Grants:APG/Proposals/2023-2024 round 1/Wikimedia CH/Impact report form

Purpose of the report

This form reports on Wikimedia CH's results for 2023 (1 January - 31 December). Wikimedia CH has recently become financially independent and does not rely on an Annual Plan Grant (APG) from the Wikimedia Foundation. Therefore, this report provides an overview of the year without strictly adhering to the APG format.

2023 snapshot: Key metrics for the year

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Participants	900 out of 1 050	After COVID people are still afraid to participate in presence and in big events.
Newly registered users	150 out of 225	The changes of the leaderships in the programmes had an impact on this value.
Content pages created or improved	30 000 out of 26 000
Content reused by other Wikimedia projects	10 000 out of 9 000
People reached in Switzerland	2 000 000 out of 1 550 000 - 1 650 000

Program impacts

Executive Summary

Wikimedia CH Strategy 2022-2026

The year 2022 was one of significant change for Wikimedia CH. As the first year of our new five-year strategy, the past 12 months saw new focus areas, a new strategic impact direction, new ways of working and new team members. It was a crucial year in terms of personnel and capacity-building, as well as organisational structure and functioning. Despite significant changes within our team – long-time staff members left or transitioned to new roles and new members joined – we maintained continuity in our programmatic activities and expanded our influence as a chapter.

In a way, 2022 was the year we began to harvest the fruits of the last five years of work as an organisation. From 2017-2021, we laid the foundation for financial independence, for more strategic projects and for an integrated, mindful organisational culture. In 2022, we began to reap the benefits of that work as we implemented the new strategy, grew our team and continued diversifying our funding sources.

Our impact

From a programmatic perspective, 2022 was an important year for building relationships and engaging the community. It was the first year since 2019 that events were back in person after the pandemic, which allowed us to reconnect with volunteers and partners in new ways. That said, we maintained virtual collaboration for certain activities where appropriate, opening events up to contributors around the world and ensuring our work was accessible to all.

Map of Wikimedia CH's 2022 events

As in 2021, many of our projects and events centred around a uniting theme, the “Year of Sound”, to celebrate 100 years of radio in Switzerland. Programme GLAM, in particular, used this theme as a guide for many activities and as a way to build and strengthen relationships with Swiss cultural and historical institutions. (Visit our interactive map of where Wikimedia CH’s 2022 events took place; a static thumbnail of the map is featured here.)

The theme was key to many of our Programme Community activities as well. Per our new strategy, we focused on supporting community-driven initiatives around specific topics that engaged existing members and recruited new ones by appealing to their interests.

In Programme Education, we launched a new strategy and a concentrated annual plan, which included collaboration with our new impact direction, Experimentation & Innovation, to improve educational tools and approaches. We now have clear, precise objectives for a programme that previously lacked focus.

Supporting all of this were our outreach efforts, which included partnerships, advocacy, fundraising and communication. In 2022, we focused heavily on professionalising our communication channels, including refreshing our website and newsletter. We are starting to build out our membership engagement approach and are continuing advocacy efforts around important knowledge topics at the Swiss and European levels.

Our people

Wikimedia CH Instagram story about the team meeting and brainstorming in Bern

The most significant changes for our organisation happened within our team. Our long-time GLAM Manager left the organisation, while our long-time Education Manager transitioned to another role. Per our new strategy, we took this as an opportunity to rethink our organisation, not so much by creating new roles but by defining roles and responsibilities based on the idea of holocracy and related models.

Following the departure of the GLAM Manager in the beginning of the year, the whole team stepped up to ensure continuity. We also brought on board a new GLAM expert – first at a lower percentage and towards the end of the year at an 80% rate - to support the new GLAM Lead, who we recruited in Q3.

Meanwhile, the Education Manager transitioned out of the role to lead the new Innovation Lab in the middle of the year. We recruited a new team member to lead Education in Q3; however, she decided to become a consultant rather than an employee, which opened the position back up. We aim to have a new Education Lead in the beginning of 2023.

Programme Community saw its team grow to better meet the needs of our diverse community. As defined in our strategy, we hired a Community Lead for Switzerland – a position that did not previously exist – as well as a manager for the Italian-speaking community at 40%. We hope that these additions to the team will help us continue to nurture and grow our community.

As we look towards 2023, we are exploring how to tackle several open tasks, such as board and member management and various administrative tasks. As part of this work, we have engaged an accounting consultant. They will allow the team member who used to handle accounting to focus on overseeing tasks related to Salesforce, which is critical to supporting member and donor management.

Our organization

As mentioned, 2022 was a foundational year for our chapter as an organisation. In addition to starting to implement the new five-year strategy, we have spent significant time and energy exploring new ways of working to reach our strategic goals and strengthen our organisational culture.

Integral to this work has been rethinking our organisational structure to have less hierarchy and adopt a network approach. To this end, we have established a leadership team, which will also help us clarify roles and responsibilities. We are using principles from the work of Frederic Laloux around “teal organisations” to become a more holacratic, self-organising structure where each team member is empowered to self-manage. We are now on a path to developing our own tailor-made model based on these concepts and are thus organising in “circles” rather than in hierarchical roles.

We have also been busy with the work of professionalising our communication (see the highlight activity for the “Partnerships & Outreach” programme) and creating a working group around organisational sustainability in line with the Wikimedia Environmental Sustainability Covenant. From an administrative point of view, we split the budget for Education and Innovation, completing the creation of the Innovation Lab as a stand-alone programme.

Our future

We have become a trusted partner to organisations throughout Switzerland, Europe and the world, and we have earned a place at the table when it comes to important knowledge topics. As we look to the future, we are challenged with growing and structuring our organisation to respond to increasing demand without sacrificing the agility needed to advance free knowledge in innovative ways.

Strategy at a glance

Our vision

As Wikimedia CH, we:

Open doors and bring people together with the aim of disseminating free knowledge for a smart and open society.
Enable our communities to share knowledge and connect them with the Wikimedia universe.
Are a collaborative and accountable association representing the interests of our multilingual communities in Switzerland.

Our mission

To collect, curate and disseminate free knowledge.
To promote the work of contributors (more information: Community website).
To help Swiss memory institutions share their knowledge, collections and curatorial resources digitally with a global community through a global platform – all this to make (Swiss) cultural heritage and its diversity more accessible to the world (more information: GLAM website).
To sensitise all levels of education to sustainable use of digital information (more information: Education website).
To advocate for free knowledge, including at the political level.

Our strategy

Impact directions

GLAM – We collaborate with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) throughout Switzerland to provide digital access to memory institutions’ collections and artefacts. We aim to share the country’s culture and history in a sustainable format and across all borders.
Education – We deliver and collaborate on education programmes that advance learning at every level, for both children and adults. Our work supports lifelong learning as well as teachers and trainers at schools, universities and other institutions of higher education.
Community – We help the Wikimedia CH community grow, supporting existing members and cultivating new Wikipedians. Among other activities, we train and mentor Wikipedia editors and support the diverse and multicultural interests of our community with targeted programming.
Partnerships & Outreach – We believe in using our unique position in the field of information exchange to be an influencer on national and international issues concerning open access and open knowledge. We offer our viewpoints on copyright, technology and more.
Experimentation & Innovation – Our Innovation Lab is a dedicated space for experimentation and improvement that helps us anticipate and address societal changes while optimising projects that advance our core purpose. We aim to create a safe framework to explore bold ideas, exchange knowledge and improve tools in an accessible, non-judgmental way.

Programme GLAM

Overview

"Archives Are You" – theme for International Archives Week

The GLAM programme was significantly impacted by changes in the team this year. With the departure of the long-time GLAM Manager and the subsequent hiring of a new Lead, our goal was continuity rather than growth. While it was a challenge, the remaining team members stepped up to maintain the planned activities. We engaged a new team member, Amandine Cabrio, who first worked part-time and later moved to 80% with the new GLAM Lead, Sandra Becker. Sandra was previously a culture ambassador and has accumulated significant knowledge of the Movement as an active Wikipedian for more than 10 years.

Despite the upheaval in the team, Programme GLAM remained focused on strategic alignment, building partnerships, strengthening tech tools and expanding cross-chapter collaboration. The team kept very busy with activities around the “Year of Sound” annual theme, three in-person GLAM-on-Tour events, cross-chapter events like International Archives Week and International Museum Day, the GLAM Wiki group and GLAM Digital. These activities also helped us continue to develop and strengthen new and existing GLAM partnerships.

More than 25 Wikimedia chapters and groups worldwide supported International Museum Day 2022 by ICOM. Wikimedia CH led the Wiki campaign, calling for museum info to be added to Wikipedia and thus made freely accessible.

Highlight activity

A hallmark activity for the GLAM programme was International Museum Day 2022 (IMD2022) in collaboration with the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the German and Austrian chapters and GLAM partners. As in past years, we supported the various events and initiatives that call on volunteers worldwide to increase the visibility of museums in Wikimedia projects.

For this year’s theme, “The Power of Museums”, we developed a coordinated communication plan for the 27 participating Wikimedia chapters and helped increase Swiss museums’ visibility through the WMCH Map Service. We also supported a Wikidata competition and various events around Switzerland and across borders.

As a result of our work, IMD2022 saw significantly more Wikimedia chapters participating than in previous years, especially from the Global South. This is especially important as one of ICOM’s new strategic goals is around inclusivity in museums. Wikimedia CH supported the Wikipedia user group from Benin with a microgrant for a Benin Museum Tour with a workshop and edit-a-thon.

Key programme activities

Celebrated 100 Years of Radio in Switzerland with thematic activities around the Year of Sound, including an audio workshop for SBB Historic and a conference at the ENTER Museum in Solothurn.
Organised three in-person GLAM-on-Tour events in partnership with important GLAM partners: one at the Neues Museum Biel in June, another at the Zentralbibliothek Zurich in September and the last with the Montreux Jazz Archives in November.
Created a series of WikiRomandie meetups for GLAM professionals to share how they contribute to Wikimedia projects and support each other as colleagues, despite working at different institutions.
Supported International Archives Week 2022 in partnership with the Association of Swiss Archivists (VSA-AAS), focusing on the theme #ArchivesAreYou.
Completed a joint pilot project with the Museum of Natural History Neuchâtel to digitalise a world-famous collection of fish fossils and make it freely available on Wikimedia Commons.
Supported the 8th Swiss Open Cultural Hackathon (GLAMhack 2022) organised by OpenData.ch, bringing together those passionate about GLAM and coding to work on various projects focused on sound and audio.
Organised and participated in various meetings with the GLAM partner group.
Partnered with the City Library of La Chaux-de-Fonds for the UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage to make files from the Neuchâtel sound archives available on Wikimedia Commons.
Cooperated with VSA-AAS to implement our map service on their website – a project that will be continued in 2023.
Participated at the GLAM Europe meeting in Prague.
Coordinated a partnership with the Museum of Communication to do a beta test there of the museum app Makumbushu by Kiwix.
Rolled out the GLAM Statistical Tool to other chapters, and several have acquired it.

GLAM-on-Tour, Montreux Jazz Archives
Instagram ad for the Sept. WikiRomandie meetup
Archives Day, Vernes College
Historic collection of fish fossils freely available on Wikimedia Commons

Programme impact

Key accomplishments

Helped increase the number of chapters participating in the IMD2022 to a record 27 chapters.
Carried out all planned GLAM activities despite significant upheaval in the team.
Succeeded in engaging two new members with the GLAM Wiki Network. Welcomed several new GLAM professionals to the community, including a curator who runs an art fair focused on female art and who has invited the GLAM Lead to speak in a panel discussion about improving data in female art during the fair’s next edition.

Lessons learned

Annual themes (like 2022’s Year of Sound) should be planned well ahead of time in coordination with partners, as GLAMs plan their topics three to five years in advance.
Despite working in very different institutions, GLAM professionals have common needs when it comes to editing Wikimedia projects. Fostering a sense of peer support motivates them to continue contributing to Wikimedia projects and makes them feel more empowered when discussing with the broader Wikimedia community.
It is essential to clarify roles with everybody involved in a project to ensure efficient and effective collaboration.
Mindfulness during project implementation with a stronger focus on clearly defined goals leads to more project success.

Looking ahead

In autumn, ICOM released a new definition of “museums.” The new definition includes key challenges for museums going forward, such as equity, accessibility, digitalisation, sustainability, knowledge sharing and others. In light of these challenges, we see an opportunity to support various topics related to museums. More specifically, we aim to explore ways to support more inclusive museums, amplifying access to museums’ wealth of knowledge and enhancing gender equity both in the professional field and in the collections’ representation of female artists. To this end, we will gather best practices from other GLAM institutions and like-minded organisations and then see how we can translate them to the Swiss museum landscape. We also aim to continue strengthening our relationship with ICOM, positioning our chapter as an important partner to help realise their strategic goals.

While we anticipate significant work around museums, we won’t forget other GLAM institutions. Throughout all our activities, we will continue to protect and promote free knowledge around heritage, culture and history, which has been threatened by recent events, such as the war in Ukraine, the COVID pandemic and climate change. We will continue to work towards gaining new partners, particularly among Swiss galleries, as well as strengthening our existing relationships with GLAM institutions and bolstering outreach to the community.