Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Community Archives in Singapore/Final Report
Report Status: Draft
Due date: 2024-07-30T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Alliances Fund
Report type: Final
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General information
[edit]This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving Wikimedia Community Funds or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their final results.
- Name of Organization: My Community Limited
- Title of Proposal: Community Archives in Singapore
- Amount awarded: 100760.73 USD, 134599 SGD
- Amount spent:
Part 1 Understanding your work
[edit]1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.
Our strategy involves working with volunteers and residents via a design-thinking process.
The first step of our project involves encouraging everyone to contribute their expertise and understanding everyone’s objectives for the archives. We organised regular, structured capacity building workshops to provide volunteers with the skills and knowledge needed to manage our community archives. Key topics covered included befriending, oral history interview, cultural mapping, data collection, accessioning and artefact acquisition. To reach out to residents, we also organised pop-up engagements, door-to-door interviews, and artefact collection drives. These efforts helped us inform residents about our archives and allowed us to gather feedback from the community about what they would like in their archives.
We also equipped ourselves with the technical knowledge to use Wikibase.cloud. We maintained regular communications with Alan, Christos, and the engineers from Wikimedia Deutschland. As a result of our discussions, we managed to develop our current data model with the help of Quickstatements and Wikimedia Commons. Based on the first 100 artefacts uploaded, we refined our processes for linking data both within our platform and across Wikidata in the linked open data cloud. Based on this process we have created, we sought ways to integrate our volunteers into the broader Wikimedia movement and generate excitement for the project. We organised a volunteer gathering to Wikimania Singapore, where volunteers participated in workshops and met with fellow Wikimedians who shared inspiring perspectives about their projects. In partnership with Wikimedia Deutschland, we also organised a Wikibase.cloud workshop for our volunteers, who helped to digitise our remaining artefacts. We also hired a paid staff to assist with batch uploading our artefacts.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?
There are several strategies that we find effective.
Firstly, the regularity and structure of our volunteer engagement sessions have allowed volunteers to manage their time more effectively. Our workshops, designed in a sequential manner like university courses, enable volunteers to seamlessly progress or focus on specific areas of interest. It also aids in volunteer retention.
By scheduling sessions every second and fourth Saturday morning of the month, we optimise our resources as well. Synchronising public engagements with our museum and cultural mapping teams has allowed us to pool together manpower and resources for these pop-up engagements and door-to-door interviews.
To recruit more volunteers and gather supporters for our project, engaging with the grassroots and befriending residents at our door-to-door engagements and pop-up events have been crucial. It is the most direct and personal way to inform residents about our project and gather valuable feedback.
Leveraging the expertise of our volunteers, many of whom are current or former librarians or archivists, has helped us foster self-sustainability within the team. By encouraging volunteers to conduct workshops for one another, we encourage mutual sharing and empowerment.
Additionally, maintaining consistent engagement with the Wikimedia community has helped our project progress tremendously. Our interactions with Wikimedia Deutschland have been particularly valuable, as they have dedicated resources and engineers to support our project, providing timely feedback on learning Wikibase.cloud and refining our data model.
Participating in Wikimania Singapore have also broadened our exposure to various Wikimedia projects globally. The connections made there provided fresh perspectives on how we could approach our project. The Wikibase Community Telegram Group has also been helpful in addressing technical issues promptly.
3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?
Our project stands out for its innovative approach to citizen engagement in cultural heritage digitisation. While Wikibase.cloud offers a user-friendly platform, the true challenge lies in mobilising residents and establishing standardised workflows.
We recognised that while Wikibase.cloud is user-friendly, residents require guidance to develop standardised work processes. Our professional archivists and paid organisers played a crucial role in collaborating with volunteers and Wikimedians to set up this framework. This initial investment in structure empowers residents to seamlessly contribute to the digitisation process.
Unlike traditional models that might limit resident involvement, our project empowers everyday people to actively participate in digitisation. By providing the proper framework and support, we remove the barrier of needing prior technical expertise with Wikibase. This approach fosters a sense of ownership and engagement among residents, enriching the project with mutlitple perspectives.
Once the initial framework is established, resident volunteers can continue contributing to the digitisation effort with minimal ongoing professional oversight. This resident-centric approach holds significant promise for other organisations seeking to democratise access to cultural heritage digitisation. By focusing on collaborative framework building and the empowerment of the everyday people, we can unlock a vast pool of potential contributors and ensure the continued preservation of our collective cultural memory.
4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.
We shared about our community archives to Wikimedians via different platforms:
- We participated in conferences organised by Wikimedia. For instance, we presented at two seminars during Wikimania to share related insights, updates, and challenges.
- We participated in networking events, such as the meet and greet with UNESCO representative Ms Maki Katsuno-Hayashikawa, where we shared our project with fellow GLAM-Wikimedians from Southeast Asia.
- During Wikimania, we organised heritage tours for conference participants, allowing members to gain a deeper understanding of our initiatives.
- Regular communication with Alan and Christos from Wikimedia Deutschland and Sakti from Wikimedia Southeast Asia provided opportunities to share progress updates, seek advice, and ensure alignment with broader Wikimedia goals.
- Through Conny’s help, we have met up with the engineers behind Wikibase.cloud, whose expertise and suggestions have been instrumental in refining our data model.
- Christos from Wikimedia Deutschland also gave us opportunities to share about our project with the Wikimedia community, such as through Wikimedia Deutschland’s TechBlog and user research interviews with the Wikibase cloud team.
We also engaged with underrepresented communities, namely everyday residents in Queenstown:
- We organised pop-up exhibitions and door-to-door engagements as a direct means of informing residents about our community archives.
- Our strategy to engage with residents involves using heritage as a tool to befriend residents. We realised that when residents share personal stories about their heritage, they become more open and confident to share and contribute their knowledge, stories, and artefacts to the collection.
- Leveraging on this strategy, we built up a team of volunteer befrienders through the frequent conduct of befriending and oral history interview workshops. These workshops equipped them with the necessary skills to meaningfully engage with our residents.
5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- Our introductory deck: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/gxdjsqkqxp2uo6004x2c5/AK5HhfKsk5s4cC9eT753VWc?rlkey=b23gieclzq0tqft9u371896hj&dl=0
Our Wikibase Cloud instance: https://mycommunity.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Main_Page
Items we have uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mycommunitysg
Volunteer Workshops and Meetings: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/pql3bdz44vrrlgho5nsja/h?rlkey=q2usso3yaf1t3mcmygc6549se&dl=0
Public Outreach: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/euy534o5kinoi4jztoh00/h?rlkey=zz0ugkm541n2kg5ld1c1iojid&dl=0
Volunteer Bonding: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/q9pzy661ya5y1hn9s37o7/h?rlkey=vwgagg4dewknbkcxlmsyjxllc&dl=0
6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Strongly agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement. | Strongly agree |
7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
Consistency is key to engaging with volunteers and residents. By establishing a regular schedule (e.g. every 2nd and 4th Saturday morning), we have created a reliable framework that allows volunteers to plan and commit their time. This consistency also ensures that our initiatives are not perceived as one-off events. Regular engagements have been instrumental in keeping residents informed and engaged with our initiatives.
Our volunteer team’s continued participation can be attributed to the relationships built within teams. The friendships forged make the process of working on the archives create a positive environment encouraging volunteers to return. The availability of workshops also serve as a key motivator for volunteers. Many are drawn to ongoing learning opportunities. Some have stepped up to take on roles as team ICs to bring the team together, creating a self-sustaining system.
Recognising the time constraints of volunteers and the extensive content to be covered, there needs to be a balance between collectively figuring out the database and providing volunteers with a foundation to work from and build upon. As such, we introduced a paid archivist who is actively learning, experimenting, and setting up the basics. The archivist accelerates the trial-and-error process and identifies the most crucial aspects for volunteers to learn. This makes the engagement more efficient, ensuring that volunteers can maximise their contributions within time constraints.
Part 2: Your main learning
[edit]8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?
In our application, we articulated our desire to learn how to establish a scalable model for creating community archives in Singapore based on Wikibase.
To achieve scalability, it is important for the platform to be easy-to-use. It is important that volunteers and residents can upload content without any programming knowledge. We need a low-code or no-code development environment – something that Wikibase.cloud provides.
Yet at the same time, we need to strike a balance between accessibility and having higher-code functionality. While simplicity encourages wider use, certain advanced features, such as the querying service in Wikibase.cloud, requires a level of technical knowledge. Having someone more experienced with the platform with the technical skills to initiate the system is vital. This initial setup paves the way for volunteers and residents to step in, learn the basics, and progressively build their skills.
We feel that the key question here is finding this balance between accessibility and functionality. To help us answer this question, we plan to conduct surveys and focus group discussions with our volunteers in the future. We hope to gauge perceptions of the learning curve, assess the adequacy of support provided, and gauge their understanding of our archives and the Wikimedia ecosystem.
9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?
We faced several unexpected roadblocks when implementing our activities:
One of the initial roadblocks was related to data modelling. We originally intended to replicate the structure in Wikidata. However, the comprehensive nature of Wikidata made it difficult for our database to fully mimic it. The interconnectedness of items led us down countless “rabbit holes”, creating uncertainty about where to draw the line in linking data. Fortunately, a valuable suggestion from Wikimedia Deutschland to directly link our data to Wikidata simplified the process and established a clear endpoint.
We faced difficulties due to lack of technical knowledge. Despite extensive documentation online, troubleshooting can be overwhelming for members without programming knowledge. We faced this when setting up a reconciliation service for our Wikibase instance and connecting it to OpenRefine. After going through multiple tutorials, we realised that OpenRefine was not compatible with Wikibase.cloud. Eventually, we adopted the more user-friendly Quickstatements as an alternative method to uploading.
While uploading items onto Wikibase.cloud can be straightforward, working with volunteers to extend these concepts into a cohesive and usable system presented its own set of challenges. Bringing volunteers to Wikimania helped contextualise our work within the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, inspiring practical solutions
10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?
Our project has opened exciting doors for the future. We're eager to leverage these learnings to make our archives even more valuable to our communities. This includes digitising and transcribing our oral history interviews, along with translating official documents. By making these resources searchable and accessible online, we can ensure their stories and knowledge are preserved for generations to come.
Collaboration is key to our continued success. We plan to maintain a close relationship with the Wikimedia Deutschland team, especially their Wikibase.cloud engineers. We will also actively seek out other Wikimedians who have undertaken similar projects, eager to learn from their best practices.
A skilled volunteer base is essential. We envision empowering our volunteers through participation in Wiki workshops, conferences, and activities. By equipping them with the necessary skills, they can become even more engaged contributors to the project.
With consistent effort from our volunteers, our goal is to develop a reliable and scalable model for building community archives in other neighbourhoods beyond Queenstown and Bukit Merah. This model will be built upon the valuable knowledge and experience gained through our work with Wikibase.
11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?
If we were telling a friend about our work this past year, the most inspiring thing would be seeing everyday people transform into cultural heritage heroes. We started with this idea of using Wikibase.cloud to digitise our community archives, but the real magic happened when we brought everyone together. Imagine a room full of people from all walks of life - students, retirees, stay-at-home parents contributing to the digitising process. It was not about their technical expertise; it was about their passion for our community's history. Wikibase.cloud is great tool, but the real power came from the community spirit.
12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- Wikibase.cloud Training Material (Recording from workshop with Christos): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/wsstg3s3ns01n1r77pqds/AOR_biCURkRHqcE8WWw_QHE?rlkey=e4tceknfalerzd6y5o663d7ug&dl=0
Presentation material (from Wikimania 2023): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bmjil02l8zg3mghn88sma/Presentation-Materials-for-Wikimania.pdf?rlkey=2z2c09ujilh44vmna0imb9epz&dl=0
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]13a. Open and additional metrics data
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
13b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Number of residents, enthusiasts and others who participate in our events or outreach programmes = 200 | 200 | 200 | Opportunities to share during Wikimania 2023 have allowed us to reach out to many participants. We will continue to organise workshops and engagements, particularly for our volunteers and residents in Queenstown, to induct them into the movement. | Tours & Seminars during Wikimania
My Community Volunteers
Pop Up Engagements
|
| Number of editors | My Community aims to train at least 50 volunteers to maintain our Wikibase.cloud instance and use Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. | 50 | 50 | We will continue to hold frequent workshops to allow volunteers to practise their skills and to continue to upskill. | We organised an online workshop with Christos. 20 volunteers attended the workshop. Attendance: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ybglsr02gtz2d2yrasy5i/Wikibase-Workshop-with-Christos.png?rlkey=obn74orfy77bygj9fs9ejhvhl&dl=0
We organised another physical workshop with our volunteers at our office. 30 volunteers attended this workshop. Attendance: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nychsoe496eqotvt73uv4/Workshop-on-Queenstown.jpeg?rlkey=3l64215fg5vh44rlwrvieirtv&dl=0 |
| Number of organizers | The 5 organisers comprises 1 community organiser, 1 professional archivist and 3 volunteer ICs from the archival team. | 5 | 5 | NA | The names of our organisers are as follows:
|
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons | Number of Wikimedia Commons Entries = 100 | 100 | 168 | We have exceeded the number of media files uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons. We will continue to upload photographs of our artefacts onto Wikimedia Commons, integrating them with our Wikibase.cloud instance so that we can better contribute to the Wikimedia’s linked open data. | We categorised all our uploads under “Mycommunitysg”. There are currently 168 files uploaded under this category. Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mycommunitysg |
| Wikidata | Number of Wikidata entries | 1000 | 1000 | Using Quickstatements helped us upload the artefacts by the project deadline. | We have 1000 items uploaded onto our Wikibase.cloud instance. Link: https://mycommunity.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Main_Page |
| Wikidata | Increase visibility of our Community Archives through one press conference, >10 guide tours and one seminar, proposed to be held during Wikimania in August 2023 | N/A | 12 | As the publicity of our archives is always an ongoing process, we will also continue to organise regular guided tours and seminars for the community | We organised:
|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?
No
15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.
N/A
16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- Photos of guided walks and seminars: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/oqj8knx4ift27g6ju6ji4/AMzGQwfGwBTfdA37PKcIszw?rlkey=w1id7iug3n6rbkajxjgax7ufl&dl=0
Example of artefact collection form: https://kfvwfc7bjay.typeform.com/to/AayPzA3R?typeform-source=admin.typeform.com
Attendance of workshop with Christos: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ybglsr02gtz2d2yrasy5i/Wikibase-Workshop-with-Christos.png?rlkey=obn74orfy77bygj9fs9ejhvhl&dl=0
Attendance of physical workshops: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nychsoe496eqotvt73uv4/Workshop-on-Queenstown.jpeg?rlkey=3l64215fg5vh44rlwrvieirtv&dl=0
Wikimedia Commons uploads: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mycommunitysg
Our Wikibase.cloud instance: https://mycommunity.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Main_Page
Photographs of Tanglin Halt guided tours: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/71izmqvv3tro5fqsnub6o/AOQOl55mI9CSvXHqjfDsWJs?rlkey=fdiiuualqcn70mbcrgmnmcaw4&dl=0
Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships
[edit]17. Organizational Capacity
| A. Financial capacity and management | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| B. Conflict management or transformation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| D. Partnership building | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| E. Strategic planning | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| F. Program design, implementation, and management | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| J. Governance | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| K. Communications, marketing, and social media | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| M. On-wiki technical skills | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| N. Accessing and using data | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| O. Evaluating and learning from our work | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| N/A | |
| N/A |
17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Using capacity building/training resources online from sources WITHIN the Wikimedia Movement
17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Lack of knowledge of available capacity building opportunities
18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?
This grant has strengthened our organisational capacity in many areas. For instance, we developed effective strategies to mobilise residents to participate in cultural heritage digitisation. The project also necessitated collaboration across diverse groups – professional archivists, volunteers, and Wikimedians. With open communication, we honed our ability to work effectively together.
Despite significant progress, we still face some challenges. Expanding our team with a dedicated community engagement coordinator and a technical specialist would allow us to explore the full potential of Wikibase.cloud, potentially integrating it with other digital preservation tools. Developing a long-term funding strategy is also crucial for ensuring the continuity of our community engagement initiatives
19. Partnerships over the funding period.
| A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame) | Strongly agree |
| B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups | Strongly agree |
19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Institutional support from the Wikimedia Foundation, Partners proactive interest
19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Lack of knowledge or capacities to reach out to strategic partners
20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?
First, conferences like Wikimania were fertile ground for networking. Community support given by partners like Jacqueline, Alan, Christos and Sakti was also critical. They connected us with other grantees who offered us practical advice, and with experts (e.g. Wikibase.cloud engineers) who helped us navigate technical issues.
Overall, we found that sincerity, clear communication of needs, and a willingness to learn fostered the strongest connections. Open communication is key. When faced with difficulties, it is important not to be afraid to ask for help. By expressing issues clearly and being open to learning, we were able to connect with individuals who had faced similar roadblocks and could offer solutions.
Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration
[edit]21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?
For our organisation, a sense of belonging within the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement goes beyond simply sharing the same goals and mission. It os about fostering a collaborative and supportive environment where everyone feels comfortable seeking and sharing knowledge.
Imagine a space where Wikimedians readily consult with each other, openly sharing their experiences and learnings. This fosters a sense of empathy, authenticity, and inclusivity – the bedrock of strong, lasting relationships. The more connections we build with fellow Wikimedians, the deeper our sense of belonging becomes. Every conversation, every shared experience strengthens the ties that bind us to the free knowledge movement. It's through the dedication of time and effort to these relationships that a true sense of belonging flourishes.
22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Increased significantly
23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
We were connected with many passionate members – Satdeep Gill and Sakti Pramudya from Wikimedia Indonesia, Joyce from SLY Art Space, Wikimedia Sandra Fauconnier from Open Refine, Conny from the Wikibase.cloud engineers team, Biyanto and Nadee from the Knowledge Equity Fund team, and more! The strong support and the relationships forged over the fund period gave us a much stronger sense of belonging to the movement.
These connections were all made possible through recommendations from regional partners, word-of-mouth, and the networking opportunities presented at events organised by the Wikimedia Foundation.
24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Increased significantly
25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
The grant enabled us to collaborate effectively with other members of the Wikimedia community. The support and recognition we received from the wider Wikimedia community solidified our sense of belonging.
Additionally, witnessing the real-world impact of our project on expanding access to free knowledge further fuelled our investment. Seeing how our work contributes to the movement's core mission of empowering individuals through knowledge sharing is incredibly motivating.
The grant allowed us to build our capacity to contribute more meaningfully to the movement. Developing new skills and expertise has empowered us to take on a more active role in knowledge dissemination initiatives.
26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.
N/A
Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration
[edit]We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.
27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
Yes
27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?
We have actively shared the learnings from our project with the Wikimedia community in a few ways: We presented our key takeaways at Wikimania 2023 over two seminars, sparking discussions and fostering connections with interested community members. We also participated in an interview with Wikimedia Deutschland’s TechBlog team. The blog post allowed for wider dissemination and asynchronous engagement with those who couldn't attend our presentations.
We would love to further amplify our project's learnings within the community. We would be happy to host workshops focused on specific aspects of our project, like navigating data modelling challenges or connecting Wikimedia commons with Wikibase.cloud. This interactive format would allow for deeper engagement and tailored Q&A sessions.
28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?
We do this occasionally (less than once a month)
29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?
We actively participate in online forums and discussions within the Wikimedia community. This allows us to share our experiences and challenges with other grantees organically. The seminars organised during Wikimania were also knowledge-sharing sessions. These sessions provide a structured platform for us to present our learnings and engage in discussions with other grantees. For instance, the meet and greet with UNESCO representative Ms Maki Katsuno-Hayashikawa, enabled us to connect with fellow GLAM-Wikimedian grantees from Southeast Asia.
Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance
[edit]30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
31. Local currency type
32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
N/A
34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.
36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
37. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.