Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Belgium/2020

simple APG Committee recommendation

We recommend that Wikimedia Belgium receive a grant for 16,500 EUR for one year. WMBE continues with successful activities it has been developing in the past. We note that it should still be WMBE's priority to try and develop its outreach and recruitment of new volunteers. We want to commend the board and active volunteers for the energy they are putting in sustaining activities for WMBE, but want to warn against possible volunteer burnout and make sure that WMBE is finding support through nearby affiliates and peers.

For the committee, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 12:21, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

APG approved in the amount of 16,500 EUR

Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 16,500 EUR, with a grant term starting 1 January 2020 and ending 31 December 2020.

WMBE's plan is building further upon what they have been doing for a few years now, among the lines of their strategy that focuses on promoting free knowledge and enhancing relationships with readers, while supporting editors with a focus on enhancing diversity, of content and participants. WMBE exposes a clear annual plan, giving a lot of important context to outline their opportunities and constraints. Their program structure spans 4 main programs with common goals around quality content, motivating and retaining volunteers and teaching Wikimedia editors and outside people to use the WIkimedia platforms.

In its Volunteer program, WMBE is continuing effective collaborations with Open Knowledge Belgium through regular WikIClubs in Brussels. These events have supported good impact around content creation, new editors, and short-term retention. They aim at providing further opportunities through training and workshops on specific projects, writing skills, useful tools, and important concepts like free licenses.While WMBE integrates a dimension on diversity, aspects of their programs focused on diversity are mixed in quality. Some activities are well-defined and interesting, such as planned work with Commune of Asse where they will encourage non-native audiences to translate local heritage content into other languages, but it is unclear how they plan to pursue gender balance around content or participation.

The GLAM program is centered around existing partnerships to continue content donations, but those are often slow. An interesting focus is that of teaching GLAM staff about free licences and work with Wikimedia projects, especially Commons and Wikidata.

The Education program is mostly centered on a partnership with Gent University and aims to use Wikimedia Projects to motivate students to write their assignments. The partnership with Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) is around teaching Wikidata and Wikimedia tools. This program focuses on quality of content.

The Wiki Loves Program takes advantage of Belgium's rich cultural heritage to work with international campaigns like WLM or spinoffs from those campaigns. WMBE supports these campaigns in Belgium and provides training in various skills needed for the uploading and use of media in Wikimedia projects such as adding metadata to files.

WMBE plan is quite dense, and we know that WMBE has very few active volunteers, as it has gone through a restructure that has altered their volunteer capacity. It is good to see that WMBE is very aware of the need to diversify and increase its volunteer capacity through bringing new people on the board and attracting new volunteers to conduct their activities.

We are looking forward to working further with WMBE next year.

Best regards, Delphine (WMF) (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Midpoint Report Accepted

Hello Geertivp and Wikimedia Belgium Colleagues, thanks for submitting your midpoint report. We have reviewed the metrics, budget, and report and marked them as accepted. Thank you for your work for the Wikimedia Movement! Best regards, DSaroyan (WMF) (talk) 14:44, 10 August 2020 (UTC)