Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Nederland 2024

Feedback from the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Regional Funds Committee on your proposal

Dear Wikimedia Nederland team,

Thank you very much for your proposal, describing your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The NWE Regional Committee has reviewed the proposal, which I am pleased to be able to provide feedback and additional questions on.

• The committee is grateful to see your proposal’s focus on knowledge equity, particularly with respect to addressing inclusion where it has identified underrepresented groups. We welcome the level of ambition shown in realizing the opportunity you have identified for growth in the Dutch Caribbean, and your recognition that further work is needed to increase the numbers of women editors.
• We thank you for your frank assessment of your own work and of the recent challenges you have faced. We appreciate the clear identification of areas where organizational practice and sustainability can be improved, including the recognition of the need for greater organizational sustainability through an increased focus on impact. You have provided a clear picture of practices you have found have worked, as well as those that have worked less well, and you have used that insight to inform future planning. It is clear from your application that you are currently working at capacity, and it is sensible for you to propose additional staff time in order to introduce new work streams.
• We welcome the reference made to scalable practices, and also recognize the significant value to the wider Wikimedia community that sharing lessons learned and tools represent.

During our discussion of your proposal, the committee members identified the following:

• Your knowledge equity proposals for increasing the number of women editors would be strengthened with some additional detail as to your plans, including specific targets.
• You should carefully consider the resource implications of recruiting, onboarding and managing a full time employee at distance. Given the current capacity issues you identify, the panel is concerned as to how this would be resourced.
• The proposal would be strengthened with further detail on the work plan for the new employee, for example, an indication of how the new role will complement your current work; how collaboration and partnership will be ensured; how the new role will be managed.
• The movement as a whole would benefit from better understanding how you are developing the sustainability and self-sufficiency of your partners, and how your partners are using Wikidata as a tool to support their internal collection and data management.

The Committee feel they would be better positioned to better understand your proposals if you were able to provide the following information:

• Who in the organization is taking ownership for increasing the numbers of women editors? Do you have any specific targets relating to increasing these numbers over the next three years? How would the proposed new full time employee help to address this?
• Who in your organization will take responsibility for recruiting, onboarding and managing a new full time employee? How is the organization's current workload being reorganized to accommodate this? What is the timeline for recruitment?
• What contribution to recruiting new volunteers will the new employee be expected to make?
• How is a commitment to recognizing the legacy of colonization, and the attendant power imbalance, being actively addressed in the work carried out in the Caribbean?
• How will they ensure sustainability of the Suriname contributor community after or outside the life of the project?
• Are you considering support for other underrepresented language speakers, like Zeelandic or Limburgish, or for languages of non-Western Dutch residents, like Turkish or Sranan Tongo? How has the choice been made to prioritize language support and inclusion?
• Can the off-wiki platform costs be further explained? What is the business case for using these? Can other affiliates make use of the investment in order for the movement as a whole to derive better value?

In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by November 12th, 2023.

The Committee is happy to meet with you, should you find it beneficial for us to discuss issues relating to our questions above. In particular, the Committee is keen to have a clear understanding of the proposed recruitment and delivery plans for the three-year period; your broader sustainability and impact evaluation plans; and the value of costs relating to off-wiki platform activities.

Due to restrictions on our ability to adjust our overall General Support Fund budget for this round, it may not be possible to fully fund this proposal. However, we do want to understand what impact a partial funding decision would have on your budget and related activities or operations?

Thank you for your clarifications!

On behalf of the Regional Committee, Josie ABruszik-WMF (talk) 05:06, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Dear Regional Committee, dear Josie,

Thank you for your time, energy and commitment in reviewing the WMNL grant application. We appreciate your thoughtful questions and have answered them below to the best of our ability. We are happy to provide any additional information you need. With warm regards from the Netherlands. Sandra Rientjes (WMNL) (talk) 12:38, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Response WMNL to Committee feedback

Your knowledge equity proposals for increasing the number of women editors would be strengthened with some additional detail as to your plans, including specific targets.

WMNL has had a gender-gap programme since 2014 and has developed a wide range of activities. In general, these were successful in adding relevant content to the Wikimedia projects. We also succeeded in bringing new editors to the community, some of whom remained active after six months (our criterion for ‘retention’). However, according to our tri-annual surveys of NLWP editors, there has not been a significant increase in the number of editors identifying as female. This remains at 11%. We ‘feel’ that this should be at least 25%. We would already be very happy if we were able to raise it to over 15% in the coming three years.

This raises the question what happens to the new editors. Next year, we want to invest in getting more insight into what motivates women to take up editing, and what encourages or discourages them to remain active. We also want to look at the ‘stories’ of new female editors in other projects (Wikidata, Commons) and other language versions of Wikipedia. We will work with our partners at Atria (institute for gender studies) and the University of Amsterdam’s department of gender research.

Our ambition is to ‘redesign’ our approach to editor recruitment for 2025. An especially intriguing factor to explore is why the LGBTI+ community is not underrepresented in NLWP, as they also face ingrained societal processes of exclusion.

In the mean time, we will continue with activities aimed at generating content about/relevant to women. We will also support and nurture initiatives that are developed ‘spontaneously’ (without WMNL involvement) by community members, partners and societal groups, and provide safe environments for these.

In 2024, we aim at 1100 Wikipedia articles improved, 5000 items added to Commons and 5000 improved Wikidata Items.

You should carefully consider the resource implications of recruiting, onboarding and managing a full time employee at distance. Given the current capacity issues you identify, the panel is concerned as to how this would be resourced.

Recruiting and onboarding new staff is always a considerable investment and even more so when a staff member will be based on the other side of the Atlantic.

We are discussing with our partners in Curaçao and Aruba how to best tackle this issue, if and when we are able to start hiring. Our aim is that the new staff members(s) will be housed at the office of a partner, who will also provide basic logistical support. The new staff will, however, start their employment with a ‘secondment’ at the WMNL office in the Netherlands, to get to know the office environment and the team, establish contact with partners in the Netherlands and, where necessary, acquire new wiki-skills.

The new staff member(s) will take over some of the work currently carried out by one of our programme coordinators. Some of the capacity freed, will be reinvested in coordinating with the remote staff. We will establish a structure of regular (weekly) calls/check-ins to discuss work, optimal access to office resources and infrastructure, and will organise in person meetings at least once a year.

The proposal would be strengthened with further detail on the work plan for the new employee, for example, an indication of how the new role will complement your current work; how collaboration and partnership will be ensured; how the new role will be managed.

At the moment, WMNL has 4 fte staff divided over 5 individuals:

• 1 fte - Executive Director - management, fundraising, international affairs, public affairs, press

• 1 fte - office manager: logistics, event organising, volunteer support
• 0,8 fte - programme coordinator: GLAM, Education, Wiki Goes Caribbean
• 0,7 fte - programme coordinator: gender gap, LGBTI+, youth
• 0,5 fte - communication: social media, website, newsletter

The requested 1 fte growth would mainly take over programme elements related to our work concerning the Caribbean. This would include partnership development, editor recruitment and content donations, as well as work related to communications and community support.

We are exploring whether it would be best to divide the 1 fte into two separate roles (programmatic versus communication/community support, for example), or whether it would be more effective to geographically divide the 1 fte over two countries/islands.

As mentioned in the previous question, we aim for the new colleague(s) to be based at the offices of one of our partners in the (Dutch) Caribbean. In organisational terms, the role would be a mix of Wikimedian-in-Residence and remote project lead. Although part of the WMNL team, the individual(s) taking up the role will have to be able to operate ‘solo’ and on a day to day basis will work closely with the partner. For this to work, good arrangements between WMNL and the partner are a prerequisite.

Some of the work undertaken by the new colleague(s) is part of our current work programme and will be handed over. This would free capacity within the current team to develop new activities and partnerships.

The movement as a whole would benefit from better understanding how you are developing the sustainability and self-sufficiency of your partners, and how your partners are using Wikidata as a tool to support their internal collection and data management.

WMNL would be happy to share our experiences - thank you for the suggestion. We could perhaps develop a Wikimania presentation about it with our partners Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library) and Maastricht University Library who are the trailblazers in working with Wikidata.

The Committee feel they would be better positioned to better understand your proposals if you were able to provide the following information: Who in the organization is taking ownership for increasing the numbers of women editors? Do you have any specific targets relating to increasing these numbers over the next three years? How would the proposed new full time employee help to address this?

The gender gap programme is the responsibility of one of our two programme coordinators. Implementation is supervised by the ED and by our two boardmembers who share the partnerships portfolio. It is implemented in partnership with long term partners Atria, IHLIA and a team of volunteers. The main focus of the new employee would be on Caribbean culture and history and the Caribbean community. In our experience, women in the region tend to be active movers, shakers and innovators and have been the majority of participants in our events and activities, even when we do not explicitly focus them on women. So any work focused on increasing Dutch Caribbean involvement would very likely also bring in more women.

As mentioned above, we aim for 15% female editors on NLWP by 2026. We aim at 1100 Wikipedia articles improved, 5000 items added to Commons and 5000 improved Wikidata Items per year.

Who in your organization will take responsibility for recruiting, onboarding and managing a new full time employee? How is the organization's current workload being reorganized to accommodate this? What is the timeline for recruitment?

Human resources, including recruitment and onboarding, is the responsibility of the ED in consultation with the Chair of the Board. In recruiting, we try to involve the community. In this particular case, we would cooperate closely with partners in the Dutch Caribbean

We have a standard onboarding protocol for new staff, but for this employee it will have to be expanded. We are assuming that the process from starting the recruitment process to the first working day of the new staff would take at least three months.

What contribution to recruiting new volunteers will the new employee be expected to make?

One of the key challenges for the new employee(s) would be to support the establishment of a sustainable Wikimedia community in the Dutch Caribbean and/or related to Dutch Caribbean heritage, history and culture. The employee will develop activities aimed at stimulating involvement, and provide a basic level of volunteer support

How is a commitment to recognizing the legacy of colonization, and the attendant power imbalance, being actively addressed in the work carried out in the Caribbean?

As an organisation, we have been uncomfortable with the fact that a programme of work aimed at dealing with knowledge equity and underrepresentation of the Dutch Caribbean (a former Dutch colony with a painful history of slavery and exploitation) is mainly run from Europe. That is the basis for our efforts to have people on the ground in the region, and work closely with local partners who will take a stronger role in activities. We would very much support the establishment of a Dutch Caribbean User Group, allowing the community to apply for and handle its own grants.

So far, we have invested in improving the technical infrastructure of the Papiamentu Wikipedia, have added labels in Papiamentu to Wikidata, and have facilitated donations of materials relevant to the Dutch Caribbean held in the (European) Netherlands. We are also supporting wikimeets and events for the Dutch Caribbean community in order to provide a safe and welcoming environment.

How will they ensure sustainability of the Suriname contributor community after or outside the life of the project?

We have only just started developing activities in Surinam. Whether or not a sustainable community can be set up, is not yet quite clear to us. We are very much in the exploratory stages and investigating what is possible. On the Dutch Caribbean islands, we are already a few steps further in the journey.

Are you considering support for other underrepresented language speakers, like Zeelandic or Limburgish, or for languages of non-Western Dutch residents, like Turkish or Sranan Tongo? How has the choice been made to prioritize language support and inclusion?

At the moment we have no plans to develop activities specifically targeted at Zeeuws and Limburgs (or Nedersaksisch). Although these Wikipedia-communities are small, we don’t see this as an indication of a wider, more fundamental societal exclusion of the speakers of these languages, as is the case for e.g. Papiamentu. We did not prioritise them, as we did not expect such work to make a substantial contribution to knowledge equity in the Netherlands.

As part of our explorations concerning Surinam and the Surinamese community in the Netherlands, we will look into the possibilities to develop activities for Sranan-Tongo, comparable to the work we did for Papiamentu Wikipedia.

Doing an activity for Turkish, preferably in cooperation with the Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey, would be absolutely brilliant! Sofar, the opportunity did not arise and with our limited resources we did not prioritise actively pursuing it.

Sandra Rientjes (WMNL) (talk) 12:37, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Review of Proposed Public Policy Advocacy Activities

Dear Wikimedia Nederland team,

The policy and legal experts have reviewed WM Nederland's plans in this area, and the described activities were found not to fall under the categories of public policy advocacy at this point of time, for which reason, it is not necessary to dedicate reporting and financial efforts to this activity. Should your organization plan during the implementation of this grant a more direct involvement in advocating for or against a specific national law or national policy with a structured advocacy plan containing elements requiring budget, you will need to notify the Program Officer who will coordinate the evaluation process again with the Global Advocacy and legal team.

On behalf of the Global Advocacy and Legal Teams, ABruszik-WMF (talk) 18:08, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Round 1 2024 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to partially fund your proposal for 411,840.00 EUR for the implementation period of 1st January 2024 - 31st December 2024, taking into account the current NWE regional budget for the year.

Comments regarding this decision:
The Committee and the thematic experts appreciated the work described in the proposal, based on an honest self-evaluation carried out in 2023, including the willingness to experiment with the facilitation of decolonizing collaborations between cultural institutions in NWE and the communities of origin for their collections in the Dutch overseas territories, and to embark into important research areas, such as the motivations of youth and women editors, which hopefully can be linked to the movement-wide focus on renewed strategies for gender organizing and youth.

We are looking forward to learning about WM NL’s expertise in developing the sustainability and self-sufficiency of your partners (e.g. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Maastricht University Library), and your intended extension of your well-received Kennisplatform to education.

Understanding that the decision of not approving this application as a multi-year proposal at this time is disappointing, the committee offered the lightweight review of this current proposal in FY25.

We thank you for your understanding, and wishing all the best for the implementation of your activities in 2024!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, –ABruszik-WMF (talk) 07:52, 29 November 2023 (UTC)