Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Poland Accelerated Service Growth/Yearly Report (2022)
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2023-03-15T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Yearly Learning Report (for multi-year fund recipients) , reporting year: 2022
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General information edit
This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving multi-year Wikimedia Community Funds to report on their yearly results.
- Name of Organization: Stowarzyszenie Wikimedia Polska
- Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Poland Accelerated Service Growth
Part 1 Understanding your work edit
1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.
- We created a new, solid organizational structure (employment of 9 people working in a matrix non-hierarchical structure; 11 since January 2023). Our Community Support team grew up to 4 employees.
We filled the 2022 year with contests, training sessions and workshops. In times of covid we managed to organize two live two-days long conferences attended by tens of participants. In cooperation with psychologists, we ran a series of online and live meetings and interviews to reduce the tensions between WMPL members. The reconciliation process was finalized by recommendations that were used as one of the bases for our strategy 2023-2025 (created in December 2022). We interviewed over 400 librarians and surveyed the state of school libraries across the country. Based on the results of this research, we designed and ran the WikiLibrary program (conference and workshops attended by over 20 librarians). We continued long term cooperation with top national institutions in GLAM area and arranged new ones.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?
- Yes. Cooperation with academic professionals makes your projects better prepared and give you tools and knowledge to continue them. That is how we worked on reconciliation process and Wiki Library project.
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?
- We made solid progress but we would not consider it especially "innovative".
4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.
- We organized over 80 live and online events.
The biggest live event was Spring Conference in Chorzów open to the whole Wikimedia community, and attended by over 80 participants. The meeting was dedicated to issues like the quality of Wikipedia articles, fake news and technical issues in Wikimedia projects. Wikisource and Wikidictionary communities had its own two-day long conference in autumn in Gdańsk, attended by 15 participants. There were numerous local events organized by local community leaders with our support, photo walks, edit-a-thons, meetings promoting wiki projects at our Glam Partners locations (ran by our GLAM specialist). Live and online trainings and workshops for wiki-trainers, employees of GLAM institutions and newcomers, one day live education conference in Warsaw presenting the report created for Wiki Library project, and tens of smaller online meetings with members of Wikimedia Community. We regularly inform the community about our planned events on social media, mailing lists, calendar and newsletter. The number of participants in live and online meetings reached 1310 people in 2022.
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.
- Education conference, Wiki Library project: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jednodniowka-edukacyjna-2022-10-07-28.jpg
GLAM session during Spring Conference https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wzlot_2022_-_Ewolucja_podej%C5%9Bcia_do_GLAM_01.jpg Workshops, Wiki Library project: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikiteka_-_warsztaty_w_Katowicach_2022#/media/File:JacekDurski-Wikiteka_sierpie%C5%84_2022_12.jpg Local event during Wikimania 2022: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimania_2022_w_Katowicach_12.11.jpg PAH (Polish Humanitarian Action) edith-on supported by WMPL employees: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edyton_PAH_D1_10.jpg Wiki Library research report: https://wikiszkola.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/WMPL-WikitekaFINAL.pdf
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.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly 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?
- In 2022 female participation overcame male. Over 52% of participants were female. We also focused on lowering barriers of participation in live meetings for elderly and those with special needs.
The gender gap was one of the priorities. We organized an editing contest, photo-walk. Our education programs helped to bring more female participants in wikimedia projects. We’re developing the program “Wikipedia without barriers”. We develop new systems of awarding the editors, but there’s still a lot of work to do ahead of us. Thanks to our Volunteers Map, we monitor the efforts of volunteers and prevent them from burnout. We work closely with local communities and encourage local wikimedians to take leadership roles. Thanks to reconciliation process, we brought back to activism some participants. We’ll try to use this experience on a broader scale.
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?
- Creating a solid, scientific base for such complicated projects like reconciliation process within community or building cooperation offer for school libraries is a key to success. Having such fundaments, you are equipped with better methods to run and extend the program for longer period of time.
9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?
- Yes. There were two major obstacles. The sudden increase in prices (specially the costs of hospitality, food and conference services) and difficulties in hiring process.
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?
- Be more flexible in designing the general budget (enlarge the optional spending section).
In lack of capacity, choose the priority. Recurring events awaited every year by the community, or new already announced events? We chose recurring events and postponed the new ones. We explained the reasons for postponing some activities, and the feedback was positive, the community was very understanding.
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)?
- Workshops during the reconciliation process. There were tensions between members of our society in the past that were influencing the current situation. The differences appeared to be very big. But during the workshops we were told to stand in different places in the room marked as values, advantages, troubles etc. It appeared that people that seemed to be in conflict, very often took the same position, stood on the same spot and had the same point of view.
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).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
Part 3: Metrics for Year 1 edit
13a. Open and additional metrics data
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 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 | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | 20 | 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 | Activities within the Wiki Library Spaces project, to be run by librarians after being developed by our team. | 3 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | 100 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
13b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | New participants: 250
Returning participants: 200 |
450 | 1349 | We collect statistics via registration, we count them during the event, we make surveys. | |
| Number of editors | This will be measured via the growth of the median of active editors in Q4 as compared to Q4 2021. Target number is TBD once we have full date for 2021. We will be targeting a 2.5% growth year over year. | N/A | 13644 | ||
| Number of organizers | We understand "organizers" as community leaders, self-organizing volunteers, and people who can animate the community in line with community needs and Wikimedia Poland's mission. Currently we have a small number of such volunteers, working on a variety of working groups. We intend to make these people more effective and engaged, rather than expanding it too quickly.
However, our hope is to also develop several people who would be able to organize editing contests with minimal support (see section d. below. |
6 | 6 |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Wikimedia Poland's community animation work has resulted in a large array of editing contests and great engagement (5000 pages created or significantly improved as part of contests in 2021 so far). However, a negative result of our work in this area was the gradual retreat of wikipedians from the tasks surrounding the organization and running of contests. In 2021, we have started to reverse this by gradually giving more power and responsibilities back to volunteers, and we would want to continue this trend with the help of additional staff in 2022.
This is a crucial change since we see organizational work (of which on-wiki contests are the easiest form) to be the beginning of a path towards leadership and coordination roles within the Wikimedia movement, both locally and internationally. And we desperately need fresh blood in these more "meta" roles, to enable succession and ensure sustainability. |
3000 | 4218 | This is the number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project. | 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 |
| 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?
- No
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).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships edit
17. Organizational Capacity
| A. Financial capacity and management | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| B. Conflict management or transformation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| 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 capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| E. Strategic planning | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| F. Program design, implementation, and management | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| J. Governance | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| K. Communications, marketing, and social media | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| 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 capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| O. Evaluating and learning from our work | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders | |
| 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, Using capacity building/training resources online from sources WITHIN 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
18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?
- N/A
19. Partnerships over the funding period.
| A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame) | Agree |
| B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups | 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, 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.
- Lack of staff to conduct outreach to new strategic partners, Lack of staff capacity to respond to partners interested in working with us
20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?
- In case of having the large number of partnership proposals and requests, it’s good to prepare short conditions of collaboration and template with further questions and answers. Learn how to say “no” to some of the requests and prepare a process: what to do to not discourage the potential partners but keep them interested in collaboration for later.
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?
- Feeling that we do something for other communities (e.g. from other countries), not only for ourselves.
Feeling that we can influence changes in global 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.
- It changed a lot. Our engagement in CEE Hub project makes us proud we can help other communities, not only Polish one. Supporting members of our community in their roles in the global movement gives us a feeling of influencing the changes.
Introducing a new Wikimedia Poland Strategy for 2023-2025, that meets the Movement Strategy Recommendations, let us feel the part of a bigger change.
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.
- Changed a lot. Working on CEE Hub gives us feeling that we are shaping the future of the movement.
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.
- We are active in herstory area and in advocacy on social control over public spending.
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?
- No
27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?
28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?
- We do this occasionally (less than once a month)
29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?
- Quite regular. Our Open Culture manager is in contact with other GLAM specialists from all over the world on a regular basis, the same with our Open Education manager. They participate in online meetings, discussing, exchanging opinions and experiences.
Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance edit
30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 247326
31. Local currency type
- PLN
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.
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.
- N/A
34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
- 40 595 USD - There were few changes we had to make. Due to the long-lasting vacancies in the positions of executive director, communication coordinator, junior community support officer and junior education officer and the process of onboarding a new board, we had to postpone some activities to 2023. Filling these positions at the end of the year brought big change to our budged. Postponing some programs to 2023 made them more costly due to inflation.
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.
- As for the programs and activities we planned in our grant application, we continue the work over lowering the overall stress level within the community, decrease the number of interpersonal conflicts, and speed up conflict resolution when they do happen. We will do this through Conflict Resolution Support program, number of live events (workshops for wiki-trainers and GLAM engineers, local events, three nationwide events, support program for administrators, education conferences), and everyday support. Post-covid reintegration of the community is one of the key goals for 2023.
We also keep focusing on attracting newcomers and potential partners (groups and institutions), that can enrich the content of Wikimedia projects, spark new ideas within Wiki movement and fill up the gaps in Wikimedia projects content. We continue the Wiki Library program and wiki-residency (close cooperation with top national museums and galleries). At the beginning of 2023 we established cooperation with Museum of History of Women. Together, we will work on covering the gender gap on Wikipedia. We continue our established and popular programs - the whole March 2023 will be dedicated to female actions. We will expend our ethnography activities thanks to Digibus program. It is a cooperation with institutions from Silesia region which will bring thousands of files to Commons. We will attract middle and high school students to wiki projects through “Pocket money” and “Eco packages” programs. Our program Wikimedia Without Barriers will be expanded. We will add audio descriptions to Wikipedia articles on Warsaw monuments and buildings. We’ll train our employees and volunteers how to help people with special needs during our live events. Furthermore, we want to establish a separate fund to cover the expenses of transportation and accommodation for those with special needs and financially underprivileged groups.
We will attract newcomers by introducing a gamification platform.
The communication within community, between community and Wikimedia Poland, and the message we send to the outside world are crucial to our mission. That is why on 1 of January 2023 we hired - our new Communication Coordinator. The community’s wellbeing depends not only on friendly environment (which we aim to establish - as said above) but also on firm technical background and tech support. On 1 of January, we hired a junior technical support officer who will back up employees and volunteers in their everyday work.
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.
- No
38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.