Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Impact report form


Purpose of the report edit

FDC funds are allocated to improve the alignment between the Wikimedia movement's strategy and spending; support greater impact and progress towards achieving shared goals; and enable all parts of the movement to learn how to achieve shared goals better and faster.

Funding should lead to increased access to and quality of content on Wikimedia project sites – the two ultimate goals of the Wikimedia movement strategic priorities, individually and as a whole. Funded activities must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

Each entity that receives FDC funding will need to complete this report, which seeks to determine how the funding received by the entity is leading towards these goals. The information you provide will help us to:

  • Identify lessons learned, in terms of both what the entity learned that could benefit the broader movement, and how the entity used movement-wide best practices to accomplish its stated objectives.
  • Assess the performance of the entity over the course of the funded period against the stated objectives in the entity's annual plan.
  • Ensure accountability over how the money was spent. The FDC distributes "general funds", for both ongoing and programmatic expenses; these funds can be spent as the entity best sees fit to accomplish its stated goals. Therefore, although line-item expenses are not expected to be exactly as outlined in the entity's proposal, the FDC wants to ensure that money was spent in a way that led to movement goals.

For more information, please review FDC portal/Reporting requirements or reference your entity's grant agreement.

Basic entity information edit

Table 1

Entity information Legal name of entity Wikimedia Österreich
Entity's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd) 01/01–12/31
12 month timeframe of funds awarded (mm/dd/yy-mm/dd/yy) 01/01/14–12/31/14
Contact information (primary) Primary contact name Claudia Garad
Primary contact position in entity Executive Director
Primary contact username Claudia.Garad
Primary contact email claudia.garad@wikimedia.at
Contact information (secondary) Secondary contact name Kurt Kulac
Secondary contact position in entity President
Secondary contact username Kulac
Secondary contact email kulac@wikimedia.at


Overview of the past year edit

The purpose of this section is to provide a brief overview of this report. Please use no more than 2–3 paragraphs to address the questions outlined below. You will have an opportunity to address these questions in detail elsewhere in this report. Also, we encourage you to share photographs, videos, and sound files in this report to make it more interactive, and include links to reports, blog posts, plans, etc as these will add context for the readers.

  • HIGHLIGHTS: What were 2–3 important highlights of the past year? (These may include successes, challenges, lessons learned. Please note which you are describing)
  • Success: Wiki Loves Earth (WLE): WMAT could draw on its history and experience of conducting successful photography contests when launching the first WLE contest in Austria in May. The outcome regarding the number of uploaded files and new contributors exceeded our expectations (please find the detailed numbers in the respective programs below): WLE generated the highest percentage of new users in a photography contest so far (over 70%) and enough pictures to reach our annual goal regarding uploaded files after only five months.
 
The ODP core team and partners at the press conference
  • Success / challenge: Launch Open Data Portal (ODP): The launch of the ODP is both a success story but also a source for challenges and learnings. The launch itself was a huge success with a lot of support from partners, broad media coverage and a successful way to increase reach for open knowledge and the work of Wikimedia and OKF in Austria resulting in new partnerships in science, economics and politics. On the other hand we had to realize that the road to open data can be a rocky one, as it is a cultural change for the participating institutions - a change that has to be facilitated and needs more time and resources than we expected in first place. However, from today's perspective the efforts paid out: In Q1/2015 we received several hundred data sets of major partners from science and industry. Our challenge for 2015 will be to foster the use of this free data in various projects and applications.
  • Succcess: WikiDienstag: "A little less conversation, a little more action please" - in the context of our social events we noticed a growing demand on the side of our community for more systematic exchange on their online work that results in more tangible results. Hence, we introduced the WikiDienstag ("WikiTuesday") to cater for these needs. After six months, the WikiDienstag meetings attract both repeat attendees and newcomers on a regular basis and address a broad variety of topics. It also proved to be a valuable testbed for new project ideas and for introducing newcomers.
  • SWOT: Reflecting on the context outlined for your entity in the FDC proposal, what were some of the contextual elements that either enabled or inhibited the plan? Feel free to include factors unanticipated in the proposal.
    • Strengths: Organizational strengths that enabled the plan
What I particularly value about my contact with you is the feeling of always being taken seriously and of being on equal footing. I don't exactly need you as a shoulder to cry on - although I know you would also be happy to offer such an unspectacular service - but compared to other entities in the Wikiverse that is best practice (I would say).

— Man77

  • Committed volunteers, board, staff: Although or perhaps even because we are a small chapter, WMAT is flexible and strong enough to cope with unplanned situations and conditions. In our board and also among the volunteers, we have many involved people with a very good portfolio of core skills that can be triggered if required. The spirit of collaboration between staff and board / volunteers is very good and additionally adds to this strength. In addition, WMAT has a good rapport with the community that is cherished beyond Austria in the wider German-speaking community and we constantly put a lot of thought and effort into retaining this relationship.
  • Organisational effectiveness: WMAT is an effective learning organisation with a lean staffing structure and well functioning governance structures. We prioritize learning in a systematic way - within our organisation as well as within the wider movement.
  • Experience: WMAT has been around for six years now and by now we are able look back on several successful programs. We built considerable expertise in free content generation, with a clear focus on quality - experience we can draw on when it comes to planning new activities. Success stories are also the best way to win new partners and / or supporters.
  • Weaknesses: Organizational weaknesses that inhibited the plan
  • Leadership and responsibility: Some projects suffer from a lack of responsibility and leader-/ownership on the side of the volunteers involved. This mainly concerns strategic, coordinative or planning tasks. As a result theses projects draw heavily on board and staff members which limits the overall scope of what we could achieve.
  • Tech know-how: Our communities do not comprise enough tech-savvy people which can be a constraint on the scope and variety of projects we conduct. It also makes the outreach and expansion to other tech-communities in Austria difficult and slow as there are not enough people for networking activities.
  • Fundraising: WMAT has not met its goals concerning local fundraising. While we have been quite successful in acquiring in-kind donations and sponsorships of programs, we had difficulties in opening up additional financial resources. The main restraints are a lack of human resources to dedicate to fundraising activities and a certain lack of expertise.
  • Opportunities: External opportunities that enabled the plan
For us Wikimedia Austria is the ideal intermediary between a broad community, a highly professional environment and the public administration. [...] Thank you Wikimedia Austria for the outstanding collaboration and joint shaping of Austria's digital future.

— Günther Tschabuschnig, Federal Chancellor's Office, Federal ICT strategy

  • Strong partnerships: WMAT has established some very fruitful, long-term partnerships with GLAM institutions (e.g. Federal Monuments Office), like-minded organisations (e.g. Open Knowledge Foundation Austria) and public administration (e.g. City of Vienna, Federal Chancellor's Office) which enable sustainable, long-term project planning and innovative initiatives (Open Data Portal) and often serve as a door opener for new projects and initiatives. In addition to the impact of the specific projects, they also contribute to a positive image of Wikipedia and Wikimedia and an increased general free knowledge awareness in Austria.
  • Resources: We think that there is generally good fundraising potential in Austria, for project-specific funding as well as for general fundraising. There's also a small, but very loyal group of long-term donors, that could and should be expanded.
  • Broader movement: WMAT considers the good relationships to other entities and individuals within the international movement as very valuable and beneficial. Within the German-speaking community we have strong partners in WMDE and WMCH and can use synergies to achieve common goals. Due to Austria's geographical location and history, WMAT has close bonds to Western and Central / Eastern European communities and can act as a link between these cultures.
  • Threats: Risks or threats that inhibited the plan
  • Reliance on partners: Many projects are dependent on partners (public administration, companies, other NGOs etc.). Their internal decision making processes influence the scope and timeframe of our projects and are sometimes hard to predict or influence. Successful projects also often depend on certain individuals in those organisations, once they leave or change their position, the projects might get a totally different dynamic.
 
Conchita Wurst by Ailura: image supported by WMAT in 2014 and used widely on and off Wikimedia projects
  • WIKI-FOCUS: What Wikimedia projects was your entity focused on (e.g., Wiki Commons, French Wiktionary) this year?
  • German-language Wikipedia
  • Wikimedia Commons
  • German-language Wiktionary
  • German-language Wikinews
  • Wikiversity
  • GROWTH: How did your entity grow over the past year (e.g., Number of active editors reached/involved/added, number of articles created, number of events held, number of participants reached through workshops)? And what were the long term affects of this growth (e.g. relationships with new editors, more returned editors, higher quality articles, etc)?

Response:

In 2014 we managed to attract a broader audience for our services and activities in and outside of the Wikimedia community. This has positive long-term effects regarding the scope (e.g. number of media files, new initiatives in the educational sector, broader Wikimedia projects focus including Wiktionary etc.) and quality (e.g. working group for quality images) of our projects. The slight growth of our staff reflects this overall growth and the concomitant level of administrative tasks while retaining our comparatively lean management structures.
New WMAT members: 23
New Wikimedians involved in WMAT activities: 17
New user accounts in the context of WMAT activities: 243
New WMAT staff: 0,5 (FTE)
External partners involved: 60
Media files: 60,644
(758 of which are decorated images)
Number of people (Non-Wikimedians) we were
in direct contact with within the context of our
Reach / free knowledge awareness activities:
1500

Financial summary edit

The FDC requires information about how your entity received and spent money over the past year. The FDC distributes general funds, so your entity is not required to use funds exactly as outlined in the proposal. While line-item expenses will not be examined, the FDC and movement wants to understand why the entity spent money in the way it did. If variance in budgeted vs. actual is greater than 20%, please provide explanation in more detail. This helps the FDC understand the rationale behind any significant changes. Note that any changes from the Grant proposal, among other things, must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

If you'd prefer to share a budget created in Google or another tool and import it to wiki, you can do so in the tables below instead of using wiki tables. You can link to an external document, but we ask that you do include a table in this form. We are testing this approach in this form.

Revenues edit

Provide exchange rate used:

  • 1 Euro : 1.35 US$

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Membership fees EUR 2,500.00 20.00 400.00 126.00 904.00 1,450.00 3,375.00 1,957,50 Growing number of tardy members.
Donations EUR 35,000.00 2,184.00 2,248.00 6,796.00 8,536.00 19,764.00 47,250.00 26,681.40 Less monetary donations but otoh more than 10,000 EUR in-kind donations on top of that.
WMF / FDC EUR 204,000.00 119,000.00 - 85,000.00 - 204,000.00 275,400.00 275,400.00
Interests EUR - 103.00 29.00 38.00 29.00 199.00 - 268,65
netidee grant EUR 25,000.00 - - 15,000.00 15,000.00 33,750.00 20,250.00 Last instalment only arrived in January 2015.

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending edit

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Staff expenses (including on-costs, labour taxes, etc.) EUR 126,900.00 23,150.55 17,207.45 29,429.00 31,005.22 100,792.22 171,315.00 136,069.50 79,43 Instead of hiring a long-term contractor (coder) for the Open Data Portal, we split up the tasks and hired several short-term contractors / service suppliers.
Administration EUR 23,260.00 4,706.00 6,527.00 4,779.00 11,797.00 27.809 31,401.00 37,542.15 119,56 Higher bookkeeping costs (company instead of freelancer). Two audits as we changed fiscal year to match calendar year.
Community support EUR 60,000.00 3,365.00 9,114.00 18,326.00 9,798.00 40,603.00 81,000.00 54,814.05 67,67 cost savings in the community budget after cut in funding, in-kind donations
Free content generation EUR 52,000.00 8,818.00 8,440.00 23,548.00 13,811.00 54,617.00 70,200.00 73,732.95 105
Reach / Free knowledge Awareness EUR 29,300.00 4,466.00 124.00 352.00 4,059.00 9,001.00 39,555.00 12,151.35 30,7 Many activities were sponsored by in-kind donations.
Organisational development EUR 11,100.00 2,641.00 1,319.00 1,707.00 6,868.00 12,535.00 14,985.00 16,922,25 113
TOTAL EUR 302,560.00 47,146.55 42,731.45 78,141.00 77,338.22 245,357.22 408,456.00 331,232.25 81,10 see above

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Progress against past year's goals/objectives edit

The FDC needs to understand the impact of the initiatives your entity has implemented over the past year. Because the FDC distributes general funds, entities are not required to implement the exact initiatives proposed in the FDC proposal; the FDC expects each entity to spend money in the way it best sees fit to achieve its goals and those of the movement. However, please point out any significant changes from the original proposal, and the reasons for the changes. Note that any changes from the Grant proposal, among other things, must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."


Community support

A few years ago I was really only somebody who worked on online projects and had no idea that this second level also exists. I only happened to slip into the "hidden" world of Wikimedia through WMAT and today consider myself a full blooded Wikimedian. To begin with there was a banner, then a Wikimania visit, then the WMAT mailing list, then the chapter membership and later the first projects, in the course of which I was given the full support of my chapter.

I doubt whether I would have joined in this way had the Austrian chapter not already existed at this point in time. So, thanks for everything! I am proud to belong here!

— Dimi z

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Support existing community with resources and know-how
    • Goal: Support or organise at least 5 community events (a)
    • Goal: At least 5 Minigrants for new projects initiated by the community (b)
    • Goal: Conclude 100 % of community requests (concerning support, expertise, resources) and give transparent and timely rationale in case their requests can not be fulfilled to the extent they requested (c)
    • Goal: Engage 10 Wikimedians in our activities who have formerly not or very rarely been active WMAT volunteers[1. 1] (d)
    • Goal: Retain our existing community of active volunteers (e)
    • Goal: Improve the spirit of collaboration and building trust (no baseline to measure against yet) (f)
  • Attract new volunteers
    • Goal: 50 new contributors to Wikimedia projects (g)
    • Goal: Collaboration with like-minded organisations and communities in 5 projects (h)
    • Goal: Pioneer project to establish an expert network for 1 subject area, consisting of at least 3 people (i)
  • Foster (international) exchange and integration of the Austrian Community into the broader movement
    • Goal: Participation in 2 international Wikimedia projects (e.g. WLM), with at least 5 active volunteers[1. 1] involved each time (j)
    • Goal: 5 presentations on our activities at international events (k)
    • Goal: 10 community members as scholarship holders for international events (20 % of which are new scholarship holders) (l)
What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)
a 720 % (goal: 5, achieved: 36)
b 360 % (goal: 5, achieved: 18)
c accomplished
d 170 % (goal: 10, achieved: 17)
e accomplished
f accomplished
g 486 % (goal: 50, achieved: 243)
h 140 % (goal: 5, achieved: 7)
i 0 % (goal: 1, achieved: 0)
j 100 % (goal: 2, achieved: 2)
k 240 % (goal: 5, achieved: 12)
l 100 % (goal: 10, achieved: 10)
Activity Month(s) Short description WMAT support Active
volunteers
involved
WMAT
staff
involved
Counts
for
goal(s)
Collaborating with like-minded organisations and communities Jan.–Dec. Projects and partners:
  1. Wikipedia meets University (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): University of Vienna and its students council.
  2. Press campaign on EU copyright consultation (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): Open Knowledge Foundation Austria.
  3. Open Data Portal (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): Open Knowledge Foundation Austria, Cooperation OGD Austria.
  4. Wiki Loves Earth (→ PROGRAM Free content generation): Federal Environment Office.
  5. DACH Open Science event on the MS Wissenschaft (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): FWF (Austrian Science Fund).
  6. ELEVATE festival in Graz (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): the ELEVATE festival itself.
  7. Teachers' training course in Hollabrunn (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness): School of Education of Lower Austria.
(f)
(h)
Engaging Wikimedians Jan.–Dec. Engaging 17 Wikimedians in our activities who have formerly not or very rarely been active WMAT volunteers: 1 in the preparation process of Wiki Loves Earth 2014 (→ PROGRAM Free content generation), 1 at the school project in Styria (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness), 4 in Wikipedia meets University (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness), 1 in the International WLM Meet-up at the Monumento Fair in Salzburg (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness), 1 in the Community IdeaLab (→ PROGRAM Organisational development), 3 in WikiDienstag (see below), 1 in the Community PlannungLab (→ PROGRAM Organisational development), 5 in the GLAM meeting in Vienna (see below), 1 in the DACH Open Science event on the MS Wissenschaft (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness). (d)
(f)
Minigrants Jan.–Dec. 18 minigrants for new projects initiated by the community:
1. GLAM meeting in Vienna; 2. Wikipedia:Burgenland;
(see below)

3. Denkmal-Cup; 4. European Parliament Project; 5. Gesäuse photography tour; 6. GLAM: k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum; 7. International WLM Meet-up at the Monumento Fair in Salzburg; 8. QR code project in the Botanical Garden in Graz; 9. Upper Austrian Townscape Fair; 10. Wikipedians in Seifhennersdorf; 11. Writing workshop on legal issues;

(→ PROGRAM Free content generation).

12. Big Fat Brussels Gathering; 13. GloCha Conference in Klagenfurt; 14. Monuments Fair in Leipzig; 15. Open Data Discussion; 16. School projects; 17. Semantic MediaWiki Conference Vienna; 18. Wikipedia meets University.

(→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness)
(b)
(c)
(e)
(f)
14th Wikipedia Photo Workshop Mar. The 14th Wikipedia Photo Workshop took place in Berlin and focussed on portraiture. 2 travel grants. 22 (c)
(e)
(f)
GLAM meeting in Bremen Mar. The third GLAM meeting of the German-speaking communities (GLAM Wiki) took place in Bremen, Germany. Austria was represented by a Wikimedia volunteer and a representative of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 2 travel grants. 1 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
(k)
Wiki-Dialog Mar. Collaborative project initiated and supported by WMAT, WMDE and WMCH, focussing on the German-language Wikipedia community and consisting of a series of online seminars/workshops about topics concerning Wikipedians. Travel costs, co-organisation. 1 1 (e)
(f)
Presentations at international events Mar.–Oct. 12 presentations on our activities at international events: 1 at the Board training workshop in March (→ PROGRAM Organisational development), 2 at the GLAM Meeting in Bremen in March (see above), 1 at the GloCha Conference in June (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness), 5 at the Wikimania in August (see below), 2 at the Semantic MediaWiki Conference in October (→ PROGRAM Reach / Free knowledge awareness)), 1 at the WikiCon in October (see below). 6 2 (e)
(f)
(k)
Community IdeaLab Apr. Volunteers present their ideas for WMAT-supported projects.
(see also: → PROGRAM Organisational development)
Organisation, promotion, presentation, documentation, catering. 14 2 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
TFM Edit-a-thon Apr. The edit-a-thon took place at the Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies (TFM) of the University of Vienna, focussing on the editing of Wikipedia articles related to theatre, film and media. The main target group were TFM students, irrespective of their experiences with Wikipedia.
(see also: → PROGRAM Free content generation)
Learning materials, promotion materials, introductory lecture, promotion. 10 1 (a)
(c)
(g)
(e)
(f)
Gaining new contributors Apr./May/Sep. 243 new contributors to Wikimedia projects: 175 new users registered on Wikimedia Commons for Wiki Loves Earth 2014 in Austria (→ PROGRAM Free content generation), 63 new users registered on Wikimedia Commons for Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 in Austria (→ PROGRAM Free content generation) and 5 new user accounts were created during the TFM Edit-a-thon (see above). (g)
Wiktionary Conference May The 2nd conference of the German-language Wiktionary took place in Berlin. 2 travel grants. 2 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
Wiki-Dialog Coaching Day May In order to prepare the first Wiki-Dialog a coaching day was held in in Berlin. Travel grant, coaching, documentation. 2 1 (e)
(f)
Wikimedia Hackathon in Zurich May WMAT sent 1 scholarship holder to the Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 in Zurich. Travel costs, registration fee. 1 (c)
(e)
(f)
(l)
Participation in international Wikimedia projects May/Sep. Participating in Wiki Loves Earth 2014 and Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 (→ PROGRAM Free Content Generation). 5–17 2 (+ 1 contractor)
(e)
(f)
(j)
WMAT Library Jun. More than 20 books on Austrian topics in the WMAT office were inventoried and made available for volunteers. 1 (e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Jun. 3 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 7–8 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Portal Earth Sciences Meet-up Jul. Meet-up of the German-language Wikipedia Portal Earth Sciences (“Portal Erdwissenschaften“) in the mining region of Ruhr. Travel grant for an Austrian volunteer. 16 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Jul. 5 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 6–7 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Aug. 3 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 6–7 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Wikimania Aug. WMAT sent 9 scholarships holders (5 of them were new scholarship holders) and additional 2 board and 2 staff members to the Wikimania 2014 in London. Travel costs, registration fee. 11 2 (c)
(e)
(f)
(k)
(l)
Workshop on conflict resolutions by non-admin actions Aug. First Guide Camp on conflict resolutions by non-admin actions in the German-language Wikipedia in the city of Kassel, Germany. 2 travel grants for Austrian participants. 14 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
GLAM meeting in Vienna Sep. GLAM meeting for the German-speaking region (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Organisation including agenda coordination, infrastructure, catering, promotion. 18 2 (a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Sep. 5 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 5–7 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
WikiCon in Cologne Oct. The annual meeting of the communities of the German-language Wikipedia and its sister projects. Financial support for the WikiCon as a whole, travel grants for 5 volunteers, information material. 1 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
(k)
WikiDienstag Oct. 4 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 5–11 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
Wikipedia:Burgenland Oct. First Wikipedia meet-up in the Austrian state of Burgenland. Travel grants for ride sharing from Vienna, information material. 17 (a)
(c)
(e)
(f)
Lightroom 2014 in CUX Nov. Adobe Lightroom workshop for Wikimedia Commons photographers. 1 travel grant. 12 (c)
(e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Nov. 4 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 6–8 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
WikiDienstag Dec. 3 weekly meet-ups in the WMAT office. Volunteers share knowledge and improve content. Infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion. 7–10 1 (a)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
WMAT Calendars Dec. Printed photo calendars with supported images from Wikimedia Commons. Coordination, production. 8 2 (+ 1 contractor) (e)
(f)
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?
  • Increase participation: We acquire, activate and retain contributors and help to create a productive and welcoming working environment.
  • Encourage innovation: We embolden new ideas and initiatives by providing low-threshold access to necessary resources and assistance.
What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?
  • Please see table above.
If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?
  • We achieved our desired objectives with the exception of the expert network. However, the planned establishment of an expert network on World War I related topics was resumed in Q1/2015 and started quite promising. The delay and the reason we did not get as far as we would like to get in 2014 was mainly caused by internal processes and challenges on the side of our partner institution (the University of Vienna) on which we had little or no influence.
The main reasons for the positive outcomes in the other areas lie mainly in the constructive and trustful working atmosphere among all stakeholders that developed over the last years (please also see SWOT above and factors for success section below).

Any additional details:

  • According to our community survey, 79% of the overall community and 86% of our members are satisfied with the alignment of the chapter. There are similar numbers for both groups regarding the level of affinity and appreciation - in general we can see that the more volunteers interact with us and participate in our activities, the more they feel appreciated and satisfied with our work. Most volunteers (67%) state that fellow Wikimedians that they know offline support them in their online activies, WMAT ranks on third place (58%) after the online colleagues, the WMF is on the last place (9%). 40% of our volunteers joined the chapter in order to meet other like-minded people. This shows the vital role of the chapter as an intermediary between users (bringing people together in the context of events - e.g. the WikiTuesdays - and activities) and between the local communities in Austria and the wider international movement. The WMAT services which are most appreciated by our community are travel support (52%), organizational support (40%) and the tech pool (33%) - the numbers among WMAT members only for each of those services are even higher. The detailed results of our community survey can be found on our members wiki (only in German for the time being).
  • Note:
  1. a b We see as active volunteers those persons who not only contribute in a project but also are involved in planning and conducting it.


Free content generation

All of my colleagues at the Federal Monuments Office who worked directly together with the Austrian Wikimedians [...] are greatly impressed by the precision of the work in Wikipedia, the high standard of factual communication, the desire for a free exchange of knowledge and, above all, by the enormous commitment to the cause and the willingness to dedicate a lot of free time for it. Having obtained a behind-the-scenes look at Wikipedia, we at the Federal Monuments Office have great respect for all the voluntary selfless work, with the objective of establishing free access to knowledge.

— Renate Holzschuh-Hofer, Director of the Public Relations Unit in the Federal Monuments Office

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Generating free content of good quality
    • Goal: Generating 10.000 photographs in the context of our projects (a1) and increase the number of decorated (valuable, quality, featured) images by 500 (a2)
    • Goal: 5 new book grants (by 5 different people) (b1) that result in at least 100 articles (new or revised) (b2)
    • Goal: 5 good or featured articles (resulting directly from WMAT activities) (c)
    • Goal: Editing events with at least 10 participants (d1) altogether resulting in at least 50 articles (resulting directly from WMAT activities) (d2)
  • Liberating content
    • Goal: At least 2 projects for content liberation with GLAM partners (e)
    • Goal: Access to at least 15 open data sets (f)
    • Goal: Organising of or taking part in 2 events to address new GLAM partners (e.g. fairs, giving presentations …) (g)


What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)
a1 606 % (goal: 10,000, achieved: 60,644)
a2 152 % (goal: 500, achieved: 758)
b1 180 % (goal: 5/5, achieved: 9/8)
b2 42 % (goal: 100, achieved: 42)
c 0 % (goal: 5, achieved: 0)
d1 100 % (goal: 2, achieved: 2)
d2 18 % (goal: 50, achieved: 9)
e 100 % (goal: 2, achieved: 2)
f 593 % (goal: 15, achieved: 89)
g 200 % (goal: 2, achieved: 4)
Activity Month(s) Short description Content WMAT support Active
volunteers
involved
WMAT
staff
involved
Counts
for
goal(s)
International WLM Meet-up at the Monumento Fair in Salzburg Jan. Round table at the fair, an international platform for monument preservation, restoration and conservation and an occasion to meet all relevant stakeholders from Austria and neighbouring countries. Organisation, travel grants, promotion. 7 1 (g)
Wiki meets Austrian Academy of Sciences Jan. Excursion to the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna in order to foster a deeper cooperation and assess the possibility of a new GLAM project. Organisation. 12 2 (g)
Wiki Loves Memories Jan.–Mar. Project for scanning 20th century slides of everyday life. 88 media files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, 13 of them are used in at least one Wikimedia project. Equipment, documentation. 1 (a1)
Book grants Jan.–Dec. 9 new book grants for 8 different people. 42 new or revised articles. Coordination. 1 1 (b1)
(b2)
Digitalization of historic literature with the Federal Monuments Office Jan.–Dec. Digitalization of historic literature of the Federal Monuments Office's library with book scanners. 31 media files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Equipment, organisation. 1 1 (a1)
(e)
Generating photographs and increasing the number of decorated images Jan.–Dec. Providing 64 equipment rentals; organising 42 event accreditations (34 successful, 8 not successful); offering travel reimbursements for photography projects; organising photography contests (WLM, WLE), providing suitable software for post-processing, supporting photography and post-processing workshops for quality skills. 60,644 media files supported by WMAT were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons; the number of decorated (valuable, quality, featured) images supported by WMAT increased by 758. (a1)
(a2)
European Parliament Project Feb. Wikimedians visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg and performed a photography and editing project for the 764 MEPs there. 2275 media files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They are used 3164 times in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects; 638 distinct files (28.04 % of all files) are used in the main namespace. 2 travel grants, give-aways, information material. 2 (a1)
Open data sets Mar.–Dec. Access to 87 open data sets for Open Data Portal Austria and 2 open data sets for Wiki Loves Earth. 89 open data sets. 2 (f)
Long Night of Research Apr. The Long Night of Research was a nation-wide event where Austrian research institutions presented their work. Together with the Austrian Academy of Science, WMAT hosted a lecture and panel discussion on the collaboration of humanities and Wikimedia projects. Promotion (website, members wiki, newsletter, social media). 1 1 (g)
TFM Edit-a-thon Apr. The edit-a-thon took place at the Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies (TFM) of the University of Vienna, focussing on the editing of Wikipedia articles related to theatre, film and media. The main target group were TFM students, irrespective of their experiences with Wikipedia.
(see also: → PROGRAM Community support)
Learning materials, promotion materials, introductory lecture, promotion. Bytes added (absolute): 7089; bytes added (positive): 6914; edits: 33; new articles: 4. 10 1 (d1)
(d2)
Gesäuse photography tour May Photography tour to the remote Gesäuse National Park within the context of Wiki Loves Earth. 120 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Travel grant. 1 (a1)
Wiki Loves Earth May The Wiki Loves Earth photography contest took place for the 1st time in Austria. 6536 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They are used 1171 times in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects; 1059 distinct images (16.2 % of all images) are used in the main namespace. Website, information material, contact management with partner organisations / multipliers, awards (vouchers), mailing, coordinating the jury. 5 2 (+ 1 contractor) (a1)
Wikipedians in Seifhennersdorf May The first Wikimedian Meetup in the three border region of Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland: photography tours with Upper Lusatian houses ("Umgebindehäuser") as main subjects. 3381 media files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They are used 331 times in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects; 286 distinct files (8.46 % of all files) are used in the main namespace. Equipment. 30 (a1)
QR code project in the Botanical Garden in Graz Jun. New signs with QR codes next to some plants in the Botanical Garden in Graz link directly to the Wikipedia articles about the specific plants; Wikipedia writing contest in order to create the missing articles. 375 new entries at the Botanical Garden; 25 new Wikipedia articles (none of them recognised as “good“ or “featured article“). Coordination, prize sponsoring. 1 1 (c)
Writing workshop on legal issues Jun. An Austrian volunteer participated in a workshop on comprehensible writing about legal issues at the "Die Presse" journalism academy in Vienna. 1 new article, 1 revised article (none of them recognised as “good“ or “featured article“). Negotiating a reduced participation fee, grant for most of it. 1 (c)
GLAM: k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum Jul. The k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum is a small private museum with historical everyday objects (arts and crafts) which were photographed systematically. 1728 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Equipment, travel grants. 4 (a1)
(e)
Launch Open Data Portal Jul. Launched of the Open Data Portal Austria, a central data portal for business, culture, NGO/NPO, research and civil society as a joint venture of public administration and open culture communities (WMAT and Open Knowledge Foundation OKF); 15 participants at the press conference, 100 participants at the launch event. Project management, administration / grant handling, communication. 1 1 (f)
Upper Austrian Townscape Fair Aug. 95 communes and communal associations as well as 100 other exhibitors including WMAT presented their projects on innovative improvements of the region. Reaching 140 exhibitors and other fair visitors. Travel grants, equipment, information material. 8 1 (g)
Open Data Community Event Sep. Events for the community around the Open Data Portal Austria, data suppliers as well as data users, for learning more about their needs and experiences when using the portal. Communication, promoting the event. 25 1 (f)
Wiki Loves Monuments Sep. The Wiki Loves Monuments photography contest took place for the 4th time in Austria. 8682 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. They are used 1393 times in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects; 1133 distinct images (13.05 % of all images) are used in the main namespace. Website, information material, contact management with the Federal Monuments Office, awards (vouchers), mailing, serving the pre-jury and jury. 17 (15 as members of the pre-jury) 2 (+1 contractor) (a1)
Denkmal-Cup Writing Contest Oct.–Dec. Wikipedia editors write and enhance articles about monuments worldwide, conceived as a sequel to the Wiki Loves Monuments photography contest. 156 new articles and 101 improved articles (none of them recognised as “good“ or “featured article“). Prizes (3 book vouchers), organisational support (including the set-up of the contest page in Wikipedia), lending books on monuments from our own library. 29 1 (c)
WLM and WLE awards ceremony Nov. The annual award ceremony at the Federal Monuments Office has become a family gathering of the Austrian community. Catering, organisation, coordination, prices, public relations. 31 3 (+1 contractor) (a1)
Correcting improper use of media files Nov.–Dec. Introducing a systematic procedure for following up on improper use of WMAT-supported media files by third parties: 15 complaints (all successful). Coordination. 1 1 (a1)
Denkmal-Cup Edit-a-thon Dec. Wikipedia edit-a-thon on monuments at the Federal Monuments Office. Bytes added (absolute): 28,125; bytes added (positive): 26,557; edits: 103; new articles: 5. Organisation, technical equipment, food and drinks. 7 3 (d1)
(d2)
Open Data Community Event Dec. Events for the community around the Open Data Portal Austria, data suppliers as well as data users, for learning more about their needs and experiences when using the portal. Communication, promoting the event. 10 1 (f)
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?
  • Increase participation: We gain new contributors with our activities and involve various partners from outside the movement in activities to liberate and spread content.
  • Increase reach: Especially GLAM activities often reach out to target groups that otherwise don't have many points of contact with online projects and communities. Successful GLAM projects can be a door opener to even more organisations and individuals that would otherwise be hard to reach.
What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?
  • Please see table above.
If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?
  • Gaining and retaining users with photo contests: We are not fully satisfied with the retention rates of our photo contests, as we think there is more potential for exploiting the opportunities we have regarding all the newbies we reach with our contests. Hence, we will put increased effort into a more systematic communication with the participants before and after the contests, offering help and guidance, pointing out areas for further engagement etc.
    • Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 (09/2013): 77 of the 190 participants were new users. 12 of these new users edited in Wikimedia projects from 10/2013 to 04/2014, 4 participated in Wiki Loves Earth 2014 (05/2014), 3 edited in Wikimedia projects from 06/2014 to 08/2014 and 3 participated in Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 (09/2014).
    • Wiki Loves Earth 2014 (05/2014): 175 of the 249 participants were new users. 15 of these new users edited in Wikimedia projects from 06/2014 to 08/2014 and 3 from 09/2014 to 12/2014.
    • Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 (09/2014): 43 of the 190 users who participated in Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 also participated in Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 with a total number of 152 participants. 63 of the 152 participants were new users. 8 of these new users edited in Wikimedia projects from 10/2014 to 12/2014.
  • Objectives on articles: We had difficulties to reach our objectives concerning the amount and quality of articles. The main reasons are the difficulty to measure our own, specific contributions to a shared language Wikipedia and a certain inexperience with goal-setting in this regard when we set up the proposal. We realized that the impact of book grants is best measured long-term, our objectives did not allow us to count results from grants of former years though. We also haven't hosted edit-a-thons before and were lacking experience of realistic outcomes of such writing events while on the other hand not taking into account the results of all the various writing competitions we supported. We also need to get a broader understanding of improving the quality of written content, as the procedure of getting featured articles is too much of a hurdle for many editors. We took these learnings into account for the planning and data collection this year.
  • Amount, quality and usage of media files: We overachieved our objectives in this regard, please see the case study on our photography projects below for more information.

Any additional details:


Reach / free knowledge awareness

I have observed the team from Wikimedia Austria to be one of the most motivated and competent in the whole open culture area. The open scene in Austria would be much poorer and greyer without you. Your example is the best argument in many political debates addressing the potential of new forms of culture and knowledge production, precisely because everybody knows and uses Wikimedia.

— Thomas Lohninger, Managing Director AKVorrat, net activist

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Raising awareness for the importance and benefits of free knowledge for the Austrian society
    • Launching at least 5 major press campaigns on projects or general WMAT topics (a)
    • Maintaining our current level of media attention (b)
  • Promoting the profile and brand awareness of Wikimedia Österreich in Austria (no baseline to measure against, market research would be to elaborate and costly) (c)
  • Establishing and cultivating contacts to opinion leaders, multipliers and decision makers and other stakeholders (e.g. donors) (d)
    • Interviews with all our major partners


What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)
a 100 % (goal: 5, achieved: 5)
b 158 % (goal: 26, achieved: 41)
c accomplished
d accomplished
Activity Month(s) Short description Reach WMAT support Active
volunteers
involved
WMAT
staff
involved
Counts
for
goal(s)
Annual report and WLM calendars Jan. Printing an annual report and calendars in order reach out to our donors and partners and thank them for their support during the last year. Donors and partners. Production, distribution. 1 2 (+ 1 contractor) (d)
Presentation at the ACUNS Annual Conference Jan. Presentation of WMAT and Wikimedia projects at the IAAI & UNEP Vienna Panel at ACUNS UN Vienna Conference 2014 on the topic of "UN Interactions with Local Actors in the Provision of Global Public Goods". Approx. 70 attendees. 1 (c)
(d)
Initial consultation Jan.-Dec. WMAT's phone number and e-mail address frequently serve as "initial contacts" to Wikimedia projects. Inexperienced users asked questions via phone and/or e-mail about issues such as contributing and reusing content. Approx. 44 contacts (data collected from Apr. to Dec. 2014: 33 contacts). 2 (c)
Press relations Jan.-Dec. Permanent contact for Austrian media on Wikimedia (projects) and free knowledge; 5 press campaigns on: EU copyright consultation, Monumento fair in Salzburg, launch of Wiki Loves Earth in Austria, start of Open Data Portal Austria and winners of Wiki Loves Monuments in Austria. Media coverage: 41 news articles/reports (2013: 26 news articles/reports). 2 (a)
(b)
School projects in Graz and Vienna Feb./Mar. School workshops on Wikipedia for raising awareness on the advantages of free knowledge among young people and improving media literacy. 3 workshops in 2 schools in the cities of Graz and Vienna. 115 pupils attending. 2 travel grants for volunteers, promotion material, documentation. 2 (d)
Wikipedia meets University Mar. The event at the University of Vienna was dedicated to the discussion of Wikipedia's part in the Austrian university life – and to enhance future collaborations and new strategies. Approx. 40 participants. Organisation, promotion. 2 2 (c)
(d)
Big Fat Brussels Gathering Apr. EU lobbying event which was dedicated to the idea of free knowledge, and particularly freedom of panorama. Representatives of the European Commission, the European Federation of Publishers and UNESCO. 90 minutes counseling, travel grant, WMAT chocolate bars and WLM calendars as give-aways. 1 1 (d)
School project in Styria Apr. 4 hour school workshop on free knowledge and Wikipedia at the School of Forestry in Styria. 20 pupils attending. Travel grants, information material. 2 (d)
Guest lectures at the University of Vienna May Two Wikimedians were guest speakers at a course about historical science and the digital revolution. Approx. 20 attendees. 1 1 (c)
Wikiversity course by Prof. Schmidinger May–Jun. Wikiversity course within the context of a university course by Thomas Schmidinger at the University of Vienna on conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa after the Arab spring. Students were invited to write their term papers like a Wikipedia article. 4 students. Contact management. 2 (d)
GloCha Conference in Klagenfurt Jun. Participating in the Klagenfurt GloCha Conference 2014 on Sustainable Development, Innovation and Youth; signing the Klagenfurt Leadership Declaration on Global Challenges, Youth and ICT. 1 travel grant. 2 (c)
(d)
DACH Open Science event on the MS Wissenschaft Sep. Common event on Open Science in Vienna by WMAT, WMDE and WMCH as well as the Open Knowledge Foundation chapters in Austria and Germany, sponsored and co-hosted by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. 70 participants. Organisation, coordination, project management. 1 (d)
Workshop for fire department historians Sep. Four-hour lecture and workshop on Wikipedia and free knowledge for fire department historians in Lower Austria. 53 participants. Information material. 3 (d)
ELEVATE, Graz and ViennaOpen Festivals Oct. Establishing WMAT as a key player and integral part of the open community in Austria at open culture events. Approx. 150 participants. Participation at panel discussions, travel costs. 1 (c)
(d)
Semantic MediaWiki Conference Vienna Oct. Expanding our network to like-minded, more technophile communities in Austria. 66 technophilic participants. Travel support, give-aways, information, communication. 5 1 (d)
Volunteer Fair in Vienna Oct. WMAT booth at the Volunteer Fair in Vienna for people looking for suitable organisations and projects to volunteer in. More than 7.000 visitors at the fair as a whole, talking to 500 people. Communication, organisation, food for booth hosts, information material and give-aways, contribution for the booth. 10 2 (c)
Open Data Discussion Nov. Panel discussion on Open Data by the Austro-British Society. Approx. 30 attendees. 1 board member on the panel. 1 (c)
(d)
Teachers' training course in Hollabrunn Nov. 8-hour teachers' training course on Wikipedia and other online media in school at the School of Education of Lower Austria. 25 teachers attending. Concept (staff time), information material. 1 1 (d)
Monuments Fair in Leipzig Nov. Presenting Wikimedia projects in general and Wiki Loves Monuments in particular. Informing other exhibitors e. g. about Wikimedia Commons as a suitable platform for their images and videos about traditional craftsmanship. 3 travel grants, information material and give-aways. 3 (d)
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?
  • Increase reach: We actively address and involve stakeholders from outside the "Wikiverse" and improve media competency.
  • Increase participation: Raising awareness to certain issues like free content is the first step towards changing how people act in this regard. Realizing how beneficial free content can be to Austrian society or economy most likely leads to policy changes which promote free content.
What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?
  • Please see table above.
If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?
  • We achieved our objectives and an important catalyzer in this regard was the Open Data Portal. It not only got us a lot of media attention, it was also a valuable door opener to new institutional partners and donors and furthermore fostered WMAT's role as an integral part of Austria's open scene.

Any additional details:


Organisational development

Wikimedia Austria played an important role with both of the governance workshops we organised in 2014 - without the hard work of the WMAT colleagues these workshops wouldn't have happened! It's important to have committed partners for this vital topic in the movement.

— Chris Keating, Wikimedia UK Board

What were the stated objectives of this program? Please use SMART criteria to explain these goals.
  • Sustainable governance structures to enable efficient cooperation between volunteers, board and staff
    • No major problems due to conflicts of interests or responsibilities (a)
  • Empowering volunteers to manage projects effectively
    • Involving at least 5 of our regular project managers in skill transfer activities (b)
  • Involving the wider community of active volunteers into the organisational development
    • At least two community events that comprise topics of organisational development (c)
  • Develop adequate means to measure our impact
    • Sufficient level of documentation and evaluation of all major projects (d)
What is your progress against these objectives? (Include metrics and number of volunteers/staff involved.)
a accomplished
b 100 % (goal: 5, achieved: 5)
c 200 % (goal: 2, achieved: 4)
d accomplished
Activity Month(s) Short description WMAT support Active
volunteers
involved
WMAT
staff
involved
Counts
for
goal(s)
ED retreat Berlin Feb. Focus of the meeting of Wikimedia Executive Directors in Berlin was on sharing experiences in program development, FDC process, management and governance. Travel costs. 1 (a)
Board training workshop Mar. Workshop which gave board members of chapters and thematic organisations the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to do a good job regarding governance and chapter effectiveness. Program planning, coordination of the presenters, facilitating the workshop on site, travel costs. 1 1 (a)
(c)
FDC Impact report 2013 Mar. March was the month to finish the report of all reports. 3 2 (d)
New Community Manager Mar. Raimund Liebert succeeded Thomas Planinger as a new Community Manager. 5 1 (a)
(d)
Skill transfer Mar./Aug. Involving our regular project managers in skill transfer activities: 2 project managers concerning project documentation and evaluation, 3 project managers at the Wiki Loves Earth meeting during Wikimania. 5 2 (b)
Community IdeaLab Apr. Volunteers present their ideas for WMAT-supported projects.
(see also: → PROGRAM Community support)
Organisation, promotion, presentation, documentation, catering. 14 2 (a)
(c)
(d)
Strategy Meeting Apr. A self-assessment of the last term was a central part of this meeting of staff and board. Travel costs, catering. 5 2 (a)
(d)
Survey on Capacity Building Apr. Preparing a survey to collect information about the different board governance models in Wikimedia organisations. 1 (a)
Wikimedia Conference Berlin Apr. WMAT sent four delegates to this year's Wikimedia Conference. Travel costs. 2 2 (a)
(d)
General Assembly Jun. In the context of our annual general assembly in Klagenfurt on June 14, 2014 WMAT conducted elections for the board, the internal and external auditors and the community representative of our good governance committee. Event organisation and catering. Approx. 20 2 (a)
Board Training (Second Edition) Aug. Second edition of the board training focussing on chapter effectiveness. Attendance fee for 2 Austrian board members and participants from non-APG chapters. 1 2 (a)
(c)
Strategy Meeting Aug. WMAT staff and board met in Graz in order to prepare the 2015/16 budget and program planning for the upcoming FDC proposal. Travel costs. 5 2 (a)
DACH Volunteer Supporters Meeting Sep. Meeting in Vienna to discuss the trans-border impacts of WMAT’s, WMCH’s and WMDE’s volunteer support programs. Premises, food and drinks. 2 (a)
(d)
Community PlanningLab Sep. Workshop in order to include the community into our annual budget and program planning. Infrastructure, organisation, snacks 8 2 (a)
(c)
(d)
ED meeting in Paris Oct. Developing a common "business plan" for chapters and getting a more systematic understanding of the ED's role within the broader movement. Travel costs. 1 (a)
New administrative assistant Nov. Hiring Annemarie Buchmann as administrative assistant because the current staffing level is not sufficient to cover all tasks. 1 2 (a)
(d)
Volunteer Supporters Network Nov. Founding of the Volunteer Supporters Network, a working group of individuals from Wikimedia organisations dealing with volunteer/community support. 1 (a)
(d)
Strategy Meeting Dec. WMAT board and staff meet to review of the goals and targets of the year and to identify and prepare the strategic themes for 2015. Travel costs. 7 2 (a)
(d)
Which Wikimedia movement strategic priority (or priorities) did this program address and how?
  • Improve quality: By enabling all stakeholders involved to carefully plan and evaluate our activities, we enhance the quality of the results in the long run. It also contributes to making sure that donation money is spent effectively, which is also an indicator for the quality of our projects.
What key activities were conducted and/or milestones achieved with this program?
  • Please see table above.
If your entity did not achieve the desired objectives, why not? If it did, what enabled this? If the initiative was not in your plan, why did you pursue it?
  • We could achieve our desired objectives. Establishing sound governance structures in 2013 provided a good foundation for improving our organisational development and chapter effectiveness in 2014. It provided a clear framework for cooperation between volunteers, board and staff, prevented potential conflicts and laid the groundwork for thinking about the processes in our chapter in a more systematic manner. Together with other factors it also contributed to building trust among the stakeholders and creating a favorable collaboration environment (see also "Lessons learned" point 5 below). Another important impact factor was our international network within the wider movement (other affiliations and volunteers) which resulted in successful international initiatives such as the board trainings or the volunteer supporters network.

Any additional details:


Lessons learned edit

Lessons from the past edit

A key objective of the funding is to enable the movement as a whole to understand how to achieve shared goals better and faster. An important way of doing this is to identify lessons learned and insights from entities who receive funds, and to share these lessons across the movement. Please answer the following questions in 1–2 paragraphs each.

1. What were your major accomplishments in the past year, and how did you help to achieve movement goals?
  • WMAT established a good basis for inter-chapter cooperation on volunteer support with the other DACH chapters and supports the formation of an international network in the broader movement in order to foster participation in Wikimedia projects.
When these youngsters have taken part in such a workshop they afterwards know how Wikipedia articles come into being and who works on them. [...] Their access to and handling of this new type of freely accessible knowledge have thereby changed. [...] I would like to say that I am personally very grateful for all experiences obtained in the course of the Wiki school projects because I myself have overall learnt a very great deal. For me Wikipedia is not just give, but also take and the ability to receive - not a one way street.

— Roland Fischer, Religion Teacher and School Homepage Webmaster

  • In 2014 there was a huge increase in educational initiatives, comprising schools as well as universities and different types of events from workshops to panel discussions. There is a dedicated team of Wikimedia volunteers and the response on the side of potential partner organisations was very promising. WMAT could also expand and intensify its network with partner institutions and multipliers in this field in the wake of major projects such as the Open Data Portal and the Open Science Event - most prominently the Austrian Science Fund FWF which sponsored our activities with approx. 10,000 EUR (financial support and in-kind donations). We think that successful education projects are a great way to reach free knowledge awareness and hence plan to develop our activities in this field.
2. What were your major setbacks in the past year (e.g., programs that were not successful)?
  • Establishing the planned expert network proves to be difficult for various reasons: One idea was a cooperation on World War I topics which did not have a lot of resonance in our community and also because the one committed scientist whom we could recruit couldn't convince his colleagues to participate so far. Another idea was an expert group on Austrian law topics with law students from the "Wikipedia meets University" event in March - but the initial enthusiasm of the students faded away when the exam stress kicked in, before there was a productive outcome. However, in early 2015 the University of Vienna got back in touch with us and we are currently evaluating the best way to continue our work from last year and how to take it to the next level. In addition, we could recruit experts for our "Denkmal-Cup" edit-a-thon on Austrian monuments in December, thanks to our long-standing partnership with the Federal Monuments Office.
  • The end of the toolserver was a challenge for many of our projects, as there are not many tech volunteers in Austria who can contribute to providing alternatives. The low interest in our Wikimedia Hackathon scholarships is another indicator for this lack. WMAT responds to this with various measures: introducing a tech committee for more systematic needs assessment and collaboration, paying a contractor to support volunteers with the most urgent tech problems and activities (e.g. an event in Q3/Q4) to expand and network our community by reaching out to like-minded tech communities. However, it is a slow process and it will take some time for these measures to show impact. Also, the tech committee hasn't really taken off so far - probably also an indicator for the current lack of active tech volunteers.
3. What factors (organizational, environmental) enabled your success?
 
Three chapters working together in community support at the 2014 WikiCon
  • We intensified our collaboration in the day-to-day operations with the DACH chapters (WMDE, WMCH) this year. This not only has this positive effects on our main strategic area community support where most of the collaboration takes place, but also on outreach activities on common goals, such as the Open Science event on the MS Wissenschaft in September.
  • In 2013 we spent a lot of time and effort to set up and plan our organisational structure and processes carfully. The groundwork paid out in 2014 and enabled a smooth staff transition process.
  • The WMAT office in Vienna was established two and a half years ago, a staff member dedicated to community support has been in place for roughly two years. The positive results of these services on sustaining a healthy Wikimedia community in Austria become increasingly apparent. The office is not only a workplace for staff but became a networking hub and a center for community life and is being regularly used for meetings, informal gatherings and spontaneous visits from Wikimedians from Austria and abroad. Our community manager's services are appreciated, attract new volunteers and volunteers who have formerly not been very active in chapter activities (which also widened the scope of our activities on additional Wikimedia projects like Wiktionary) and results in a higher level of systematically planned and documented volunteer projects.
4. What unanticipated challenges did you encounter and how did this affect what you were able to accomplish?
 
The current WMAT staff
  • Staff transition: We knew that our Community Manager would continue his studies at some point but it happened a bit earlier than we expected and it turned out that a part-time solution was not an option. Hence, we had to find a new Community Manager in the midst of a process of administrative upheavals and while preparing our 2013 impact report. The challenge was to find a suitable person, preferably with a community background by conducting a careful selection process. The process took time and resources in no small measure in the first quarter but we are glad that we managed a seamless transition that enabled our leaving Community Manager to break in his successor and thereby ensure the transfer of tacit knowledge about our organisation and processes. In November 2014 we decided to hire an additional part-time Administrative Assistant in order to reduce workload for existing staff and allowing them to focus more on strategy / programs. From today's perspectice we are happy with the outcome of the transition processes of 2014 and we are confident to have a strong and efficient team in place that entertains good relationships with the board and wider community and that is all geared-up for the challenges to come.
  • Conflict with annual fundraiser: During last year's Wiki Loves Monuments edition, the WMF fundraising campaign took also place in Austria. For us this was very unfortunate as for the second half of the contest we had to share banner time on the Wikimedia projects with the fundraising banners, at some points their share had to be 100 %. Our statistic shows that this had considerable impact on the upload figures and WMAT ended up having less pictures than last year and most probably less than we could have achieved without the fundraising campaign (and probably also fewer new users). Even worse though was that the limited banner time also conflicted with our joint activities with the Federal Monuments Office for the Austrian heritage day. This partnership is very important for us and having to explain the difficulties we had this year because of the fundraising campaign put us into a very uncomfortable position with our partner. Things might have been a bit easier, if we had been informed about this in advance. By the time we were notified the contest was already up and running - website, printing materials, press releases posters couldn't really be adapted or changed anymore (as one suggestion of the fundraising team was that we should change the duration of the contest). For 2015, it will be absolutely necessary from our perspective to start a conversation early to coordinate the timing of both campaigns in order to avoid a similar conflict.
5. What are the 2–3 most important lessons that other entities can learn from your experience? Consider learning from both the programmatic and institutional (what you have learned about professionalizing your entity, if you have done so) points of view.
I think a mutual trust has grown in recent years, which one seldom finds when volunteers and employees work together. In most cases it is rather envy that is the foreground, something that one doesn't find here.

— K@rl

  • Building trust: Establishing an office and hiring staff can be an opportunity to foster trust among the various stakeholders of an organisation. To achieve this communication is key:
    • communicate on eye level with all stakeholders
    • be appreciative
    • act and make sure to be perceived as a neutral authority
    • ask for opinions on big and small matters
    • be pro-active in your communication (e.g. what you do and why)
    • give context for your actions
    • be accessible and responsive
 
WLE: an example for building on strengths
  • Building on strengths: Where people are passionate about what they are doing, great things happen. Projects should build on the strengths and passions of the respective volunteer communities and be complemented where necessary:
    • encourage volunteers to take over responsibility or try new things but don't force or expect it
    • assess in advance which skills are needed and who can bring them in (volunteers, board / staff members, external service providers)
    • projects which mainly depend on paid staff / external help may not be viable in the long run or will need special funding

Lessons for the future edit

The Wikimedia movement grows as each entity in the movement reflects and adapts its approaches to changing needs and contexts. The questions below encourage you to apply your thinking in the sections above of "how well have we done" and "what have we learned" to the development and execution of future organisational and program strategies. The questions below can be informed both by your own entities' learnings, as well as the learnings of other movement entities (e.g., adding a new program that appears to have caused significant impact in several other countries or communities).

1. What organisational or program strategies would you continue?
I value your opinion very much and also appreciate that WMAT always lends an ear to community members. I can only recommend that everybody accept this, the WMAT office's offer, as an interface between community members and the chapter. [...] I have likewise noticed that ideas that we bring to the table do not merely undergo a standard assessment, but are rather developed further in a very concrete manner. One has the feeling that you watch out for "your" people!

— Hubertl

  • We are aiming at designing WMAT to be a learning organisation with effective processes which is not dependent on certain individuals in board and staff (bus factor). To achieve this, we introduced two new components to our strategy procedures in 2014:
    • Idea-/PlanningLabs to promote community engagement in our annual strategy
    • Program planning and systematic quality management, i.e. a Continual Improvement Process in order to ensure sustainable, effective and well-documented processes.
Both strategies have been proven quite valuable and effective so far and will be continued.
See also: Community PlanningLab
2. What might you change in organisational and program strategies in order to improve the effectiveness of your entity?
  • WMAT's current mid-term strategic plan was created in 2012. We are currently revising and updating the plan for the next three years and we are incorporating the learnings we gathered with the last plan into this process:
    • Firstly, as a result of the data we gathered during the past two years, there will be clear baselines as a starting point for our mid-term goals that were missing in the last strategic plan.
    • Secondly, we will produce a vision and mission statement for WMAT which hasn't been done systematically before and which will serve as a foundation for the strategic plan. It aims at leading to a clearer understanding among all our key stakeholders of what we want to achieve as an organisation.
3. Please create at least one learning pattern from your entity's experiences this year and link to it here.

Stories of success and challenge edit

Of all the accomplishments highlighted through this report, please share two detailed stories: one story of a success and one story of a challenge that your entity experienced over the past year in a few paragraphs each. Provide any details that might be helpful to others in the movement on the context, strategy, and impact of this initiative. We suggest you write this as you would tell a story to a friend or colleague. Please refrain from using bullet points or making a list, and rather focus on telling us about your organisation's experience.

Case study: success edit

  • Photography projects and support
The greatest added value of the chapter provides for me is the financial and organisational support it gives to Wikimedia project authors to enable them to provide fantastic contributions on a volunteer basis. The best example of this is WMAT's comprehensive photographic equipment, which barely anyone of us could probably voluntarily afford to purchase in this form. It is frequently only possible to deliver content in the quality which we, in the meantime, have become used to, because of the provision, by WMAT, of this photographic equipment, of high quality, though expensive specialist literature and support with travel expenses for the journeys to events and places which need to be processed for Wikipedia.

— Plani

Over the last years Wikimedia Austria built considerable expertise in free content generation, with a clear focus on quality and usage. Since the start of these activities some years ago and as of March 26th, 2015, 142;285 media files on Wikimedia Commons were supported by WMAT. 22;257 distinct files (15.64 % of all files supported by WMAT) are used in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects. In 2014 we overachieved our goals both regarding the quantity and quality of the content we aimed to generate. An important pillar of this success are the services we provide for our photography community which have been continuously developed, refined and expanded over time to meet the requirements of our volunteer work as best as possible.
What did we do?
WMAT systematically expanded its support comprising all the essential stages of free content production: workshops to build skills among volunteers to generate high quality material (photography and post-processing workshops on various topics), providing and coordinating a pool of high-end equipment, helping with accreditations and travel reimbursements for photography projects, photography contests, providing suitable software for post-processing to improve the quality of images, introducing a systematic procedure for following up on improper use of our media files by third parties, help and advice on how to work on Commons and how to apply free licences.
How did we do it?
As always, the resources we provide alone would not have the same impact without carefully creating suitable social dynamics to accompany these initiatives. This means that all our services are created in close cooperation with our community. We consult our volunteers concerning new ideas and what they need (i.e. regarding training or equipment) and constantly evaluate the procedures and outputs together with the photographers. This creates a sense of ownership for the projects among volunteers and results in more efficient processes and better outcomes. Most of this happens in direct on- and offline contact between the volunteers and staff and/or board members. When addressing new challenges (e.g. shifting the focus on quality, as we did in 2014) we also develop solutions together with our photography community instead of imposing measures on them. In this case the idea to focus on post-processing came from a volunteer, who suggested to introduce the sponsorship of suitable software. He then made himself familiar with the software (Lightroom and Photoshop), passed on the knowledge to other interested photographers and build a small group of volunteers who collectively work on improving WMAT content on Commons.
What can others learn from this?
Like many of the things we do, this approach builds on the close (often personal) contacts and relationships within the relatively small Austrian community. However, we think that the general approach is scalable for larger communities. Finding ambassadors to work on challenges and the development of similar programs and collaboratively creating standard procedures for common tasks and challenges can create snowball effects across bigger communities or vaster geographical areas. In this case an organisation / chapter would coordinate with ambassadors of subgroups rather then all individuals.

Case study: challenge edit

 
Scanners at the Federal Monuments Library
  • Digitalization of historic literature with the Federal Monuments Office
In cooperation with the Federal Monuments Office we started a project to digitalize historical literature in 2012. With the help oft wo large-format scanners sponsored by WMAT and WMDE, one of our volunteers worked on digitalizing the nineteenth-century holdings of the Federal Monuments Library in order to make it freely available via Wikimedia Commons. However, in 2014 the project came to a hold.
What happened?
While working on the results of the digitization project, this volunteer and others realized, that we do get a lot of new and very interesting material, especially given our year lasting efforts to enhance the historical contents since the beginning of the cooperation with the Federal Monuments Office. But at the same time we found out that we have no or very little success in getting new authors for such activities, i.e. beyond Austria, across the communities in the German-language Wikipedia, we are losing more people than we attract at the same time. Without a sufficient number of authors however, we cannot prepare all this material for articles in Wikipedia in the long run - which was the main goal of these activities.
Therefore, in the end of 2013 two volunteers started some new education initiatives, in addition to a new Wiki as a platform (RegioWiki) for beginners (established and financed by the volunteers themselves) in order to find new ways to teach wiki skills to newbies. The background is that editing for beginners in the German-language Wikipedia seems almost impossible sometimes, due to an extreme unfriendly climate. Because of his good contacts to schools and universities and his presentation skills, the volunteer who was in charge of the digitalization project was heavily involved in these activities which consumed a lot of his volunteer time. As a result, he had to cut back his engagement in the Federal Monuments Office and finally put in on hold. However, the extent of the educational activities was not apparent in the beginning, hence it was rather a slinking process. This had an effect towards the communication with the Federal Monuments Office, as the altered conditions of the collaboration were not communicated clearly at first.
What did we do?
As the scanners are permanently based in the Federal Monuments Office and occupy office space there we had to decide how to proceed with the projects and took all options into account. In a first step, we discussed the matter in-house with all the relavant stakeholders (volunteer, board representative, staff) in order to come up with options and an action plan we could offer our partners in the Federal Monuments Office. We came up with a timeline for the rest of the project that took the multiple responsibilities of the volunteer into account. In a next step, the plan was discussed and agreed upon in a joint meeting with the Federal Monuments Office.
What can others learn from this?
Many organisations face the situation that the responsibility for many projects is lying on the shoulders of just a few very active unpaid volunteers. For the volunteers as well as other stakeholders in the projects it is not always easy to detect when the workload becomes too much in a timely manner. Hence it is important to incorporate this question in the risk management of new projects that should be addressed in the planning phase as well as continuously during the execution of the respective projects.

Additional learning edit

1. What are some of the activities that are happening in your community that are not chapter-led? What are the most successful among these, and why?
 
Portal Austria’s banner
  • Portal Austria community: According to the Portal Austria in the German-language Wikipedia (cf. de:Portal:Österreich/Neue Artikel/Archiv 2014), 2407 new articles on Austrian topics were written in 2014. The Austrian community plays a non-negligible role in the German-language Wikipedia despite the fact that the “big neighbour“ Germany has 81.9 million inhabitants whereas only 8.6 million people live in Austria. An indicator of the disproportionately high share of Austrian contributions is the overall number of articles on Austrian topics compared to articles on German topics: it’s about 84,000 to 505,000.
2. Provide any links to any media coverage, blog posts, more detailed reports, more detailed financial information that you haven't already, as well as at least one photograph or video that captures the impact your entity had this past year.
 
A “featured picture“ of Vienna by Hubertl, supported by WMAT in 2014

2014 specials:

Media coverage (mostly in German):

Additional information:

Compliance edit

Is your organization compliant with the terms defined in the grant agreement? edit

1. As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.
  • No major deviation from the proposal, except a staff growth of 0,5 FTE in the last months of 2014 (please see our 2015 proposal for more details) and no part-timer for the ODP project (please see table with staff expenses above).
2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".
  • Yes
3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".
  • Yes

Financial information edit

1. Report any Grant funds that are unexpended fifteen (15) months after the Effective Date of the Grant Agreement. These funds must be returned to WMF or otherwise transferred or deployed as directed by WMF.
  • No unexpended FDC funds.
2. Any interest earned on the Grant funds by Grantee will be used by Grantee to support the Mission and Purposes as set out in this Grant Agreement. Please report any interest earned during the reporting period and cumulatively over the duration of the Grant and Grant Agreement.
  • Please see table 2 above.

Signature edit

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

--CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 22:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)