Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/AvoinGLAM 2024

Feedback from the NWE Regional Funds Committee on your proposal

Dear AvoinGLAM team,

Thank you very much for your proposal, describing your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Northern and Western European Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wishes to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review.

• The committee is grateful to see that AvoinGLAM has considered previous Committee feedback, provided transparency on the involvement of the wider AvoinGLAM community in the preparation of this proposal, clarified the working relationship with WM Suomi, as well as worked on the development of a Theory of Change for its work plan and for its community.
• We were glad that AvoinGLAM has signed an MoU with Open Knowledge Finland, building even more stability for the organization as well as supporting the outreach and advocacy activities of AvoinGLAM through this cooperation.
• The committee felt that AvoinGLAM's intentionally vertical programming brings high levels of innovation and experimentation, and values the braveness of this approach, in particular, we identified a number of important and state-of-the-art themes, such as Wikibase experimentation and data modelling, as being of high value, and while there were some challenges, the Wiki Loves Living Heritage initiative led to new partnerships between Wikimedians and ICH partners, and it is good to give this initiative more time to develop. We also appreciated in the proposal the 'hacking AI' event as something that builds on your experience with 'Hack for open GLAM' and for your local context, the media art history and Aalto partnerships.

While elaborating on your proposed plans, the committee members suggested for you to consider:

• Developing clearer output metrics and including impact metrics that help AvoinGLAM understand and evaluate the impact of your own work on partners, communities, policy-makers or individual contributors.

AvoinGLAM's response: We are taking this as part of our Theory of Change work and initiate an ongoing discussion about measuring impact. We have in the recent years been tangentially involved in a couple of impact-related research projects, and we should better incorporate the learnings into our own practice. The mentioned projects are the CreaTures project (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures), especially the CreaTures framework, and the inDICEs project for measuring the sustainability and value of Open Access models of digital cultural heritage. In addition, we will draw from the Europeana Impact playbook for suitable parts and continue using the Theory of Change model.

We have aimed for having 1–2 impact metrics per program. We will revise them and/or increase the number of metrics, preferably in dialogue with the Grants committee by the end of the year.

• Including members of AvoinGLAM's community in the documentation, coordination, communication and dissemination of the projects you described.

AvoinGLAM's response: We have the opportunity to involve more people in these activities considering there are many people involved in creating them.

AvoinGLAM's response: In response to these comments, we will establish a Community development strategy.

• Develop a strategy for engaging new contributors beyond the initial events (e.g. volunteers recruited through new partnerships, e.g. the Aalto Department of Design and the Finnish Media Art Network, it is not clear how it is planned to retain these newcomers after the event).

AvoinGLAM's response: As part of the community development strategy, we will develop a scenario for deepening engagement with members from different communities. The robust basic model would be adopted for different stakeholders we plan to work with.

• Clarifying better the specific education-related objectives and goals, since under Point 9 of the application form education is specified but clear programs and activities, related output and impact metrics are missing (i.e. provide clearer understanding of the plans to include "vocational, tertiary, or higher education, Teachers or professors" in your work.

AvoinGLAM's response: We have not planned to launch a Wikimedia in education program. Instead, we are prioritizing strengthening our ties with academic programs in our areas of interest. We identify that as especially impactful for the spread of ideas of Open Culture.

An engagement model for academic stakeholders will be created as part of the Community development strategy.

• Focusing on a couple of areas that show the most potential or breaking down the projects into phases or steps, in order for these to reach a successful conclusion before moving on to the next phase/step.

AvoinGLAM's response: We understand that our program is plenty. Having many activities in development allows us to dynamically focus on some of them depending on circumstances.

We hope to be able to continue having an element of flexibility in our planning. It is related to the innovation approach, and responsiveness to external conditions that shape what is relevant in our work.

However, with more security for the continuation of our work, we are better positioned to make focused, long-term programming.

Considering the recommendation, we will strive to become more systematic and strategic in our planning.

• While you highlighted contributing to gender topics, the proposal’s description only marginally addresses the gender issue. The inclusionary practices around using the UCOC and initiating a rotating Steering Committee is a welcomed approach. It would be helpful to see how this work will bring in, support and sustain gender diverse participation and inclusive learning practices. The project could benefit from an overall framework/process of how inclusion will be facilitated and enabled. Furthermore, it would be helpful to consider in implementation how there will be handover, institutional memory and shared learning in the transition year-on-year of steering committee members.

AvoinGLAM's response: We value this aspect very much, and wish to point out that we are not specifically addressing issues related to gender but diversity on a more general level.

We have been willing to shift the focus from institutions to heritage more broadly by repurposing the acronym GLAM from Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums to Global Languages, Art & Memory.

However, the GLAM sector remains an important stakeholder in our work.

In addition, we try to facilitate culture and linguistic communities or individuals in their quest to safeguard their heritage.

Without the emergency of having to close down operations, we feel more confident in engaging the different content communities in our activities in our geographic area. Such relationships and trust, especially with vulnerable communities, are built over years of interactions, and should not be kicked off and abandoned lightheartedly.

On the other hand, our role focuses more on pipelines and practices than direct activities with communities. This is a principle we need to keep revisiting. It is the distinction between our work and the work that Wikimedia Finland does. The same applies internationally. The local work is always carried out by the local community. We are willing to break the pattern whenever needed or collaborate to harness a wider range of approaches.

Finally, we will take note of the recommendation to create an inclusion framework as part of our community development strategy to include diverse participants in our activities and governance.

It would be supportive of the Committee’s understanding of your plans if you’d be so kind as to elaborate on our following specific few questions:

• How does AvoinGLAM plan to coordinate Wiki Loves Living Heritage in the future? Will you be the sole global coordinator of this initiative, or would you try to develop a regional and global coordination structure, like we see for other Wiki Loves campaigns?

AvoinGLAM's response: Initial plan is to continue with one person's commitment to support data imports.

Also, the European Network of Focal Points has agreed to stay responsive.

A global coordination structure is the right direction, and it needs commitment to be created. Wiki Loves Living Heritage is not exactly like the other campaigns (it is not a photo campaign lasting for a month yearly), but close enough to make use of most of the good practices. Regional hubs have great potential in facilitating this. Working with IGOs needs diplomacy and agency beyond what affiliates may be able to manage. The Content Partnership hub proposes to cater for such expertise, and that should be explored. This is also a highly political question that needs WMF to be involved, and to be tackled within the global strategic discussions. As a non-affiliate we are poorly positioned to lead those discussions, but becoming an affiliate is an option.

We wish to start the process for creating the global coordination structure as part of continued dialogues with tentatively participating affiliates and projects as well as Wikimedia Foundation -led programming for such structures. It will be part of our activities with Wiki Loves Living Heritage next year.

• What practices are you considering for documenting and sharing the progress of your projects with the wider WM community?

AvoinGLAM's response: We are advocating strongly for using Meta for sharing case studies and best practices for GLAM projects and for the whole movement. In an ideal planning, sharing, documenting, reporting and evaluation cycle, movement coordinators could be incrementally releasing engaging materials in all those stages. The materials would be connected with the original resources on Wikimedia projects, linked with automatic statistical measurements and outreach channels such as social media. Sharing open plans would allow us to build teams and partnerships before committing to the projects.

The work in Wiki Loves Living Heritage has partly been an exploration of that. The Stretching Meta session in GLAM Wiki 2023 outlines the use of Meta-wiki’s features in creating the Wiki Loves Living Heritage website.

There are conflicting views on using Meta, but in my mind we should boldly go forward using Meta for the project cycle, as we do already, but in a much more fun and engaging way.

We would be willing to contribute to these goals more broadly by creating or joining a project around it.

• What conditions would be needed to be met for AvoinGLAM to have a stable second (e.g. part-time personnel or a committed volunteer) person who supports administratively the main coordinator, given the high number of planned projects?

AvoinGLAM's response: This is a fresh new idea and we are excited to think about the possibilities.

Our basic needs are met by being part of Open Knowledge Finland. The ED manages our payroll, communicates with the accounting agency and participates in creating project proposals.

However, communicating consistently about the projects would need more support. We have been able to tap into the shared resources for communications at OKFI, but our networks and ethos would need a person who is embedded in the Open Culture community.

The Finnish and the international environments are quite separated. This makes it difficult to choose the right profile. It would be beneficial to have someone leverage the international discussion in Finland. I can also envision the person being someone who is currently not familiar with the community, but willing to delve into it.

There are many fabulous people globally, and that is also an option, but it will not help in local advocacy. We will need to prioritize between local and global.

It is possible to envision a global ring of communicators, with WMF comms as a member. Our communicator could additionally be an organizer, able to coordinate activities both locally and globally. We would be able to share this capacity with Wikimedia Finland and even Creative Commons Finland, if that would be acceptable.

It is hard to imagine finding a volunteer for the job, we think people should generally be paid for their work.

It would be feasible to think of academic trainees that are subsidized by Finnish universities. They are expected to be paid the minimum salary for a period of 3 months. They would be rotating often, but the benefit would be that knowledge of Open Culture would be spread in academia, and they would bring fresh thoughts from the different fields into our work. Coordinating this work requires more time for the manager, especially if the trainees rotate. The goal would also be to engage as many as possible in our activities.

Should you find it beneficial or necessary to discuss these questions also in the form of a meeting, the Committee is happy to meet you. Agnes will be reaching out soon via e-mail to check this with you and schedule a meeting between your team and some members of the Regional Committee.

Please note, that due to restrictions on our ability to adjust our overall General Support Fund budget for this round, it may not be possible to fully fund this proposal. However, we do want to understand what impact a partial funding decision would have on your related activities or operations? (i.e. an amount between your last awarded amount and this year's request).

In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by November 14th, 2023. After this time, the Regional Committee will begin a final review of the proposal to make a formal decision. Thanks again for your work on the proposal and supporting our review.

On behalf of the NWE Regional Committee — ABruszik-WMF (talk) 09:43, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I will add our responses inside the original text. Best regards, Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) 🦜 18:13, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Summary

1. Initiate a living document for AvoinGLAM Community Development
   • Statement about how we can make everyone more visible.
   • Scenarios for engaging members from different communities. A basic model with variations for deepening engagement for different stakeholders. As an example: strategy for addressing educational/academic communities: Design, media, digital humanities
   • Inclusion framework for outlining communities and individuals we approach and how we address them
2. Develop the institutional founding documents
   • Additions to AvoinGLAM Charter 2024
     • eg. how institutional memory / handover will be managed.
     • Community Development document.
     • Added section for strategy.
   • Overall Theory of Change as a strategy draft
     • Miro board (draft)
   • Theories of Change 2024 for individual programs
     • Revise the metrics, taking inspiration from the named frameworks.
3. Practice more systematic / strategic planning
4. Start developing a global coordination structure for Wiki Loves Living Heritage.
5. Use and advocate for using Meta for collaborating on the entire project cycle (planning, sharing, documenting, reporting and evaluation).
6. Consider bringing in additional capacity through academic traineeship from the fields of design, museum studies, heritage studies, digital humanities etc. It will also serve the goals of the academic engagement strategy. This will require financial commitment for the trainees as well as the staff member involved.

– Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) 🦜 19:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Review of Proposed Public Policy Advocacy Activities

Dear AvoinGLAM team,

The policy and legal experts have reviewed AvoinGLAM's plans in this area, and the described activities were found not to fall under the categories of public policy advocacy at this point of time, for which reason, it is not necessary to dedicate reporting and financial efforts to this activity. Should your organization plan during the implementation of this grant a more direct involvement in advocating for or against a specific national law or national policy with a structured advocacy plan containing elements requiring budget, you will need to notify the Program Officer who will coordinate the evaluation process again with the Global Advocacy and legal team.

On behalf of the Global Advocacy and Legal Teams, ABruszik-WMF (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Round 1 FY24 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to partially fund your proposal for 60,000.00 EUR for the implementation period of 1st January 2024 - 31st December 2024.

Comments regarding this decision:
We value AvoinGLAM’s innovative project ideas, experimentation in Wikibase and data modelling, and the willingness of providing continuity to important prior spin-offs (e.g. Wikidocumentaries, Wiki Loves Living Heritage).

We appreciated the increased organizational clarity and stability, the distinctions between your national and international efforts and membership plans, and your MoU with Open Knowledge Finland, through which advocacy efforts can be coordinated across the culture and heritage sector in Finland.

We hope that this increased stability will provide space for better documentation and sharing of the results and methodologies of the group (e.g. learning from the individual projects, and the learning from and the process of setting up and managing the rotating steering committee, as a tool for gender diverse participation and inclusive learning practices in governance).

Thank you for your willingness to continue to work on metrics with the WMF during 2024, and for promoting the inclusion of underrepresented communities in the culture and heritage space during movement-level discussions.

We wish you best of luck with your implementation in 2024!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, –ABruszik-WMF (talk) 07:12, 29 November 2023 (UTC)