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Grants:APG/Proposals/2020-2021 round 2/Wikimedia Norge/Proposal form

< Grants:APG‎ | Proposals‎ | 2020-2021 round 2‎ | Wikimedia Norge

Proposal by Wikimedia Norge to support its annual plan with 2,029,100 NOK (237,506 USD).


Comment on Wikimedia Norge's proposal here


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We ask that you please don't make any changes directly to this page after the proposal submission date, but comment on the discussion page.


If you need to review the edit instructions you will find them in the edit intro.

  • 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 Norge is requesting 2,029,100 NOK in APG funding for the 2021–2022 period. This funding will be used to continue WMNO's work with volunteers, prominent partners in the Norwegian GLAM and education sector (at the national level) and broader civil society (at government and international level), as well as with international Wikimedia affiliate partners, to increase knowledge equity on the Wikimedia projects. We will continue our program work on gender balance on the Wikimedia projects and support for underrepresented and indigenous languages and the use of the Wikimedia projects.

Norway is a country where gender issues and the rights of indigenous people are supported on a government level and by different structures in society such as national Glam and educational institutions, organizations, the arts and by a large part of the public press. This context provides Wikimedia Norge great opportunities to align our work to the international strategic direction and focus on knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege. Our ambition is to take projects, partnerships and experience from Norway and upscale or transform to include international partnerships in the coming years. The Unesco Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022–2032 is an important opportunity for us to start this work.


  • Legal name of organization: Wikimedia Norge
  • Organization's fiscal year: 1.1.2021–31.12.2021
  • 12-month funding period requested: 1 July 2021–30 June 2022
  • Currency requested: NOK
  • Name of primary contact: Astrid Carlsen, Executive director


Provided exchange rate=0,11705 USD

3. Amount requested.

Table 1

Currency requested US$
Total expenses for the upcoming year 3,209,000 375,614
APG funding requested for the upcoming year 2,029,100 237,506
Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year 1,970,000 230,589


4. How does your organization know what community members and contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments or consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?
  • Wikimedia Norge consults and takes part in discussions on the village pumps of the Northern Sámi, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedias and their sister projects. We discuss ideas and concerns from community members via email, social media (mostly Facebook), telephone calls, meetings and wiki meetups. During our general assemblies, our annual plans are always presented and feedback from volunteers will be used by the board and staff members to adjust our work accordingly. This gives us useful feedback and information on how we should best use the resources we have available for projects the community members and contributors to online projects need or want. One example of how community members can give us feedback and tell us what they need are the currently digital wiki meetups. At one of the last autumn one idea suggested to improve the collaborative spirit on the Wikimedia projects was that Wikimedia Norges hosted a workshop for all Admins on the Bokmål and Nynorsk Wikipedia. This workshop took place in March 2021. A survey was shared by Wikimedia Norge after the workshop to evaluate and plan for possible new Admin workshops. The summary can be read in Norwegian here. At the latest wiki meetup 28 April 2021 the idea of a bot workshop came up. This is an activity we will plan for in the next funding period.


5. Please provide a link to your organization's strategic plan, and a link to your separate annual plans for the current and upcoming funding periods if you have them.


Financials: current year 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 2016 to 31 December 2016 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) 2,929,000 342,840 2,128,779 249,174 2,929,000 342,840
Expenses 2,910,000 340,616 1,971,843 230,804 2,910,000 340,616

Table 2 notes:

  • Expenses in May-June will be higher than the average for the last months because of the Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference 24–25 June 2021.
  • Inkind donations are not included here


Program: upcoming year's annual plan edit

Context and the strategy of Wikimedia Norge edit

With this APG application we hope we can reflect the travel Wikimedia Norge has been on since the organization first got approved funding in 2013–2014. Our organization’s first step was about establishing good governance, a good collaborative working climate between volunteers, elected board and staff members and finding partners among Glam and education institutions in Norway. The second step was to find our focus in our program work and narrow it down to the overarching theme diversity. Now we’re taking the third step; taking the partnerships and experience we have on a national level and upscaling it to an international level. An important part of this journey has also been to diversify our revenues and not be dependent on Wikimedia Foundation funding.

Norway is a country where gender issues and the rights of indigenous people are supported on a government level and by different structures in society such as national Glam and educational institutions, organizations, the arts and by a large part of the public press. This context gives us a very good starting point for our program work and many doors will open easier for us, compared to how it is for other Wikimedia colleagues around the world.

WMNO's strategy will be revisioned in 2022. The next funding period will be an evaluating period for Wikimedia Norge to prepare for writing a revisioned strategy. An important question to answer will be to investigate where we see Wikimedia Norge can grow and play a role as an important NGO in the future. From the 2030 strategy Wikimedia Norge has focused our resources so far on Recommendation 5: Ensuring Equity in Decision-Making. We are exploring ways to see if underrepresented and indigenous language communities can work more closely together globally. The works done by the Wikimedia Language group is a great starting point, the Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference could provide an interesting opportunity to decide on next steps and the UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022–2032 a great framing for this work the coming years. The next funding period will be an exploration into this, we don’t know yet where we will end up, it might be as a thematic hub at some point, but it remains to see.

Our program work the next funding period will focus on activities and partnerships that are establish over many years. In our Sami project bring in some new external partners for growth and sustainability. The Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference, the first international conference we are organizing, will offer an important opportunity for discussions on new partnerships.

WMNO’s strategy is often that our program work is part of already existing structures at institutions or organizations, instead of building them over selves. Examples here can be Wikinobel, Giellavahkku (Sámi Language week), Art+Feminism, UNESCO's Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032, Women in Red, National Queer Cultural Heritage Year etc. With national and international partners, we then contribute to these initiatives. In the ecosystem of free knowledge, and also the ecosystem for language revitalization, there are so many partners we can learn from and work with. Some of the WMNO partnerships we would like to highlight is with Art+Feminism, Wikitongues and Global Voices: Langauge Digital Activism Toolkit. Both Wikitongues and Art+Feminism are part of the organization team for Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference. With Wikimedia Finland we are excited to enter a joint project on Sámi place names to Wikidata as lexicographical data.

APG program: Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects edit

In the following section we will share details about the Wikimedia Norge APG program: Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects.


Program outline Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects

An overview of our program and activities
Our program structure is different than what it has been in the two last years. The last two funding periods we had three different programs we asked to be funded (link to last year's application). Over the last year however our program work has been more and more focused, and activities and partnerships have been increasingly overlapping and intertwined. Because of this we now have one program we ask to be funded called: Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects.

The activities in our program Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects, can be grouped into 3 different kinds:

  • Directed to volunteers: We have a set of community support activities we have organized over several years now. The community support activities are used and appreciated by both Wikimedia Norge members and other volunteers. Examples of different activities Wikimedia Norge offers to support community activities are wiki grants, The Wikipedia Library, online editing contests, wiki meetups and different workshops, applying for press accreditations, sharing stories from volunteers and our work in different communication channels.
  • Directed to partnerships: Another set of activities are working with partner institutions on Wikidata uploads, Wikimedia Commons uploads, writing of Wikipedia articles as part of our education program, organizing events and speaking at conferences, and outreach activities such as online competitions, to give some examples.
  • Directed to the public /lager networks: We have a set of activities that include different types of communication work to raise awareness of the importance of free knowledge and who’s voices are underrepresented our left out on the Wikimedia projects, for example taking part in and building networks, taking part at podcasts, interviews i media and writing blog posts etc. In the next funding period, we will rethink our communication efforts and most likely focus more on how we document and share stories from our Sámi project. We will also spend more resources on activities connected to network and advocacy for underrepresented and indigenous languages, building on the outcomes from the Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference.

It's the last group of activities we see we have a lot of potential to grow the next coming years.


Program structure and program goals
Our program, Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects, is an integrated program with a set of chosen activates with mostly partners we have worked for years. The initiatives, activities and partners we work with overlap to a large extent. An important detail in our program structure is that we try to involve several partners in the same activities. For example, involving several Glam partners in making red links list for our education program with the Oslo Metropolitan University. Our role is to be the connector between partners and the Wikimedia projects. Our program goals are:

  • WMNO will be an organization that works together with a diverse set of national and international volunteer communities and is considered an influential organization in free culture and open knowledge
  • WMNO will explore existing and new national and international partnerships to diversify the content available on the Wikimedia projects.
  • WMNO will identify next steps for support and awareness for underrepresented and indigenous languages and the Wikimedia projects
  • WMNO will raise awareness on how the Wikimedia projects work and are part of an international ecosystem of knowledge


What we will continue doing this year and why
We will continue the community support and community events we had last funding period. After several year organizing Wiki Loves Monuments, we have decided not to hold this photo competition this funding period. The contest is one activity we feel is not strongly connected to our program goals.

We will continue our Glam and educational partnerships with for example the Nobel Peace Centre on wikinobel and with The National Library and The Arctic University of Norway on the Sámi place names project. This project will be expanded to be a collaboration with Wikimedia Finland as well with adding Sámi place names in Finland to Wikidata. We are excited to see that other Wikimedia colleagues can build on our work and are working on more ideas for projects and partnerships that will include the three Sámi parliaments in Sápmi and other Wikimedia affiliates. The Queer archive in Bergen is a new partner to WMNO and we are doing a project with them now with Norwegian funding as a preparation for the Norwegian Queer Cultural Heritage Year 2022.

We will focus on one education program the next funding period. That is the program with Oslo Metropolitan University. The elective started with the National Library at Oslo Metropolitan University 3 years ago has been a great success and will now be a subject offered to all bachelor library and archive students. That is great news. Starting spring 2022 we will work with about 15 students on Women in Red project. We will ask The National Museum, the Queer archives and The Arctic University to set up red link lists of 10 women the students then will write.

We will continue our active partnerships with Art+Feminism and Wikitongues and have just signed an MoU with Global Voices for a partnership on a project they run with UNESCO on digital language activism. We are also partnering with Whose Knowledge and Netblocks.

We are involved in the planning of the UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages and are excited it’s part of the framing for the Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference, this year’s iteration of the Celtic Knot conferences. Having WMUK and WMDE as part of the conference committee is extremely helpful and we are learning a lot not only about conference planning but also how those two chapters work.


Here are two new things we are planning for the next funding period

  • We are talking with several people in volved in the Wikimedia Language Diversity group on how we can look into building on their work and possibly give it more support. Our plan is to identify next steps towards a possible Language Diversity hub post the Arctic Knot conference.
  • We are going to Rethink how we document our work. Project pages at our wiki has been a good start, but not the best place to share our results. During the first half of the next funding period will . think of an alternative method to document the developments of the Sami project and the work and partnership for UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032.


Here are two things we wish to discontinue the next funding period

  • We will scale down on physical events and instead scale up our communication work. The number of people we reach with a well written blog post in Norwegian and English compared to hosting an event is a lot, physical events require a lot of resources.
  • Education programs are time consuming and online versions are even more demanding for us. We think the results are not commensurate to the effort that we put in. We will scale down and reviewing our education initiatives and plan to focus on the education program we have with Oslo Metropolitan University located in Oslo, including the Women in Red project and intern program. This intern program works well on many levels, also as a pipeline for freelance workers at our office or candidates for involvement in Wikimedia Norge.


In the 2021-2022 funding period we have made some of the metrics a bit lower than previous years. This is to calculate for the ongoing Covid 19-situation and the effects it has on volunteers, partners and staff members. We do expect that there will be long-term effects for our work from COVID also after the restrictions are lifted.


Table 3

Shared metrics

  1. Participants: The number of people who attend your events, programs or activities, either in person or virtually. This definition does not include people organizing activities, social media followers, donors, or others not participating directly.
  2. Newly registered: The number of participants that create new accounts on a Wikimedia project. These include users who register up to two weeks before the start of the event.
  3. Content pages: A content page is an article on Wikipedia, an item on Wikidata, a content page on Wikisource, an entry on Wiktionary, and a media file on Commons, etc. This metric captures the total number of content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects.

Grantee-defined metrics

  1. Blog posts about underrepresented and indigenous languages and the Wikimedia projects: Number of Wikimedia Norge blog posts written and shared in social media about our collaborations with partners on underrepresented and indigenous languages and the Wikimedia projects
  2. Volunteer hours: Hours community members spend on organizing activities or helping staff organize activities (not included are hours spend adding content)
Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Blog posts about underrepresented and indigenous languages and the Wikimedia projects Volunteer hours
Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects 1,200 200 35,000 8 700
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 1,200 200 35,000 8 700


Table 3 notes:

  • New grantee-defined metric:

We have changed our program structure from three to one program. The previous metric on Diversity it no longer a valuable metric for our work since our overall focus is on increasing diversity on and off the Wikimedia projects. Our upcoming annual plan's focus on the continued Sámi project and underrepresented and indigenous languages and the Wikimedia projects, so we have chosen a new grantee-defined metric that can reflect the results of our work on this. This metric also highlights the importance of communication activities and making time to share the stories about our work with the world. For building partnerships this is an important step.




Staff and contractors: upcoming year's annual plan edit

1. Please describe your organization's staffing plan or strategy here, and provide a link to your organization's staffing plan or organogram if you have one.
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 plan to have by the end of the current funding period, and staff you plan to have by the end of the upcoming funding period.

Table 4

FTEs
Department or function End of current funding period End of upcoming funding period Explanation of changes
Diversity manager 0,6 1
Community manager 1 1
Executive Director 1 1
Total (should equal the sum of the rows): 2,6 3

Table 4 notes or explanation of significant changes:

3. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the current funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?
4. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the upcoming funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?


Financials: upcoming year edit

Detailed budget: upcoming year edit

Please link to your organization's detailed budget showing planned revenues and expenses for the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017). This may be a document included on this Wiki (Meta) or a publicly available spreadsheet.

Revenues: upcoming year edit

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 2017 to 31 December 2017).

  • 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 include in-kind donations and resources in this table, as applicable, and use the status column to show that they are in-kind resources.
  • Do not include money you plan to draw from your reserves during the upcoming funding period.

Table 5

Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period
Revenue source Currency requested US dollars Status (e.g. guaranteed, application)


Annual Plan Grant, Wikimedia Foundation 2,029,100 237,506 requested
External funding 900,000 105,345 not yet requested
Inkind donations 300,000 35,250 not yet requested
Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 3,229,100 377,966 -


Table 5 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.

  • Other funding will mostly be earmarked for program costs. The VAT-compensation we apply for early is used to building our reserves.


Operating reserves: current and upcoming years 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. What is your plan for maintaining, building, or spending your reserves in the current year and the upcoming funding period? Please use the table below to show the amounts in your reserves at the beginning, year-to-date, and end of your current year, and the amount you plan to have in your reserves by the end of the upcoming funding period.


Table 6

Year Year start Year start (US) Year-to-date Year-to-date (US) Year end Year end (US)
Current year (e.g. 2017) 600,000 70,230 600,000 70,230 700,000 81,935
Upcoming year (e.g. 2018) - - - - 800,000 93,640

Table 6 Notes

  • Wikimedia Norge's policy on reserves: Our reservers are build by Norwegian external funding year by year. Wikimedia Norge will build reserves that at all times will cover all over operating expenses for 3 months according to the notice period for staff members, office space etc.
2. How much FDC funding is your organization requesting to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period? If you are not requesting any FDC funding to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period, you can write zero.
  • Zero


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, and do not include operating expenses or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. 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, for example. The programs listed in this table should correspond to the programs you have listed in the programs section of this proposal form.


Table 7

Program Currency requested US dollars
Knowledge Equity: Supporting equity on Wikimedia projects 460,000 53,843
Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 460,000 53,843

Table 7 notes: If your organization has significant funding designated for specific programs (e.g. a restricted grant), please make a note of that here.

  • Wikimedia Norge raises about 500,000 NOK yearly in funding for specific programs. These restricted grants will most of the time be about increasing the diversity in either content or contributors to the Wikimedia projects.


2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization's total expenses overall.
These are divided into three categories: (1) staff expenses from Table 4 (including expenses for staff working on both 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 8

Expense type Currency requested US dollars
Program expenses (total from Table 7, excludes staff) 460,000 53,843
Operations (excludes staff and programs) 799,000 112,368
Upcoming staff total expenses (from Table 4) 1,950,000 228,248
Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 3,209,000 375,614

Table 8 notes:


Verification and signature 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. General operating support through the FDC may not be used to cover political and legislative activities, although you may make a separate grant agreement with the WMF for these purposes.
I verify that no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation will be used
for political or legislative activities except as permitted by a grant agreement 		Yes


Please sign below to complete this proposal form.

IMPORTANT. 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.
Please sign here once this proposal form is complete, using four tildes. Astrid Carlsen (WMNO) (talk) 11:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
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