User:EGalvez (WMF)/Sandbox/Wikimedia Conference Session Notes

Learning Day

Volunteer Engagement

Strengths

Struggles

Something to offer in exchange - credits for students Sense of ownership Be fun and sense of belonging Partnerships and expertise Regular meet-ups (e.g. wikiSaturdays) Microgrant systems ($ for books, travel) Unity from shared culture and land Put photo of most active editor on main page Contest for best articles <-- works well Power to act solo Appreciation through blogs, media, on-wiki (thanks, talk pages, barnstars) Ownership & Agency Community engagement (indonesia) A2K - Diversity of roles of volunteers Prestigious fundraising program that folks want to be involved with Database list of conacts & history which helps in getting people involved Only accept Wikipedians as program volunteers

Distance (e.g. Australia is large) Professional organization and having paid staff - some volunteers dislike this Commitment Culture of volunteering Lack of volunteers Policies & rules Disruption Too few leaders - not enough time Burnout - people once active get tired People wait for training to get involved People don't want responsibility Dominant personalities drive people off Just getting started (very new) Fulfilling time commitment (Indonesia) Neglecting volunteers (eesti) Coordinating communications (CH) Retention (Shared knowledge) Not enough physical meet-ups (A2K) We don't know what to assign when we get new volunteers We don't have on-boarding process for new volunteers or board members (very important but very time consuming) Too much time to explain movement to new comers It's hard to trust people who come from outside the movement (some people) Its difficult to re-engage with community after a long period of absence Need to keep volunteers all the time or else the lose interest Lack of communications across departments (?)

Roles

New

• Internships
• Mentorships
• Financial support
• wiki project specific training (offline)
• Tutorial videos, handbooks, cheat-books
• Curiosity
• make a difference
• don't make it feel like a factory - think of ways to return dedication further than thank you notes.
• make sure there is an open door

Existing

• Professional training
• Access to expertise
• Connections
• Partnerships
• Support for grants (local & global)
• Documentation support
• organization has notability in the country
• developing skills
• fun/social
• have an emotional connection to wp already
• Document what you learn
• be responsive

Motivations

New

• Attend Annual general meeting
• Legitimate
• fresh/openness
• Connection to roots
• Personal interests attract new volunteers - new exxposure
• learn & challenge the existing group - shake up
• bring own projcts
• No vision yet
• Students learn with WEP, reinforce what they learn in school
• sharing vs knowledge vs altruism; learning, reading, writing
• Wiki Loves Monuments is very different - care more about photographs
• Provide opportunities
• Give access to resources, fund for travelling photos,
• Global underrepresentation for their culture & community; motivated to fill in gaps --> can invite new volunteers to help fill in gaps
• Money for projects
• Facilitation, connections
• interest/agenda
• Novelty enthusiasm
• Be involved, help
• feel more official
• identity "I'm a Wikipedian.."
• New, democratic , free
• Look at my edits!

Existing

• havint finished mission
• skills & resources (e.g. writing articles, content building)
• Bridge & ambassadors
• vision of how they will help
• "volunteers" is value - image of the organization is different of the organization
• cultural foundation --> "sense of community" how to measure?
• volunteers stay longer if they become paid staff?
• Career progression in organization
• Loyalty, invested
• ownership/empower
• Developing skills
• Career, life development
• Apply experiences to personal life
• Organizational changes

Strategies for Engagement

0 - 6 months

• Telling interesting wikimedia stories
• Role models
• Mentorships
• OFfline meetings
• Access to the brand wikimedia
• Swags
• Positive feedback (frequently)
• Public recognition (depending on volunteer)
• Connection to peer groups

6 mo - 1 year

• Shared power -- move up in organization
• Welcome! Frendly encouragement
• Praise --> Recognition
• Veterans being gracious
• Give them purpose
• Process for veterans to help
• Recognition in press
• Appearances at conferences
• How to help chapters groups
• Show them how to change how they edit
• Encourage them based on their work
• Mentors -> get veterans officially involed
• Give them opportunities to guide
• Online presence and connections
• Events for editors

1-2 years

• Local meet-ups
• Recognition
  • Encourage to run own project 00> Funds for projects generated from community, gives a sense of ownership
• Send to conferences
• Wikipedia of month/year
• Attribution via annual reports
• Engage other NGO's via jury
• Share stories in local newspapers
• Organize unconference and engage volunteers ; session leaders & facilitators
• Mentorship matching when facing challenges
• Be thankful to those who have been around
• Send cards & verbal gratitude
• What would they tell their friends and family?
  • their awards & their work
  • number of articles they've written
  • Good civic involvement & donating time

2+ years

• Keep providing opportunities
• Make sure people have fun
• Actively reaching out; make them feel there is a good reason to come back --> personalized
• offline - have an open-office day
• Announce frequently on the same mailing list
• It is important to meet people in person to keep volunteers engaged
• With online volunteers to need to designated times to engage them
• Make events a series
• continue to show appreciation
• Professional developing in areas they are interested in

Community Listening with Surveys

Group 1

• Think of what the results will influence
• Have questions related to your expectations
• Test the survey with people (board members, and wikipedians will help you make questions clear and distinct)
• Volunteers may question why an organization is doing a survey -- may get negative
  • Feedback about the survey
  • Challenged why you are spending money on this
• Posting survey to village pump and newsletter
• People compain I didn't hear, I didn't want to hear about this
  • related to topics they didn't like/do not contact
• List of questions are spcific related to where there was a problem (biased in this way)
• For proper survey, need to watch out for biases
• Doing surveys about community for replication in other communities
  • Publish Results: commons, WMNL, wiki-l, newsletter
  • Ask communities for input about approaches in the organization (e.g. communications, conflict training, gender, that may result in offline workshop)

Group 2

• pre-testing with board/community members - set up a test dataset
• know and communicate they WHY of your surveys
• Be clear how the answers can lead to actions
• Use communicate in the right channels --> local village pump
• Don't do it too often
• Focus on questions you really need - do a check for each question

Group 3

• Need to target the people intended
• Know who to target and how - didn't know how to use site notice
• Questions must be clear and exact
  • Still agenda to what you ask
  • Survey by WMF years ago - questions can skew results if leading questions - leading to answers by method, including inclustion of participants - some dont want to use google surveys
• Analysis - profession - sometimes need to ask/have someone who knows what they are doing
• Double check question - ask experienced outsider - pilot with small set of people
• Not too many questions or all same type of questions
• Open-ended questions are difficult to analyze - can cause fatigue
• Need balance
• Complex language - Response bias

Community involvement

• Discussion on limit to see what we should ask from who
• Learn what questions communities need to answer
• Allow to review an document on designed draft
  • Be cautious if surveys are for research in which knowing in advance may alter future answers.

Group 4

Strengths

• Understand demographics
• Getting information about interests
• Anonymity

Weaknesses

• Not enough responses
• Not representative results
• Targeting the wrong audience

Opportunities

• Close in time to an event (right timing)
• Test with a group
• Innovative and user friendly design

Threats

• Bad survey design
• Survey fatigue
• Lacking motivation and polarized answers