Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round2/Wikimedia Italia/Proposal form

Thank you for this proposal form

Hello, Giuliana and Aubrey. Thank you for submitting this complete proposal form on time. If we have any urgent needs for clarification, we'll contact you right away. Otherwise, you can expect questions from FDC staff in the next week or so. We thank you for using the requested number format in your proposal. That makes things easier for us (and others who may be looking closely at your financials).

Finally, we ask that you do not make any changes to the proposal form now that the deadline has passed, without first contacting FDC staff. If a change is needed, you can put in a request here on this discussion page.

Best, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:59, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Praise and questions

This is the first time I have reviewed a proposal from WMIT and I am very postively impressed. I very much like your extensive support to it:wp, OSP, Wikidata, Wikisource. I personally am a great believer in the 1+1=3 when it comes make optimal utilization of the emerging new technical possibilties in our projects (a techical expert at the chapter + contributers to the projects). And your program in this area seems to me to be one of the strongest among the chapters. Have you considered to more spread your good example in this area and experience to other chapers? In the outreach area I see a more traditional approach, which could be seen as OK. But I wonder if you have considered working with other potential partners, like the media? And then how you have made the decision not to work with these? I also note the big increase in the asked for budget, and wonder if you have made a "plan B" if a lesser amount then requested wolud be given, what would the consequeces in you plan be in that case? Anders Wennersten (talk) 09:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Anders, thanks for your words and question. We'll try to answer to the issues you raised:

1. I very much like your extensive support to it.wp, OSP, Wikidata, Wikisource. I personally am a great believer in the 1+1=3 when it comes make optimal utilization of the emerging new technical possibilties in our projects (a techical expert at the chapter + contributers to the projects). And your program in this area seems to me to be one of the strongest among the chapters. Have you considered to more spread your good example in this area and experience to other chapers?

Thank you for your appreciation. :) We too believe that a successful approach needs to consider *all* the relevant Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia vision is to make available “all the sum of human knowledge” that includes books, pictures, illustrations and data. The interest for “minor projects” has always been one of our main concerns.

About the sharing of our projects and examples: first of all, thank you for your suggestion. We will try to provide more reports in English for our projects from this year on, in order to increase their “shareability,” but it is likely to require some time. Along with the restructuring of the internal structure of the Association, we also plan to make our projects more “measurable” according to the WMF metrics. This will require nonetheless a period of adaptation for us, since it will definitely enrich our way to engage projects.

2. In the outreach area I see a more traditional approach, which could be seen as OK. But I wonder if you have considered working with other potential partners, like the media? And then how you have made the decision not to work with these?

Actually, in our proposal form we have considered partnerships with the media . A good example for this is the "solidarity SMS".

The “solidarity sms” is a very common mean of donation in Italy. Any non-profit organization registered in the records of the Italian authorities may apply to the main telephone operators for a free toll number with the purpose of collecting donations through solidarity messages for a limited period of time. The basic requirements are the presentation of a detailed project and a strong communications plan, with TV and/or radio commercials supporting the campaign.

Our goals related to the media coverage are fundraising and, above all, the visibility of Wikimedia projects on a national scale. In Italy still a large part of population know how to browse a website at best, but have no idea of giving a contributions to change it. We would like to meet this audience as well.

Furthermore, as stated in our strategic plan from April 2015, in fact, a re-organization of the staff will take place in order to provide new areas of expertise in some crucial functions: the creation of a press office will be part of the external communication and will play a strategic role. :Press releases will be sent out in the occasion of major initiatives, the relationships with journalist will be enpowered and social networks will be massively exploited.

We will also hold a workshop at the 2015 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, where we will “teach” journalist how to use, re-use, and edit Wikipedia.

3. I also note the big increase in the asked for budget, and wonder if you have made a "plan B" if a lesser amount then requested wolud be given, what would the consequences in you plan be in that case?

As regards a “plan B”, at first we must point out that WMIT intends to diversify its sources of revenue. The fundraising function is going to be introduced in the organization chart. In the past, several initiatives aimed at collecting funds took place, some of them launched by the WMF, some other independent; now we want to change perspective and make fundraising become an internal asset for WMIT.

The first step will be a monitoring activity towards private and public grants supporting cultural activities. The second step will be to look for financial sponsorships specifically and increase donations. The long-term goal is definitely to increase the number of partners providing financial support.

Surely developing a new function will take at least the first half of the funding period and optimistically will give some results in the second half (even if we must adjust this estimate considering some delay given by Italy’s economic trend). This means that if we get a lesser amount from the FDC, part of our plan will be necessarily cut off and part shifted to the second part of the funding period if we are able to get some new sources. --Aubrey (talk) 14:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your answers, my commnets

1. I am not sure written reports in English is the best way of making your experince known to other entitites. Networking and personal contacts if often more efficent. Why not establish contacts with other chapters that has the same approach when you meet at Wikimedia conference? I think WMCH is having a similar approach, and I know WMSE is trying to work in a similar way to you. Jan Ainali will attend Wikimeda Conference and I beleive you can both can enrich your effort by an exchange of ideas and experience. And of course you have a golden opportunity in 2016 to make your valuable experience known by making a presentation at Wikimania in Italy!

2.Yes I missed these parts, thanks for mentioning them. The worrkshop is an example of just what I was thinking of. I also believe it is important to teach media/journalists to attribute correctly when reusing material from Wikipedia, Commons etc. If they are more confident on how to reuse they will do it more often, and to have our material appear in media is one powerful way of strengtening our credibility

3.I like your approach, and wish you all the best and success in your efforts!

Anders Wennersten (talk) 06:51, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Well thought out plans this budget certainly needs approval.--Rberchie (talk) 12:42, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

My recusal

As a member of the Board of Wikimedia Italia, I will recuse myself from the FDC deliberations regarding WMIT. --CristianCantoro (talk) 19:05, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Questions from FDC staff

Thank you for this proposal. We are following up with some questions that will enhance our and the FDC’s understanding of your work and your environment. Note that we will follow up in a few days with some additional questions and guidelines specifically around your lobbying activities. Best regards, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:43, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Questions about your growth

• We note that Wikimedia Italia is proposing extraordinary growth in overall budget in the upcoming year. We understand that a large part of this growth is due to your hiring your executive director last November (which means that only two months of her salary are accounted for in last year’s budget, while 12 months are accounted for in the upcoming year). Beyond this, you are planning to take on more interns and some significant contractor expenses. We would like to better understand how you have been handling this growth so far, and how you are preparing for additional growth, and how your volunteer community is prepared to take on the increase in activity that corresponds to your increased staff capacity.

(A note on the financials: last year budget basically did not comprise at all the new ED salary because she started working in the last week of November. Since our financial reports and budgets are redacted following a cash (flow) basis, expenses and incomes are registered at the time at which the disbursement/income occurred and not when the related cost incurred (and likewise for incomes. Given this, the 2014 financial report contains only the salary for a week in the month of November given that salaries are paid in the month following the one they refer to. Simply put, the 2014 financial do not contain the salary of the ED).

From an organizational point of view our growth started last November with the introduction of the Executive Director (ED) in our structure with the aim to professionalize and give coordination to the staff.

At the end of 2014, the Wiki Loves Monuments project manager resigned and "Archeowiki" has ended.

These facts allowed us to save about 50,000 euros and start 2015 with more economic resources useful to carry on our growth process.

As of today, an intern has been introduced (last March) to organize the current Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) edition. Part of the former project manager's activities have been absorbed by the intern and the other part by the ED and the President (external relations, networking, fundraising).

By the end of the current funding period, June 2015, our staff will be composed by 5.5 FTEs (2,5 permanent and 3 intern and contractors) as we plan to recruit 2 more resources: a trainee from universities (who will receive a reimbursement, not a full salary) and, for a limited period of time, a contractor for OSM events (whose cost will be charged only for 1000 euros to the current funding period). Therefore the additional total charge for new trainees and contractors in the current funding period is very limited.

By the end of the upcoming funding period, our staff is expected to raise from 5.5 FTE to 7.5 FTE, hiring only one more permanent staff, possibly a Wikipedian, for WLM and other Wikimedia projects.

A fundamental prerequisite of our growth is represented by an increase in the number of volunteers. Without this our plan wouldn't be sustainable. ::Particularly, to face the expected increase in activities, we have planned a re-organization of volunteers. Considering the fact that most of our volunteers live in the five main regions of Italy, we have decided to find a regional coordinator in each one of these for the main projects (where available) and a national coordinator to organize their activities. For the first time, we have organized a training day for Wikipedian volunteers (focused on GLAM and Education activities) which took place on April, 26th in Bologna. We are pleased to mention the fact that only 15 people participated (maximum we were able to host) bu we had received 33 requests. Considering the interest in such an event, surely we will organize at least another one, possibly in the month of May.

• Please tell us more about your contingency plans, in case you do not receive the revenue you anticipate. We notice that the bulk of your revenue is still requested or estimated rather than guaranteed, so we think it is important to understand how you will adjust your plans in case you do not raise everything you expect.

We intend to diversify our sources of revenue, basically with the introduction of the fundraising function in the organization chart as a new internal asset for WMIT. Our long-term goal of this process is to increase the number of donation/donors/institutional and financial partners.

As we have mentioned in our answer to Anders, developing a new function will be articulated in more steps and take at least the first half of the funding period and optimistically will give some results in the second half of the funding period. This means that if we don’t raise everything we have planned, part of our plan will be necessarily cut off and part shifted to the second part of the funding period if we are able to get some new sources.

In this case, we will try to cut the projects and staff expenses as little as possible, but we will take a final decision after a brainstorming once we get to know the sum raised.

Questions about your programs and approaches

• Please tell us more about why becoming an official branch of the Open Street Maps Foundation is important to Wikimedia Italia. We understand from your annual plan that you are interested in forging closer connections among members of the OSM and WMIT communities. We would like to know more about why that is important to your work and how official recognition will help.

First and foremost, we think that supporting OpenStreetMap is entirely within the mission of WMIT which is supporting free and open knowledge in all its forms.

The discussion in the movement about how to integrate OSM in the Wikimedia projects goes back several years and there have been actions of the WMF in this direction. Furthermore, several long-time Wikipedians and members of WMIT are also OSM contributors and enthusiasts.

While there are several advantages for the Wikimedia projects and OpenStreetMap to be supported on a global level by two different organisations (WMF and OSM Foundation respectively), we are convinced that on a smaller scale there are more benefits with a more close collaboration.

We strongly believe that there will be mutual advantages from forging closer connection among the members of the OSM and WMIT communities. Lacking an official local chapter the OSM community lacks a point of reference for partnerships with institutions, WMIT can support the OSM community in this purpose, having built solid relationships with several institutions in Italy and abroad. On the other hand, OSM plays a strategic and complementary role to further develop some WMIT projects and initiatives: OSM can attract the attention of several stakeholders which might be interested in the use of OSM data, such as institutions (Civil Protection offices), tourism boards, regions, local authorities, etc. All these institutions are strategic also for other Wikimedia projects and initiatives such as Wiki Loves Monuments, Wikivoyage or Wikimania 2016. Besides, WLM and OSM share the same focus, digital commons (cultural heritage for WLM and geographical data for OSM).

At an institutional level, obtaining WMIT’s recognition as an official OSMF branch is a fundamental step to give WMIT the full authority to talk about OSM with regions, municipalities, governing bodies and other partners. We must also consider that members of the OSM community are our potential new member and vice-versa; we also think that among Wikimedia projects there should be also a section dedicated to free maps as well as we have commons or data.

Furthermore, WMIT in the long run aims at a leadership position about “open content” and “open data” in Italy. Our narrative, at the moment, is built around the concept of “digital commons”, being that open content, open access, open data. We feel that Wikimedia, as a movement and as a brand, is highly regarded for its impact and transparency. We want to be recognized as leaders and go-to persons regarding free access to knowledge and information. We have planned to undertake a context and “market” analysis in order to have an overview of the more significant existing initiatives in the Italian open world. OSM has proved to be a mature, collaborative, open content project, well known, appreciated and there is a strong sense of community around it: all these features make OSM similar to WMIT approach and projects and represent a value added to WMIT.

• You emphasize brand awareness throughout your proposal, and associate with some of your key programs including WLM and your work with libraries. Please tell us more about why this is important. Are there significant benefits to this for Wikimedia Italia beyond fundraising?

With our surveys we have found that most of the people supporting Wikimedia Italia have little knowledge of the vision and mission of the Wikimedia movement. Everybody knows Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that is free (as in free beer) to read, but very few in comparison know that it is free (as in freedom), that they can contribute, that there are several others projects where they could help. As we said in our answer above, we want WMIT to become a go-to place for the libre/open world in Italy and to do so we first need the Wikimedia brand to be recognised outside the usual environments of free/libre software, open data and open government.

WMIT faces the need to increase its brand awareness, that means increase the level of brand recognition and, consequently, the reputation of its activities, both among its primary target and among the general public.

As said before, we plan to strengthen our position, as an association and as a Wikimedia Chapter, of leadership in the “open world”. We are already building important relationships with institutions, also at the national level. Brand awareness is part of this process.

A more effective fundraising process (enlarging the number of partners, donations, donors, etc.) is only one of the consequences linked to an increased brand awareness of WMIT, but it is not the main one. Surely the increase in the number of subjects well aware and well informed about WMIT will lead to an audience more receptive to fundraising campaigns but, first of all, to our projects and events. Such an approach will allow good returns in terms of visibility on the press and media and a higher credibility among institutions involved in our activities, such as schools, Universities, museums, libraries, etc. Brand awareness is not an end in itself; as explained in the following answer, we see it rather as a way to reach new audience (the sms solidarity campaign is a good example for this: it will give visibility to Wikimedia projects on a national scale) and it must come together with a one-one networking with institutions.

WLM is the most popular WMIT’s project among people and press; besides, the relationship between WMIT, libraries and schools is now very well structured. Currently, these are the most successful area in terms of audience reached, contributors, volunteers involved, etc. Therefore, we have decided to focus our brand awareness actions on these areas as well as conducting specific actions of institutional communication.

Our questionnaires to the “friends” of WLM have shown that still a large part of the respondents (about 30%) simply don’t know that WLM is a project carried out by WMIT. As mentioned in our strategic plan, we will undertake a positioning strategy, promoting WLM as a WMIT project, with the final aim to create connections with other WMIT’s projects and involve even more people in our activities.

• We understand that engaging with volunteers is an important part of your work, but we don’t yet understand why your strategy for volunteers and your communications work are included in this proposal as separate programs, or how those activities relate to your other programs. Would you please explain this approach more?

As regards to volunteers, we preferred to isolate this specific part of our strategy, in order to clearly convey the idea that the recruiting of new forces and a more deep involvement of the existing volunteers are the first fundamental step of our growth plan. As we have mentioned in our answer to your first question, we are carrying out an ambitious growth plan, starting with the consolidation of the existing activities and the introduction of new strategic ones: without volunteers engaged in such activities, our plan wouldn’t be realistic and sustainable. When we started our strategic planning, actually, at first, we have included the engaging with volunteers in each single program. While doing this work, we realized that this part of our work comply with an essential need, common to all the programs; therefore we have planned “recruiting days” common to all our programs.

As regards our external communication program, we must point out that the expenses and the actions included in this program all share similar targets different from the communication expenses included in the other programs (GLAM, WLM, OSM, etc). For this reason, we have focused on them separately. Particularly, we have separated the communication expenses related to programs such as WLM, GLAM, etc., which has been included in the GANTTs and the cash flows related to each program, from the institutional/external communication expenses, which share the same institutional target, first of all, the establishment of a relationship of trust with the press representatives aimed at increasing WMIT’s brand awareness and credibility among institutions involved in our activities, such as schools, Universities, museums, libraries, etc.

Creating a consistent and ongoing communication flow towards the outside world will also make it easier reaching new audience (users, editors, etc.) as well. We would like to enlarge our audience to meet also that part of the Italian population who share our cultural mission but has no idea of how to contribute to a website and, even less, to our projects. Our long run target is to be perceived as the reference point for the open data/open content initiatives for the large audience.

• We noted with interest your proposed structure for volunteers across different programs and regions. Would you tell us more about how this developed? Do you have volunteers already available who are interested in stepping into these different leadership roles, or is this something you plan to grow as your programs develop? What are the benefits for volunteers stepping into these leadership roles, and how do you think they will be motivated to contribute in this way? If there are not volunteers available for each role, what will you do to recruit them or to adjust your plans and structures?

We have adopted a participative approach to develop our strategic plan. In the last months we organized several meetings at the presence of the member of the board, the project leader and the volunteers more involved in each project to analyze our strengths, weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats related to our activities and approach, to build participated, realistic goals, to translate our goals in a plan of activities, with a timing and a sustainable cash flow, etc..

While doing this work the need for a new, more articulated structure of volunteers has been expressed by the volunteers more active on projects themselves. Particularly, some of them claimed that the fact that, when they talk with institutions to promote Wikimedia projects, their lack of an official role turned into a lack of authority perceived from the outside. Starting from this, we planned to organize volunteers’ activities across programs and regions.

The main benefits for volunteers stepping into these leadership roles will be a more structured work environment (with the elimination of overlappings), more visibility to each one’s contributions in the inside but also toward press and institutions, more authority towards stakeholders: they will become Wikimedia Ambassadors. This will also imply the possibility to travel for projects and meetings. To have and official role is both a responsibility and an honor and we feel this as an incentive for volunteers. Some volunteers have already shown interest in leadership role for some activities (Educational activities, WLM).

• You observe is several places throughout your proposal and your annual plan that volunteers are central to your work. Would you tell us more about your strategies for recruiting and retaining the volunteers you need to accomplish your goals? Are you able to share any targets for outcomes of your volunteers program, such as the number of volunteers recruited, engaged, retained? We are not sure we yet understand the real impact of this program from the targets provided.

Our main outcomes for the volunteers program are: at least one brainstorming by the end of April with the key persons of each project aimed to identify the structure required for each projects and shortlist the possible candidates for leadership roles (for the most active regions and/or for the main programs); at least 1 meeting by April 2015 (at least another by april 2016); at least 15 people attending.

We aim to recruit: at least 3 active representatives (national and/or local, depending on the project – each project has different needs and lays at different stage of development - each one of them will manage at least 3 people by the end of 2015) for a total of about 9-10 people participating in the program by the end of 2015; at least, 5 new active representatives in new regions (national and/or local, depending on the projects, each one of them will manage at least 5 people by July 2016).

In these days we are having brainstorming to identify a shortlist of possible candidates for these roles. Besides, as mentioned in our first answer, on April, 26th in Bologna took place the first training day for volunteers addressed to wikipedians and wikimedians already involved in Wikimedia projects. As mentioned, we have received 33 request of participation out of 15 available posts. Considering the interest in this event surely we will organize another similar event, possibly, during May.

During this recruiting day, we explained our new structure and received feedbacks from the participants at the same time; at the end, we had another brainstorming aimed at placing the right persons in the right roles.

As regards retaining initiatives, we will push local leaders into sharing experience by organizing aggregative moments periodically with their groups of volunteers. At the same time, meetings will be organized also at a central level. The recruiting days have also retaining purposes

• We also want to better understand the role of the National Coordinator, as it is integrated across your different program work. Please explain this role in more detail.

As mentioned in our strategic plan, there is a need for leaders for our main projects both at a national and at a local level. Therefore we plan to recruit national coordinators and (where available) regional coordinators of volunteers for our main projects.

The national coordinators will refer to the Directors, in the person of Ginevra Sanvitale, current Project Leader, as delegated by the Directors.

The national coordinators will be the reference points for the regional representatives carrying out activities related to each projects and will have a coordination role, being also the trait d’union between the volunteers community and the Board. He/She will have a general overview on the work done by the volunteers and check periodically that the program is actually carried on. He/she will also organize initiatives for retaining the volunteers a national level while locally similar initiatives will be arranged by the regional managers.

This is an organization to which we will tend in the medium to long term. In the short term, given the relatively small number of active volunteers, it is more likely that, within the same region, only one manager for more projects or only a national coordinators will be identified.

We already have a national coordinator for the GLAM project in the person of Virginia Gentilini and for WLM, in the person of Cristian Cenci. After the recruiting day on April 26th, our structure for GLAM and WLM is going to be further developed with new regional representatives, where available; we also plan to recruit at least a national coordinator for Educational projects and OSM.

• Please offer some more context about why you need to fund Wikimedians in residence directly, rather than ask host institutions to fund these positions, as is the usual movement practice. Also, please do let us know if we are not understanding this aspect of your proposal and budget correctly.

Many institution have difficulties hiring individual contractors even for short periods of time, so we came out with a possible solution that sees Wikimedia Italia as an intermediary between the institution and the WIRs, in those cases where the institution is not able to hire directly the WIR, still considering that WIRs will organize their own work directly and in coordination with the host institutions.

All Wikipedians in Residence projects in Italy have been funded by the receiving institutions.

We want to stress that Wikimedia Italia has three main roles:

• We select the WIR, usually through a public call. We exploit the fact that we know the community and we are in a better position than external institutions to assess the skills and experience on the projects of a WIR candidate.
• We make sure that the results of the residency are shared with the larger community.
• We help both the institution and the WIR solve their problems: for example, we make sure that the WIR will receive an adequate salary for his/her work - work ethic is an essential value to us -, we provide help in cases where the institution or WIR have questions about the possibility of publishing some material. When needed, we can also ask to external professionals to provide answers about the Italian fiscal/labour law legislation (very complex).

• You note significant barriers to WLM work in your context. Can you also tell us more about the value of WLM, and what impact you hope to achieve? We did not see any targets related to use of media uploaded as part of the contest, or contributions to articles, or other content-focused results besides files uploaded. We understood that you referred to your baseline for 2014, and your goals for each subsequent year in terms of numbers of uploads, but we could not find where that baseline was defined.

The peculiar Italian legislative frame regarding the dissemination of photographic reproductions of cultural sites mismatch with the CC-BY-SA license used for loading images on Wikimedia Commons. In Italy without an authorization, you are not allowed to take photos of cultural heritage for even indirect commercial purpose. This forces WMIT to negotiate year to year, institution by institution, the authorization to publish and divulge individual monuments.

In addition to this, please consider that, despite Italy has the biggest share of UNESCO Heritage Sites, Italian municipalities have no lists of their monuments. So, in many cases, municipalities simply don't know exactly which monuments they have. Despite this, as detailed here below, 2014 edition yield unprecedented results.

The Italian law turns into a “threat”, a bottleneck for WLM (and other Wikimedia projects working with images) to be eliminated as soon as possible.

At the same time, this peculiar situation, in the past years, gave us the chance to meet a lot of institutions (about 300), whether public or private, and cooperate with them. Therefore, WLM has a great value to us in terms of institutions involved and partnerships created.

Besides, the Italian cultural heritage is estimated in millions of monuments. This means that WLM has still a great potential of development. Since now, we have released about 7.500 monuments and we hope to release even more in the future.

Furthermore, WLM has a potential social economic impact: sharing free licensed pictures of monuments can reduce the opportunity costs of public and private actors related to the production of promotional materials (for example, for tourism activities).

WLM is also the most popular WMIT’s project and this intend to use this popularity also to communicate WMIT brand awareness.

Regarding our baselines (please look at page 49 of the Strategic plan), only the last edition of WLM Italia recorded 1,038 participants (Italy at the first place in the world for number of photographers), 21,050 photographs (fifth place), 273 participating municipalities and 4,500 monuments released.

As regards the previous editions, the first one, organized in 2012, allowed releases for 936 monuments. The 803 participants uploaded nearly 7,700 photographs, ranking the Italian contest 13th among 32 national WLM editions for number of uploaded images. The second edition of WLM Italy recorded a drop in the number of participants (527) but an increase in the number of loaded images (8,082, +5%) and released monuments (2137).

As of the use of media uploaded is concerned, these are the figures:

• WLM 2012: 987 total images usages, 646 distinct images used;
• WLM 2013: 570 total images usages, 384 distinct images used;
• WLM 2014: 782 total images usages, 623 distinct images used.

Only in 5 months (from November, 2014 to February,2015) we have had 9,908,585 page views in total sorted by the category “Images from Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy”, available at this link.

Our goals for 2015-2016 are:

1. Number of authorization for new monuments and number of new municipalities participating in the contest:

• +20% of authorizations and municipalities involved (in relation to 2014);
• +20% of authorizations and municipalities involved (in relation to 2015);

2. Number of uploads:

• 2015: at least equal to 2014 (considering their exceptionality);
• 2016: at least equal to 2015.

• You discuss how you will deepen partnerships through programs like GLAM - Museums. How do you measure or understand different levels of depth in your partnerships? Are these different levels of depth associated with different outcomes or online impact? How will you target specific heritage materials that address content gaps through this work? Have you identified any specific content gaps?

We can distinguish among partnerships with:

• representative bodies of museums (museum associations) vs individual museums for ad hoc projects;
• private vs public museums.

The partnerships with associations of museums such as ICOM Italia or Museimpresa (association of museums of Italian firms) are particularly strategic as they may generate opportunities to implement initiatives in favour of the museums they represent: conferences, training courses Wikimedia projects and their application in the field of cultural heritage, Wikipedians in Residence.

Despite this, we are also open to the request which may arise from individual museums (for example, Museo Galileo) with interesting iconographic materials, in relation to the encyclopedic value of the materials themselves, to share on their own articles on wikipedia and/or on Commons.

As regards the distinction among private and public museums, our experience with Rossimoda Shoes Museum has taught us that it is more likely that a private corporate museums has more strict problems of copyright affecting the possibilities of sharing materials with a free licence. On the other hand, public museums are more free of constraints sharing with us the mission of the open access of culture.

Thus, our output and outcome are different for public and private museums. Particularly, we have supposed that the number of released images varies depending on the kind of institution hosting a Wir, as follows:

• in 2015, at least 2 hosting institutions sharing 100 images (if a public museums)/ 20 (if a private museum);
• in 2016, at least 2 more hosting institutions sharing 100 images (if a public museums)/ 20 (if a private museum).

As mentioned in our strategic plan, the relations with museums are yet a ground to be more explored, despite major projects and collaborations carried out in the past. But we can already target specific heritage materials addressing content gaps related to the peculiar role that our country has in history of art and culture from Middle Ages and Renaissance, up to the following centuries, a very rich cultural context that produced precious and rare collections held by a lot of worldwide renowned museums and little minor ones.

Education

We would like more information about your education work.

• You note in your annual plan that you have been doing education work is some form since 2007. We enjoyed learning about your past work in this area from your description in the annual plan, but we would like to better understand how your current work relates to what you have done in the past. What learning or experience from the past are you applying to the planned iteration of this program?

Our experience in the educational area give us precious information on the factors of success or failure of our activities. Here are some example of the main “teachings” deriving from our past work with students and teachers.

In the past years, WMIT has carried out training with students attending primary school, high schools and university students, but high school is the best target to which we can convey Wiki values and philosophy.

The students who get to know Wikipedia at school may find it “boring” because of the specific subjects treated (related to the school programs) and don’t keep on contributing after the end of our courses. Others presumably change their username, making it difficult to follow their activities after projects.

This suggest that we must address specific schools (e.g. IT professional schools), involve students in the choice of topic (e.g. film club) and make Wikipedia presentations in occasion of student’s self-management, when students organize their own schedule with speeches and initiatives more kin to their interests. We must create also special projects aimed at making students become "long-term Wikipedians": we want to bring them closer to the Wikimedia world and raise interest on volunteering and on freedom in disseminating knowledge.

Furthermore, strengthening our presence in schools, where students are about 50% male and 50% female will allow us to reach a female audience in a proportion higher that the women editors rate on Wikipedia (15%) with an impact on the gender gap reduction.

We have also realized that results are difficult to measure (specially the level of learning). Accordingly, we have planned to introduce tools to measure the performance of educational projects (e.g. questionnaires ex ante and ex post).

Besides, teachers’ attitude is not always collaborative: teachers not always perceive Wikipedia’s full potential and sometimes are not available to participate and learn. We aim to cancel the doubts of teachers towards Wikipedia and debunk the myth of Wikipedia as an untrusted source. To do this, we plan to enhance the dialogue with individual teacher but also with the association of school directors/leaders, regional school boards to make them deepen the potential educational value of our courses.

We have also encountered problems in repeating our initiative on a large scale, due to the lack of active members on educational projects across Italy (projects often depend on the social network of the members involved) and also to the fact that usually schools have limited financial resources. For this reason, we have planned a strong communication action, a solidarity sms campaign, whose cost is included in the educational program, to raise fund for a single, articulated, national project relating to schools. As explained in the answers on communication, the sms solidarity campaign will also help us reach new audience and communicate Wikimedia activities and its brand .

As of today, the initiative with universities are limited if compared with the ones held in schools. Most recently, internships were launched with the University of Bergamo (last February). After this positive experience, we plan to activate internships all-year round under the supervision of university teachers with university students for creating and correcting Wikipedia entries on specific issues with the recognition of credits as extracurricular activities (these internships are not paid).

• What is the overall impact focus of your education program? Beyond building partnerships, what online impact do you think this work will lead to? How many participants to you expect to engage in how many schools? Do you have targets in terms of content contributed or editors retained?

As regards schools, we plan to reach at least 1 school and 2 classes per school in each of the Regions with more active members. Considering an average of 20 students per class the total amount of student should be about 200. By April 2016 the expected schools involved are 2 per Region with at least 2 classes per school/involved and 400 students.

In addition, WMIT plans to activate internships with university students all year round under the supervision of university teachers for creating and correcting Wikipedia articles on specific issues. In 2015 and 2016 we will be hosting at least 3 students for 4 months/each (possibly more). Our first University student has dedicated part of her final thesis’ (still to discuss) on Wikipedia and has modified one existing article, improving its quality. Our expectation is that the interns modify at least 3 wikipedia articles (prudentially) and remain editors within one month from the end of the internship.

Please note that these goals are described here.

We also plan to activate courses for school directors and teacher in 2015 and 2016. Our expectations is that after the courses the number teachers will ask for courses on Wikipedia for their students is the 30% out of the total number of participants.

Italian Wikipedia

• We want to better understand how the activities that are part of the Italian Wikipedia program will address the challenge of user retention described. For example, your targets seem to be focused on outputs like the number of agreements signed or the number of trainings held rather than focused on content or editors. How will you know if this program is achieving online impact?

Most of the challenges of user retention are described in the “performance measurement” tables (attached to the proposal) regarding other programs, expected to impact on Wikipedia contents editors.

Particularly, in the “Performance measurement” table on Wikipedia in Italian we explicitly refer to Educational/Glam project for the outcome on user retention.

We give you here below some examples of challenges included in the GLAM/Libraries program affecting Wikipedia but you can refer to the following link for an in-depth analysis.

GLAM/LIBRARIES PROGRAM

• Actions: bibliohackathon, workshops, proofreading competition

Outcome expected in 2015: around 20-30% of participants remain active users within one month from the events.

• Action: training courses for librarians

Outcome: material uploaded by at least 20% of librarians.

Here below the challenges included in the GLAM/Museums program; you can also look at here.

GLAM/MUSEUMS PROGRAMS

• Actions: Project with “Museo Galileo”

Outcome: at least 100 images uploaded on Commons by the month of September 2015.

• Actions: Wikipedians in Residence in museums

Outcome: at least 100 images uploaded by a public museum and 20 uploaded by a private one.

Finally some examples of challenges included in the Educational program but you can refer also to this link.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

• Action: internships under the supervision of university teachers with university students for creating and correcting Wikipedia entries on specific issues.

Outcome: edit or creation of at least 3 entries on Italian Wikipedia, in 2015 and 2016, and interns remaining contributors within one month from the end of the internship.

As regards the quality of articles on Wikipedia, our agreement with the Universities for the activation of internships share this the goal as already explained. We plan at least 3 universities partners in 2015 and 5 in 2016.

Other examples of the online impact will come from the activities aiming to reduce gender gap: we expect to involve at least 15 women editing at least 8 articles. Please look at the following answer.

• Please tell us more about the outcomes of your past WikiDonne work. Do you have specific targets to share around your gender gap work in both increasing the number of female editors on Italian Wikipedia, as well as increased female involvement with WMIT’s activities?

As regards “Wikidonne”, two of the main events of this project took place in 2013.

One of these events, titled “Marilyn, Rita, Caterina: women and Wikipedia”, was an open talk about women's participation on Wikipedia with an introductory workshop. 10 women attended the workshop improving three pages on it.wiki (Caterina Enrichetta di Borbone; Dorothy Janis; Augusta Rapetti Bassi) and creating the stub Girl Geek Dinners.

Another successful event of this projects, titled “Wikipedia in Salaborsa: editathon on women's biographies”, was attended by 13 persons (10 women and 3 men) and had the following output and outcome:

• new articles: Ortensia; Nicolosa Sanuti; Enrichetta di Lorenzo; Marcelle Cahn; Maria Dalle Donne;
• improved articles: Giuseppa Eleonora Barbapiccola; Anna Morandi Manzolini;
• some participants continued editing the article they worked on during the workshop at home.

In March 2016, we plan to organize an event dedicated to women in occasion of the International Women's Day, expecting a participation of at least 15 women who modify at least 8 articles concerning women.

Most recently we organized an event dedicated to women in STEM in Bologna with other local organizations. We didn’t produce a significant amount of new bytes because all the participants were total beginners, but we plan to repeat the initiative soon hoping to be able to build on the ground we established during the first event. If we will have good outcomes we are planning to make of this a recurring event in the city.

GLAM and Educational projects are particularly rich in women. In 2013, 61,5% of library users were women. Also, the majority of library professionals are women.

As above mentioned, we plan to reach at least 200 students in 2015 and 400 in 2016. Considering that students are approximately 50% female and 50% male, we are potentially able to reach 100 female students in 2015 and 200 in 2016.

• We would love to learn more about your plans to support OTRS and create a new landing page on Italian Wikipedia. Also, what resources (budget, staff time) are devoted to this area?

We have been prompted to examine more in depth the OTRS response times and work from the fact that in our premises we receive an average of 2 calls per week from people asking for help in writing voices or solving technical problems regarding Wikipedia.

WMIT plans to support Italian OTRS operators, adapting the German experience to us, through the organization of internal training sessions for operators. The sessions will aim at reducing the response times to emails which is quite long (85% of total requests are solved within 90 days) and on creating an opening dialogue with users and the community of Wikipedia in Italian. Moreover, to strengthen the work of volunteers on OTRS, the visibility of guidelines pages will be increased and, possibly, a Skype line will be opened (or another tool to be implemented) so that operators will be able to call back some of the users to help them overcome their problems.

The creation of a landing page or a “Welcome program” showing Wikipedia and WMI’s other projects similar to that planned for OTRS is aimed at renewing and amend redundancies. This action obviously should be agreed upon with the community first.

To cover the expenses for these activities WMIT allocated 1,000 € for the internal training sessions, that will take place both in 2015 and 2016, and 1,100 € to create a phone line.

OTRS support actions will be mainly managed by volunteers, so staff time will be only partially devoted to this area. WMIT staff will help organize the training sessions.

Lobbying work

In the United States, a nonprofit organization has certain limits on its total amount of lobbying spending. The Wikimedia Foundation tracks the lobbying expenses of grantees to comply with restrictions and reporting requirements. If you receive a grant from the WMF to fund lobbying activities, you are required to report your activities and expenses related to legislation so that the Wikimedia Foundation can determine if they qualify as lobbying. Lobbying is an attempt to influence legislation. Lobbying activities include contacting legislators, or urging the public to contact legislators, for the purposes of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation. We note that your proposal includes nearly US$7,000 for the consultancy of a lobbyist. Here are some questions regarding this work.

• How will you recruit the lobbyist and what qualifications will you be looking for?

We have already had some interviews with possible lobbyists. The lobbyist should be a professional with familiarity with the open content and the internet worlds and should have a strong network of relationships with institutions and the governing bodies, know how on the legislative process, ability to talk at different kinds of interlocutors.

• What exactly will be the responsibilities of this lobbyist, and what do you hope she/he will achieve in the duration of the contract?

In the duration of the contract, the lobbyist will do an advocacy work through:

• a report on the hidden revenues/opportunity cost of the current Italian law;
• networking with stakeholders sharing our same goals (for example ICOM (International Council of Museums), FIAF (Italian Federation of Photographic Associations), etc.;
• raising awareness on the issues contained in the Codice Urbani affecting the reproduction of free licensed pictures of cultural heritage, addressing notes to politicians and members of the parliament and the Government which point out the gaps in the current Italian law.

These are the goals to be achieved by the end of the contract.

In the long run, possibly out of the funding period, if our work of networking is well done and our notes accepted and shared, we will be able to promote, with other partners, a reform of the current law by participating in the review process.

• Will you be able to closely track and report on all related expenses and activities separately from all other work?

Yes, we are able to do it and we will do it if necessary. We would like to point out that, in principle, given its size and scope we can fund this activity with other sources of funding included in our budget.

Hope the answers are enough :-)

Thanks for the patience, and sorry again for the delay. --Aubrey (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello Winifred, in these weeks we are moving the office, thus the delay. We will respond as soon as possible. Sorry again. --Aubrey (talk) 09:53, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Questions about budget

Ciao! Thanks for your proposal! I've been looking at your detailed budget and I have some questions.

Hi Osmar, thanks for the quesitons :-)

• In your proposal, you say that the total staff cost is € 161,723.49, however the budget says €148,305.49 (staff and interns) plus € 7,100.00 (professional consulting for project) and €51,100.00 (occassional consulting). I'm assuming the last two items refer to the contractors, but they don't sum up to the € 161k. Can you explain the differences between all these values and the reasoning behind them?

The total amount of the staff cost budgeted is € 206,505.49 (€148,305.49,referring to staff and interns plus € 7,100.00, referring to professional consulting for project and €51,100.00 referring to occasional consulting), while the staff cost in the proposal is € 161,723.49. The difference, of € 44,782, is due to the fact that some items which in the proposal haven’t been considered as staff cost in the proposal have been included in other programs or in the voice “operation”, as follows:

• Wikipedians in Residence in Museums and Libraries (€ 41,100) (including some related scholarships for museums): included in GLAM/Libraries and GLAM/Museums. Please note that this cost is covered by revenues coming from the host institutions;
• trainers for internal training session to support the work on OTRS of Italian volunteers (€ 1,000): included in Italian Wikipedia program;
• trainers for courses in libraries and schools (€ 1,000): included in Libraries and Educational programs;
• trainer for courses at BEIC (European Library of Information and Culture of Milan) € 682: included in “Operations”;
• professional translations (€ 1,000): included in “Operations”.

• I see your most expensive item in the budget is Communication, which is € 131,259.32. Just this item is larger than some APG. What is included here?

Please consider that in WMIT budget the expenses amount is higher than the one filled in the proposal because our budget (illustrated to the Assembly) follows the chart of accounts required by the Italian Civil Code which requires the expenses to be sorted by type and not by project.

In the proposal, instead, we have made a re-classification of the budget: therefore many items are counted in the related programs, as they refer specifically to the promotion of WMIT projects, are part of the programs themselves being essential to achieve their goals, while the “Communication plan” contained in the proposal refers only to the external institutional communication.

The external institutional communication consists of action and events for: decennial celebration campaigns strictly related to fundraising activities, in occasion of Christmas or the 5x1000 campaign, Festa Ambiente, a huge event held in Vicenza with and audience coming from anywhere in northern Italy. The brand awareness raising is a wide and cross aim of all these actions: it is the premise to increase WMIT's programs credibility among institutions, create new relationships, disseminate the results of our activities, reach a new audience (also people who have not familiarity with contributing on the internet), reinforce fundraising.

For all the reasons above described WMIT institutional communication plan is very large and rich: we consider very crucial in the immediate future.

Given this, some activities included in the plan refers to programs, some others to institutional communication, as following:

Programs

WIKI LOVES MONUMENTS

• Wiki Loves Monuments prizes: € 1,400
• WLM award ceremony: € 1,700
• WLM public events: € 1,400

OPEN STREET MAP

• OpenStreetMap promotion on press and social media: € 4,926
• OSM mapping parties: € 2,100
• OSM training courses for Public Institutions: € 2,360

GLAM/LIBRARIES

• Library hackathon with teenagers in libraries (Coderdojo): € 3,000
• Library hackathon: € 1,000
• Wikisource proofreading contest: € 200
• organization of events in libraries: € 800
• organization of an event during the big annual Italian Libraries meeting (Convegno Stelline 2016): € 11,271

ITALIAN WIKIPEDIA

• meeting of Italian Wikipedia volunteers: € 2,500
• promotional material on Italian Wikipedia, especially dedicated to libraries: € 3,891
• catering for the editathon on Wikipedia: € 500

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

• conception of the sms solidarity campaign (spot and networking): € 36,600
• broadcasting of the spot: € 24,400

Total A): € 98,048

Institutional communication

PHOTO AND WEB SITE

• professional photo shoot: € 1,132
• restyling/creation of a new website: € 2,000

DECENNIAL

• organization of a concert during WMIT assembly in autumn 2015 to celebrate WMIT decennial: € 8,330,00 (the costs refer to theater rent/concert contribution and catering)

FUNDRAISING CHRISTMAS 2015

• ADwords campaign: € 1,342.00
• Facebook campaign: € 427

5X1000 CAMPAIGN

• ADwords campaign: € 4,026
• Postcards (creation, printing and distribution): € 5,280

PRESS

• - Eco della stampa/press clippings: € 1,000

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

• production of new WMIT gadgets: € 4,331
• creation of a new graphic design of WMIT promotional materials: € 1,220
• welcoming guests cost: € 500
• web domain: € 2,718.26
• business card: € 150
• realization of membership card: € 755,06

Total B): € 33,211.32

TOTAL A) + TOTAL B): € 131,259.32

Thanks for your replies! --Osmar Valdebenito, B1mbo (talk) 17:35, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to you :-) --Aubrey (talk) 20:20, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Question about Table 3

Hello again, WMIT colleagues: We were wondering why you left the Current funding period planned / budgeted column for revenues and expenses in Table 3 blank. This column should include your planned or budgeted revenues and expenses for July 2014 - June 2015. Was this a mistake? Would you please complete this table by adding your planned revenues and expenses for this period? Thank you! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 00:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, we have realized only now that a note to Table 3 we had prepared has not been included on Meta. In that note we said that unfortunately the current funding period doesn't match with Wikimedia Italy financial year, so we can't provide a budget for that period of time. We only have a final balance. --Aubrey (talk) 20:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Question about 5x1000 campaign

The request reports the plan for the 5x1000 campaign. Surfing in the Italian Wikipedia anyone can see a big banner in the sitenotice connected with this campaign which seems to be related to the Italian annual tax return. The banner is visible in all countries. Looking at the history it is obvious that the banner is not new and it was present also last year from April to June. It means that the Italian Wikipedia hosts a banner for funds at least twice a year and for a total amount of six months (this local banner + the global fundraising banner). Although the funds are raised with the help of a Wikipedia banner, they are owned by a single chapter and not shared globally. It may be interesting to know if there is an agreement between the Foundation and the chapter about this kind of banners because they are not reported in this request in the description of this campaign. Thank you. --206.190.138.20 00:16, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

The sitenotice is a community decision, consistent with article 9 of WMIT bylaws (which was kept identical since the 2005 version, see unofficial translation, second last paragraph). --Nemo 07:48, 28 April 2015 (UTC)