Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020 round 1/Wikimedia Armenia/Proposal form
Overview
[edit]- 1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organization's work in the upcoming funding period.
Wikimedia Armenia would like to apply for an Annual Plan Grant of 127,185,688 AMD (264,970.18 USD) from the Wikimedia Foundation for the period January 1, 2020 to December 31, to cover its following programs: Quality, quantity and diversity of content, Community takes its empowerment and responsibility, working along with educational institutions, Western Armenian Organizational improvement.
Concurrent development of quality and quantity: In its next year action plan, WMAM is planning to focus attention on developing both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the content. In previous years, WMAM had concentrated its activities mainly on the schools, where schoolchildren from Wikimedia clubs were writing articles mainly on sportsmen and show business celebrities leaving the scientific-educational content underdeveloped. After reassessing our action targets we have decided to focus further on scientific-educational programs. In 2019 we have started a professional program together with specialists of healthcare, which highly promoted the content development and wiki community activation in the Armenian Wikipedia. We are planning to accomplish several thematic projects in 2020, initiate cooperation with specialists in the spheres of medicine, economics, history, geography, settlements, popularization of our scientific potential and provide information on ethnic minorities residing in Armenia. Besides the mentioned spheres, we are going to launch diverse programs, such as establishing cooperation with the Armenian speaking scientific and cultural centres situated outside Armenia and other international projects. We have editors who are continuously active in different wiki projects and would like to participate in diverse projects. We plan to create thematic professional groups which will concentrate on developing content pertinent to their specific branches of specialisation, thus raising the quality of the content with competent participation with a plan to engage them in many other useful projects.
Community enlargement and development: The enlargement of our activities in recent years has shown that regardless of the participation of numerous editors we had the lack of experienced and skilful wiki mentors. We plan to organize training for wiki-mentors. All our projects and cooperation will have a format that will not only support the wiki-projects but will also help to develop the wiki community. We shall continue working on bringing back the editors who have taken offence and left the wiki community because of different reasons.
Wikimedia in educational institutions: The participation of schoolchildren in Wikimedia projects develops the ability of children to concentrate, to comprehend, to narrate in writing their thoughts. We give high importance to providing a chance of creative education to every schoolchild. That is why already for about 6 years, WMAM is establishing wiki clubs in different settlements of Armenian provinces. In 2019 we had new achievements in this process. We signed a memorandum of understanding with one of the provinces of Armenia according to which in all schools of the province they will establish wiki clubs. The management of two more provinces has already applied to us with a request to launch wiki club projects in their provinces. In the result of cooperation with the Eurasian University of Armenia in 2019, the Wikipedia training course was included in the curriculum of the University. We are going to continue this practice in other universities.
Western Armenian language Wikipedia: WMAM is not satisfied with the progress of the Western Armenian language Wikipedia, because we failed to form a Western Armenian wiki community in 2019 and the WA Wikipedia is edited by quite a few editors. After studying the reasons we are going to make essential changes in the process around the Western Armenian Wikipedia. We plan to continue cooperation with Galust Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as to involve other institutions. We think that the formation of the Western Armenian language wiki community is the priority in this respect. Unlike the Armenian language Wikipedia in the Western Armenian language Wikipedia we shall focus only on qualitative progress as we have serious shortcomings in this respect.
The structural and organizational reforms in the WMAM: It is necessary to invest an effective policy and productive set of instruments which shall be based on the recommendations of the management audit made in WMAM in 2019, in order to arrange and productively accomplish the above-described priority directions of development and other processes emerging from them. In respect of eliminating the causes that had made the audit necessary we have done a lot of work in recent months, we have clarified and redistributed the management roles which has helped the WMAM not only to come out of the crisis but to devise new projects and programs. In 2020 we shall continue this institutional policy.
- 2. Name, fiscal year, and funding period.
- Legal name of organization: «Վիքիմեդիա Հայաստան» գիտակրթական ՀԿ
- Organization's fiscal year: 01/01-12/31
- 12-month funding period requested: 01/01/2020-12/31/2020
- Currency requested: AMD
- Name of primary contact: Vahagn Piliposyan, Susanna Mkrtchyan
- 3. Amount requested.
Table 1
| Currency requested | US$ | |
| Total expenses for the upcoming year | 194․016․260 | 404,200.54 |
| APG funding requested for the upcoming year | 127,185,688 | 264,970.18 |
| Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year | 137,915,000 | 267,400 |
- 4. How does your organization know what community members and contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments or consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?
- Before drafting the WMAM 2020 plan, we had several discussions with our community in diverse formats and listened to their suggestions and observations. We have studied the effectiveness of previously implemented programs, taking into account the shortcomings. In addition, on October 11-13, 2019, we organized a two-day meeting in Tsakhkadzor, attended by about 35 members of Wikimedia Armenia, 2 staff members, active community representatives, and the head of the audit organization. All suggestions and reasonings of the community we took into account in drafting the Annual plan.
- 5. Please provide a link to your organization's strategic plan, and a link to your separate annual plans for the current and upcoming funding periods if you have them.
Financials: current year
[edit]The purpose of this section is to give the FDC an idea of how your organization is receiving funds and spending funds toward your current plan. Your current funding period is the funding period now in progress (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 for most organizations).
Table 2
Financials for the current funding period Revenues or expenses Planned (budgeted) Actual, until one month before the proposal due date Projected Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Revenues (from all sources) 78,336,000* 163,200 67,663,680 140,966 78,336,000 163,200 Expenses 78,336,000 163,200 56,508,000 117,725 78,336,000 163,200
Table 2 notes:
*Reported funding period is for six months. It, also, includes the revenues from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and Donations for Wikiclubs for six months.
Programs: upcoming year's annual plan
[edit]This section is about your organization's programs. A program is a defined set of activities that share the same objectives and a similar theory of change. Please share the general goal of each program, and then list the specific objectives that the program will meet. Please do not include information about your organization's operating activities in this section. You may provide information about activities like administration, staff and board training, fundraising, governance, and internal IT in another section or in a supplementary document, but please do not include these activities here as programs.
- 1. For each program, and overall
- Include targets for each of the three shared measures for each program, and overall. If one or more of these required metrics are not relevant to any of your programs, please consult your program officer.
- Also choose at least two grantee-defined metrics to highlight in this section, and include targets for each of these grantee-defined metrics for each program, and overall. (Other program-specific metrics may be included in your program objectives, in the detailed program sections below.)
Table 3
- Participants: The number of people who attend your events, programs or activities, either in person or virtually. This definition does not include people organizing activities, social media followers, donors, or others not participating directly.
- Newly registered: The number of participants that create new accounts on a Wikimedia project. These include users who register up to two weeks before the start of the event.
- Content pages: A content page is an article on Wikipedia, an item on Wikidata, a content page on Wikisource, an entry on Wiktionary, and a media file on Commons, etc. This metric captures the total number of content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects.
- A: See corresponding activity section
- B: See corresponding activity section
Program Participants Newly registered Content pages A B Quality Content Program 380 80 20500 - - Community Program 860 50 380 - - Education Program 960 300 14500 - - Western Armenian Program 50 5 260 - - TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 2250 435 35640 - -
Table 3 notes:
- 2. Please list your goals and objectives for each program. Please be sure your objectives meet all three criteria for each program
- The objectives listed are each SMART: specific, measurable, attainable and relevant, and include time-bound targets.
- Include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets, and remember to highlight your baseline metrics.
- Provide any additional information that is important to our understanding of this program. For example, you may include needs assessments, logic models, timelines, tables, or charts. Share how this program will contribute more broadly to movement learning, or explain how your program aligns with important Wikimedia priorities such as increasing participation and improving content on the Wikimedia projects.
Concurrent development of quality and quantity
Forming professional groups and working on sustainable development of these groups
[edit]We plan to form professional groups on specialized topics about medical science, economics and history; provide counseling to attract professionals with these specializations to wiki activities, popularize the wiki projects among specialists of these spheres and involve them into the activities of our wiki community. In this respect, we shall organize and deliver training, hold meetings, edition marathons, contests;
Information campaign on scientists
[edit]The academic community of Armenia had rather big achievements of not merely local but also international significance in the past century. However, regardless of how strange it might sound, there is very little information about this in the wiki projects. Consequently, we are planning to fill that gap with this project. The implementation of this project will promote the development of content about Armenian scientists and their discoveries in the wiki projects. For collecting information we shall organize visits for wiki editors to scientific research institutions and scientific archives. The wiki projects will be replenished with valuable content based on collected interesting content.
A Project on the Settlements of Armenia and Artsakh
[edit]There is very little information about the settlements of Armenia as in Wikipedia, as in other Wiki projects. It is necessary to fill in that gap. In the previous years, there had been unsuccessful attempts the reasons of failure of which have been studied. We shall organize thematic visit tours in the framework of the project to collect information, to take photos and arrange editorial marathons.
The Project Wiki Loves Mountains
[edit]Armenia is mostly a montane country, where there are thousands of mountain peaks and ridges. They are very poorly presented in the Armenian Wikipedia and Wikistore. The project will support the development of Wikitraveller. Besides the wiki editors, we plan to involve in the project also individuals interested in alpinism in Armenia. In the result of the photo contest on mountains, we shall have enough photos and through different cooperation, we shall enrich the Armenian Wikipedia and Wikitraveller.
Projects about the Ethnic Minorities of Armenia
[edit]There is very little information about the ethnic minorities who reside in Armenia, about their history, culture, settlements and celebrities. That is why we plan to launch four cooperation projects. Three of them will be with ethnic minority Yezidis, Assyrians and Greeks, one cooperation project will be with a religious national minority of Molokans.
International cooperation and contests
[edit]WMAM gives high importance to participation in international wiki projects. We plan to participate and have high ratings for participation in contest the Project Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth. In 2019 with joint efforts of the Armenian language wiki community Armenia was at 3rd place in the project Wiki Loves Monuments, having uploaded more than 21,000 photos. By participating in these projects we shall not only enrich the Wiki store and consequently also other wiki projects, but we shall support as well the unity of the wiki community.
GLAM
[edit]WMAM will continue the GLAM cooperation. We plan to launch local and international cooperation with the Armenian museums, libraries and cultural centres. Several important Armenian institutions are situated outside Armenia, such as the Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchy, Venice and Viennese Mkhitarian Orders, etc., all of which possess valuable libraries and museum exhibits. We plan to cooperate with two of these structures, which will not only greatly enrich our wiki projects but will raise even higher the image of the Wikipedia. WMAM plans to cooperate with at least four museums and libraries situated in Armenia. We plan also to start very important cooperation with the Depository of Ancient Manuscript named after Mesrop Mashtots (the Matenadaran) in Yerevan, which is a unique depository of more than 300,000 ancient books, manuscripts, papyruses and documents written in Armenian and other languages.
Wikitravel
[edit]The sustainable development of Wikimedia requires activation of new projects. By the results of our inquiries among Wiki communities, we have decided that the new projects should be the Wiki voyage. In order to activate the project and release it from the incubator it is necessary to have 1000 high-quality articles. We plan to attain this threshold within 2020. In the first place, we have to develop an Armenian language Wiki traveller community which will require a range of initiatives, such as round table discussions, training, cooperation and thematic projects. The articles on sightseeing sites of Armenia will be written from scratch and the articles about other countries will be translated from several languages.
A - 2 Wiki Loves Science trainings
B - GLAM cooperation with 2 Armenian Diaspora cultural centers
Community enlargement and development
A sustainable and diverse wiki community is a priority for WMAM because the quality development of the wiki projects depends on such a community. We are going to focus on enlarging the wiki community and enhancing its level of competence. We are planning to create adequate conditions by individual communication and preserving a healthy open environment to guarantee the activity of each community member. WMAM will continue to work on bringing back the editors who have taken offence and left the wiki community because of different reasons.
Recently we had held a two-day forum, in the course of which the representatives of the community participated in the discussion of issues pertinent to overall wiki activities, suggested solutions to different problems and raised their level of awareness. The meeting helped much to revive the unanimity of the wiki community. With this successful experience the WMAM is planning to have a two-day forum every quarter in 2020.
In order to have a resilient and mature community, we plan to hold training courses for the wiki editors which are supposed to raise highly the level of wiki knowledge of our wiki editors. It will also help to expand the community because the training course will have a format of preparing the most experienced editors in training other participants in future.
Part of the WMAM office space has been available for the wiki community. We are planning to organize different workshops for the representatives of the community, professional meetings and workshops in order to involve leading specialists of the sphere in wiki activities. We are going to pay special attention to supporting the initiatives coming up from the wiki community.
A - 4 community meeting-discussions
B - 50 Workshops at WMAM office
Wikimedia in educational institutions
WMAM is planning to expand its educational programs by entering the tertiary educational institutions and colleges.
WMAM is planning to organize training courses for wiki editors in the framework of the project Wikipedia Academy for new and already working wiki editors. At the end of the training the participants will possess thorough knowledge of Wikipedia, will join the ranks of experienced Wikipedians and will be able to become teachers for others.
We plan to start Wikipedia training courses in three universities. And make these subject part of the compulsory curriculum. We do have the experience of successfully launching a similar program in the Eurasian University of Armenia. It is stipulated that in the first semester of the academic year the training will be done by the faculty supported by the WMAM and later on the training will be delivered by the university on its own.
We plan also to enlarge the number and the geography of the wikiclubs including other provinces of Armenia. Thus in the schools of three provinces with the support of the local municipalities we are planning to establish wiki clubs which will be led and coordinated by the school teachers. The children will mainly edit the Armenian Wikipedia and the Wiki dictionary and the Wiki library. The municipalities will provide classrooms, furniture and computers, as well as salaries of the coordinating staff. According to the program the WMAM will arrange training of the teachers. It is stipulated to have one responsible coordinator for the arrangement of the effective work of the wiki clubs of each province.
The acting wiki clubs will continue their activity which will involve people of different age groups. These clubs besides the usual editorial work, will be supporting the clubs of the province public schools and accomplish different pilot projects.
An important component of the educational programs are the wiki camps. The most active children of the wiki clubs will be involved to participate in the wiki camps, as well as newcomers on a paid basis. While attending the wiki camps the participants will develop their wiki knowledge, will get acquainted with other wiki club members and experienced Wikipedians. The camps allow the WMAM to strengthen the wiki community and reinforce its unity. The camps are also an important instrument of encouragement and motivation.
With the enlargement of the geography of the Wiki clubs, we shall involve in our educational program hundreds of teachers who are using different educational methodologies in the clubs under their responsibility. We are planning to organize an educational conference, in the course of which the coordinators of the wiki clubs will have a possibility to share their success stories. The conference will engage besides the coordinators also teachers and representatives of educational institutions.
In 2019 we started using Wikipedia in schools, for teaching the subjects of biology and geography. As a result, the Armenian Wikipedia was enriched by articles with high-quality content, and the level of participation and attendance in the wiki clubs involved in this project has visibly increased. We plan to implement this successful experience for other school disciplines and in other schools.
A - 5 Wikicamps for different age groups
B - 12 seminars for teachers
Western Armenian Wikipedia
For the formation of the Western Armenian wiki community, we plan to establish cooperation with the Western Armenian organization operating in Armenia and the Armenian communities residing in foreign countries. We plan to arrange and accomplish training of different formats, cooperation, article writing and editing, camps for raising awareness about Wikipedia and Wikimedia movement, and supporting the successful accomplishment of the important wiki projects.
The structural and organizational reforms in the WMAM
We plan to accomplish several reforms within the WMAM which will support raising the organizational effectiveness and performance productivity of our work. In October 2019 by the demand of the Wikimedia Foundation, the WMAM has performed management audit, to discover the reasons for the negative phenomena and shortcomings causing inefficiency in performance. We must accomplish the main part of the recommendations given based on the results of the audit by the end of 2019 and by the accomplishment of the action plan of 2020 the recommendations of the audit will be completely fulfilled. We shall continue the transparent reporting process adopted by the newly appointed management bodies of the organization, raising the quality of communication inside the community through meetings, debates, forums and open discussion of complaints.
Staff and contractors: upcoming year's annual plan
[edit]- 1. Please describe your organization's staffing plan or strategy here, and provide a link to your organization's staffing plan or organogram if you have one.
- 2. List of staff by department or function.
- You can use this table (or substitute your own list) to show us the number of FTEs (fulltime equivalents) for each department or function, where one person working at 100% time would be counted as 1.0. We need this information about the total number of staff (FTEs) you plan to have by the end of the current funding period, and staff you plan to have by the end of the upcoming funding period.
Table 4
FTEs Department or function End of current funding period End of upcoming funding period Explanation of changes Staff manager 1 1 Community Program Coordinator 0.75 1 Treasurer, Administrative Coordinator 0.75 1 Communication and Social Media Coordinator 0.5 0.5 WikiCamp supervisor, event organizer 0.75 1 WikiClub Coordinator, GLAM Coordinator 0.75 1 Programer, technical supporter 0 0.5 Assistant of the President of the Organization. 0.25 0.5 Western Armenian Program Coordinator* 0.75 1 Total (should equal the sum of the rows): 6.25 8․50
Table 4 notes or explanation of significant changes:
*Funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the Western Armenian Program
- 3. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the current funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?
- 13,821,000 (28,794 USD)
- 4. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the upcoming funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?
- 46,279,860 (96,416 USD)
Financials: upcoming year
[edit]Detailed budget: upcoming year
[edit]- Please link to your organization's detailed budget showing planned revenues and expenses for the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017). This may be a document included on this Wiki (Meta) or a publicly available spreadsheet.
Revenues: upcoming year
[edit]Please use this table to list your organization's anticipated revenues (income, or the amount your organization is bringing in) by revenue source (where the revenue is coming from) in the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017).
- Use the status column to show if this funding is already guaranteed, if you are in the process of requesting funding, or if you are planning to request funding at a later time.
- Please include in-kind donations and resources in this table, as applicable, and use the status column to show that they are in-kind resources.
- Do not include money you plan to draw from your reserves during the upcoming funding period.
Table 5
Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period Revenue source Currency requested US dollars Status (e.g. guaranteed, application)
Wikimedia Foundation 127,185,688.00 264,970.18 Application Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 21,483,877.50 45,000.00 Planning to request Wikiclub Donations 7,638,712.00 16,000.00 Guaranteed Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 156,308,277.50 325,970.18 -
Table 5 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.
Operating reserves: current and upcoming years
[edit]Please note that there is a policy that places restrictions on how much FDC funding your organization can use to build its operating reserves. If you would like to use FDC funding to for your organization's reserves, you must note that here. You will not be able to decide to allocate FDC funding from this grant to your reserves at a later date.
- 1. What is your plan for maintaining, building, or spending your reserves in the current year and the upcoming funding period? Please use the table below to show the amounts in your reserves at the beginning, year-to-date, and end of your current year, and the amount you plan to have in your reserves by the end of the upcoming funding period.
Table 6
Year Year start Year start (US) Year-to-date Year-to-date (US) Year end Year end (US) Current year (e.g. 2017) 0 0 0 0 0 0 Upcoming year (e.g. 2018) - - - - 0 0
- 2. How much FDC funding is your organization requesting to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period? If you are not requesting any FDC funding to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period, you can write zero.
- 0
Expenses: upcoming year's annual plan
[edit]- 1. Expenses by program (excludes staff and operations).
- Program expenses are the costs associated specifically with your organization's programs, and do not include operating expenses or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. Program expenses may be the costs of an event, the costs of outreach materials specific to a program, budgets for microgrants and reimbursements, or technical costs associated with specific programs, for example. The programs listed in this table should correspond to the programs you have listed in the programs section of this proposal form.
Table 7
Program Currency requested US dollars Quality Content 22,275,000 46,406.25 Community 7,290,000 15,187.50 Education 44,839,000 93,414.58 Western Armenian 21,600,000 45,000.00 Organizational development 1,500,000 3,125 Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 97,504,000 203,133.33
Table 7 notes: If your organization has significant funding designated for specific programs (e.g. a restricted grant), please make a note of that here.
- 2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization's total expenses overall.
- These are divided into three categories: (1) staff expenses from Table 4 (including expenses for staff working on both programs and operations), (2) expenses for programs from Table 7 (does not include staff expenses or operations expenses), and (3) expenses for operations (does not include staff expenses or program expenses). Be sure to check the totals in this table to make sure they are consistent with the totals in the other tables you have submitted with this form. For example, your total program expenses excluding staff will be equal to the total in Table 7, while your total staff expenses will be equal to the total in Table 4 and your total expenses will be equal to the total in Table 1.
Table 8
Expense type Currency requested US dollars Program expenses (total from Table 7, excludes staff) 97,504,000 203,133.33 Operations (excludes staff and programs) 15,944,400 33,217.5 Upcoming staff total expenses (from Table 4) 35,337,288 73,619.35 Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 148,785,688 309,970.18
Table 8 notes:
Verification and signature
[edit]Please enter "yes" or "no" for the verification below.
- The term “political or legislative activities” includes any activities relating to political campaigns or candidates (including the contribution of funds and the publication of position statements relating to political campaigns or candidates); voter registration activities; meetings with or submissions and petitions to government executives, ministers, officers or agencies on political or policy issues; and any other activities seeking government intervention or policy implementation (like “lobbying”), whether directed toward the government or the community or public at large. General operating support through the FDC may not be used to cover political and legislative activities, although you may make a separate grant agreement with the WMF for these purposes.
I verify that no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation will be used
for political or legislative activities except as permitted by a grant agreementyes
Please sign below to complete this proposal form.
- IMPORTANT. Please do not make any changes to this proposal form after the proposal submission deadline for this round. If a change that is essential to an understanding of your organization's proposal is needed, please request the change on the discussion page of this form so it may be reviewed by FDC staff. Once submitted, complete and valid proposal forms submitted on time by eligible organizations will be considered unless an organization withdraws its application in writing or fails to remain eligible for the duration of the FDC process.