Grants:PEG/WM UA/Wiki Loves Earth 2015/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2015-16 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/WM UA/Wiki Loves Earth 2015.

You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email grants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Project status

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?: YES

Is your project completed?: YES

Activities and lessons learned

Activities

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 international jury report

Wikimania 2015 submission slides

WLE Leaflet prepared for Wikimania

Wiki Loves Earth 2016 calendar with winning pictures of WLE 2015

Three postcards with the winning images of WLE 2015

January 2015: Wiki Loves Earth 2015 page was created, the grant request was submitted.
January-February 2015: The International team was established.
February-April 2015: Working with local teams, hiring a coordinator.
May-June 2015: The contest was underway. Some countries decided to join the contest during the last days (WLE 2015 in Bulgaria)
June-August 2015: The international jury was set up and local winners submitted. The WLE submission at Wikimania 2015 was presented: wm2015:Submissions/Wiki Loves Earth: why it is cool and how you can join.
August-September 2015: The international jury worked to select the winners.
October 2015: The winners were announced. The jury report was prepared and published. The winners were contacted.
November-December 2015: The calendars for 2016 were prepared, published and sent. The winners were contacted and awarded.
January 2016: Working on the grant report, there are still calendars to be sent, certificates with small souvenirs to be sent to the members of International jury, prizes.

Lessons learned

What worked well?

We managed to involved 26 countries, exceeding our expectations and beating the 2014 result (16). We provided assistance and support to countries with very different levels of experience: from experienced chapters with a track record in organising photo contests who might have organised WLE before (e.g. Austria, Germany) or not (e.g. France, Uruguay) to groups who organised their first ever photo contest (e.g. Bulgaria, Morocco).
Many of participating countries gained valuable experience which helped them for organising further events, for instance, some of the countries went on to organise their first ever WLM (like Brazil and Bulgaria).
All countries submitted their winners for the final round, although it meant that international jury started working later than expected.
We exceeded expectations in terms of images uploaded, owing to successful results in a number of participating countries. Getting 108,132 new images significantly improved both 2014 result and our expectation and was a valuable contribution to Wikimedia Commons
Results in terms of image use are good (9,077 images used and 15,230 image uses), particularly because we encouraged local organisers to plan events targeting use of WLE images (edit-a-thons, article contests etc.)
Wiki Loves Earth involved 7,725 new contributors, which significantly exceeded our expectations. Owing to this, Commons received a new peak in number of active editors (see #Impact), and some of these users remained active after the contest, either on Commons or also in Wikipedia.
The contest website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages were regularly updated during the contest and improved in terms of number of visitors, followers and likes.
Attending Wikimania for presenting WLE was useful to make more people know about the contest and understand how to join it. Wikimania submission wm2015:Submissions/Wiki Loves Earth: why it is cool and how you can join was well received by the public, and some countries got interested in organising WLE in their countries (e.g. Finland, the United States). We also distributed leaflets about WLE during Wikimania.
We had a very diverse jury, both in terms of geography (four continents), gender (44% women) and backgrounds (from photographers to natural scientists, from Wikipedians to non-Wikipedian experts).
We had a jury tool that was used by both national and international juries.
International coordinator c:User:IevgenVoropai (WMUA) had clear responsibilities and was very helpful for supporting Wiki Loves Earth in all countries.
Working with Wikimedia Polska as a fiscal sponsor was very helpful for making international payments much easier (Ukrainian law makes it almost impossible for Ukrainian NGOs to transfer money abroad) and minimising exchange risk.
We were less successful than expected in involving international partners.

What didn't work?

Just before announcing winners we found out that one photo (File:Drone Reconnoitering.jpg) was taken not in a protected natural area, but in a private apiary. Unfortunately we found this too late to be able to make a change which led to a rather unpleasant discussion of this issue. As a solution, we had to provide a special jury award to the author of the photo as it was too late to disqualify it directly.
We had to delay the announcement of international winners and the entire timeline because some countries (particularly Austria) finished the contest on 30 June and were unable to submit their winners in July for various reasons.
There was a disagreement whether photos of individual species (flora or fauna) should be accepted: some countries allowed this in their rules, while others banned it. As such photos were represented among international winners, countries having banned such photos challenged the results.
We slightly missed target in terms of percentage of image use and valued/quality/featured images, particularly because reviewing high number of photos requires a lot of efforts.
We were contacted by Syrian organisers who wanted to award their winners and asked us for assistance as they were unable to receive a WMF grant. Unfortunately this was rather unexpected both for us and for WMF, and it took a lot of time to find the best solution.

What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?

We would double-check all international finalists that made it to the final round to make sure that photos were taken in protected natural areas
We would check in advance whether any countries are interested in organising WLE in June, and if so, we will adapt international planning to appropriately accommodate their needs.
We will make a community consultation over the rules before the contest, particularly concerning photos of individual species of flora and fauna (see c:Commons talk:Wiki Loves Earth 2016)
We would not hire an international coordinator for Wiki Loves Earth 2016, instead, we would divideresponsibilities between existing employees of Wikimedia Ukraine and involve more people in the international team.

Learning patterns

In progress, most likely something from Grants:Evaluation/Program Toolkits/Photo Contests and Events.

Outcomes and impact

Outcomes

Provide the original project goal here.: Our goal is to coordinate local editions of Wiki Loves Earth 2015 contest. 16 countries from four different continents - Europe, Asia, Africa and America - took part in the first international edition. Such projects improve international cooperation and develop links between various Wikimedia chapters, thematic organisations, user groups and other communities, especially with countries that are still in process of developing local communities.
Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 short paragraphs.: Yes, we did. We enabled coordination between local teams of 26 countries participating in Wiki Loves Earth 2015. We supported local teams of very different backgrounds: from chapters with a very high experience both in supporting community projects and organising photo contests (like Austria or France) to local communities with limited project experience and first ever photo contest organised (like Bulgaria or Palestine). This also helped develop activities in a number of local communities: a few countries who started with WLE went on to organise a successful WLM like Brazil and Bulgaria, while other gained a valuable project management and community building experience.

Progress towards targets and goals

Project metrics

Project metrics	Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of participating countries: 15	Number of participating countries: 26	We were successful in reaching new countries and exceeded our expectations
Number of photos uploaded: 50,000	Number of photos uploaded: 108,132	A few countries continuing from 2014 had very successful years (e.g. Ukraine and Brazil) plus some very successful newcomers (e.g. Pakistan, Russia and Poland)
Total number of participants: 2,500	Total number of participants: 8,921	The result exceeded expectations, particularly owing to excellent results in Brazil (1936), Pakistan (1449), Russia (1135) and other countries
Number of new users: 1,000	Number of new users: 7,725	The result exceeded expectations, again owing to excellent results in Brazil (1840), Pakistan (1337), Russia (1022) and other countries
4 months after the contest, 5,000 (and 10%) of photos are used on wiki projects	8,939 (about 8%) photos are used on wiki projects	Target exceeded in terms of number of images and slightly missed in terms of percentage. On one hand, this year we provided information to local organisers on how to improve image use in articles, on the other hand, extremely high numbers of images in some countries (e.g. Brazil) make it difficult to add even 10% of them.
4 months after the event, 500 (and 1%) of uploaded photos are categorized as valued, quality or featured	Number of valued, quality or featured images: 672 (589 QI, 34 VI, 49 FP) (ca. 0.62%)	Target exceeded in terms of number of images and slightly missed in terms of percentage. We encouraged local organisers to nominate images for QI/VI/FP but slighlty misssed percentage target, as getting even 0.1%*15 000=150 images per country pass the review requires quite a lot of efforts
At least 90% of the participating countries submitted nominees to the finale	100% of the participating countries submitted nominees to the finale	Target met, but this caused the delay in the launch of international jury. Some countries submitted their winners late, but usually we managed to arrange a clear date for each country to be able to plan our work and minimise disruption.
The prizes are handed out before October 2015 (with a possible exception for travel related prizes)	Prizes were handed out by December 2015-January 2016	The delay in the jury made us announce the results only mid-October, and then it took a bit over a month to complete all formalities for the prizes. In addition, arrangements for Wikimania scholarship for the Pakistani winner took a lot of time, and so did sending prizes.

Global Metrics

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees. In addition to the measures of success for your specific program (in above section), please use the table below to let us know how your project contributed to the Global Metrics. We know that not all projects will have results for each type of metric, so feel free to put "0" where necessary.

Next to each required metric, list the actual outcome achieved through this project.
Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome. For example, if you were funded for an edit-a-thon which resulted in 0 new images, your explanation might be "This project focused solely on participation and articles written/improved, the goal was not to collect images."

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	1,196	Calculated as (Total number of uploaders) - (Number of uploaders). This result is irrelevant due to the following reasons: People who do not make uploads regularly (and might have uploaded less than 5 images the month before WLE), but make 5+ edits in Wikipedia/Wikivoyage or any other wiki should qualify as active editors. However, this requires analysing accounts in all projects (132,962 accounts), and Metrics tool failed to analyse a cohort of that size. We can estimate their number at anything between 500 at 1,196 Jury members and especially organisers and local volunteers are also active editors. We can hardly estimate their number between 100 and 700 as we are unable to make any list and check whether a local organiser had 5+ edits in the month before WLE Some people prepare photos (either by travelling or by simply processing them) some time before WLE and can miss 5+ edits barrier the month before WLE due to preparing their WLE uploads. Local organisers can do this as well: they can contribute less due to being busy in organising WLE.
2. # of new editors	7,725	The result exceeded expectations, owing to excellent results in Brazil (1840), Pakistan (1337), Russia (1022) and other countries
3. # of individuals involved	ca. 10,000	8,944 uploaders plus partners, sponsors, jury members and local volunteers in all countries
4a. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	8,939 / 9,077	8,939 images used in articles and 9,077 used in pages (e.g. including lists outside of article namespace). Result particularly achieved by providing information to local organisers on how to improve image use in articles.
4b. # of new images/media uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (Optional)	108,132	Main result of this project are images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, and project exceeded expectations.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	N/A	While international team promoted activities targeting content creation (like article contests, cooperation weeks, edit-a-thons etc.) we did not organise any of those ourselves, thus article creation was an indirect result of the project. We estimate that at least 500 articles might have been created owing to WLE.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	N/A	See above: this was not the direct consequence of our grant, so we did not track the results. We estimate that at least 1,000,000 bytes might have been added to articles of Wikimedia projects owing to WLE. We are unable to estimate Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted

Learning question: Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?

Yes, we did. We know this owing to the feedback of participants collected by local teams (e.g. after award ceremonies) or received by email or via social networks.

Impact

Number of editors on Commons per month, with a peak in May owing to WLE

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic priorities?

Option A: How did you increase participation in one or more Wikimedia projects?

Option B: How did you improve quality on one or more Wikimedia projects?

Option C: How did you increase the reach (readership) of one or more Wikimedia projects?

We definitely improved quality on several Wikimedia projects (option B). Primarily, we improved quality of Wikimedia Commons with getting 108,132 new images uploaded, including 672 images receiving FP/QI/VI awards, which improved both number of protected natural areas covered on Commons and quality of pictures of these areas. In addition, we also improved quality of Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and other projects by adding high-quality pictures to articles: images from Wiki Loves Earth 2015 illustrate 15,230 pages on 127 Wikipedias, 10 Wikivoyages and even a few Wikibooks or Wikiversities.
We also improved participation in Wikimedia projects (option A). The number of editors (5+ edits) on Wikimedia Commons increased significantly in May 2015, and Wiki Loves Earth now displays a new peak in May (and a much smaller peak in June), similar to that of Wiki Loves Monuments in September. Wiki Loves Earth helped us recruit 7,725 new editors, including many who are experts in photography or nature protection. As an additional effect, some of these participants also started editing Wikipedia or other projects, in particular owing to projects targeting improving Wikipedia in some countries (like Spain or Ukraine).
We also increased reach (option C) by promoting Wikimedia projects to people interested in nature protection, nature photographers etc. and underrepresented communities, although this component of impact is hard to measure quantitatively.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "No".: Yes

Expenses

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.

Expences by WMUA

Number	Category	Budgeted total	Actual total	Currency	Actual total (UAH)	Notes
1.1	International contest support	1,230.00	1,227.67	USD	28,170.40
1.3	Technical support	200.00		USD
1.5	Souvenirs (international contest)	325.00		USD
1.7a	Publishing WLE calendars	1,300.00	1,388.02	USD	31,850.00
2.1a	Bank expenses in Ukraine	42.00	81.66	USD	1,873.88
2.2	Website hosting	105.00	149.38	USD	3427.62
2.3	Unforeseen	1,000.00	767.08	USD	17,601.57
Total		4,202.00	3,613.81	USD	82,923.47

Exchange Rate Calculation (WMUA)

No.	Date	Amount (UAH)	Exchange Rate (USD/UAH)	Amount sold (USD)
1	21-apr-15	17687.91	0.04454	787.88
2	28-apr-15	34800.00	0.04310	1500.00
3	26-may-15	43929.05	0.04357	1914.12
Total	-	96416.96	0.04358	4202.00

Weighted exchange rate for the grant period: 0.04358

Expences by WMPL

Expences by WMPL are calculated in PLN as we received the grant in PLN to our account. Exchanges rates are just calculated as was charged our bank account. As the prizes were bought in various local currencies we only put the real amounts in PLN.

Number	Category	Actual total	Currency	Notes
1.1	Prizes for winners	16,109.64	PLN
1.3	Mykola Kozlenko scholarship for Wikimania 2015	7,418.68	PLN
1.5	WLE Postards	676.80	PLN
Total (PLN)		24,205.12	PLN
Amount recevied from WMF		29,948.70	PLN
Remaining		5,743.58	PLN

Summary of expenses

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission): 14,932.50 USD

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if PEG is your only funding source): 12,332.50 USD

incl. 4,202.00 USD to WMUA
incl. 8,130.50 USD to WMPL (29,948.70 PLN) (exchange rate 1 USD = 3.68 PLN)

Total amount spent on this project: 3,613.81 (WMUA); 6,571.23 (WMPL)

Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project: 11,744.31

Are there additional sources that funded any part of this project? List them here.: N/A

Remaining funds

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of 588.19 USD were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Ukraine/Proposal form.

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of 5,743.58 PLN were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:Conference/Wikimedia Polska/CEE Meeting 2017.

Are there any grant funds remaining?: Answer YES or NO.; YES

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

588.19 USD (13,493.49 UAH)

1,559.27 USD (5,743.58 PLN)

If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.

Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.

Wikimedia Ukraine: We would like to request reallocating these funds to our APG Proposal for 2015-2016

Wikimedia Polska: We will retain the unspent funds until all expenses have been paid for the Wikimania scholar. Any remaining funds will be returned to WMF.