Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/GOIF 2024 Annual Grant /Final Report
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Part 1: Understanding your work
[edit]Per the recent update on the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy process, Wikimedia Affiliates that are General Support Fund grantees will fulfill their affiliate reporting requirements through their final or yearly grantee report.
If you are a Wikimedia Affiliate, you will use this form for your affiliate reporting and to address the affiliate health criteria. You do not need to submit a separate report to AffCom. Follow the guidance in the green boxes to report on how you met the corresponding affiliate health criteria.
If you are not a Wikimedia Affiliate, aligning your responses with the affiliate criteria is optional and not required.
1. Please share to what extent your programs, approaches, and strategies contributed to addressing the challenges you shared in your proposal. If they did not contribute as you believed they would, please share what obstacles you faced and what, if anything, you learned from them? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 1.) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 1.1 (Goal delivery). Describe how you actively delivered on mission goals, e.g. content creation.
We dedicated 2024 to strengthening partnerships with our partner institutions and community of editors by democratizing access to information, preserving cultural heritage, fostering community engagement, and increasing female participation in Ghana. Below is a detailed reflection on our programs, their impact, challenges, strategies, and lessons learned.
Program 1: GOIF and Partners Workshop and Editathon Series
Challenge: Sustaining and retaining partnerships and volunteers while attracting new contributors.
Strategy: We organized workshops, actively involved partners and volunteers in event planning, and introduced them to Wikimedia projects. For instance, we collaborated with a Wikisource expert, Mike, who trained our librarians at CSIR-INSTI on Wikisource. Based on what we learnt, we also transferred the knowledge to our other partner institution, Dallung and Jisonayili Library.
Outcome:
Improved content contributions: Wikidata: Created over 400 items on literary works by Ghanaians and over 300 Wikidata items related to Ghanaian art and artists, addressing a knowledge gap. Wikipedia: Added references to articles needing references using the wiki cite me tool. Wikisource: Transcribed the entire book Dark Princess, which was not transcribed [1]
Improved Digital skills and knowledge of copyrights: Members of our partner institutions gained some digital literacy skills, especially in navigating wiki platforms, especially with the introduction of WikiSource mix"n"match. By the introduction of copyrights and CC licenses, they appreciated the fundamentals of sharing knowledge in the open. In fact, over 15 librarians joined Wikisource and Mix and Match, enabling them to digitize and proofread key library resources.
A slight increase in female participation: A slight increase in participation through mentorship and targeted awards. Most of our contests had at least 2 women among the top four positions, with one emerging as the winner.
Obstacle: The major obstacle this year, aside from the usual power cut, internet connectivity problems, and scheduling with our partners, has been tracking progress using the Outreach Dashboard. This proved challenging, and we had to rely on Excel and SPARQL queries.
Lesson Learned: Moving forward, we need to adopt better measures such hashtags and acquire more training for project tracking to improve efficiency.
Program 2: Democratizing Access to Supreme Court Cases
Challenge: Limited access to Ghanaian Supreme Court cases for legal research and education.
Strategy: During Software Freedom Day, we engaged volunteers, developers, and students. We introduced participants to Wikidata, showcased a prototype Supreme Court case database app, and after which we gathered feedback from the audience and engaged a law student on the app. [2]
Outcome:
Increased awareness of Wikidata and its applications.
Developed a prototype app that sparked interest in creating similar tools in other Wikimedia communities.
'Obstacle: ' We have been able to build the web app with over 1000 Supreme Court Cases documented. However, the web app will need further development such as a more user friendly interface and a more efficient search capacity. There was a also miscommunication amongst developers as well, causing some updates to be made occur at a relatively slower pace.
Lesson Learned: Diversifying the developer team and having a contingency plan are critical for project continuity.
Program 3: Twi Wikipedia Health Articles Enhancement
Challenge: Limited health-related content on Twi Wikipedia, reducing access to critical information.
Strategy: We collaborated with Twi lecturers from KNUST and a nurse, applying translation theories (e.g., equivalence and faithful translation) to translate health articles. We also hosted contests and workshops to engage and recruit community members.
Outcome:
Twi Wikipedia Content: Created 421 new articles and improved 70 existing ones on drugs and diseases.
Enhanced health literacy for Twi-speaking communities.
See examples of outcomes here:
Obstacle: Some participants found the translation of specific medical terminology daunting.
Lesson Learned: Offering additional training sessions on translation tools could streamline future projects.
Program 4: Documentation of Fabric Weaving Types in Ghana
Challenge: Preserving traditional fabric weaving techniques and their cultural significance.
Strategy: We partnered with a media organization to highlight our work during Ghana Month, engaged artisans and chiefs of weaving communities for interviews, and documented weaving techniques through audio, images, and videos. Engaged a few community members in collecting information. These were members who contributed and emerged winners of our international women’s day contest.
Outcome:
- Increased visibility of Kente weaving on Wikimedia projects, especially Twi Wikipedia, with the Kente article recording its highest views.
- Produced two documentaries featuring two ethnic groups.
- Uploaded over 260 media items on Kente weaving.
- Sharing our work at Indaba led to an invitation to join the TAROCH Coalition. TAROCH which stands for Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage), a collaborative effort to achieve the adoption of a UNESCO standard-setting instrument to improve open access to cultural heritage. .
Obstacle: Technical challenges during video recording affected the quality of some outputs. Miscommunications with videographers. In addition some of the pictures taken were deleted while other were duplicates.
Lesson Learned: Investing in better equipment and technical training is essential for high-quality documentation and check in with videographers about what was communicated.
Program 5: Wiki Clubs Ghana
Challenge: Limited awareness and low writing proficiency among students, along with ensuring article quality and managing overpopulation at events.
Strategy: We ran awareness campaigns, workshops, and training programs while collaborating with student leaders to integrate research projects into Wiki Clubs.
Outcome:
Reached over 300 students,
Establishment of four new Wiki Clubs.
Facilitated the creation of over 1,000 Wikipedia articles and 3,000 Wikidata items.
Obstacles: Overcrowded events strained logistics, and extensive review was required for quality assurance. In addition to the above, we were faced with an IP block.
Lesson Learned: Strict measures on event registration to guarantee participation and better quality control measures can enhance efficiency.
Program 6: Nzema Workshops
Challenge: Limited awareness and content gaps in the Nzema language Wikipedia.
Strategy: We engaged Nzema language students and lecturers from the University of Education, Winneba, through a combination of online and offline workshops and contests.
Outcome:
Translated 83% of the target content on Translatewiki. Created over 40 articles, increasing awareness and content on the Nzema Language Wikipedia.
Obstacles: Our project lead, who was the main correspondent with lecturers and student leaders, fell seriously ill, creating a communication gap. To ensure continuity, we appointed an interim lead and delegated responsibilities to a backup team member. However, due to the strong rapport our main lead had built with lecturers and students, re-establishing the same level of engagement proved challenging. Despite our efforts, communication was not as effective, and student and lecturer participation declined a bit.
Lesson Learned: Diversify Communication Channels – Relying on a single point of contact created a gap when the project lead became unavailable. In the future, maintaining multiple communication channels and fostering relationships with multiple stakeholders will ensure continuity.
2. Is there a plan to build on the key successes you had? If yes, please describe the plan and if no, please share the limitations to do so. For instance, did the activities lead to any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future? (required)
Yes, there is a plan to build on the key successes we achieved in 2024. Our initiatives and activities have provided valuable insights, new priorities, and ideas for the future, which we are eager to develop further in 2025 and beyond. Below are highlights of how we intend to build on our successes:
Strengthening Partnerships and Volunteer Engagement: Building on the success of our workshops and editathons, we plan to continue engaging our partner institutions like Nubuke, CSIR-INSTI and Effutu, libraries such as Dallung and Jisonayili . We aim to scale up capacity-building efforts by working with other experienced editors outside our community to advance our skills in wikimedia projects. Additionally, we will address challenges in tracking progress by adopting tools such as hashtags and acquiring training for better project management.
Expanding Access to Legal Knowledge: The development of the Supreme Court case database app demonstrated the potential of using technology to increase accessibility to critical legal information. In 2025, we aim to finalize the app to ensure its functionality and engage more people by diversifying the developer team, seeking feedback from law students and implementing a contingency plan to ensure continuity.
Enhancing Content Creation on Twi Wikipedia: The Twi health articles project highlighted the importance of local-language content for improving health literacy. We will expand this initiative by offering additional training on translation tools to streamline the process and improve the quality of contributions on Twi Wikipedia. We will also work to identify key resource persons in a content area and work with them to ensure accuracy and relevance of the content.
While we encountered challenges such as technical issues, logistical constraints, and health-related interruptions, these experiences taught us the value of effective project management, contingency planning, and ongoing training. As we move forward, we are committed to applying these lessons to sustain and amplify our impact.
3. Please provide a link to reports that detail the activities that took place in the last year. This can include an annual report, Meta pages, and websites. If there are no links available, briefly describe the implemented activities and programs below or upload any files. (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 3.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.1 (Affiliate health & resilience), 4.1 (Internal engagement), 4.2 (Community connection), and 4.3 (Partnerships and collaboration):
- Describe your activities engaging new users, new members for your decision-making body(ies), and developing leaders and organizers (2.1).
- Describe your activities creating or hosting spaces to encourage greater collaboration and engagement among your members (4.1).
- Describe how you engage with the contributing community that you serve and/or support (4.2).
- Describe your partnerships with other affiliates or with non-Wikimedia entities (4.3).
Wikipedia Birthday
Wikipedia birthday was organised by the organisers of wikidata birthday who are all volunteers from our community. The birthday was a success, with various community members present including some members from Ghanaian Pidgin community. We had an overview of the history of wikipedia, tried some trivia about wikipedia, and later played some games to bond us. [6]
Nubuke Workshops: During our Nubuke workshops, we advertised the event on Eventbrite. This platform brought in at least two new participants per event. [7]
Midpoint check-in with the Community Resources Team and Regional Grant Committee[8]
Sharing of our Kente Weaving Project at WikiIndaba - [9]
Wikidata Book Hunt - A contest to document literary works by Ghanaian -[10]
Contributions to Nzema Wikipedia -[11]
Collaboration with Igbo Wikimedians to document supreme court cases - [12]
Outreach Dashboard for the Year
Excel sheet documentation
Engagement with Level 300 students - [15]
4. Are you interested in sharing what you achieved or learned this year with the wider community through different peer learning programs (e.g. Let's Connect program, Diff)? (optional)
Yes we would like to. In fact, we did share some of learnings via a Diff post and during WikiIndaba
5. Did you collect feedback from your community or target groups on how the activities implemented impacted them? If yes, please attach/provide information on the results (e.g. community surveys, stories, impact booklets/reports, interviews with partner institutions, etc). Did you collect other impact-specific data? (required)
For affiliates, the response to Question 5. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criteria 4.1 (Internal Engagement), 4.2 (Community Connection), or 4.3 (Partnerships & collaboration), where applicable.
Here's a link to some of our feedback. [16]
Sheet 1 Wikipedia's birthday: Take a look at column I to find out how participant felt and column Q to find out participants key takeaways from the event.
Sheet 4 Engagement with CSIR: Find out in column how relevant our engagement with CSIR is relevant to their work.
6. During the fund period, did your efforts do any of the following? (required):
For affiliates, the response to Question 6. also partially addresses Affiliate Health Criterion 2.2 (Diversity balance).
- 6.1 Bring in participants from the following groups: women, indigenous groups , people from lower socioeconomic status, young people, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA)
- 6.2 Develop content about the following underrepresented topics or groups of people: women, indigenous groups, underrepresented geographical regions (ESEAP, LATAM, SSA, MENA, SA), other
- 6.3 Support the retention of: Editors, Organizers, Partnerships
7. What, if any, effective tactics or approaches can you share that worked well when dealing with the programs under points 6.1-6.3 that you selected? (optional)
Encourage story telling, that is wiki experiences and journeys with participants.
Encourage participation and provide training.
Hammer on Gaps but also what participants soft skill participants will gain by attempting to close gaps.
Ensure a welcoming environment by being friendly, encourage participants to share their views, ask questions and involve participants in the facilitation process.
Think about shared goals and develop activities to meet both goals.
We welcome individuals who were not part of our community and had interest to participate in our evets to freely participate. We had community members from pidgin etc
We ensured that our events were lively and encouraged participants who easily grasped editing process to assist others. Fostering sharing and inclusiveness
We involve our partners in the organisation of events delegating certain tasks to them, fostering a collaborative engagement and trust building
8. If you developed partnerships, which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors (optional):
Board members’ outreach, Volunteers from our communities, Other, Permanent staff outreach, Partners proactive interest
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]| Metrics name | Target | Result | Comments and tools used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of all participants | 350 | 525 | 525 editor according to outreach dashboard. However this does not include participants at our wikipedia and wikidata birthdays as well as our Nzema community members who worked on Translate wiki. |
| Number of all editors | 400 | 418 | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IrpUNjr-M5765-BPzO95kIveIRYWeFos6qeKDZPdVdk/edit?gid=938745090#gid=938745090 |
| Number of new editors | 200 | 218 | |
| Number of retained editors | 200 | 200 | |
| Number of all organizers | 25 | 26 | This includes the 11 GOIF team members, 4 lecturers and 12 community members who helped with event organising especially for Wikipedia and Wikidata’s birthday and served as facilitators and jury. |
| Number of new organizers | 5 | 5 |
| Wikimedia project | Target - Number of created pages | Target - Number of improved pages | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 1100 | 2000 | 4309 | 3955 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 600 | 260 | ||
| Wikidata | 3500 | 500 | 8769 | 1822 |
| Wiktionary | ||||
| Wikisource | 312 | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | ||||
| Translatewiki | ||||
| MediaWiki | ||||
| Wikiquote | ||||
| Wikivoyage | ||||
| Wikibooks | ||||
| Wikiversity | ||||
| Wikinews | ||||
| Wikispecies | ||||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
11. Did you set other quantitative and qualitative targets for your project (other metrics)? (required): No
11.1. Other Metrics.
In your application, you outlined some other open metrics that you would like to measure. Please fill out the achieved results for each of the open metrics you defined.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Part 3: Skill Development / Capacity Building
[edit]12. Reflecting on your programmatic (external) and organizational (internal) work, did your grant support you to undergo any skill development that made a difference to your success? If yes, what skill was developed, and how did it lead to success? (e.g. received coaching on public speaking, attended training on nonviolent communication, hosted professional development conversations on leadership, learned and used a new tool for project management, etc.)? Can you share any materials? (required)
For affiliates, use this space (Question 12.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.2 (Diversity balance) and 3.1 (Diverse, Skilled, and Accountable Leadership):
- Describe actions taken to prioritize gender balance in affiliate leadership, as well as any areas of diversity relevant to your affiliate's context (2.2).
- Describe the management, financial, or other leadership skills of your affiliate leaders. If you have a succession plan, please include it here (3.1).
- Describe any training or skill development (as outlined in the question above) (3.1).
- Incorporate into the annual report a disclosure of conflict of interests (if any) from the leadership (3.1).
Yes, our grant supported us in developing skills in oral history documentation, which significantly contributed to our success in preserving and sharing cultural narratives.
Through our work on documenting Kente weaving traditions, we:
Enhanced our research and storytelling skills by conducting interviews and capturing firsthand accounts from weavers and cultural custodians.
Improved our technical skills in audio and video documentation, transcription, and digital archiving. Strengthened community engagement by building relationships with artisans, historians, and local stakeholders.
13. What is one capacity/skill area that you would like to focus on for the next year? And how do you plan to achieve this capacity? (required)
One capacity area we would like to focus on next year is Project Impact Evaluation and Strategic Planning.
To achieve this, we plan to:
- Identify and implement better tools and applications for data collection.
- Work with experts in impact assessment and strategic planning to improve our evaluation methods.
- Ensure strict adherence to event registration processes.
- Encourage systematic feedback collection to assess project effectiveness.
- Maintain a centralized folder for storing all key documents, forms, and presentation slides for easy access and organization.
14. If you have additional information or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. Use the space below to upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your report.
For affiliates, also use this section (Question 14.) to address Affiliate Health Criteria 2.3 (Good governance & communication) and 3.3 (Universal Code of Conduct compliance).
- Describe and link to any public-facing information on affiliate leadership, membership, elections, and/or decision-making processes (2.3).
- Describe any activities incorporating, promoting awareness about, or enforcing the Universal Code of Conduct in your affiliate's activities (3.3).
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]For affiliates, also use this section (Part 4: Financial reporting) to address Affiliate Health Criterion 3.2 (Financial & Legal Compliance).
| Description | Planned / received budget for this category (GHS) | Amount spent (GHS) |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel costs | 144000 | 310800 |
| Operational costs | 9000 | 26846 |
| Programmatic costs | 757070 | 554919 |
| Total General Support Fund | 910070 | 892565.3 |
| Other revenue | ||
| Remaining funds from General Support Fund | 14984 |
15. Please state the total amount spent from this fund in your local currency. (required)
892565.3 GHS
16. Please provide an overview of the amount spent from this fund in the following budget categories in your local currency. (required)
- Operational costs: 26846 GHS
- Programmatic costs: 310800 GHS
- Staff and contractor costs: 554919 GHS
17. Did you have any other revenue sources (e.g. other funding, membership contributions, donations)? (required): No
- 17.1. Provide the total amount received from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): GHS
- 17.2. Provide the total amount spent from other revenue sources in your local currency. (required): GHS
18. Provide a financial report document which will provide the details of funds received and spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
18.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
We used part of the budget to sponsor the attendance of two members to Indaba.
19. Do you have any unspent funds from this funding?: Yes
- 19.1. Please list the amount of unspent funds in your local currency. (required)
- 14984
- 19.2. Explain why you did not use the amount. (required)
- Due to some to the challenges we had with two of our projects. Where there a was temporal decline in participation due to communication.
- 19.3. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
- A. Propose to use the underspent funds within this Fund period with PO approval
- 19.4. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
- Support the development of our strategic plan with the services of a consultant.
20. Final confirmations (required)
- 20.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement? You must be in compliance 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 Wikimedia Foundation mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
- Yes
- 20.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
- Yes
- 20.3. 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
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