Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Developing Free Knowledge in Georgia, 2023
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Applicant details edit
Wikimedia username(s):
- 1) Mehman Ibragimov - Mehman97
2) Mikheili Chabukashvili - MIKHEIL
Organization:
- Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did receive a grant
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- No
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- N/A
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information edit
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Georgia
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- Local
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- Wikimedia UG Georgia wiki - https://ge.wikimedia.org/
WMGE Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wikimedia.ge/ Georgian Wiki Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/georgianwikipedia/ WMGE Twitter - https://twitter.com/wikimedia_ge Georgian Wiki on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/georgianwiki/
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Proposal edit
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
In recent years, Wikimedia UG Georgia, through its projects and programs and with the financial support of the Wikimedia Foundation, has been able to achieve its goals, which were:
a) increase and improve the content of Wikimedia projects in Georgian; b) development of the Wikimedia community in Georgia; c) advocacy for FOP in Georgia; d) development of the Wikimedia UG Georgia partnership network; e) promoting Wikimedia projects locally; f) organizational development of our UG.
We want to continue our efforts in this direction and achieve sustainability in the development of projects and programs of Wikimedia UG Georgia, as well as achieve sustainable development and growth of the Wikimedia community locally. In addition, we want to continue advocating for various goals of the Wikimedia Foundation locally in Georgia. This will help us work together to continue our ongoing efforts.
We work with our partners for the benefit of developing free knowledge in Georgia and making it available locally. The stronger position and initiatives of Wikimedia UG Georgia will help us develop our offerings and attract the interest of our current partners as well as potential partners.
We also want to develop our efforts and create new ideas and proposals on the development of free knowledge in Georgia and on its availability locally, which will help in the development of Wikimedia projects, as well as strengthen our community and this will enable our community to be heard globally.
And so, we want to develop our organization and become a chapter after already 7 years of development as UG. We plan to submit an application for a chapter to AffCom by the end of September 2022. We want to be a strong affiliation in the region and link regional affiliations around us into an alliance, which is not an easy task in our region.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
In 2023, we are changing our strategy to focus more on improving the content of the Wikimedia projects through trainings and other events that will be mostly held in-person. In practice, it has been proven that in-person trainings and events have more effect than online events, which we associate with the culture of our region and people. Also, while we have placed a lot of emphasis on Wikipedia in the past, we will now place more emphasis, along with Wikipedia, on other Wikimedia projects such as Wikidata and Wikisource. This will make our community more diverse and give everyone the opportunity to do what they like best, which will give more opportunities to members of the community.
We are working on a new plan for working with partners, which will change the nature of the relationship with them and make it more flexible and sustainable. This will allow close cooperation with current partners, and will also provide an opportunity to find new partners. In the near future, we want to expand the circle of our partners and thereby develop the Wikimedia movement in Georgia, as well as develop understanding and work on free knowledge locally.
We want to provide a safe and free space for our community and that's why we're working on documents like Friendly Space Policy and the UCoC. By accepting and implementing these rules in the community, we will get an inclusive space for everyone.
We also want to better support and develop the skills of our contributors, as well as attract new contributors to the Wikimedia projects and our community. We will continue to support this through ongoing programs such as WikiClubs and WikiCamps, and will develop a new workflow for these programs.
Finally, we want to achieve the development and sustainability of our UG, and along the way, we will introduce new projects at the organizational level to support this initiative, as well as actively implement the recommendations of the movement strategy.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
To achieve our main goals and strategic priorities, Wikimedia Georgia will work in accordance with the following strategic objectives:
1) We will increase and improve the content of Wikimedia projects, primarily in Georgian, but also in other regional languages. To achieve this goal, we will conduct various projects and events, including online contests, edit-a-thons, seminars and trainings. We will also involve in these projects our partners who are interested in such events.
2) Wikimedia UG Georgia will conduct open training courses and workshops for all interested parties who want to contribute to the development of Wikimedia projects in Georgian. Trainings and workshops will be held both online (using remote channels) and in person. Over the past years, it has become clear that such sessions attract people's interest, which helps us attract new contributors to Wikimedia projects. This helps us to increase and improve the quality of content in our projects.
3) Our experience with past projects tells us that one of the best ways to attract participants to the Wikimedia project is to conduct WikiCamps. Over the past two years, WikiCamps has proven effective in attracting new contributors to Wikimedia projects as well as refining the skills of existing contributors. WikiCamp participants gain enough knowledge, which they then share with other contributors and also effectively use in their daily work on projects. This proves the effectiveness and correctness of the course, which we will continue in the future.
4) We will continue to develop a network of WikiClubs. Observing the WikiClubs clearly showed us that, on the one hand, the teaching process in those schools where WikiClubs were opened became much more active, fun, and interesting. Students were actively involved in the work of WikiClubs as well as in the learning process. They learned to write the text in the encyclopedic style, and to correct it grammatically. After the students completely mastered Wiki technologies, they were given a wide field. WikiClubs are the best way to grow both content projects and also the best way to grow the Wikimedia Movement locally.
5) Organizing in-person meetups is important for both UG-GE members and the whole WikiCommunity in Georgia. Bringing volunteers together is especially crucial for community development in Georgia because of the geographical vastness of our country. Organizing conferences and other regional events also help boost and increase local communities.
6) Finally, we will continue to expand our network of partnerships and actively work with current partners to develop free knowledge in Georgia, as well as to advocate for various initiatives related to Wikimedia.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
To achieve our goals, we are going to carry out the following activities:
1) Article Contests - the main goal of this program is to increase quality and authoritative content, media files relevance in Wikimedia projects (primarily in Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata and Wikisource). 2) Trainings – we will be running a series of trainings throughout the year to help contributors develop their skills and gain the knowledge they need to work on different Wikimedia projects. 3) Media Contests (WLM; WLE) – Increasing the number of freely licensed Georgia-related content on Wikimedia Commons is one of the important goals of Wikimedia UG Georgia. 4) Edith-a-thons – we will actively hold such events with our partners. 5) WikiClubs – we will open new clubs in different regions of Georgia. 6) WikiCamps – we will organize camps twice a year to give as many contributors as possible the opportunity to develop their skills and also gain new project skills. 7) Community events and WikiConference – we will hold community meetings with members of our community, as well as a WikiConference. This allow to enhance online cooperation, boost useful networking connections among volunteers, and facilitate knowledge sharing in the format of presentations, discussions, and personal meetings. 8) We will encourage community members to participate in international events such as Wikimania by providing them with scholarships to participate. 9) We will hold regular meetings and joint events with our partners to strengthen our ties.
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
No
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- N/A
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
- Please see (in Georgian) out timeline: https://ge.wikimedia.org/wiki/ვმ_საქართველო/სამოქმედო_გეგმა/2023/კალენდარი
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
1) Mehman Ibragimov (User:Mehman97) – Chairman of UG, is engaged in the preparation of reports on behalf of the UG and controls the layered work of the organization. (Volunteer) 2) Mikheili Chabukashvili (User:MIKHEIL and User:Mikheil (WMGE)) – UG Program and Social Media Manager, is involved in the preparation and implementation of all programs and projects of the UG. (Paid staff) 3) Jaba Labadze (User:Jaba1977) – WikiClubs coordinator. (Paid staff) 4) George Melashvili (User:Melberg) – Helps in the development of programs. (Volunteer) 5) David Asriashvili (User:David1010) – Assists in contests preparation. (Volunteer) 6) Anry Kiknavelidze (User:Anrykiknavelidze) – Helps in evaluating contests. (Volunteer) 7) Mikheil Chkhikvadze (User:Surprizi) – Helps in evaluating contests. (Volunteer) 8) Nino Turmanidze – Actively conducts trainings. (Volunteer) 9) Akaki Balanchivadze - Actively conducts trainings. (Volunteer) 10) Leila Karajaeva - Accountant. (Paid staff)
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Geography, Language
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
Georgia is a small country with a maximum population of 5 million, and those who know the Georgian language are even less. There are even fewer people who work in Wikimedia projects and digital resources. We are trying to develop digital materials in the form of free encyclopedic knowledge for accessibility and reduce the gap between the knowledge and the people who use it. Thus, materials in Georgian will be available to everyone in freely.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Advocacy
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Gender Identity, Geographic , Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
Wikimedia UG Georgia actively promote Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia Movement. We do this with the help of social networks and various online and offline meetings. It brings real benefits and we attract people's attention, so we even build relationships with new partners.
We also cooperate and hold meetings in educational institutions and this helps us to attract new contributors to our projects. Here it's important to know how to speak correctly and transfer knowledge to people in order to interest them, and for this we use the work map that we have developed.
Also, our partners help us with this. With their help, we find new people who didn't know about Wikimedia projects before and had no experience working on Wikipedia. It also helps us in community development.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
We attach great importance to safety, inclusion and health within our community, projects and UG. We always adhere to the official policy of the Wikimedia Foundation in these matters and always support it. We also encourage our contributors and members to review and adhere to these policies.
By the end of 2022, Wikimedia UG Georgia will have its own Friendly Space Policy, which our legal partners are currently working on. Also, the Georgian version of UCoC will be ready by the end of the year, which will enable our community to better understand and adhere to this policy.
We will also actively promote these policies in the Wikimedia Movement locally.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
Yes
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
Wikimedia UG Georgia has a strong connection with the community, as most of the community members are involved in the work of the affiliation or in the projects and programs of the affiliation. We are in constant contact with the community, including through social networks and various communication platforms. We've had many in-person meetings over the past year where we communicated our plans to the community and accepted their advice and requests for changes or additions to our request.
In addition, we have worked with our partners together to prepare this proposal because our work for them and their work for us has an impact.
Also, at the end of each year, we hold a WikiConference for the community and for the members of our organization, where we talk about the work done and plans for the next year, while receiving feedback and ideas from the community.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
We cooperate with various organizations and government agencies in Georgia, where we receive significant support from them, which helps us to implement our programs and projects effectively. Different partners support us and help us in different areas, for example, the Administration of the President of Georgia helps us in advocating Freedom of Panorama in Georgia, as well as in attracting new contributors to Wikimedia projects and helps us in relations with archives and universities. The Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia helps us hold various contests (and allocates funds for prizes) to attract an audience, as well as advocating free knowledge locally.
Our other non-governmental partners are also interested in our stability and in the development of our activities, as we help them and jointly carry out projects that increase the potential of both parties to develop free knowledge in Georgia and digital materials locally.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
The grant is one of the important tools that helps us effectively and independently conduct and implement our programs and projects, but the main work is still done by the community, and if the community is strong, then it can do everything independently and in a difficult situation.
Wikimedia UG Georgia and the Georgian community has become quite strong in recent years and we can continue to work and effectively distribute funds for the needs of the community. We have created an important and strong basis for community work for the development of the Wikimedia movement in Georgia and for the development of free knowledge locally.
Our affiliation programs, such as: WikiClubs, online and in-person training series, as well as joint projects with our partners, give us the opportunity to continue our work without any problems after receiving a grant or without it.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- At the moment, we see three main serious risks in Georgia that may affect our activities and these are:
1) Changing Georgian Lari exchange rate. Over the past few months, the Georgian national currency (GEL) changed very quickly, which created a problem for us, since we developed our budget at a low rate, and now the currency rate is high. This may continue in the future, which may create a risk of a deficit in our budget. To eliminate this problem, we decided to store part of the currency in GEL, and part in USD.
2) Political instability. At the moment, the political situation in Georgia is very tense, which can develop into instability. This directly affects us, as we cooperate with government agencies. We are extremely flexible and act carefully in this situation.
3) The risk of war. Unfortunately, we have a problem with Russia (including a territorial issues) in a political and military context. The latest events around Ukraine don't console us and there is a risk that Russia may attack Georgia as well.
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Improve User Experience, Provide for Safety and Inclusion, Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation edit
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
We hope that we can learn:
1) How to increase the number of contributors while reducing online prize contests and increasing training courses. This will help the affiliate to increase the number of contributors more professionally and at lower cost, as well as improve the content of projects.
2) Build quality and sustainable partnerships with government and non-government organizations.
3) Effectively develop Wikimedia projects and to involve underrepresented groups in Georgia.
4) How better to implement the recommendations of the movement strategy and develop the affiliation potential in the region.
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Open new WikiClubs | We want to develop a network of WikiClubs in different regions of Georgia and plan to open new clubs. | 2 |
| Increase the number of contributors | We want to increase the number of active contributors to Wikimedia projects in Georgia. | 30 |
| New partnerships | We want to develop a network of our partners and make an alliance with new organizations. | 3 |
| Trainings, meetings and other events | We want to increase the number of trainings to improve the skills of contributors, as well as social meetings with the community and not only. | 20 |
| WikiCamps | We want to increase the number of camps and bring them up to 2. | 2 |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | Participants who will continue to participate in WMGE projects. | 60 |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | UG members who will continue to participate in WMGE projects. | 12 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | New and existing partners. | 10 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | We will collect feedback from partners. | 5 |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | Diversity will be ensured in the community and in Wikimedia UG Georgia projects. | 100 |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | The total number of people who will see our publications in social networks. | 7000 |
| Number of activities developed | Total number of projects (Trainings, lectures, sessions, edit-a-thons, contests, meetings). | 25 |
| Number of volunteer hours | We will take into account the hours of volunteering. | 200 |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | The number of participants who will take part in all Wikimedia Georgia projects and programs. At least 40 participants were newbies. | 160 |
| Number of editors | Number of editors who will participate in all Wikimedia UG Georgia projects. At least 30 will be newbies. | 90 |
| Number of organizers | Number of Organization Members who will oversee the implementation of Wikimedia Georgia projects and programs. | 12 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | New or improved articles | 1500 |
| Wikimedia Commons | New images | 600 |
| Wikidata | New or improved elements | 3000 |
| Wikisource | At the moment, this project is in the incubator and our goal is to get it out of there. | 1000 |
| Wikiquote | We want to develop the Wikiquote and increase the content in it. | 100 |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
1) For contests – Fountain tool; 2) For edit-a-thons and etc.: Programs & Events Dashboard; 3) We will use common tools for assessing participants; 4) For photo contests- Wiki Loves Competitions Tools. 5) Also we will use- Wikisource Contest Tool and Montage tool.
Financial Proposal edit
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 131260.25 GEL
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 47731 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kqpYzdLSDLRjQQs4SPCn5Lg20WWF7w0xplcIBW1rj5o/edit?usp=sharing
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message edit
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Feedback edit
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.