Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Proposal form
If you need to review the edit instructions you will find them in the editintro.
- Use this form if you are eligible to submit a proposal in the current round, to request funding in the current round.
- This form must be published on Meta by the proposal submission date for each round to be considered, and no changes may be made after the submission date without staff approval.
- This form complements your organization's annual plan, detailed budget, and strategic plan. It won't be considered complete without a detailed budget and strategic plan.
- Organizations may apply for a funding period that does not exactly match their fiscal years. Follow the instructions carefully to understand what time period each question refers to.
- Refer to the framework, guidance from the Board, and the FDC's recommendations before using this form, so you have an understanding of the Annual Plan Grants process.
- Please Email FDCSupport@Wikimedia.org with questions about using the form.
A few terms used in the form:
FDC proposal form terms Wikimedia terms Learning & Evaluation terms
Overview edit
- 1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organization's work in the upcoming funding period.
- Wikimedia Österreich's annual plan comprises the following three strategic areas: community support, free content, and reach / free knowledge awareness. Centrepiece of WMAT's self-conception and strategy is to sustain motivated and active Wikimedia communities as a reliable service provider. Increasing diversity in our communities for us is a cross-cutting issue and therefore an aspect that plays a vital role in most of our projects and initiatives. We believe that success in these regards will automatically have positive effects on the enrichment of free content in the various Wikimedia projects. A strong focus of our work contentwise lies on Austria's cultural and natural heritage. We also believe that to perform well in all these areas in the long run, the national and international context of our work is crucial. Hence, we also focus on building strong partnerships inside and outside of the movement and engage in activities which co-create sustainable framework conditions (particularly regarding volunteer support and organizational effectiveness) for the wider movement in general and the DACH (WMDE, WMAT and WMCH) and CEE (Central and Eastern European) communities in particular. For public policy, we will focus our efforts together with other European chapters on the EU level, where we have the opportunity to make a difference. A major focus this and next year is the European copyright reform, especially pushing for favorable wordings on Freedom of Panorama and public domain provisions, in order to improve the conditions for Wikimedia projects across Europe.
- 2. Name, fiscal year, and funding period.
- Legal name of organization: Wikimedia Österreich
- Organization's fiscal year: 01/01-12/31
- 12-month funding period requested: 01/01/16-12/31/16
- Currency requested: Euro
- Name of primary contact: Claudia Garád, Executive Director
- 3. Amount requested.
Table 1
| Currency requested | US$ | |
| Total expenses for the upcoming year | 271,500 | 304,566 |
| APG funding requested for the upcoming year | 250,000 | 280,448 |
| Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year | 228,000 | 255,768 |
- 4. How does your organization know what community members / contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments or consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?
- WMAT is constantly looking into ways to improve its community services. In order to gain an understanding of what our contributors want and need, we apply multiple methods:
- Face-to-face interaction: WMAT activities and services are discussed between board, staff and community in the context of several regular events. Some of them have their focus on needs assessment (e.g. the IdeaLabs), while others mainly serve other purposes but also provide a platform for these discussions (general assembly once a year, WikiTuesdays every week, cracker-barrel meetings a few times a year in different parts of Austria). In addition, our office / staff offers one-to-one consultation for community members who plan projects and activities. The latter is also our usual way to conduct a needs assessment of new ideas and projects. Our annual plan and budget are published for discussion online and we organize a PlanningLab to foster the discourse.
- Online discussions: We ask for opinions on specific issues online on our members wiki and mailing list. However, our experience shows, that this usually creates less feedback than in-person discussions. Furthermore, we monitor talk pages and discussions on Wikimedia projects which are related to our chapter activities.
- Survey: This year, we also conducted a community survey which also aimed at understanding the needs of our community and to get a measurable overview of their satisfaction with our services.
- 5. Please provide a link to your organization's strategic plan and separate annual plans for the current and/or proposed funding period, if you have them. A strategic plan is required.
- Mission statement (in English)
- Roadmap 2016+ (in German)
Financials: current funding period edit
The purpose of this section is to give the FDC an idea of how your organization is receiving funds and spending funds toward your current plan. Your current funding period is the funding period now in progress (e.g. 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015 for most organizations). For organizations new to the APG process, your current funding period is the 12 months before your upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015 for most organizations).
Table 2
Financials for the current funding period Revenues or expenses Planned (budgeted) Actual, until one month before the proposal due date Projected Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Revenues (from all sources) 277,796 311,629 245,433 275,324 250,000 280,448 Expenses 276,900 310,624 167,669 188,089 252,000 282,692
Table 2 notes:
- General information: Both budget and revenues are lower than budgeted. As we put extra effort to come up with means that help us to implement our projects without major cuts and also without drawing on our reserves too heavily, we decided to build on our strengths of acquiring in-kind donations, as it seemed to be the quickest and most efficient way to achieve noticeable results. Indeed we managed to get way beyond our target (see below for details) in this regard. Furthermore, we also work on strategies to diversify (cash) funding (see further below for details) - for this year however, we are still below target in this respect. In addition, there is a noticeable decrease in membership fees, as we decided to systematically update our member database and getting rid of members who have not paid for more than two years despite repeated reminders. This reduces our income of ongoing memberships and also the projected income of due fees, which summed up over the years.
- In-kind donations: The table above does not include our in-kind donations, as they can't really be included in our official book keeping. However, we realized during the last years, that there lies a lot of fundraising potential in this approach for us and it has an effect on how we have to interpret our revenues and spending. Hence, we started to systematically track and evaluate our in-kind donations according to programs, you can find an overview in English here. We are aware of the fact, that the amount of in-kind donations can't be compared to the same amount in cash revenues at a 1:1 ratio, as we would have probably not invested in all the things we get as in-kind donations (because they are more nice to have instead of absolutely essential) or not to the same extent (e.g. going for a cheaper venue/catering). Taking this into account, we now know that the net value of our in-kind donations is on average approximately 80% of the total value. For the period Jan-Aug 2015 this would make 19,275 EUR in total, and a net value of 15,420 EUR. Our projected net value of in-kind donations until the end of the year is approx 17,000 EUR. We also learned that we probably didn't unlock the full potential for in-kind donations in Program 2 "Free Content" and plan to explore this more in the next year.
- Diversifying funds: Getting external funding apart from in-kind donations still proves to be a challenge for WMAT. One main reason is that the foundation landscape in Austria is extremely poor compared to other Western countries (the proportion of charitable foundations in Austria is only 20% compared to 95% in Germany and 74% in Switzerland), which limits the scope of possible sources. In order to get a better understanding for the parameters that we can influence to achieve better results, we consulted fundraising experts on this matter and the result was that one of the big hurdles was our static and outdated website, which we relaunched this year to make it more attractive and informative for external stakeholders. We also experimented with a few new models: small scale crowdfunding via facebook likes for WLE and an attempt for long-term funding for the Open Data Portal via a public research grant together with Austrian universities by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit). The first was not successful (mainly because our topic was not as tangible as those of many competing NPOs, e.g. animal shelters and youth programs), the second is still pending and will only be decided in December 2015. In case the grant request will be successful, the money will not be processed by WMAT but one of the academic partner institutions. We will build on this year's work and learnings to make progress on this matter in 2016. As manpower is another main limitation for fundraising efforts in a lean organization like ours, we plan a 0,25 FTE increase in our staff and fundraising expertise and networks will be a major consideration for recruiting candidates for the board elections next year.
- Wikisource Conference: The projected revenues and spendings do not include the management of the PEG grant for the Wikisource Conference.
Programs: upcoming year's annual plan edit
This section is about your organization's programs. A program is a defined set of activities that share the same objectives and a similar theory of change. Please share the general goal of each program, and then list the specific objectives that the program will meet. Please do not include information about your organization's operating activities in this section. You may provide information about activities like administration, staff and board training, fundraising, governance, and internal IT in another section or in a supplementary document, but please do not include these activities here as programs.
- 1. For each program, please include your targets for each of the global metrics in this table. All global metrics are required, but you may list a target of zero if there are metrics you do not expect results for. You are welcome to provide your other metrics in the detailed program section below.
Table 3
Program (1) # of newly registered users (2) # of active editors involved (3) # of individuals involved (4a) # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages (4b) # of new images/media uploaded (optional) (5) # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects (6) Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects Program 1: Community Support 200 750 1000 n/a n/a n/a 85,000,000 Program 2: Free Content n/a tbd tbd 5,000 45,000 10,000 nm Program 3: Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness tbd tbd 2,000 n/a n/a n/a 300,000
Table 3 notes:
- n/a = not applicable
- nm = not measurable
- tbd = to be determined: in these cases we expect some results that we will track over the year but can't provide a meaningful estimation at this point of time
- 2. Please list your goals and objectives for each program. Please be sure your objectives meet all three criteria for each program
- Be sure the objectives listed are each SMART: specific, measurable, attainable and relevant, and include time-bound targets.
- Include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets, and remember to highlight your baseline metrics.
- Provide any additional information that is important to our understanding of this program. For example, you may include needs assessments, logic models, timelines, tables, or charts. Share how this program will contribute more broadly to movement learning, or explain how your program aligns with important Wikimedia priorities such as increasing participation and improving content on the Wikimedia projects.
Program 1: Community Support
Status-quo
Wikimedia Austria caters for a small but very active and in many regards above average active and productive community of editors and photographers. This group also includes volunteers from neighboring countries, especially the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). Our activities aim at maintaining and supporting these active editors and we constantly try to reach and engage more of them with our services.
In addition, we conduct projects which are designed to attract, recruit and activate new contributors (e.g. our photography contests). Our success rate highly depends on the respective Wikimedia project. While WMAT successfully gains and/or trains people for Commons, smaller language Wikipedias (e.g. from the CEE region), or smaller sister projects (e.g. Wikiversity), it is very hard to integrate newbies into the German-language Wikipedia. This is mainly due to the fact that the German-language Wikipedia is a very mature wiki where it is harder to find topics to contribute to and because of the complexity of rules and procedures in combination with a not always welcoming atmosphere for newbies. However, through our incubator budget, we could conduct some pilot activities this year that try to reach out to new groups of volunteers and which are potentially replicable in other countries / communities: Our workshop for explainer videos was already successfully repeated at the Wikimania Pre-Conference for an international audience and several chapters have expressed interest in transferring the concept. Another example is the "Wikipedia for Peace" camp which was a low budget cooperation with another international NGO that can be replicated in other communities.
Desired change
- A learning community which continuously strives to become better, which is open for newcomers and comprises a broad and diverse variety of skillsets.
Our community survey showed that the approval rate concerning WMAT’s work and services among existing contributors is very high and we aim at maintaining this situation in future. However, we think that there is still potential to make our services, skills and resources available to a broader group group of volunteers, especially outside of Vienna, mainly in the Western part of Austria (e.g. by fostering more regional projects and/or skill transfer activities). There is also room for improvement when it comes to systematically approaching and retaining new contributors (follow-up processes after their first contributions) and a more targeted approach of volunteers with required skill sets, i.e. expanding our tech community. A lot of potential also lies in diaspora editing projects targeting bi- or multilingual Austrian residents with roots in the CEE region. We also want to intensify our support for smaller projects such as Wiktionary or Wikivoyage in order to create access points for new contributors. Furthermore, we would like to contribute - within the limited scope of our possibilities - to an improved working environment in the German-language Wikipedia for existing and new volunteers.
Spheres of activity
-
Logic model: WikiTuesday -
Logic model: Photo contests -
Logic model: International volunteer support -
Logic model: Guide Camps
- Photography contests to gain new contributors and further involve existing volunteers
- Designing and/or facilitating workshops for skill transfer within community, this comprises the dissemination of learnings our volunteers gained in the context of international projects and conferences within the Austrian community but also sharing the expertise from within the Austrian community in the German-speaking communities (DACH) and the wider movement (e.g. CEE region)
- Encourage, support and guide local small-scale meetings/workshops in Austria and with partners in the neighboring countries as well as WikiCon for the German-language communities
- Low-threshold access to resources and assistance, micro and travel grants to support the ideas and work of our volunteers
- Consulting and advice concerning on-wiki work as well as offline project-management
- Developing tool sets for low-budget and/or easily replicable projects
- Establishing links and relationships to like-minded communities in the context of projects and events (e.g. WLE for nature photographers and experts on natural heritage, Hackathon for tech communities)
- Improving the working environment for editors in the German-language Wikipedia by taking a leadership role in the development of the so-called Guide Camps for non-administrative conflict resolution
- Provide travel grants for international conferences to facilitate online collaboration and exchange on an international level
- Funds especially dedicated to project incubation in order to foster bold and innovative ideas which go beyond our day-to-day business and established projects
- International collaboration for on- and offline volunteer recruitment (DACH and CEE region)
- Sharing our experiences and know-how concerning (cross-chapter) volunteer support and organizational development with the wider movement on- and offline to foster sustainable structures in our movement
Objectives
The following objectives will be reached by the end of 2016.
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supporting the participation of 600 active editors in meetings/workshops for community health, skill transfer and innovation. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Community survey: At least 70% completely agree or are rather inclined to agree that they gained useful skills for their volunteer work. | n/a |
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Much higher numbers would not be realistic as our survey is open to everyone, i.e. also parts of the community (protest voters) which generally oppose any paid structures in the movement (staff, travel reimbursements etc.) or let interpersonal conflicts guide their votes. |
| Community survey: At least 70% completely agree or are rather inclined to agree that they feel appreciated by Wikimedia Österreich. |
2015 survey results:
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| Community survey: At least 75% of the respondents completely agree or are rather inclined to agree that they are satisfied with the general direction of Wikimedia Österreich. |
2015 survey results:
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| Increasing the number of new editors by 200 through our activities. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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This metric was chosen rather conservatively, as we will have only one big photo contest planned for next year (WLE which is also becoming a more mature project and won’t attract the same amount of new contributors as in the first two years). WLM will not be conducted as a big public photography contest next year. |
| Increasing the number of new editors by 20 that edit a Wikimedia project after four weeks after their registration. |
n/a |
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We introduced a new metric for retention in order to expand our scope and not only focus on Commons newbies. |
| Community health: Absolute value of 85,000,000 bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects throughout the year by active editors who receive direct individual support (in terms of financial resources or technical support/infrastructure). |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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How to measure and estimate bytes was a challenge for us (see Progress Report). We decided that the most useful and practicable approach for us is to keep track of the volunteers that receive regular direct support by WMAT over the year. Their overall activity level as measured in bytes can be considered as an indicator for community health and a productive working environment. |
| Engaging 20 active or new editors who have formerly not been or very rarely been active WMAT volunteers into the planning and/or executing of chapter activities. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Share our learnings: create 3 Learning Patterns on Community Support. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Supplementary information
There are some major changes in comparison with last year’s community support program:
Firstly, we shrank most budgets as we could see in the last years that we can co-finance a lot of it via in-kind donations. The only budget that was substantially expanded is our contribution to the German-language WikiCon. Our community considers this conference as the most important gathering of the year and extremely valuable to exchange on topics related to their online volunteer work. A good part of the Austrian community is more likely to share learnings or gain learning in an event that is held in their mother tongue (this year 100% of Austrian participants held presentations at WikiCon in contrast to approx. 30% of our participants submitting talks at Wikimania). In addition they have more possibilities to shape the program (more transparency in the way the program is designed) and the likelihood of acceptance of submissions is higher. It is also very attractive for those volunteers who consider other international events such as Wikimedia Conference or Wikimania as “too meta/too political”, and enjoy that the WikiCon topics mostly focus on their concrete on- and offline projects. Another important aspect is that the WikiCon is the main platform for shaping the social structures among volunteers across national borders, which supports collaboration in their shared Wikipedia. In order to get an even better grasp of how WikiCon can support the participating volunteers in future, we plan to introduce a participant survey next year which will especially focus on these “soft” outcomes. Hence, we are also willing to increase the amount of financial support for the event in order to give the Austrian community more scope for shaping the conference according to needs and interests.
Secondly, we integrated the parts of the former Program 4 (Movement Sustainability) that we still like to pursue. This mainly comprises the transfer and exchange of know-how in fields of volunteer support and organisational development. As the nature of this activities changed (e.g. they are better integrated into international conferences so that we stopped designing stand-alone events such as the governance workshops) we subsumed them among the international aspects of our on- and offline community activities. Hence, the overall community support budget grew despite of the cuts in the classical activities.
We address the following Wikimedia movement strategic priorities:
- 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.
Program 2: Free Content
Status-quo
This program is designed to enrich free knowledge by creating, liberating and promoting the use of content. It addresses stakeholders who are able to contribute free content of good quality: Wikimedians (i.e. editors and photographers) as well Non-Wikimedians (i.e. GLAM institutions, domain experts). Regarding our communities we support activities which increase the diversity, quantity and quality of content. WMAT could achieve some very positive results by combining small-scale GLAM projects (small museums or private collections) with international (DACH and other neighbouring countries) skill transfer activities. Experienced Austrian volunteers with certain skills passed on their know-how to the other participants of the GLAM project who not only built their own capacities but will also pass on these new skills in their own local communities. In addition, these GLAM projects (e.g. the Historical Camera Collection Project) usually generate exceptional quality content (e.g. in terms of decorated images).
Concerning external partners, Wikimedia Austria has been entertaining long-standing cooperations with the Federal Monuments Office and an expanding number of partners in the context of the Open Data Portal Austria. In addition, we conducted several projects with smaller local GLAM institutions over the past two years.
Desired change
- Generating, liberating and distributing multifaceted and valuable content that fascinates and engages Wikimedia volunteers, partners and readers alike, as evidenced by use in article namespaces and community decorations.
Over the past years, WMAT established a stable network of partner organizations (also as a result of our activities in Program 3), what is missing is a more systematic approach to evaluate these partnerships in terms of potential for content donations and increased diversity, usage and quality of the respective content. The Open Data Portal also proved that there is a lot of potential concerning external funding for joint projects with GLAM partners and like-minded organizations in this field and similar possibilities have to be explored more thoroughly. We also would like to foster an enhanced reader orientation throughout our projects in a cross-cutting fashion similar to the awareness arrangements we established for quality and image usage in previous years. Concerning access to literature there is potential for synergies among the DACH chapters that should be explored further, especially reassessing the profiles of our services in the light of the fact that there are more and more offers from third parties (especially publishing houses) in this regard.
Spheres of activity
-
Logic model: Photography projects
- Photography contests and projects to generate media files on Austrian cultural and natural heritage on Commons
- Supporting the volunteers photographers/ Commons contributors with a high-end tech pool (photography equipment, book scanner, slide scanner), post processing software, accreditations and travel support
- Encouraging activities which respond to a direct need for media files in specific Wikimedia articles and the uploading of media files into Wikimedia articles
- Encouraging quality content by skill transfer workshops and activities (train the trainers) for the German-speaking communities
- Support of editing contests and/or events focussing on quantity and/or quality in the German-language Wikimedia projects
- Providing access to reliable sources (by literature grants and in our library)
- Establishing and maintaining partnerships with GLAM institutions, like-minded organizations and multipliers in order to liberate content
|
Expected timeline for new media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich
Horizontal line: the 12 months of the year. |
Objectives
The following objectives will be reached by the end of 2016.
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increasing the number of media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by 45,000. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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The objective is a bit lower than this year’s estimate as there won’t be WLM in 2016 and also so far no project comparable to the Eurovision Song Contest (both contributed significantly to this number). |
| Increasing the number of media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich and added to Wikimedia article pages by 5000. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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The objective is a bit lower than this year’s estimate as there won’t be WLM in 2016 and also so far no project comparable to the Eurovision Song Contest (both contributed significantly to this number). |
| Increasing the number of added or improved articles in Wikimedia projects by Wikimedia Österreich support by 10,000. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Increasing the number of community decorated media files (valued, quality, featured) supported by Wikimedia Österreich on Wikimedia Commons by 3,500. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Increasing the number of community decorated articles in Wikimedia projects by Wikimedia Österreich support by 20. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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No changes that will have an impact on the outcome planned. |
| Opening 250 new data sets in the context of the Open Data Portal Austria partnerships. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Share our learnings: create 3 Learning Patterns on Free Content. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Supplementary information
A major change in this program in the coming year is that we decided to change our WLM approach. With 96% of all monuments covered it is time to find new ways to deal with our cultural heritage in Wikimedia projects. Last year, we already started to amend our approach by complementing WLM with a writing contest, an approach that will be continued as there are still enough articles that need to be created or improved. WLM has played a key role for the Austrian community, it was an incubator for WMAT as an organization, the first major project with external partners and visibility in the general public and last but not least a project that brought the Austrian community closer together and laid the baseline for many other cooperations and projects. There is an emotional attachment to the project among many volunteers that cannot be replaced by just another photo contest. Hence, it was not an easy decision to cut the funds for WLM for the next year but we decided that it will be necessary to accept and commit to the challenge to bring WLM to the next level and come up with new ideas.
We address the following Wikimedia movement strategic priorities:
- Improve quality: We add and improve free content for various Wikimedia projects.
- Increase participation: We involve various partners from outside the movement in activities to liberate and spread content.
Program 3: Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness
Status-quo
Our activities in Program 3 aim at shaping a favourable political and societal environment for our other projects. WMAT collaborates with universities in order to reach new, diverse contributors and expert knowledge for Wikimedia projects. Involving multipliers, such as journalists, policy makers or evangelists in partner institutions, helps us to increase the scope of our projects and gaining support and resources for our activities. In the last three years we could see that these activities in the long run can directly or indirectly influence our other programs: By gaining new partners for content or in-kind donations and motivating individuals to contribute to our projects on- and offline.
Through advocacy on national and European levels we help to maintain and improve the policies, that enable our quest for Free Knowledge. A major focus this and next year is the European copyright reform: The reform proposal of the European Commission is expected to be presented by the end of 2015 and reviewed by the European Parliament in 2016. As part of the EU advocacy network, WMAT works on defending free knowledge aspects by making sure that the final text allows for more content on Wikimedia projects, especially concerning favorable wordings on Freedom of Panorama and public domain provisions. After the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union (the relevant national ministers taking a role similar to that of the Senate in the US) must also agree to the reform and can make changes to the text. This is traditionally the least accessible legislative body, as it is split between Brussels and national capitals. It will therefore be important for WMAT as well as other European chapters to start building relationships on the national level to those policy makers in 2016.
Desired change
- Creating collective impact on a societal level by working with and through others to achieve more impact than we could ever achieve alone.
Our education projects proved to be an effective means to reach female contributors and we want further build on this potential. To achieve this WMAT seeks to develop tools for a sustainable engagement of professors and students, such as expert networks and standardized, replicable courses and material.
In terms of public relations we want to establish qualitative relationships to multipliers that not only result in more awareness but also in concrete actions and outcomes such as more and more thorough media coverage or in-kind donations for our projects. Our EU activities shall be tied more closely to advocacy activities on a national level. Improving collaboration and developing a joint vision among Wikimedia stakeholders concerning advocacy goals are additional areas of focus.
Spheres of activity
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Logic model: Education and diversity -
Logic model: Reach and partnerships -
Logic model: EU advocacy
- Education
- Conducting and supporting educational activities and edit-a-thons at universities which incorporate Wikimedia projects as field of study and content of the curriculum
- Standardizing services for universities
- Public relations
- Maintaining communication platforms about our work for the general public
- Serving as a link between our community and the media
- Wikimedia trainings for journalists
- Involving partners from different societal spheres to increase impact and generate funding possibilities
- EU advocacy
- Collaborating with European chapters to shape policies in favor of Free Knowledge
- Supporting EU advocacy on a national level by establishing contacts to relevant ministries and MPs on a national level
Objectives
The following objectives will be reached by the end of 2016.
- EDUCATION
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Increasing diversity by educational activities on Wikimedia projects at universities with 100 individuals of which 60 % or more are female. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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This is a new metric which results from experiences of the last 1,5 years in education projects. We learned that the biggest potential for us lies in fostering diversity, especially gender diversity. Hence we will make this the main focus of our activities. |
| Increasing diversity by disposing of specific academic knowledge from educational activities at universities resulting in 300,000 bytes added or deleted from Wikimedia projects. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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This is a new metric which results from experiences of the last 1,5 years in education projects. We learned that the biggest potential for us lies in fostering diversity, which derives from perspectives female contributors and subject matter experts can contribute to our content. |
- PUBLIC RELATIONS
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gaining 30 media articles about our activities. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Last year the focus was on building press contacts, next year we want to deepen these contacts and improve the quality of coverage by providing background information on the Wikimedia movement and projects. |
| Reaching out about free knowledge to at least 1,400 subscribers to our newsletter and social media channels throughout the year. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
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This year we consolidated our outreach channels (new website and newsletter), next year the focus is to retain and expand this interested public with information that helps to understand our mission and projects and their societal relevance. |
| Gaining 200 new subscribers to our newsletter and social media channels by the end of the year. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Involving 20 individuals from 20 different partner organizations in our activities. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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| Gaining 16,000 EUR in-kind donations from partner organizations. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Conservative objective as we also want to focus on alternative funding methods. |
- EU ADVOCACY
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| By the end of 2016 we have established at least 10 more working relationships between Members of Parliament and Wikimedians (regular meetings, e-mail exchange, phone calls). |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Counting only conversations that had two 2 or more replies. One of the eight volunteers has established 5 relationships. |
| In 2016 Wikimedia will attend and/or speak at all dialogues, consultations and events on EU level that have an impact on copyright reform (at least 20, no more than 90 events). |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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Sometimes hard to define relevancy. Numbers can grow and shrink greatly depending on this. |
| At least 2 Wikimedians from the EU communities will receive a scholarship to visit Brussels and gain public policy experience by collaborating with the EU advocacy group. |
Objective (end 2015):
Estimated result (end 2015):
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The volunteer who visited has also established most working relationships with Members of Parliament. |
| Deepening partnerships and cooperations by having partners co-sign our position papers and gaining 2 for-profit organizations as advocates for free knowledge goals. |
n/a |
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New metric as we build on results (generated partnerships) from the previous year. |
| Ensuring that the text of the EU Copyright reform allows for more content on Wikimedia projects. |
n/a |
|
New metric - this situation emerged in 2015 and requires action on the side of the EU advocacy group and WMAT in 2016. |
- LEARNINGS
| Objective 2016 | In comparison with 2015 | Activities | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share our learnings: create 3 Learning Patterns on Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness. |
Estimated result (end 2015):
|
|
Supplementary information
There is an increased interest on the side of educational institutions to collaborate with WMAT and include Wikimedia projects in their curricula. The challenge is to find models that create sustainable impact on both sides. The experience of the last 1,5 years showed that university activities have more potential for impact than school projects, one main reason is that school projects are usually limited to single lectures or two hour workshops, whereas university courses provide the possibility to accompany students over several months. Hence, we will focus on university cooperations in future. We also learned that Wikiversity is a good platform to get started for the students as it provides more flexibility and room for experiments than the German-language Wikipedia and can be better tailored to the needs of university coursework. For WMAT the pilot lectures proved to be a good platform to reach female contributors and enhancing the diversity of content by adding their perspectives. Accordingly, we shifted our objectives from media competency (2015) to diversity (2016).
We address the following Wikimedia movement strategic priorities:
- Increase reach: We actively address and involve stakeholders from outside the "Wikiverse" and improve diversity by reaching out to especially young female contributors and subject matter experts for peer reviews.
- Stabilize infrastructure: We are enhancing the visibility of the Wikimedia movement in Austria and Europe and thereby reach potential donors.
Staff and contractors: upcoming year's annual plan edit
- 1. Please describe your organization's staffing plan or strategy here, or provide a link to your organization's staffing plan or organogram.
- At the moment WMAT employs 2,5 FTEs: an Executive Director (ED), a Community Manager and an Administrative assistant. The ED is in charge of preparing strategic processes and decision making, manages finances, office and staff, coordinates international relations and partnerships, and reports directly to the board, i.e. executes the board's decisions in the day-to-day operations. The Community Manager is responsible for community support and communication, strategies for volunteer recruitment, and international coordination and exchange for all matters that concern volunteer support. The Administrative Assistant takes care of the office management, prepares the accounting, and furthermore assists event management, travel planning, and project evaluation.
- 2. List of staff by department or function.
- You can use this table (or substitute your own list) to show us the number of FTEs (fulltime equivalents) for each department or function, where one person working at 100% time would be counted as 1.0. We need this information about the total number of staff (FTEs) you will have hired by the end of the current funding period, and staff you will have hired by the end of the proposed funding period.
Table 4
FTEs Department or function End of current funding period End of upcoming funding period Explanation of changes Executive Director 1 1 - Community Manager 1 1 - Administrative Assistant 0,5 0,75 We plan to slightly increase (0,25 FTE) the working hours of our Administrative Assistant, as we need more staff resources to focus on fundraising and evaluation (e.g. qualitative interviews with our institutional partners). This change will come into effect as of October 1, 2015 already, in order to cater for the additional workload required for the organization of the Wikisource Conference in November. We plan to cover these first three months by the PEG grant for the conference. Total (should equal the sum of the rows): 2,75 2,75 See above.
Table 4 notes or explanation of significant changes:
- 3. How much does your organization project to spend on staff during the current funding period, or in the twelve month period before your proposed grant will start (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016), in currency requested and US dollars?
- During the current funding period the projected total is 105,000 EUR (117,345 USD) without the increased 0,25 FTE due to the Wikisource grant. This additional amount mainly stems from overtime payment that was necessary in the beginning of the year to get rid of inherited overtime amounts from 2014 (the time before the relief due to the support of the newly hired Administrative Assistant came into effect). Together with the projected FTE increase from October 1, 2015 (Wikisource Conference) the projected sum will be approx. 106,800 EUR (119,807 USD).
- 4. How much does your organization expect to spend on staff during the proposed funding period (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016), in currency requested and US dollars?
- The total spending will be 130,100 EUR (145,945 USD). This is a remarkable increase compared to the previous year for the following reasons: Firstly, as outlined above, we plan to upgrade the Administrative Assistant to 0,75 FTE. Secondly, WMAT decided to invest in its staff as a result of the successful work they did in the last three years and increase the salaries of both full time staff members. All our employees started with below market salaries, even for Austrian NPO standards. A dedicated workforce which identifies with the core values of the movement is an important success factor for organizations. The experience from many movement affiliates shows, that high staff turnover can have a negative impact on the organizational effectiveness and overall working climate. WMAT considers itself lucky to have such a team which also works well with our volunteers and partners and wants to appreciate this and retain them with appropriate salaries. As third-party funding is often very restrictive when it comes to financing staff costs (it is much easier to get funding / donations for concrete equipment or events), a comparably big portion of the FDC funds will be used for this.
Financials: upcoming year's annual plan edit
Detailed budget: upcoming year's annual plan edit
- Please link to your organization's detailed budget showing planned revenues and expenses for the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016). This may be a document included on this Wiki (Meta) or a publicly available spreadsheet.
Revenues: upcoming year's annual plan edit
- 1. Does your organization plan to draw on its operating reserves during the upcoming funding period to support its expenses? If so, please provide the amount you intend to draw from your reserves here. This should not be included as revenue in the table below.
- No, we do not plan to draw on our reserves.
- 2. Please use this table to list your organization's anticipated revenues (income, or the amount your organization is bringing in) by revenue source (where the revenue is coming from) in the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016). Use the status column to show if this funding is already guaranteed, if you are in the process of requesting funding, or if you are planning to request funding at a later time. Please feel free to include in-kind donations and resources in this table, as applicable, but use the status column to show that they are in-kind resources.
Table 5
Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period Revenue source Currency requested US dollars Status (e.g. guaranteed, application)
FDC grant 250,000 280,448 Requested Fundraising 20,000 22,436 In process Membership fees 1,500 1,683 In process Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 271,500 304,566 - In-kind donations 16,000 17,949 In process Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 287,500 322,515 -
Table 5 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.
Operating reserves: upcoming year's annual plan edit
Please note that there is a policy that places restrictions on how much FDC funding your organization can use to build its operating reserves. If you would like to use FDC funding to for your organization's reserves, you must note that here. You will not be able to decide to allocate FDC funding from this grant to your reserves at a later date.
- 1. How much does your organization plan to have in operating reserves by the end of the current funding period?
- 25,180 EUR (28,247 USD)
- 2. How much does your organization plan to have in operating reserves by the end of the upcoming funding period?
- 25,180 EUR (28,247 USD)
- 3. If your organization plans to use FDC funding to increase your reserves in the upcoming funding period, how much FDC funding will your organization use to build reserves?
- We do not plan to use FDC funding for this purpose.
Expenses: upcoming year's annual plan edit
- 1. Expenses by program (excludes staff and operations).
- Program expenses are the costs associated specifically with your organization's programs. These costs do not include operating expenses or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. For example, program expenses may be the costs of an event, the costs of outreach materials specific to a program, budgets for microgrants and reimbursements, or technical costs associated with specific programs. The programs listed in this table should correspond to the programs you have listed in the programs section of this proposal form.
Table 6
Program Currency requested US dollars Community support 69,000 77,404 Free content 22,000 24,679 Reach / Free knowledge awareness 18,000 20,192 Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 109,000 122,275
Table 6 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds for specific programs, please make a note of that here.
- We plan to support our programs with in-kind donations worth 16,000 EUR - added to cashflows outlined above, this makes our program work worth 125,000 EUR in total.
- 2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization's total expenses overall.
- These are divided into three expenses categories: (1) staff expenses from Table 4 (including staff expenses for both staff working on programs and operations), (2) expenses for programs from Table 7 (does not include staff expenses or operations expenses), and (3) expenses for operations (does not include staff expenses or program expenses). Be sure to check the totals in this table to make sure they are consistent with the totals in the other tables you have submitted with this form. For example, your total program expenses excluding staff will be equal to the total in Table 7, while your total staff expenses will be equal to the total in Table 4 and your total expenses will be equal to the total in Table 1.
Table 7
Expense type Currency requested US dollars Program expenses (total from Table 7, excludes staff) 109,000 122,275 Operations (excludes staff and programs) 32,400 36,346 Upcoming staff total expenses (from Table 4) 130,100 145,945 Amount to be added to operating reserves (if applicable) 0 0 Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 271,500 304,566
Table 7 notes:
Verification edit
Please 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 Foundation Project and Event Grants Program.
I verify that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities Yes
Once this proposal is complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.
- CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 23:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Please do not make any changes to this proposal form after the proposal submission deadline for this round. If a change that is essential to an understanding of your organization's proposal is needed, please request the change on the discussion page of this form so it may be reviewed by FDC staff. Once submitted, complete and valid proposal forms submitted on time by eligible organizations will be considered unless an organization withdraws its application in writing or fails to remain eligible for the duration of the FDC process.