Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Multi-year plan grant Wikimedia Österreich 2022-24/Yearly Report (2023)
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2024-02-15T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Yearly Learning Report (for multi-year fund recipients) , reporting year: 2023
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- Organization or main grantee: Wikimedia Österreich
- Title of proposal:
- Amount awarded: 915000 EUR
- Amount spent: 308000 EUR
Part 1 Understanding your work edit
1. Please share to what extent your programs, approaches, and strategies contributed to addressing the challenges you shared in your proposal. If they did not contribute as you believed they would, please share what obstacles you faced and what, if anything, you learned from them? (required)
2023 was a challenging year for Wikimedia Austria - for the first time we had a long-term illness affecting one of our staff members, resulting in 3 months paid leave and 6 months of part-time reintegration. This happened in a year with an exceptional workload for us - we hosted the German-language WikiCon in Austria for the first time in 10 years. Needless to say that this reduced our staff resources significantly and we had to cancel some other major projects such as the international Wikidata competition as a result. Naturally, this also impacted our outcomes: The metrics regarding newcomers and Wikidata content are below the planned results. Retrospectively, we are proud that we managed to make it through the year without burning out the rest of the team, still pulling of an in every regard highly successful international conference in September and conducting some innovative and successful projects: Firstly, a photography project to document intangible cultural heritage in cooperation with the Austrian UNESCO Commission. The project led to new highly effective strategic partnerships and we the photographs did exceptionally well regarding quality and quantity in the international contest on the subject. Secondly, we developed a new approach to attract newcomers by specifically asking them not to write new articles, but translate existing content in various languages und the thematic umbrella of queer content. The feedback was overwhelming, we advertised the project with a banner campaign on Wikipedia and got hundreds of applications within a few days. We ended up working not only with one but two groups from all over the DACH region who produced valuable underrepresented content on big and small language Wikipedias. 2023 was a stress test for Wikimedia Austria and we are glad to say that we are the resilient organisation that we strive to be, thanks to an experienced team and very good relations between the stakeholders (communities, board, staff), who work together and make the right decisions in stressful times.
An area where we could not achieve the desired progress and impact is movement strategy. We are quite disillusioned with the process as it is at the moment, with the MCDC questioning the strategic recommendations in unexpected ways. Other aspects such as decentralized fundraising and resource allocation are also stagnating and important stakeholders, i.e. Wikimedia Foundation lacking adequate communication on the topics. We hope that the Wikimedia Summit in 2024 will be able to revive the implementation process and lead to substantial progress regarding a Movement Charter that respects the basic principles outlined in the strategic recommendations. We will still do our best to contribute proactively and constructively to the discussions, but it is disheartening to see the lack of respect toward our previous work and efforts.
2. Is there a plan to build on the key successes you had? If yes, please describe the plan and if no, please share the limitations to do so. For instance, did the activities lead to any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future? (required)
The past year showed the value of good risk management on a project, programmatic and organizational level. For example: Early on we analyzed risks regarding the shared hosting of the WikiCon in Austria, with two other Wikimedia affiliates (WMDE and WMCH) which are quite different when it comes to culture, size, resources, leadership etc. We wanted to make sure to be able to be a host on eye-level and to avoid being marginalised by the sheer size of our small team. We were able to mitigate these risks by initiating an open discourse at the beginning of the project where we laid out the various roles and responsibilities of the organizations and people involved and the extent of involvement in decision making on various levels. This was put into a written document that all sides agreed on and served as a basis and reference point for the future collaboration. Too often in the Wikiverse we just jump into a cooperation without taking the time to manage expectations beforehand and this is often negatively affecting the smaller affiliates / groups. So we would recommend to do that in the wake of major joint projects to make the bigger, more privileged organisations aware of behaviours, cultural practices or contexts that are important to make smaller parties feel respected.
Another risk we identified in this process were potential conflicts between community members who were involved in planning the conference. We knew that from previous behaviours and dynamics among some of the individuals involved. As a result we offered tailored conflict management and moderation training to the staff members who were meant to facilitate the volunteer groups so that they could prevent potential conflicts before they arise.
3. Please provide a link to reports that details the activities that took place in the last year. This can include an annual report, Meta pages, websites, affiliate report. If there are no links available, briefly describe the implemented activities and programs below or upload any files. (required)
Our annual report will only be published in spring. In the meantime you can find more information on our activities here:
https://wikimedia.at/2023/ https://wikimedia.at/2023/page/2/ https://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Archiv#2023 https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/11/08/wikicon-2023-in-austria-3-days-75-sessions-and-more-than-300-wikipedians/
4. Are you interested in sharing what you achieved or learned this year with the wider community through different peer learning programs (e.g. Let's Connect program, Diff)? (optional)
We plan to share more about our highly successful newcomer project on translating queer content. At the time that this report was due, we just wrapped the first installment of the project and hope to be able to invest some resources into documentation and sharing (Diff post, 60 minutes (a community curated event of the DE:WP FemNetz), perhaps Wikimania)
We also published this report in 2023 with valuable insights for volunteer support and movement governance here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Supporters_Network/Hub_Report_2022
We are also about to publish a diff post on our work around intangible cultural heritage in cooperation with the Austrian UNESCO commission on Diff in the coming weeks.
5. Did you collect feedback from your community or target groups on how the activities implemented impacted them? If yes, please attach/provide information on the results (e.g. community surveys, stories, impact booklets/reports, interviews with partner institutions, etc). Did you collect other impact-specific data? (required)
Please find our annual community survey here: https://wikimedia.at/interview-bernhard-krabina-open-commons-linz/ https://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Projekte/Community-Befragung_2023
This interview with out strategic partner in Linz around the WikiCon cooperation might also be interesting: https://wikimedia.at/interview-bernhard-krabina-open-commons-linz/
6. What would you say, what did your efforts help during the fund period to (required):
- 6.1 Bring in participants from the following groups: women, LGBTQ+ groups, people from lower socioeconomic status, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, LGBTQ+ groups, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.3 Support the retention of: Organizers, Partnerships
7. What, if any, effective tactics or approaches can you share that worked well when dealing with the programs under points 6.1-6.3 that you selected? (optional)
8. If you developed partnerships, which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors (optional): Permanent staff outreach, Partners proactive interest
Part 2: Metrics for Year 2 edit
| Wikimedia Metrics | Target (Year 2) | Results (Year 2) | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 4250 | 4245 | |
| Number of all editors | 3500 | 3463 | |
| Number of new editors | N/A | 3463 | |
| Number of retained editors | N/A | 3463 | |
| Number of all organizers | 340 | 585 | |
| Number of all organizers | N/A | 585 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages (Year 2) | Target - Number of improved pages (Year 2) | Result - Number of created pages (Year 2) | Result - Number of improved pages (Year 2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 21629 | 0 | ||
| Wikimedia Commons | 108553 | 0 | ||
| Wikidata | 8915 | 0 | ||
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | ||||
| Wikimedia Incubator | ||||
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | ||||
| Wikivoyage | ||||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
11. Did you set other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): Yes
11.1. Other Metrics.
In your application, you outlined some other open metrics that you would like to measure. Please fill out the achieved results for each of the open metrics you defined.
| Other Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newly registered users | Die Anzahl der Teilnehmenden, die im Rahmen der Aktivitäten des Projekts neue Benutzerkonten in einem Wikimedia-Projekt erstellen. | 300 | 138 | N/A | N/A |
| Retention of organizers | Anzahl der Organisator*innen, die bereits bei vorangegangenen Aktivitäten Organisator*innen waren. | 250 | 496 | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of organisers | Mindestanteil der Organisator*innen, die weiblich oder nicht-binär sind. 33% | 33 | 40 | N/A | N/A |
| Community motivation | N/A | 80 | 77 | N/A | N/A |
| Free content beyond Wikimedia projects | Neuen Seiten mit frei lizenzierten Inhalten in Nicht-Wikimedia-Projekten (z. B. RegiowikiAT). | 1200 | 707 | N/A | N/A |
Part 3: Skill Development / Capacity Building edit
12. Reflecting on your programmatic (external) and organizational (internal) work, did your grant support you to undergo any skill development that made a difference to your success? If yes, what skill was developed, and how did it lead to success? (e.g. received coaching on public speaking, attended training on nonviolent communication, hosted professional development conversations on leadership, learned and used a new tool for project management, etc.)? Can you share any materials? (required)
Communication and effective collaboration workshop (for board members)
Conflict management workshop (for staff members)
Workshop on chances and risks of generative AI for Non-profit organisations (for the Executive Director)
Legal training for activists (for community members)
Legal training on Belgian NPO law (for board members of Wikimedia Europe)
Wikidata for beginners (Volunteer supporters network) in English
Workshop on creating audio files for Wikimedia Commons with professional equipment
One of the goals of the WikiCon conference was to facilitate skill sharing in the German-language communities and a fair share of the sessions were committed to that
We could support travel costs for Austrian community members to attend peer-learning and skill sharing events such as the AdminCon, FemNetz conference
Online and offline workshops for newcomers on how to translate Wikipedia articles
13. What is one capacity/skill area that you would like to focus on for the next year? And how do you plan to achieve this capacity? (required)
We want to further explore the challanges and opportunites that come with generative AI (on an organisational and community level). It will be a focus of the Wikipedia Future Congress that we are organizing together with WMDE and the community in spring 2024. But we will also intergrate it in the personal development strategy for our staff and other interested stakeholders (board etc)
14. If you have additional information or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. Use the space below to upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your report.
Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance edit
| Description | Planned / received budget for this category (EUR) | Amount spent (EUR) |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 214717 | |
| Operational costs | 50119 | |
| Programmatic costs | 97147 | |
| General Support Fund for EUR | 308000 | |
| Other revenue | 19308 | 19308 |
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | N/A |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
308000 EUR
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- 214717 EUR
- 50119 EUR
- 97147 EUR
17. Did you have any other revenue sources (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): Yes
- 17.1. Provide the total amount received from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 19308 EUR
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): 19308 EUR
18. Provide a financial report document which will provide the details of funds received and spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
18.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
We had increased staff costs as one staff member suffered a heart attack and was absent for a few months. We covered a small part of that gap with an unplanned mini job for a few months. We also decided to pay small boni to the staff team at the end of the year to appreciate their hard and excellent work under immense pressure and difficult circumstances (2023 was the last year where tax free payments were part of an anti-inflation scheme in Austria).
We spent more than expected on project infrastructure, as we needed to relaunch our website in order to avoid security issues.
We increased the budget for the WIkiCon in order to enable all interested community members from Austria to participate in the planning and the event itself
19. Do you have any unspent funds from this funding?:
20. Final confirmations (required)
- 20.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement? You must be in compliance 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 Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- 20.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
- Yes
- 20.3. 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