Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Documenting and increasing Jewish language representation on Wikimedia/Final Report

Final Learning Report

Report Status: Under review

Due date: 2023-12-30T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Final

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General information edit

This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving Wikimedia Community Funds or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their final results.

Name of Organization: Wikitongues, Inc.
Title of Proposal: Documenting and increasing Jewish language representation on Wikimedia
Amount awarded: 54000 USD, 54000 USD
Amount spent: 43018 USD

Part 1 Understanding your work edit

1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.

Our primary objective was to expand the presence of Jewish languages—specifically, Iranian Jewish languages—across Wikimedia. Except for Hebrew, which is well-supported, the majority of Jewish languages are either endangered, minoritized, or under-resourced; and their speaker and learner communities are either marginalized within or excluded from the Wikimedia movement. (This is especially true of Iranian Jewish languages.) Therefore, encouraging Wikimedia contributions in and about these languages would also mobilize new communities to participate. To achieve this, we identified and partnered with the Jewish Language Project, an independent consortium of academic and non-profit organizations working to document, research, or revitalize Jewish linguistic diversity. Serving as a bridge between JLP and Wikimedia, we successfully powered new contributions to the Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia, by coordinating the creation of oral history videos in, and new Wikipedia articles about, six Iranian Jewish languages. In addition to successfully meeting the project's content objectives, our partnership with JLP serves as a case study for proactively engaging communities and knowledge-keeping initiatives outside the Wikimedia movement. We also allowed our then-intern, Jacob Kodner, who was previously not immersed in Wikimedia projects, to design this program and apply for funding, as a way of onboarding him to the movement.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?

Our partnership with the Jewish Language Project was central to effectively completing this project. Outside the Wikimedia movement, there is a rich ecosystem of knowledge-keeping initiatives grounded in specific communities. Identifying and building relationships with these initiatives is an important part of engaging communities outside Wikimedia and bridging knowledge gaps—especially those gaps along the faultlines of language, culture, and ethnicity. Beyond that partnership, we made a point of directly compensating community consultants, driving more participation in the project. (Here, "community consultant" refers to community experts whose language knowledge was essential to completing the project; for example, an elder speaker who agreed to sit for an oral history interview, or a speaker who coordinated translation and interpretation to complete an interview, rather than the volunteer who recorded the interview and contributed it to Commons or Wikipedia.)

3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?

Though the Wikimedia movement has a longstanding tradition of, and a well-established process for, partnering with external knowledge-keeping initiatives, the focus tends to be on universities, libraries, and museums; that is, institutional partnerships. Our work with the JLP consortium represented an expansion of that framework, including grassroots, or at least non-institutional external partners in the GLAM framework. (Empowering a new Wikimedian to spearhead and lead this project also contributed to that end.) Beyond that, our decision to directly compensate community consultants added a new category to "compensation for well-defined roles that do not replace volunteer activities", a common line-item category for WMF grants. As the Wikimedia movement continues to prioritize bridging knowledge gaps across culture and language, it's important to keep in mind that endangered language communities are often economically marginalized. By encouraging compensation for community consultants, we can better support the circumstances for more volunteer work in the communities that the Movement hopes to reach.

4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.

By design, this work brought new language communities into the Wikimedia fold. These languages now have representation in the Wikimedia ecosystem, and their speakers are now better educated about how Wikimedia projects work. Moreover, our partnership with the JLP consortium fostered new relationships between Wikimedia and a network of nonprofit and academic initiatives driven by activists and scholars alike.

5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

This project's contribution to the preservation and greater awareness of Iranian Jewish languages (also called Judeo-Iranian languages) is documented on the JLP consortium's website: https://www.jewishlanguages.org/judeo-iranian.

The oral histories supported by this project are now on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rakhma_speaking_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_(Lishana_Deni).webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Alyeshmerni_speaking_Judeo-Shirazi.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qamar_speaking_Lishana_Noshan_(Jewish_Neo-Aramaic).webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pouran_speaking_Judeo-Hamedani.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Masouda_speaking_Judeo-Esfahani.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rahel_speaking_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_(Lishan_Didan).webm

Several Wikidata lexeme contributions were also made possible by this project. We will describe them in the metrics section below.

6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups	Strongly agree
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community	Neither agree nor disagree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups	Strongly agree
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives	Strongly agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors	Agree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers	Agree
G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement.	Agree

7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

To elaborate on our answers to the above questions: this project was very effective at mobilizing participants from underrepresented groups (by encouraging the contribution of native speakers and heritage learners), developing content about underrepresented topics/groups (we expanded the presence of six underrepresented languages on both Wikipedia and Commons), and developing content from underrepresented perspectives (oral histories in these languages amplified the experiences and perspectives of native-speaking elders and their descendants). We believe that this work will encourage more long-term contributions to Wikimedia, measured in editors, organizers, and their feelings of connection to the Wikimedia Movement, but it is too early to fully evaluate that retention. Broadly speaking, this work did create more inclusion in our community by driving participation by members of previously underrepresented cultures; however, we're not entirely clear that this measurably improved overall connectedness across Wikimedia.

Part 2: Your main learning edit

8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?

In this project, we set out to learn more about the sociolinguistic context of the target languages: Why did their communities shift away from these languages? As with other Jewish diaspora languages (Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, etc.), the decline of Iranian Jewish languages was driven by discrimination, the pressure to assimilate, and later, the pressure to emigrate. In Israel-Palestine, where many Iranian Jews settled, the revitalization of Hebrew played a role, as Jewish communities shifted away from their traditional diaspora languages. Today, a lack of resources is the biggest obstacle to potential revitalization efforts. In that sense, a Wikimedia presence may be helpful. We also set out to learn about the linguistic context of Iranian Jewish languages: How do these languages compare to the non-Jewish languages from which they partly derive? As with other Jewish diaspora languages, they differ more in vocabulary, especially the predominance of Hebrew loanwords and phonology, as opposed to syntax (grammar). Lastly, we hoped that this work would lay the foundation for a sustainable volunteer network dedicated to expanding the presence of Jewish languages on Wikimedia. To that end, our partnership with the JLP has been essential. As aforementioned, we believe that these kinds of grassroots knowledge-keeping initiatives could be central to engaging more communities outside the Wikimedia movement.

9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?

We encountered some challenges during this grant period. First, Jacob, the Wikitongues volunteer who designed the project and submitted the original funding proposal, was admitted to a Ph.D. program at Harvard, leaving us without a dedicated project lead. Though we were able to follow through on the content objectives, the transition was initially rocky, because we had to train a new project manager and redirect other staff resources at Wikitongues to finish the work. On a more minor level, some of our volunteers were periodically blocked from editing Wikipedia due to IP blacklisting, which we were unable to troubleshoot with Wikipedia editors or circumvent with a VPN. Later, and more gravely, as the world knows, war erupted in Israel-Palestine, where a majority of Iranian Jewish speakers and heritage learners now live, which prevented us from further engaging much of the community.

10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?

Externally, we would like to develop a protocol for affiliates to engage external community partners like the JLP. The primary objective should be helping the external community partner build a direct relationship with the Wikimedia movement, rather than working exclusively through the affiliate partner. In our case, rather than serving as the JLP's primary conduit to Wikimedia, we could have helped JLP identify and train an internal Wikimedia ambassador, with the potential to grow into a paid Wikimedian-in-Residence position within the consortium. This would, in turn, have guaranteed better retention. Internally, we could have done a better job integrating this project into our primary programs, which would have made for a smoother transition period after Jacob left. We will keep this in mind when designing special projects in the future. We are also in the process of identifying technical and procedural aspects of contributing to Wikimedia that were initially unclear Jacob as a new Wikimedian, so we can more effectively onboard future volunteers.

11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?

For many participants, this was their first time participating in a Wikimedia project, which was exciting. Some of the elder community consultants were especially motivated by the promise of expanding public access to their language; one, Haideh Herbert, who was among the community consultants we had planned to compensate for her help, declined to be paid because she believed the work important enough to donate her time. The Wikimedia movement has the potential to make a big, positive impact on endangered language communities; as an affiliate, Wikitongues will continue to advocate for an emphasis on language diversity in the ongoing effort to bridge content and knowledge gaps.

12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).

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This project relied heavily on, and helped us validate the effectiveness of, an oral history and lexicon elicitation protocol that we have been developing over the past couple of years. As a documentation method, the protocol is designed to be broadly applicable across cultures and, if followed through to completion, elicit a grammatically rich, thematically diverse range of speech. The protocol is partially published in the Language Sustainability Toolkit that we produced with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. Additionally, we created a special section for Jewish cultural concepts.

Language Sustainability Toolkit: https://wikitongues.org/toolkit Full elicitation protocol: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RT5j_bq2k17bYcACoIiTehDae7AgYzMwS04quhHtj5A/edit?usp=sharing Jewish cultural questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tP3MB-c4fUJMO9bErs2h2O8djPjL0x9gcl5kIhkjRQ4/edit?usp=sharing

We would welcome help in developing special sections for other cultural and religious contexts. This, above all else, would be a great starting point for other Wikimedians to build on our work.

Beyond the elicitation protocol, we're still digesting the structural lessons from this project (described above in our observations about how to better engage external community partners). We are committed to documenting these over the next year and incorporating them into upcoming publications by the Language Diversity Hub, of which Wikitongues is a member.

Part 3: Metrics edit

13a. Open and additional metrics data

Open Metrics
Open Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Audiovisuals on Commons	A portion of our project’s deliverables which will help us answer questions (1)-(2). We will have recorded narrations of their life stories (for (1)) and authentic language data (for (2)).	6	6	The oral histories supported by this project are now on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rakhma_speaking_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_(Lishana_Deni).webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr._Alyeshmerni_speaking_Judeo-Shirazi.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qamar_speaking_Lishana_Noshan_(Jewish_Neo-Aramaic).webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pouran_speaking_Judeo-Hamedani.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Masouda_speaking_Judeo-Esfahani.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rahel_speaking_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_(Lishan_Didan).webm Most of the above oral histories are also fully transcribed, translated, and captioned. Due to personal reasons, some of our community consultants have not yet finished captioning some of the videos. However, we expect this to be completed in early January and will add the captions to Commons then.	N/A
Articles on Wikipedia	A portion of our deliverables which will help us answer question (2). We will be able to add samples of the languages to each page for comparing/contrasting their linguistic features.	8	8	We created or improved 8 articles during the grant period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Kashani (newly created) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Judeo-Esfahani# (newly created) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Shirazi (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Hamedani–Borujerdi (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Zab_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_dialect_of_Zakho (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_dialect_of_Urmia (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Iranian_languages (improved) Our research lead, Habib Borjian, was able to conduct additional linguistic research on the above languages, which we are still processing with him. Over the next year, as he publishes that research, we will further expand these articles.	N/A
Edit-a-thons	These events — for editing Wikipedia articles — will help us answer question (3). We will be able to track participation and interest in further contributing to our organization’s mission.	4	0	In addition to the content objectives, we had originally planned to host four edit-a-thons for Jewish languages. We initially delayed these after Jacob left, to give ourselves more time to onboard a new project manager. However, by the time we set out to organize these events, war broke out in Israel-Palestine. In that context, we struggled to attract attendees and determined that we needed to give the community space right now. We hope to resume these edit-a-thons in 2024 or 2025 but given the circumstances, we are reluctant to commit to a timeline.	N/A
New volunteers reached	Native speakers (= 6) and new individuals (= projected 10) who find out about our project and sign up to contribute. This will help us answer question (3).	16	9	We originally set this target under the expectation that we would be able to host four edit-a-thons. Since that has not yet been successful, the new volunteers reached were those who contributed to the content objects.	N/A
Social media engagement	The types of information re-shared and most engaged with the social media accounts associated with the JLC. This will help us answer question (3) with respect to what parts of the project the public is interested in.	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of activities developed	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of volunteer hours	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

13b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments
Number of participants	Include native speakers interviewed (= 6), as well as experts and other members from the communities of the languages with which we work (= projected 15)	21	22	Participants include everyone who contributed to this project as editors, organizers, advisors, volunteers, or community consultants.
Number of editors	Include our current staff members, and new volunteer editors (= projected 2) who find out about our project and decide to contribute	8	5	As with volunteers, we originally set this target under the expectation that we would be able to host four edit-a-thons. Since that has not yet been successful, the new volunteers reached were those who contributed to the content objects.
Number of organizers	Include our advisors (= 3), administration/outreach team (= 3), and selection of new volunteers (= projected 3)	9	9	Organizers include our advisors, outreach team, and volunteers who helped coordinate ora history recordings.

**Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project**
Wikimedia Project	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Wikimedia Commons	20-minute long oral histories that are transcribed/translated and uploaded to Commons (= 2 hours’ worth of content total)	6	6	N/A	N/A
Wikidata	Wikidata entries created or improved (for 8 languages/dialects/language groups)	8	16	The following lexemes were added to Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224907 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224908 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224906 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224909 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224910 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224911 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224912 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224913 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224914 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224915 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224916 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224917 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224918 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224919 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224920 https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Lexeme:L1224921 We initially expected to exceed this number with our edit-a-thons. However, as part of the Language Revitalization Accelerator, we are working with a Jewish Neo-Aramaic (Lishana Noshan) lexical project, which will contribute several hundred lexemes to Wikidata for that language before the end of 2024.	N/A
Wikipedia	Wikipedia articles that are created or improved (for 8 languages/dialects/language groups)	8	8	We created or improved 8 articles during the grant period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Kashani (newly created) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Judeo-Esfahani# (newly created) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Shirazi (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Hamedani–Borujerdi (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Zab_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_dialect_of_Zakho (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Neo-Aramaic_dialect_of_Urmia (improved) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Iranian_languages (improved) Our research lead, Habib Borjian, was able to conduct additional linguistic research on the above languages, which we are still processing with him. Over the next year, as he publishes that research, we will further expand these articles.	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

Yes

15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.

n/a

16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).

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n/a

Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships edit

17. Organizational Capacity

Organizational capacity dimension
A. Financial capacity and management	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
B. Conflict management or transformation	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values)	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
D. Partnership building	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
E. Strategic planning	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
F. Program design, implementation, and management	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer)	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers)	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
J. Governance	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
K. Communications, marketing, and social media	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
M. On-wiki technical skills	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
N. Accessing and using data	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
O. Evaluating and learning from our work	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
N/A
N/A

17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Using capacity building/training resources onlinee from sources OUTSIDE the Wikimedia Movement

17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Lack of staff time to participate in capacity building/training, Lack of financial resources

18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?

Wikitongues became operational and hired our first two staff members (an executive director and programs director) in 2021. Since then, we have followed through on the first iteration of our long-term strategic plan. In 2023, we hired our third staff member (a Wikimedian-in-Residence) and began restructuring our governing board as a fiduciary board. For 2024, our goal is to rigorously evaluate the past three years of programs, draft the next iteration of our strategic plan (2025-2028), and build out long-term operating capacity. To that end, we're in a good place, but we would benefit from multi-year operating support. To date, it has been easier for us to secure external funding on a project basis; recurring operating support would give us greater stability.

19. Partnerships over the funding period.

Over the fund period...
A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame)	Neither agree nor disagree
B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups	Strongly agree
C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups	Strongly agree

19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Permanent staff outreach, Staff hired through the fund, Volunteers from our communities, Partners proactive interest

19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Difficulties specific to our context that hindered partnerships

20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?

As described above, we believe that community partners represent an additional layer to the GLAM model of bringing external knowledge-keeping into the Wikimedia fold; and that it's important for Wikimedia Affiliates who onboard these partners to help them cultivate a direct relationship with the movement.

Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration edit

21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?

The Wikitongues mission is inextricably linked with the free knowledge movement because maintaining linguistic diversity is central to safeguarding the sum of cultural, historical, and ecological knowledge. Our sense of belonging to Wikimedia specifically is grounded in the feeling that we have been able to substantively contribute to the movement's strategic vision. Over the past two years, we have seen a growing emphasis on the importance of language inclusion; through our User Group, the Language Diversity Hub, and special projects like this, we have done our best to inform that emphasis and accelerate its growth across the movement.

22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Increased significantly

23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

In 2023, we hired a Wikimedian-in-Residence, contributed significantly to the Language Diversity Hub strategic plan, and participated in workshops on movement strategy implementation. Though this happened in parallel to the activities for this funding period, our work on Jewish language documentation contributed to our ever-expanding understanding of how to grow linguistic diversity in, and onboard new users to, the Wikimedia movement. Beyond our partnership with JLP and contributions to strategic planning, we also added a Wiki layer to our Language Revitalization Accelerator, which we described in our other Community Resources grant proposal. Lastly, our interest in governance has grown. In 2024, we will attend the Berlin summit for the first time.

24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Increased significantly

25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

As described above, this Jewish languages initiative is one of many projects that we implemented as a Wikimedia affiliate in 2023. Beyond improving our understanding of how to grow linguistic diversity in the movement, this project also taught us how to be better Wikimedia ambassadors to external partners.

26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.

Language revitalization, and more broadly, mother-tongue activism, is our central motivation for contributing to Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia platforms can be powerful tools for endangered and under-resourced language communities, by creating opportunities for speakers and learners to engage meaningfully with their languages in a contemporary way. In tandem, by growing linguistic diversity in the movement, we can accelerate the Wikimedia Foundation's mission to safeguard the sum of human knowledge—which is, to an extent, encoded across the approximately 7,000 languages alive today.

Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration edit

We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.

27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Yes

27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?

As a core member of the Language Diversity Hub, we have iteratively shared our learnings in formal and informal settings with other members. We have also presented our findings, especially those on oral history and lexicon elicitation, to our User Group members during webinars. Beyond that, we hope to present our lessons at the Wikimedia Summit in April, at Wikimania in August, and at other in-person conferences.

28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?

We do this regularly (at least once a month)

29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?

As described above, we regularly share our findings with other members of the Language Diversity Hub (during formal meetings) and with our User Group members during regular webinars and online meetups.

Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance edit

30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

43018

31. Local currency type

USD

32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.

Report funds received and spent, if template not used.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v6lzf56qdlKHLDibdx39CuY1TMhButqnOpwIk_L8ptw/edit?usp=sharing

33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

In implementing the project, our budget remained mostly unchanged from what we proposed. There were some minor over/under variations in what we budgeted for community consultants versus what they invoiced us, and after Jacob left, we hired Eden Moyal, a part-time intern to help us manage the project. However, her hours were fewer than Jacob's had been, in part because we were able to allocate externally funded staff resources for our Executive Director and Programs Director salaries to help her finish the work. This left us with an unspent surplus from what was originally allocated for Jacob.

34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?

34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

We spent $43,018 during the project, out of an originally proposed budget of $54,000. Of the $10,982 that remains unspent, we expect to spend an additional $3,300 in the next 30 days, pending invoices from our research lead, Habib Borjian, and community consultants who have not yet billed us. This leaves a surplus of $7,682, which has gone unspent primarily because 1) as mentioned above, one of the community consultants declined to be paid, donating her time, and 2) Jacob left the project early to pursue a Ph.D. at Harvard.

34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

A. Propose to use the underspent funds within this Fund period with PO approval

34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

We have a few ideas for how to best allocate the project's surplus and would like feedback from the grant committee on how to proceed.

We can do one or a combination of the following activities: 1) Further support Jewish language contribution to Wikimedia, improving on the Wikipedia and Wikidata metrics above 2) Work with our research lead to expedite processing his additional research (described above) and format the raw data for Wikidata and Commons 2) Extend our Wikimedian-in-Residence's contract by another six months, from April 2025 to September 2025 3) Allocate the funds to general Wikitongues User group activities in 2024, like organizing edit-a-thons, Wiki trainings, and other workshops (this would include hosting the Jewish language edit-a-thons that we originally planned for this project, if possible)

We are also happy to use the funds for another purpose recommended by the committee, or simply return the funds to WMF.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?

As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

37. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.

Given the intersecting geography of Iranian Jewish languages, we had hoped that Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedians of the Levant, and Iranian Wikimedians would take an interest in, and contribute to, this project (by, for example, co-sponsoring an edit-a-thon). However, Jacob was unable to reach anyone from these user groups when he was the project lead. It's unclear if his inability to make a connection was because of the challenge of navigating outreach within the ecosystem as a new Wikimedian, or if there were cultural and geopolitical factors at play. On that note, It would be interesting if WMF proactively encouraged more collaboration between user groups from different cultural zones—by, for example, alerting affiliates when there is a newly approved project to which they may want to contribute. Also, as described above, it would be helpful if there were a clear process for troubleshooting IP blacklisting.