Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Sverige – Supporting an equitable free knowledge movement by expanding our global initiatives and local fundraising/Yearly Report (2023)

Yearly Learning Report (Year 2 - 2023)

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2024-01-30T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Yearly Learning Report (for multi-year fund recipients) , reporting year: 2023

Application Yearly Report (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: Wikimedia Sverige
  • Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Sverige – Supporting an equitable free knowledge movement by expanding our global initiatives and local fundraising

Part 1 Understanding your work edit

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

Below we include all of WMSE’s activities for 2023 independently of funding source, as the WCF grant was only 57% of our funding.

1. Capacity building and the Thematic Hub for Content Partnerships.

  • Helpdesk. Ca. X requests received from around the world. Concrete support provided multiple times based on prioritization from the Expert Committee.
  • Software support for strategic technical tools. A number of discussions around responsibilities, coordination and long-term governance structures. Many affiliates are very interested in engaging in this work and regular discussions were held during the year.
  • International partnerships with IGOs. Very large and clearly stated interest to engage with us long-term. Collaborations took place with 6 IGOs with uploads and joint activities. A long-term concept for WiR positions at IGO/INGO was developed with affiliates we intend to partner with in 2024.
  • Capacity building. Metabase was developed and data added for a first case study. Funding was secured to hire a new staff member for this.
  • Strategic data uploads. Uploads of data for WLM and WLE + enriching photos with SDC. Focus on content related to Ukraine as it is in immediate danger. See point 5 for spin-off initiative.

3. Intensified our work by becoming a people's movement.

  • Worked on material on how to better highlight WMSE's impact on society, including new reports on WMSE’s effect on the environment and on diversity.
  • Many dozens of new local partnerships initiated.
  • The basics for a large number of learning modules were developed for the learn.wiki platform.
  • Detailed plans for both CRM and social media communication were developed – but postponed to 2024 due to financial uncertainty.

4. Intensified opinion building and lobbying work, with funding from external project grants and donations.

  • Joined a number of networks and frequently exchanged knowledge with the wider Movement and other free knowledge orgs. Co-developed a number of reports.
  • Finalized the work at the Ministry of Justice’s expert council around copyright exceptions, including FoP.

5. Other international initiatives.

  • Initiated a project together with Wikimedia orgs in CEE, to channel more Swedish project funds internationally and experiment with coordination and joint initiatives with other hubs.

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

Our organizational design centers around small and flexible teams that allows us to work iteratively and quickly adjust our work when we receive new information through our different conversations, surveys and workshops. This flexibility and willingness to work iteratively has also continued to allow us to quickly take on externally funded projects and it has allowed us to take a larger coordinating role in a quickly changing environment. This year we have been more ambitious regarding grant applications for multi-year funding which we believe to be an important step for our organizational development.

The association has taken on an ambitious approach with a focus on utilizing its resources into internationally oriented efforts where we take advantage of our high technical sophistication and long-term experience in a number of key areas. We try to position ourselves as an engine that pushes the Wikimedia movement forward in different areas so that we collectively move faster than we would otherwise do. We have secured external funds for this and have identified further opportunities. This way we are maximizing the value of the Movement fund's we receive through the WCF. Part of that is that we try to develop new concepts that others can attach themselves to and take ownership of through a federative structure where we provide coordination. This includes e.g. work with Structured data on Commons and Wikidata for Wiki Loves Earth and Monuments campaigns, large international partnerships, support for international events and applications and software development etc.

We are highly dependent on external funding and therefore intentionally keep a large portfolio active so that we have initiatives and concepts ready that we can use when a call for funding is launched by a grant giving body. There are of course pros and cons with this approach, but as long as we lack other funding streams this approach continues to serve us well from a grant perspective and keeps the staff and volunteers engaged and interested in the work we do.

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?

See all our Stories and Fail fests, intended to share innovations that either succeeded or failed: https://w.wiki/9WBA. E.g.:

1. Project grant applications: External grants make up a significant part of our funding, we successfully expanded this work to also cover other Wikimedia affiliates. 2. Thematic hub: Showed how hands-on support provided by the hub results in relevant capacity building. Led discussions with other hubs on coordination and joint initiatives. 3. Work to establish organizational presence across the country: New experimental partnerships with folk high schools to reach new geographical areas and groups resulted in concept papers. 4. Lobbying work: Through international and national networking and knowledge sharing we established our position as a central stakeholder in copyright legislation and made it into the innermost circles in a government appointed committee. Started defining our position, and developed methodologies around IP areas such as TDM, open science, open culture and TPM restricting access to material. 5. IGO work: Started developing a concept for a training program for WiRs at IGOs to create opportunities for volunteers and other affiliates to deepen this work. 6. Accessibility online: Developed a concept, and applied for funding, for further development of Wikispeech and the formation of the Wikimedia's Accessibility Academy focusing on enhancing the discussions and work around digital accessibility in Sweden. 7. Face-to-face (F2F) fundraising: Continued to experiment with F2F to increase membership and donations. The concept and material can also be used by volunteers. 8. Metabase: Experimented with practically structuring the Movement’s internal knowledge. 9. Strategic digitization through crowdsourcing of heritage at risk: Developed concepts and initiated pilot with WMUA, WMPL and WMUG-GE. 10. Metadata edit-a-thons: Experimented with a new type of event as part of developing deep GLAM partnerships around linked open data.

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

  • Joint project applied for and initiated with WM Polska, WM Ukraine and WMUG Georgia. Another application we worked on was with the hub initiative EARTH’s team
  • Regular meetings with WMDE, ED group, fundraising group and GLAMwiki network
  • Frequent use of Meta-wiki, Diff, posts on social media groups, monthly GLAMwiki newsletter and email lists
  • Provided a three-part Let’s Connect Learning Clinic about Wikidata and Wiki Loves Monuments
  • Overall hub coordination (discussion about the roles in the ecosystem of hubs):
    • Provided in-depth feedback on the Movement Charter regarding both hubs and the Global Council
    • Discussed joint initiatives and coordination: ESEAP, WikiFranca, CEE, Wikimedia Europe and EARTH
    • Information to the wider Movement at e.g.: Presentation at ED meeting; Presentation at GLAMwiki event
  • For Helpdesk:
    • Expert group consists of volunteers representing many parts of the world, with different experiences and expertise: https://w.wiki/6dgr
    • Support requests from the following 12 countries: US, UK, Gabon, Benin, Serbia, Tunisia, Egypt, Zambia, Guinea, Peru, Ukraine, Slovakia
  • For capacity building:
    • WMF, in discussions about learn.wiki
    • WMDE, around Metabase
    • WMUK and Wiki Africa around WiR training program
  • For IGO:
    • WMF Partnerships Team
    • We have actively engaged with 7 IGO/INGO. All partnerships involve volunteers and staff to ensure content is used. Volunteers within e.g. energy, health and cultural heritage communities, and individual volunteers from a dozen languages, have been engaged. Contacts also initiated with another 5 IGO/INGO.
  • For software:
    • Discussions with multiple chapters, in-depth discussions with WMBR, WREN and WMDE
    • ED group about needs and funding
    • Representatives for the OpenRefine, ISA-tool and Pattypan tools (developers and/or governance representatives)
  • For strategic data:
    • WLM/WLE international team
    • Communities from the countries from which we have uploaded/improved data

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.

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 Strongly agree
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?

  • WikiGap: After five successful years we no longer coordinated the global WikiGap campaign as the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs changed its priorities. We provided limited support to a few affiliates running events with Swedish embassies and consulates and ran a WikiGap event in Sweden. We presented WikiGap and diversity work on Wikipedia to governmental officials.
  • Wikispeech: This multilingual text-to-speech allows people to listen to Wikipedia. No major development took place, but we improved the tool to reduce costs and increase stability. We prepared and planned for next steps in 2024–2027, incl. activities with disability orgs. We onboarded a person with a visual impairment into the team.
  • Hub work: All hub initiatives focus on content work, especially to engage underrepresented groups, develop workload-reducing infrastructure and to provide requested support. The international Expert Committee helped ensure this for the Helpdesk.
  • Queerlit: Worked with a group of HBTQI+ researchers to share their bibliographical database, simplifying access to literature on queer topics. Adding specialized literature keywords was complex and new to us.
  • Wikipedia for all of Sweden: Focused on content from underrepresented geographical groups and organized a large number of events to reach them.
  • Diversity report: Created to better understand and evaluate our current situation from a diversity point-of-view. The findings will influence future work and priorities.

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?

As our application listed 11 learning priorities we have broken out this answer and placed it at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Programs/Wikimedia_Community_Fund/Wikimedia_Sverige_%E2%80%93_Supporting_an_equitable_free_knowledge_movement_by_expanding_our_global_initiatives_and_local_fundraising/Yearly_Report_(2023)/Learning_priorities.

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

1. Being part of the expert group to develop recommendations around Swedish copyright legislation created significant new opportunities that we did not expect, this include funding opportunities as it is clear to funders that we have knowledge and capacity needed to affect change and a stream of requests for us to join events and networks to talk about this work.

2. A continued lack of consistency and certainty around funding for international work by affiliates, and lack of engagement from WMF still surprises us. It has increased our belief that we must invest more in national fundraising and forced us to extend the expected implementation time for e.g. ambitious efforts around software development (even though we have plans ready).

3. The very high costs to implement a suitable CRM solution was a surprise and coordination and support with other affiliates around this should be prioritized.

4. The new funding opportunities we have identified and secured around international work. We have gained a lot of interest from different funders that previously were unaware of the global Wikimedia movement and our work.

5. The limits of Face-to-face (F2F) fundraising became clear during our experimentation. We need to invest in brand awareness to be able to focus on the sales pitch rather than background information about Wikimedia.

6. The strong interest from the public sector to engage us around what technical solutions they should use and design for was something new for us.

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?

1. We have secured extra funding to scale our work with this and are in process to apply for even more funding for multi-year lobbying efforts.

2. We will increase our planned investment in fundraising work to speed things up. We will also continue to try to engage productively with teams at WMF. 3. A dedicated grant request has been prepared and sent to WMF. This application helped us move forward in our internal decision making process as well. 4. We have done a lot of preparatory work in 2023 and will be able to apply for further grants in 2024. 5. We have hired a communication staff member who is tasked to increase brand awareness through social media. 6. With a better understanding of the time needed for these engagements, and their long term benefits, it is now easier to make the necessary prioritization choices when these opportunities arise again.

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)?

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.

Part 3: Metrics for Year 2 edit

13a. Open and additional metrics data

Open Metrics
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Increased volunteer involvement An increase in the number of volunteers involving themselves in the chapter by taking on some responsibility within a project, an event or in the chapter itself. 38 38 The volunteer involvement increased but only marginally. We initially expected the Wikipedia for all of Sweden project to engage volunteers in the organization to a larger extent. During the year the team decided to adjust the focus on more preparatory work and on partnerships based on the request and feedback received. These are volunteers involving themselves in the chapter by taking on some responsibility within a project, an event or in the chapter itself. The names of the volunteers are reported by the staff member in charge of each project/initiative.
Increased chapter membership The number of individuals or organizations that are paying members of the chapter should increase by 40%, as compared to the previous year. 600 468 While we saw a 10% increase in our membership this was shy of our very ambitious goal of a 40% increase. We had hoped that both increased local activities and a face-to-face campaign aimed at recruiting members, rather than donations would have a larger impact. We concluded that a lack of awareness of us as an organization, a lack of communication material outlining a clear value proposition for any potential member, combined with insufficient technical support for managing members and donors makes these conversions more challenging. This is based on the number of fully paid up members in our membership management system at the end of the calendar year. Both individuals and organizational members (6) are included in the number.
Increased number of organizational partners The number of partnerships is increased as compared to the previous year. With a partnership being defined as a collaboration with an organization, rather than an individual; where there is an active choice from both sides to work together; and there is an intention of longevity of the relationship. 98 116 We saw a positive increase in partnerships this year including 12 new partners. The partners span in size from local museums to IGOs and other Wikimedia affiliates. A partnership being defined as a collaboration with an organization, rather than an individual; where there is an active choice from both sides to work together; and there is an intention of longevity of the relationship.
Diversity of organizers We will collect data on the self-stated gender of the organizers, with a goal that men, women and others should be well represented, with no group constituting more than 50%. 50 50 The largest group is men coming in at 50% out of the self-gendered organizers. A record is kept of the number of organizers, and their genders, from each organized event. Only the self-stated gender is recorded and the presented percentage excludes any organizers for which the gender is not known.
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A


13b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants The number of people who attend your events, programs or activities, either in person or virtually. This definition does not include social media followers, donors, or others not participating directly.

The aggregated number is not for unique participants, but for each event they are unique. For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and aggregate them with a bot twice per year.

3185 3656 This metric reached its target, exceeding our expectations.

As expected, the project Wikipedia for all of Sweden contributed significantly to this outcome (about ⅓ of the participants), as much as our project supporting Existing communities. The project Content partnerships support also saw larger participation than predicted.

The aggregated number is not for unique participants, but for each event they are unique. For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and aggregate them with a bot twice per year. The underlying tools depend on the type of event.

Main tools: Manual counting / programs & events dashboard.

Number of editors The number of participants that have contributed with edits to one of the Wikimedia platforms, as part of one of our activities. This is measured e.g. by them being added to the Programs & Events Dashboard or signing up on a contest page.

For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and collate them with a bot twice per year.

825 476 This metric did not reach its target.

The largest shift here was that the project New communities 2023, accounting for a quarter of the expected editors, was put on hold due to capacity restrictions. Additionally we saw a decreased interest from partner organizations in edit-a-thons and a decreased participation in our yearly photo competitions.

For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and collate them with a bot twice per year. The underlying tools depend on the type of event.

Main tools: Manual counting / programs & events dashboard / WikiLoves / PetScan.

Number of organizers The number of organizers and volunteers involved in organizing an event.

For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and collate them with a bot twice per year.

400 258 This metric did not reach its target.

Here again the pause of the New communities 2023 had a big impact together with the postponement of the Wikispeech project and delayed start of the project on Cultural heritage at risk and crowdsourcing. But a reduction in events, in order to cut down on costs, also saw an effect on this metric across almost all projects. The decreased size, and reduced scope, of our movement strategy grant focusing on the Content partnership hub also affected this metric. By contrast Wikipedia for all of Sweden actually outperformed our expectations, doubling the involved organizers and accounting for about a third of the final result.

For each individual event we compile Core Metrics and collate them with a bot twice per year. The underlying tools depend on the type of event.

We additionally collect data on the self-stated gender of the organizers. Main tools: Manual counting / programs & events dashboard.

Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
N/A N/A N/A 857 This metric did not reach its target.

The main contributor to this metric was predicted to be New communities 2023, which when canceled had a major impact on this metric. accounting for a quarter of the expected editors, was put on hold due to capacity restrictions. In addition to this we also saw a decreased focus on Wikipedia from the participants in both the Existing communities 2023 project and Wikipedia for all of Sweden.

A content page is an article on any Wikipedia project.

The metric focuses on the number of unique content pages created or improved, not the amount of edits to each page. Main tools: Manual counting / Quarry / programs & events dashboard.

N/A N/A N/A 24777 This metric did not reach its target.

The decreased size, and reduced scope, of our movement strategy grant focusing on the Content partnership hub had a significant effect on this metric as we shifted away from strategic data uploads (SDC) to the Helpdesk. We had further expected that media uploads would continue to be a by-product of the project Wikidata for authority control, but due to some negative interactions with the volunteer community on our platforms the partner organization was forced to put media uploads on hold. GLAM partnerships, the yearly photo competitions and community support were the largest contributors to the final result.

A content page is a Media file page or Data page on Wikimedia Commons.

The metric focuses on the number of unique content pages created or improved, not the amount of edits to each page. Main tools: Manual counting / PetScan / Quarry / WCQS / programs & events dashboard / WikiLoves.

N/A N/A N/A 119796 This metric reached its target, exceeding our expectations by nearly tripling the result.

Wikidata for authority control, the expected source of most of the contributions, in part shifted focus from data about people to data about places. This data proved in need of more manual handling, thus reducing the pace at which data could be made available. The expected second largest contributor, New communities 2023 was paused and so did not contribute to the metric. One of the requests to the help desk was for a mass migration of data to Wikidata, this unexpected request ended up accounting for 80% of the results.

A content page is an Item or a Lexeme on Wikidata.

The metric focuses on the number of unique content pages created or improved, not the amount of edits to each page. Main tools: Manual counting / Quarry / Wikidata Query / programs & events dashboard.

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.

Volunteer involvement: We see a need of improving the methodology by which we continuously record volunteer involvement throughout all of our activities. In 2023 this information was often recorded some time after the project was concluded, meaning we know that there are gaps in the data. An improved approach would be to combine ending the activity/project with a short survey to both better understand how we can evolve their involvement, and to ensure there is a timely record of organizer participation.

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.

Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships edit

17. Organizational Capacity

Organizational capacity dimension
A. Financial capacity and management This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
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 has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
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 is low, and we should prioritise developing it
I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
J. Governance This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
K. Communications, marketing, and social media This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
M. On-wiki technical skills This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
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 has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
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 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, Lack of volunteer 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?

We developed a plan for staff and board training. For staff this includes monthly training sessions where staff train their peers or we invite experts from e.g. WMF or other affiliates to share their knowledge.

On Metabase we initially focused on adding WMSE’s material, making it easier than ever to find relevant material for projects etc.

We have enjoyed participating in the Let’s Connect Learning Clinic initiative. Based on the requests to the Hub’s Helpdesk, we will identify areas where we believe that learning clinics could be useful, and propose this to the Let's Connect Team.

We much appreciate the WMF’s investment in the learn.wiki platform. This e-learning tool fills an important gap and will be key to providing capacity development within our organization in the future.

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) Strongly agree
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, 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 institutional support from the Wikimedia Foundation, Lack of staff to conduct outreach to new strategic partners, Other

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

The larger the partner, the more bureaucracy. Expect that significant calendar time is needed from idea to execution, especially if formalized agreements are needed. Start small with pilots to see if the partnership is worth the effort.

For a partnership to be successful in the long run, the partner must understand Wikipedia and the community. Take time to meet multiple times, offer training, send relevant reading material. Make sure you share an understanding of vision and goals. Aim for a strong foundation instead of short-term goals. You build trust by showing that you deliver on what you have agreed upon, so don’t over-promise.

When key tools don’t work (e.g. statistics) this can seriously damage the relationship with the partner and the confidence in the Wikimedia 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?

For us a sense of belonging means that our organization has found a clear role in the international movement where we can provide meaningful work that is mutually beneficial. This role must receive recognition, commitments, appreciation and support from other parts of the community. For this the available resources must be provided and done so in a respectful and supportive way, rather than competitive and with a power dynamic that is unequal.

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?

Stayed the same

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

Our sense of belonging has increased amongst international volunteers and Wikimedia affiliates and we have deepened our collaboration with multiple affiliates.

However, our engagement and positive interaction with the WMF used to be significantly stronger in previous years. We find this reduction in coordination and exchange to be very unfortunate, and hope that it can be resumed in 2024.

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

Somewhat increased

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

We have seen many opportunities to deepen our work with both Wikimedia affiliates and Hub initiatives as part of the work done as part of the Content Partnerships Hub initiative this year. We have also increased exchange with the wider free knowledge movement actors as part of our lobbying efforts.

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.

N/A

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?

See answer to question 29.

We also update GLAMwiki newsletter monthly, share info on email lists and in social media groups. We write blog posts for an international audience on our blog and on Diff. We also update Meta-Wiki frequently.

Every year we dedicate significant funding to participate in international Wikimedia events and present our work and to learn from others. E.g. in 2023 we participated at the GLAM Wiki Conference.

We also regularly meet with other organizations promoting free knowledge such as Centrum Cyfrowe, Communia, Creative Commons etc. and try to share their work within the Wikimedia movement ongoingly (mainly through direct conversations with relevant individuals).

Since 2019 we further ensure that our Annual Report is prepared in such a way as to be easy to read and to extract learnings from (through our use of Stories and Fail fests). Since 2020 we have also ensured that the Annual report is translatable and translated into English.

In 2023 we also held multiple Let’s Connect Learning Clinics.

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?

We participate in a number of regular meetings organized by different actors within the Movement, e.g. ED meetings, Affiliate Chairpersons meetings, GLAMwiki meetings, WREN meetings, around the implementation of the strategic recommendations, Wikimedia Europe & Friends meetings, the Wikimania Committee etc. We have regular meetings with a number of affiliates.

We have a number of very active Wikimedians from around the world that have moved to Sweden the last few years and we are meeting with them as well.

We also frequently meet with a number of WMF staff members to discuss areas of joint interest (as we are working a lot internationally this is very important to us), including Transatlantic policy calls.

Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance edit

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

6947412

31. Local currency type

SEK

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.
The signed official Annual Report incl. Finances will be published at: https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Årsredovisning_2023 (in Swedish)

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.

WMSE revised its budget during the year. In the previous document a comparison of the result to both the original and the revised budgets are provided. The revised budget was a result of a few larger changes in expected project grants (see below).

WMSE raised less funds from donations but more from membership fees than budgeted, this was a result of refocusing our face-to-face initiative to recruiting members rather than donations. As a result of increased interest rates we saw a significant increase in the revenue from financial entries. We secured less project grants than budgeted. This was a result of one large grant (MSIG grant towards the Content Partnership hub) being reduced in size by two thirds, another large grant application being postponed one year (Wikispeech) and several smaller grants being withdrawn or only starting towards the end of the year. These changes forced us to make changes to some of our other projects such as redirecting funding from our Readers 2023 project to a new project supporting International content partnerships. At the same time we secured additional unexpected funding for our advocacy work, significantly increasing our capacity in this area.

As a result of securing less funding for project grants we also had a reduction in some of the associated project costs as projects were reduced in size or cut. This is particularly visible in the programmatic area Use. At the same time we saw cost increases as a result of inflation, especially impacting the cost for staff. As a result of continued financial uncertainty we limited travel and other expenses.

The difference in the reduction of revenue to the reductions in cost were financed by a drastic reduction in the funds being set aside for building up a financial reserve. The result for the year, and addition to the reserves, was 67,628 SEK.

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

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

N/A

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

N/A

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

N/A

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.