes, there are still a lot of activities that are led by volunteers and we want them to be active part of our programs but it is important to define clear procedures and responsibilities to avoid problems in the implementation of them. In the past, there have been conflicts in the roles of volunteers, staff and Board members and this can affect the correct implementation of a project.
How will you minimize these risks and threats?
  • In the past year, the staff has successfully managed the disembursment of funds to our accounts and now has experience to deal with the associated bureaucracy. We have a permanent contact with our new bank, making it easier to solve any difficulty. Also, we have indexed our expenses to dollars in the 2014 budget, reducing the impact of high inflation.
  • In 2013, Wikimedia Argentina faced this problem and roles have been defined since that. Now, there is a clear supervising role for the staff in volunteer-driven projects, so it can support and track them. At this moment, there are very few projects led by volunteers, but we expect them to increase next year so we will establish platforms to facilitate reportability and tracking of those projects.

Financials: year-to-date progress edit

This section provides the FDC information about how your entity is progressing against the current fiscal year's planned budget (revenues and costs).

Please provide the relevant information below. "Year-to-date" refers to the period between the start of your entity's current fiscal year and the date of submission of the proposal. Actual year-to-date financials should be provided as close to the proposal submission date as possible.

Identify the year-to-date for which you are reporting, month/year to month/year:

Table 3

Current fiscal year planned budget Year-to-date actuals Projected final amount
In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US
Revenues (from all sources) 682,504.70 147,282.46 788,907.34 147,672.36 863.907,34 160.670,62
Spending 682.504,70 147,282.46 550,692.61 104,087.02 790.032,61 145,567.09

Table 3 details, if necessary:

  • Currency requested for 2013 was Argentine peso (ARS). Due to the depreciation of the local currency (change rate: 4.67 in Sept-2013, 5.10 in Mar-2013, 5,77 in Sept-2013), we have tried to convert from pesos to dollars using a monthly exchange rate.
  • Variances have been calculated considering the amount in dollars.
  • Revenues:
    • Year-to-date includes the reimbursment of a partial scholarship to Wikimania for a member by the WMF; the rest of the scholarship was paid by WM-AR. It also includes the underspent amount of 2012 Annual Plan, that was transfered to 2013. Wikimedia Foundation transfered USD 129.894,02 (77,500 in March, 52,394.02 in August), including the scholarship reimbursment, the grant given by the FDC for 2013 minus the underspent amount of 2013.
    • Projected incomes are the reimbursment for the Creative Commons Global Summit, hosted in Buenos Aires by Wikimedia Argentina and Vía Libre Foundation.
  • Spending:
    • CC Summit has a total spent of 75,000 ARS to be fully reimbursed by Creative Commons; at this moment, has been paid 36,660 ARS and the rest will be disembursed in the following weeks.
Based on the variance percentages above, please describe how your entity is progressing against revenue and spending targets. If your projected final amount shows your entity to be significantly under or over target on either revenue or spending, please provide a detailed explanation.
  • Considering the variances in the amount on dollars (see explanation above), there is no significative difference comparing with the revenue and spending targets. The only activity that represents a change is the organization of Creative Commons Global Summit, where all the expenses will be reimbursed by the international organization. Projecting the results for the following months, there will be an increase in 10% in the revenue (corresponding to the funds sent by CC and a small rise in the recaudation of member fees) but no considerable change in the total spent. This is explained by a small underspending on the plan presented to the FDC past year, compensated by the expenses of the CC Summit.

Financials: upcoming year's annual plan edit

Please note that the FDC staff is currently exploring alternatives to wikitables for financial information. This issue will be addressed by the time the proposal creation tool is launched on September 1, 2013. Provide your financial overview for the upcoming year in the format below.

Please link to your detailed budget in a publicly available spreadsheet file (translation into English highly recommended) in addition to completing the tables below. Detailed budget link:

Financial sustainability edit

What other donors support your work through grants beyond those in the Wikimedia movement? If your entity does receive funding from other donors, please list a contact person. Note that the donor's contact details can be sent directly to FDCsupport@wikimedia.org if you prefer not to publish it here.

Note that the FDC staff may contact these donors.

  • Currently, we don't have permanent donors or grants.
What are your entity's plans for achieving long-term financial sustainability?
  • We expect to start working on a plan for diversification of funds in 2014, considering the organization will reach a mature status that will enable it to contact other funding sources and be attractive to them.

Revenues edit

Please list anticipated revenues, by source (e.g., FDC, Wikimedia grants programs, grants from institutional donors, public funding, membership fees, local donations, event fees)

Table 4

Revenue source Anticipated (in currency requested) Anticipated (In $US)


FDC funds 196,451.36 196,451.36
Members' fees 450,00 450,00


Current entity staff and long-term contractors edit

Role/functions might include program administration, finance, fundraising. Please include both part-time and full-time staff and long-term contractors.

Table 5

Role / Function Number of staff Percentage of staff time*
Executive Director 1 100%
Communications Manager 1 50%

*Please include estimates of the percentage allocation of staff members. For example, for full-time staff, you would put 100% in this column. For half time staff, you would put 50% in this column.


Proposed new staff and and long-term contractors for upcoming year's annual plan edit

Role / functions might include program administration, finance, fundraising. Please include both part-time and full-time staff and long-term contractors.

Table 6

Department (e.g. Programs, Communications) Number of current staff Percentage of current staff time* Number of upcoming staff Percentage of upcoming staff time* Rationale for hiring new staff
Moving from contractor to a full-time staff member. Part-time wasn't enough to cover all the work we expected.
Wikimedia has had several opportunities of cooperation with educational institutions, but we haven't been able to take the most of them. We hope to include a professional in the area that can both create a comprehensive program and implement it with the institutions we have agreements.
We will move the bureaucratic burden from the ED, so he can be focused on the overall management of the Association and the design and implementation of the projects.

*Please include estimates of the percentage allocation of staff members and long-term contractors. For example, for full-time staff, you would put 100% in this column. For half-time staff, you would put 50% in this column.


Summary of staff and long-term contractor expenses edit

Table 7

In currency requested In $US Percent increase
Current staff expenses 59,000.00 59,000.00
Proposed increase for current staff expenses 24,362.22 24,362.22 41.29%
Proposed increase for new staff expenses 27,798.96 27,798.96 47.12%
Total staff expenses 111,161.18 111,161.18 88.41%

Please estimate the percentage of overall staff time spent on programmatic work, as opposed to administration:

  • 64,28% programatic work, 35,71% administration:
    • 100% programatic work: Communication (1 FTE), Education (0,5 FTE)
    • 75% programatic, 25% administration: Executive Director (1 FTE)
    • 100% administration: Assistant (1 FTE)

Table 7 notes, if necessary:

  • For the calculation of the expenses, it is important to explain the following considerations:
    • In 2013 there was an important increase on the taxes associated to the salaries that wasn't considered in the past FDC proposal. We included here the current expenses in dollars at the monthly exchange rate and a projection for the following months.
    • Given the depreciation of the Argentine peso and the high inflation (10% official, estimated ~30% by external companies), we have kept the same net salaries in dollars as in 2012, which represents a 16,7% increase after changing to Argentine pesos.


Expenses by program / initiative edit

Expenses are costs associated with any programs, initiatives, or projects your entity manages (e.g., event costs, materials, transportation). Please exclude any staff costs that are included above. “Programs / initiatives” might include education programs, outreach programs, microgranting initiatives, etc. Please include any administration costs (e.g., office space rental, utilities) affiliated with each program along with any overall administration costs that are not affiliated with any particular program (e.g., Administration should be considered a "Program" under the first column.)

Table 8a

Program / initiative In currency requested In $US
Administration 19,566.52 19,566.52
Education 3,552.86 3,552.86
GLAM activities 4,575.39 4,575.39
Community support 2,183.71 2,183.71
Contests 5,199.31 5,199.31
Outreach 6,585.79 6,585.79
Organizational strengthening 467.94 467.94
Federalization 6,967.07 6,967.07
Global engagement 18,786.83 18,786.83
Reserves (10%) 17,904.67 17,904.67
Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 85,789.59 85,789.59

Table 8 notes, if necessary:



Summary of total revenues and expenses edit

Table 9

In currency requested In $US
Total cash balance as of proposal submission 59,560.57 59,560.57
Total revenues 196,951.36 196,951.36
Total spending 196,951.36 196,951.36
Net (revenues less expenses) 0,00 0,00
Operating reserves,* if applicable

Table 9 notes, if necessary:



Verification that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities edit

Enter "yes" or "no" for the verification below.

The term “political or legislative activities” includes any activities relating to political campaigns or candidates (including the contribution of funds and the publication of position statements relating to political campaigns or candidates); voter registration activities; meetings with or submissions and petitions to government executives, ministers, officers or agencies on political or policy issues; and any other activities seeking government intervention or policy implementation (like “lobbying”), whether directed toward the government or the community or public at large. Grants for such activities (when permitted under U.S. law and IRS regulations) should be sought from the Wikimedia Grants Program.
I verify that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities Yes

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes. No changes can be made to the documents after the deadlines for completion passes, and documents will automatically be considered 'submitted' after the deadline closes.