Grants:APG/Proposals/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Deutschland e.V./Proposal form

Proposal by Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. to support its annual plan with Template:Usamountrequested/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Deutschland e.V..

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• Use this form if you are eligible to submit a proposal in the current round, to request funding in the current round.
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• This form complements your organization's annual plan, detailed budget, and strategic plan. It won't be considered complete without a detailed budget and strategic plan.
• Organizations may apply for a funding period that does not exactly match their fiscal years. Follow the instructions carefully to understand what time period each question refers to.
• Refer to the framework, guidance from the Board, and the FDC's recommendations before using this form, so you have an understanding of the Annual Plan Grants process.
• Please Email FDCSupport@Wikimedia.org with questions about using the form.

A few terms used in the form:

FDC proposal form terms	Wikimedia terms	Learning & Evaluation terms
Revenue Spending or Expenses Currency requested Staff Long-term contractors Rate of change Annual plan Funding period Fiscal year	2016 Draft WMF Strategy Wikimedia project	Grant metrics Program Objective Goal Target Needs assessment Logic model Impact

Overview

1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organization’s work in the upcoming funding period.

The WMDE 2017 Annual Plan was developed with extensive community participation, described at length below under 4. The plan awaits final approval by the WMDE members’ assembly in November 2016. The WMDE 2017 Annual Compass, developed by the Board of Directors, is the basis for the Annual Plan. It identifies five focal points across three fields of action.

Compass 2017

Support, Attract and Retain Volunteers

● 1) Attract and retain new volunteers for Wikimedia projects

WMDE would like to increase the number of people who are actively engaged in Wikipedia for the long-term, in order to sustainably assure openness, diversity and quality of the project. In 2017, building on the analysis and first approaches developed in 2016, we gain new volunteers for Wikipedia and support their continued engagement. We take advantage of the reach of Wikipedia to encourage its thousands of daily readers to become actively engaged.

● 2) Support volunteers in Wikimedia projects

Volunteers engaged in free knowledge continue to be significantly supported in 2017 – logistically, financially and technically. The long-term viability and quality of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects is assured through volunteers that are effectively supported. Applications for support continue to receive a quick turnaround, and the support provided meets high expectations for satisfaction. Non-German speaking users are increasingly integrated and their projects supported. Finally, based on the 2016 analyses and successes, volunteers are empowered through strong, vital local and regional hubs.

Software Development

● 3) Expand Wikidata and further develop MediaWiki

WMDE continues to develop Wikidata as the central data backbone of Wikimedia projects. We extend the reach of Wikidata into the Wikimedia projects and beyond. In 2017, we will assure the sustained improvement of Wikibase and its interfaces, as well as technological innovation and further development of features. (These basic activities are ensured through funding from the Wikimedia Foundation. Development of new features beyond the base maintenance are possible given additional movement or external funds.) Technical maintenance is paired with non-technical activities, such as supporting and empowering our community, assuring data quality and building data partnerships with innovative institutions.

Further, it is WMDE’s responsibility, jointly with the Wikimedia communities and the Wikimedia Foundation, to maintain and develop MediaWiki. For this purpose, we set aside resources and capacity, so we can appropriately react to technical challenges, in a timely manner address technical wishes of the German and the international communities, and take advantage of opportunities for collaboration and innovation.

Strengthen Conditions for Free Knowledge

● 4) Strengthen legal and political conditions for free knowledge

WMDE strives to improve the political and legal conditions for free knowledge at the regional, national and EU levels. This is in tune with the mission of the organization to work towards equity in access to knowledge and education, and to do this in collaboration with our communities. In 2017 we work to impact policy, among others, on Open Educational Resources, Open Access/Science and Freedom of Panorama in Europe.

● 5) Together with communities, liberate content through cooperation with institutions

In order to liberate the largest possible amount of content to benefit the Wikimedia projects, WMDE and its communities jointly cooperate with institutions such as departments of education, research institutes, galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Using new and proven formats, WMDE supports institutions in their efforts to make content open and available, and communities in their efforts to re-use the content for the projects.

2. Name, fiscal year, and funding period.

• Legal name of organization: Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
• Organization’s fiscal year: Jan1- Dec 31
• 12-month funding period requested: Jan 1- Dec 31, 2017
• Currency requested: Euro
• Name of primary contact: Christian Rickerts

3. Amount Requested

Table 1

	EUR	USD
Total annual expenses of organization projected in the upcoming year	6,799,643 €	$7,581,602
APG funding requested for the upcoming year's annual plan	279,198 €	$311,306
Amount of funding received from WMF for last year's annual plan	1,200,000 €	$1,338,000

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?

Wikimedia Deutschland is a membership-based organization. According to the by-laws, the member-elected Board of Directors is tasked with setting the overall goals and priorities of the organization. The WMDE office, guided by the Executive Director, then develops goals, measurable objectives, and activities, and then creates the annual budget that assures the resources to achieve the goals. The members’ assembly then makes the final decision about the annual plan and budget.

In 2015 we started on a new path in annual planning. Instead of being presented with the Annual Plan 2016 to comment on, members and community were able to provide ideas and input on possible priorities as well as concrete activities at different points in the strategic development process. The Board of Directors then incorporated these ideas and suggestions into their decisions on the focal points (Annual Compass 2016) and the actual Annual Plan 2016. The 2016 Annual Compass consisted of ten focal points, which were then developed into goals and objectives by WMDE staff.

For the WMDE Annual Plan 2017, this process was further improved. This time, the Annual Compass 2016 provided the basis for stakeholders to discuss existing focal points, suggest future focal points and provide input into goals. Two phases provided opportunities for participation this time: at the annual members’ assembly in late May, we set up world cafe tables for each of the 2016 focal points, and solicited input from members on if and how WMDE should work in each area.

MV-WMDE 28. Mai 2015

During a second participatory phase we worked with issue-specific stakeholders as the WMDE staff developed the goals and objectives for 2017. These goals and objectives are outlined in the program section of this APG proposal.

In addition to developing the WMDE Annual Plan with community participation, over the last few years, WMDE developed a number of additional methods and channels to assess what our communities need to work most effectively in the projects. These include:

• The Technical Wishlist Project – The process by which WMDE, together with communities, identifies, prioritizes and addresses community technical needs related to MediaWiki. This process was begun at WMDE in 2015 and has since been adapted by WMF. It is extensively described here, as well as in previous impact and progress reports.

• Wikidata Community – Communication and meaningful interaction with this community has been a high priority since the inception of the project. Much of this occurs on the Wikidata mailinglist, as well as through the Wikidata Project chat. Until September of 2016, community communication was part of the product manager’s job. Now the team includes the community communications manager, who will continue to make sure there are close ties between the volunteer editors and the development team. She is the primary contact person for the editors, their advocate inside the development team, and she assures that the editors are informed about important developments. Her work includes regular consultations on important development topics, office hours, weekly community updates but also just being there to listen to problems the editors have – not only on technical issues.

• Community Surveys and Consultations – These are conducted on an as-needed basis, when we require answers to specific questions and insights into specific topics, such as the welcome culture survey we conducted in 2016.

• Volunteer Support Projects – Volunteer support staff is constantly in communication with volunteers active in projects supported by us, with those active in local hubs, as well as with those engaged the larger projects, competitions and events that we provide project management for. Input and insights gathered from these interactions continuously inform what we do and how we do it. We also develop and improve our funding guidelines and processes jointly with interested members from the volunteer community.

• Usefulness Surveys – In addition, 2017 will see the development of a regular, structured mechanism to assure that the services we provide to volunteers are considered help- and useful, and to incorporate suggestions from volunteers active in WMDE funded projects.

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.

Wikimedia Deutschland Strategic Plan 2014-18
Annual Compass 2016
Annual Plan 2016 (German only)
Annual Compass 2017
Annual Plan 2017

Financials: current year

Table 2a

WMDE Revenue 2016
		Planned (budgeted)		Actual, until 31. August 2016		Projected(2)
Revenue Type		EUR	USD	EUR	USD	EUR	USD
Donations (1)		2,489,528 €	$2,775,824	2,256,477 €	$2,515,972	2,489,528 €	$2,775,824
APG		1,500,000 €	$1,672,500	1,200,000 €	$1,338,000	1,200,000 €	$1,338,000
Membership fees		1,260,000 €	$1,404,900	1,464,143 €	$1,632,519	1,710,000 €	$1,906,650
Grants		566,600 €	$631,759	548,608 €	$611,698	543,500 €	$606,003
Carry-over		0 €	$0	0 €	$0	0 €	$0
Other revenue		15,000 €	$16,725	19,582 €	$21,834	21,500 €	$23,973
Fundraising management overhead		217,274 €	$242,261	50,000 €	$55,750	217,274 €	$242,261
Wikimedia Conference		152,193 €	$169,695	145,935 €	$162,718	145,365 €	$162,082
Total revenue		6,200,595 €	$6,913,663	5,684,745 €	$6,338,491	6,327,167 €	$7,054,791

Table 2a notes:
1) Our actual revenue from donations is now lower than reported in our APG Progress Report (with financials up to June 30, 2016) due to higher than expected transfer of donations to the WMF that were invoiced after the publication of our last report. In turn, this reduced our revenue from donations by almost 300,000 EUR.
2) Projected revenues here are taken from the 2016 Budget Amendment dated June 10, 2016. As of August 2016, some of these figures have been surpassed by our actual revenue due to larger than expected income.

Table 2b

WMDE Expenses 2016
		Planned (budgeted)		Actual, until 31. August 2016		Projected(8)
	Expense type	EUR	USD	EUR	USD	EUR	USD
APG expenses
	Program Cost: Software Development for the Movement	1,470,496 €	$1,639,603	601,743 €	$670,943	1,427,053 €	$1,591,164
	Management, Coordination and Developer Capacity	119,778 €	$133,552	79,142 €	$88,243	119,778 €	$133,552
	Administrative Overhead (1)	448,370 €	$499,933	190,138 €	$212,004	448,370 €	$499,933
	Subtotal	2,038,644 €	$2,273,088	871,023 €	$971,190	1,995,201 €	$2,224,649
Non-APG expenses
	1.1: Attract and retain new volunteers for Wikimedia projects	452,767 €	$504,835	259,912 €	$289,802	452,767 €	$504,835
	1.3: Strengthen political and legal work aimed at promoting free knowledge	396,967 €	$442,618	116,386 €	$129,770	385,397 €	$429,718
	2.1: Improve relationship between WMDE and volunteers	420,000 €	$468,300	232,592 €	$259,340	420,000 €	$468,300
	2.2: Recruit educational, scientific, and cultural institutions for flagship projects	113,000 €	$125,995	100,337 €	$111,876	113,000 €	$125,995
	2.3: Improve the conditions for free knowledge through OER practice and policy	180,000 €	$200,700	207,294 €	$231,133	221,108 €	$246,535
	2.4: Define and consolidate WMDE’s position within the international movement	330,378 €	$368,371	239,659 €	$267,220	323,550 €	$360,758
	3.1: Regionalization of volunteer structures: continue and analyze	75,000 €	$83,625	49,132 €	$54,783	100,147 €	$111,664
	3.2: Involvement of volunteers (2)	62,000 €	$69,130	1,894 €	$2,112	62,000 €	$69,130
	3.3: Clarification of WMDE identity and strategy	114,336 €	$127,485	54,905 €	$61,219	114,336 €	$127,485
	Subtotal	2,144,448 €	$2,391,060	1,262,111 €	$1,407,254	2,192,305 €	$2,444,420
Other program/program support expenses (3)
	Education, Science and Culture	54,439 €	$60,699	12,801 €	$14,273	54,439 €	$60,699
	Volunteer Support (4)	100,219 €	$111,744	4,349 €	$4,849	100,219 €	$111,744
	Software Development	125,284 €	$139,692	103,205 €	$115,074	125,284 €	$139,692
	Communication (5)	130,874 €	$145,925	42,123 €	$46,967	305,971 €	$341,158
	Event Management	131,590 €	$146,723	85,188 €	$94,985	131,590 €	$146,723
	Partnerships and Development	60,301 €	$67,236	38,871 €	$43,342	60,301 €	$67,236
	Subtotal	602,707 €	$672,018	286,537 €	$319,489	777,804 €	$867,251
Adminstrative and indirect program expenses (6)
	Office of the ED, Board of Directors	401,426 €	$447,590	170,322 €	$189,909	401,426 €	$447,590
	Finance	82,372 €	$91,845	63,667 €	$70,989	82,372 €	$91,845
	IT	207,502 €	$231,365	151,706 €	$169,152	207,502 €	$231,365
	Operations (incl. Works Council, HR)	608,556 €	$678,540	380,596 €	$424,365	588,123 €	$655,757
	Subtotal	1,299,856 €	$1,449,339	766,291 €	$854,415	1,279,423 €	$1,426,557
Total program and associated expenses		6,085,655 €	$6,785,505	3,185,962 €	$3,552,348	6,244,733 €	$6,962,877
	Risk liquidity (7)	114,940 €	$128,158	-	-	73,832 €	$82,323
Total expenses including risk liquidity		6,200,595 €	$6,913,663	3,185,962 €	$3,552,348	6,318,565 €	$7,045,200

Table 2b notes:
1) Proportion of WMDE administrative overhead (28%) allocated to 'Software Development for the Movement'.
2) Program costs shifted to program 2.1.
3) Other program expenses include expenses for Volunteer Support, Software Development, and Education, Science and Culture not included in the programs listed under non-APG expenses.
4) Program costs shifted to program 1.1.
5) Communications Department took over expenses for mass membership mailings that were previously allocated to the WMFG, WMDE's fundraising unit. As a result, these expenses are now listed in the WMDE expenses instead of WMFG expenses. In total, however, the costs that WMDE incurs have remained the same and are now only allocated to a different budget.
6) Total administrative and indirect program expenses without the 28% overhead allocated to Software Development.
7) Risk liquidity includes funds set aside for unforeseen changes to our annual expenses. This does not include specifically set-aside operating funds with a designaded policy, as defined by the FDC.
8) Projected expenses here are taken from the 2016 Budget Amendment dated June 10, 2016.

Programs: upcoming year’s annual plan

Metrics

Shared Metrics

WMDE appreciates that the problematic Global Metrics were redesigned. The new Grant Metrics are an improvement: Through the grantee-defined measures, there is potential to better reflect the diversity of the movement, while the three shared metrics are now more clearly defined. We look forward to the results, as chapters gather this data, define metrics and the movement gets a different look at the impact of our work. Since the new Grant Metrics were published with little time to set up instruments and determine baselines, in Q4 of 2016 we are dedicating time and resources to establish baselines and regular monitoring systems for the new metrics. Until then, the targets included below are educated guesses, and they will be subject to change as we adapt our measurement systems and as precise data sets become available.

Table 3a

Program	Number of participants (total)	Number of newly registered users	Content pages created or improved
Program 1: New Volunteers	70 (1)	750	does not apply (2)
Program 2: Volunteer Support	5,000	1,300	150,000 (3)
Program 3: Software Development	430	8,400	5,000,000 (4)
Program 4: Advocacy	2,400	does not apply (5)	does not apply (5)
Program 5: Institutions and their Content	700	20	7,800 (6)
Other (e.g Wikimedia Conference, WMDE members’ assemblies)	400	25	does not apply (7)
Total all programs	9,000	10,495	5,157,800

Table 3a notes:
1) Participants at offline workshops (e.g. inclusivity training, ‘main page’ workshops) and 1Lib1Ref campaign.
2) In Program 1 we will mainly focus on online campaigning, with only a limited number of offline formats. As we are testing a new method to systematically encourage readers to become editors, there is no evidence base to estimate targets for content here, nor is this a useful or easy-to-track metric, due to privacy laws. We are more interested in measuring retention of new editors, and will work towards setting up metrics and tools for finding out how many of them stay active over periods of time.
3) Mainly applies to new media files on Commons and new or improved Wikipedia articles.
4) This represents Wikidata items, however, the metric is misleading here. A rapid growth of the Wikidata item base only is not our main goal. Instead, a well-balanced growth of both size and quality is more essential for the project.
5) ‘Newly registered users’ and ‘content pages created’ are not a measurable result of the activities in our Advocacy Program, which works to improve the broader conditions for free knowledge.
6) Mainly applies to new media files on Commons and new or improved Wikipedia articles.
7) Working on content not relevant at these events.

Grantee-defined metrics

Our set of grantee-defined measures was selected from the objectives and their indicators in the 2017 Annual Plan (see also the respective objectives & targets below). For each of our five main programs we selected one of the indicators as our grantee-defined measure. These measures are central for monitoring the progress of each respective program. Nevertheless, the additional objectives and targets shown in the program sections below present a more complete picture of our work.

Table 3b

Measure	Target	Explanation	Mainly applies to program
Monthly increase of de:wp editors with 10+ edits	In at least four months in 2017 the monthly increase reaches or surpasses the respective 2016 figures.	Passing the 10th edit threshold is an important step on the path from new account to active editor. It is one key indicator of success for our efforts to attract new editors to the German Wikipedia. It is one key indicator of success for our efforts to attract new active editors to the German Wikipedia. Currently, each month hundreds of users pass this threshold, but these numbers are declining year-to-year. Success is defined by stopping this decline for at least four months in 2017. We will track this on a monthly basis, with special attention to the months following the online editor recruitment activities.	New Volunteers
Number of data uses from Wikidata in Wikimedia projects (--> ‘entity usage’)	Targets will be set on a quarterly basis.	Global measure. Further increase expected. The usage of data from Wikidata by its sister projects – measured via ‘Wikidata entity usage’ – is strongly influenced by critical development milestones (like e.g. enabling Arbitrary Access for Commons in May 2016). Reaching these milestones can lead to boosts in this measure which are best predicted on a quarterly basis, when major developments for the upcoming quarter are anticipated. Targets for this measure will be set and adapted at the beginning of each quarter and published on MediaWiki.	Software Development
Number of uses of new media items (resulting from 2017 GLAM cooperations) in the Wikimedia projects	5,000	This measure applies to the dedicated GLAM cooperations we plan for 2017 only. Here we are not counting the additional uses that will result from new media items generated by volunteer projects supported by WMDE in 2017 (~25,000 - 30,000 uses).	Institutions and their Content
Usefulness of WMDE volunteer support services	Not yet available Measure has to be developed until beginning of 2017. Data will be published on a quarterly basis.	To measure the success of the planned improvements in our volunteer support program we will establish a survey system which will systematically capture feedback of the volunteers receiving support by WMDE. An aggregated measure of different evaluation markers will allow for a monitoring of the usefulness of our support services for the success of the volunteer projects. We will publish this aggregated measure on a quarterly basis, and assure continuous improvement of our volunteer support.	Volunteer Support
Policy processes influenced by WMDE (qualitative)	Does not apply here	Strongly depends on opportunities for policy changes emerging. Will be reported via qualitative storytelling.	Advocacy

Program 1: New Volunteers – Attract and retain new volunteers for Wikimedia projects

Background

New editors are essential for the movement to assure openness and diversity, and to sustain the long-term viability and quality of Wikimedia projects. For several years now, the number of active editors in the German Wikipedia (and other mature Wikipedias) has been steadily declining, although recent trends may give cause for some slight optimism. This is a major issue not just for WMDE but for many of the more mature Wikimedia communities. With the activities in this program we hope to contribute to the movement knowledge base on new editor recruitment and retention.

The upcoming year’s program is a continuation of the 2016 work that laid the groundwork to test strategies that will attract new editors from the ranks of the Wikipedia readers. In 2016, the working group and teams entrusted with this focal point tried to gain a better understanding of the social mechanisms that cause new volunteers to join the movement, and then decide either to stay or to leave. We conducted a workshop with community members and engaged in other forms of dialogue, and interviewed internal and external experts on volunteer engagement. Activities were delayed somewhat due to the complexity of the issue and staff turnover.

To inform our upcoming activities, we conducted a survey among existing active editors with questions that aim at better understanding the ‘welcome culture’ of the German Wikipedia and at exploring potential support strategies for newcomers. Details can be found on Meta and in our APG Progress Report 15-16. We presented our planned activities at WikiCon, the annual volunteer conference for the German-speaking communities, encouraging volunteers to provide input, suggestions and develop activities for supporting new editors. In Q4 of 2016, we will finalize preparations for the 2017 activities. We will also prepare new, and improve existing support resources so that they are ready to be utilized once new editors start creating accounts. For 2017, we are planning a phased online campaign, aimed at attracting new editors, accompanied by support measures and resources available to new editors.

Goal, objective and activities

Goal : Increase the number of volunteers active in Wikipedia through an online campaign which motivates the highest possible number of Wikipedia readers to engage as active editors.

Objectives

Monthly Increase in New Editors (dewp, 2013-2016)

Objective	Target	Explanation
In the course of 2017, the monthly increase of de:wp editors with ten+ edits (and thus passing the ‘new editor threshold’) reaches or surpasses the monthly increase of the respective 2016 months.	In at least four months in 2017 the increase reaches or surpasses the respective 2016 figures.	Passing the 10th edit threshold is an important step on the path from new account to active editor. It is one key indicator of success for our efforts to attract new editors to the German Wikipedia. Currently, each month hundreds of users pass this threshold, but these numbers are declining year-to-year. Success is defined by stopping this decline for at least four months in 2017. We will track this on a monthly basis, with special attention to the months following the online editor recruitment activities.

Activities

In the remaining quarter of 2016, we will prepare for the 2017 campaign by continuing to build our understanding of the situation of new editors within the community. We will also assure that support systems and resources available to new editors are in place, updated and easily accessible.

To better understand the user journey of new editors, WMDE staff entered into conversations with community members at the recent WikiCon, trying to reality-check our assumptions regarding barriers faced by new editors. Active volunteers offered several program points around the issue, including ‘Ask the Greenhorn’, as well as many workshops aimed at newer editors, including an introductory workshop for newbies.

As a new introductory support format for new editors, we will develop videos designed to serve as the next contact point after a reader clicks on a campaign banner. Resources from the English Wikipedia for getting started will be reviewed and we will decide which resources, such as guided tours and useful help pages, could be improved or newly deployed in the German Wikipedia. We see much potential here to take newbies by the hand and show them useful and important hints to get started and make it to the 10th edit and beyond. There are many help pages in the German Wikipedia, but it is not always easy to find the appropriate information. A central hub for helpful information may address this, for example by gathering all FAQs for new editors and providing links to further help resources, with a specific focus on the expectations and questions of new users themselves.

Finally, we will prepare for setting up efficient and thoughtful monitoring and reporting systems for the 2017 program that will allow us to iterate and learn, to communicate and work with the community, and of course to share our learnings with the movement.

As of September 2016, our preliminary and still evolving project plan for 2017 includes the following activities: a four-part banner campaign, combined with accompanying activities based on the 2016 preparation work described above, in addition to already planned communication activities. The first banner already ‘exists’ – it is the ‘thank you’-banner that appears after the end of the 2016 fundraising campaign. It will include a connecting link to the set of resources available to new editors. The second and third banners will be published around February and September of 2017, more precisely timed after close consideration of competing events, planning processes and summer break. These two will have the sole focus of encouraging Wikipedia readers to become editors. Another thank you banner at the end of the fundraiser 2017 will complete the set.

Accompanying activities, through which we will reinforce and highlight the campaign messages, will be the quarterly Wikiversum newsletter sent to WMDE members, as well as the standard package we send to new members.

Program 2: Volunteer Support – Support volunteers in Wikimedia projects

Background

Supporting volunteers continues to be a main focus of WMDE. In 2016, we continuously improved our communication, application processes and ease of access to funds. We also worked successfully in providing non-monetary supports, refining and improving ways to support volunteer projects. Supporting local volunteer groups proved to be a strategy that empowers volunteers and enables them to combine on- and offline activities in ways that build social coherence and increase the number of activities. We plan to continue with all these strategies in 2017, and will further improve guidelines and processes as we learn from the community. We want to increase the number of active volunteers who apply for support. Although we promote our volunteer support broadly and work together with WMAT and WMCH to improve the services, our offerings are still only known to a subset of our communities. In addition, the volunteer support team will assure that groups of non-German speaking volunteers, such as refugees, are enabled to conduct projects with our help. We also want to assure that volunteers active in sister projects know about, and take advantage of our support services.

Goals, objectives and activities

Goal 1: Continue volunteer support services and facilitate access to support, including for volunteers active in Wikipedia’s sister projects.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
Through increased awareness and accessibility of our support services the number of individuals active in projects who apply for support rises (baseline: total at Q3 2016 compared to Q3 2017).	No target In 2017 we will increase the number of volunteers who know about and get access to WMDE support and project funding.	‘Individuals applying for support’ includes organizers of volunteer group activities as well as volunteers applying for individual grants (e.g. technical support, literature stipends etc.). Baseline: From January 1st to September 15th, 2016 258 individuals applied for support to WMDE volunteer support team.
WMDE supports at least three projects benefitting major non-German speaking user populations (e.g. refugees).	At least three supported volunteer projects	In 2015 and 2016 we have started to support this type of volunteer projects, e.g. the refugee phrasebook initiative or the cooperation of our Cologne hub ‘Lokal K’ with ‘Kiron Open Higher Education’.

Activities

Volunteer Support Services
This activity encompasses the standard logistic, financial, consultative, and technical support extended to about 500 small volunteer projects annually.

Large Projects
Here we extend logistical support to larger-scale, volunteer-initiated projects and events such as Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth, Wikimania, GLAM on Tour and AdminCon. Our involvement with these projects in most cases amounts to project management, and detailed organisational and logistic activities, so that volunteers can unfold their activities within a secure, well-organized framework.

Local Spaces
Given the potential of local spaces as catalysts for volunteer and outreach work, we are continuing our financial support of these spaces. Local spaces and hubs for volunteers are now established in Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover, with an additional one planned for Berlin. We will continue to learn from local spaces and their volunteer activities, in order to optimize the support services extended to them, to foster the learning and cooperation across spaces, and to support the incubation of additional spaces in locations where volunteers are active and interested.

WikiCon
The annual volunteer conference of the German-speaking community remains the largest volunteer-led event we support. It serves many purposes: as a community-building event for volunteers, as a place to start for newcomers, as a learning opportunity through the many presentations and workshops and as a community-building event. External speakers and potential partners have a chance to connect with the Wikimedia community and discuss broad or specific issues such as Open Data and Open Educational Resources. Last but not least, the organizational team gets an opportunity to shine and feature the local activities, and attract new volunteers. The call for interest for 2017 WikiCon has already been posted, in close cooperation with Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia Switzerland, and the planning kick-off occurred at WikiCon 2016, which took place September 18th - 20th, involving more than 300 registered participants and attracting many interested locals to the public area of the conference. WikiCon formats are being adapted in France and Italy, and to support the development of these conferences, we invited organizers to the German event to learn and share.

Goal 2: Further develop volunteer support services to improve the program’s contribution to the viability and quality of Wikimedia projects.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
100 % of volunteer support applications receive a final response within three weeks of submitting a complete proposal.	100 % final response within three weeks	This target is aimed at quick and unbureaucratic processing of support applications submitted by volunteers. We track this on a quarterly basis to ensure our application processes stay efficient.
To continuously improve support services, WMDE surveys all applicants and project leaders, assessing the usefulness of services and gathering suggestions for improvement. Results will be published quarterly and will inform the further development of support services that is done jointly with the community.	No target yet The ‘usefulness measure’ has to be developed until the beginning of 2017.	To measure the success of the planned improvements in our volunteer support program we will establish a survey system which will systematically capture feedback of the volunteers receiving support by WMDE. An aggregated measure of different evaluation markers will allow monitoring the reported usefulness of our support services for the success of the volunteer projects. We will publish this aggregated measure on a quarterly basis to allow for continuous improvement of our volunteer support.
In order to effectively shape our project collaboration with volunteers, WMDE continues the development of guidelines for support services together with the supported community members.	Agreed guidelines and other resources are published until Q3 2017.

Activities

Continuous Improvement of Volunteer Services
In 2017, we will survey all applicants for volunteer support services on a regular basis. We want to find out to what degree WMDE support is considered helpful and gather suggestions for improvement from supported volunteers. Results will be regularly published and discussed with interested community members. Based on these inputs, we will continue to improve our support offers, services, processes and communications (including our support portal WP:FÖ) through dialogue and iterations with the active users of the program. New help resources (such as FAQs) will be developed together with volunteers. Everything we learn around volunteer support will be continuously shared with the movement.

Volunteer Recognition and Appreciation
WMDE will continue the work begun in 2016 around creating opportunities to recognize and reward volunteers active in the projects. Specific tools will be improved and offered, such as volunteer IDs, certificates, and certified documentation of volunteer hours. Volunteer projects and success stories will be highlighted in blog posts. We will also continue the cooperation with the National Network for Civic Engagement. This extensive and politically powerful association of organizations that support civic engagement is cooperating with WMDE to jointly gain a better understanding of civic engagement in the digital world, and to assure that the public and decision makers fully recognize the enormous societal value of digital engagement.

Program 3: Software Development – Expand Wikidata and further develop MediaWiki

Background

Wikidata and its active community have grown by leaps and bounds in 2016. In the first half of the year only, the community of very active editors grew by 12% and the total number of statements by 27%. The community continues to justifiably have high expectations towards the project and its further development. By providing maintenance and careful upkeep of the software, as well as development of a limited number of additional features we assure that Wikidata lives up to the expectations related to infrastructure and usability. The community is strengthened, not only through technical developments, but also through introducing new developers and institutions who then independently start to work on and contribute to the project.

In 2017, in addition to continued assurance of the healthy development of software and community, we plan to focus on further growing Wikidata’s reach into Wikimedia projects, with particular effort aimed at Wikimedia Commons and Wiktionary.

Finally, WMDE’s software development team will continue the successful and well-received work in community-centered software development. This means that we will allocate continued engineering and communication resources to processing and addressing community wishes and to developing support formats for volunteer developers.

The base funding for Wikidata is now secured until June of 2017 through a contract between WMF and WMDE, based on the Wikidata goals outlined in the Annual Plan 2016.

Goals, objectives and activities

Goal 1: Continue to assure the technical and social sustainability of Wikidata (software and community) as the central, structured knowledge data base for the Wikimedia movement and beyond.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
The quality and quantity of data in Wikidata as well the health of the community continue to develop positively based on the key performance indicators for content, usage, community and quality.	Measures develop continuously positively. No yearly quantitative targets. Targets for this objective are set on a quarterly basis.	Targets for this objective will be set and adapted at the beginning of each quarter and published on MediaWiki. For an overview of our current Wikidata KPIs please refer to our latest APG progress report. More detailed metrics are constantly available in the Wikidata dashboards.
Jointly with the Wikidata Community, WMDE supports a minimum of one institution to contribute to and to use Wikidata, publishes related success stories and motivates additional institutions beyond 2017 to contribute to Wikidata.	Cooperation with at least one institution At least one success story is published until end of Q4.

Activities

Wikidata Conference
This event, still very much in the idea stage, would serve as a 5th birthday celebration, for the first time bringing together the Wikidata community to talk about Wikidata themes only, to discuss how we proceed after the first five years, and allow time for reflection and community building.

Data Partnerships
We will continue our work with institutions (such as UNESCO, and others who approach us), and incorporate learnings as we go. We will improve, add to, and better structure the knowledge resources available to GLAM and other institutions, including technical documentation and guidelines. Ultimately, we would like to see institutions and their stakeholders work with us as data partners, and then stay around as community members.

Sourcecode Berlin
This podcast and blog has now been well-established among the target group community (~1,200 listeners per month/ average Jan-Aug 2016). It serves as a gateway to the international developer community, and continues to introduce technical themes from all Wikimedia projects, Wikidata only being one aspect.

Technical Developments
We continue to apply agile development principles in our engineering work. This means that milestones and goals around maintenance and upkeep will be reviewed and decided upon on a quarterly basis, in close coordination with WMF product and engineering teams. Overall aims in 2017 include further increasing usability and removing barriers, as well as improving the re-usability of data through further refining the query service.

Quality & Community Health
2017 will see solid work in this area, as we have finally filled the position of community communications manager. We will be able to improve and increase the communication with the Wikidata community, as well as with collaborating Wikimedia communities. We will be able to respond to requests, suggestions and concerns more quickly, and be able to better analyze community preferences and health, and react to our findings. We will also be able to provide support to movement activities such as the EuropeanaOne project, by communicating these projects to our community and encouraging participation.

Goal 2: Continue to increase the reach of Wikidata into the Wikimedia projects.

Objectives

Wikidata Entity Usage All Wikis (by September 2016)

Objective	Target	Explanation
The usage of data from Wikidata by sister projects continues to increase according to the key performance indicators for usage and community.	No yearly targets for ‘Wikidata entity usage’ Targets for ‘Wikidata entity usage’ are set on a quarterly basis.	The usage of data from Wikidata by its sister projects – measured via ‘Wikidata entity usage’ – is strongly influenced by critical development milestones (like e.g. enabling Abitrary Access for Commons in May 2016). Reaching these milestones can lead to boosts in this measure which are best predicted on a quarterly basis, when major developments for the upcoming quarter are known. Targets for this measure will be set and adapted at the beginning of each quarter and published on MediaWiki. More detail for ‘Wikidata entity usage’ is available in the Wikidata dashboards.
WMDE, jointly with the Commons community, develops a plan for the migration of unstructured Commons data.	Plan is agreed upon until end of Q4 at the latest. As part of this process, technical pre-conditions for a migration will constantly be developed, shared with the Commons community and tested throughout 2017.	The commitment of the Commons community is a key condition for the move of Wikimedia Commons towards structured data.
By the end of 2017, the ability to store lexicographical data in a structured manner in Wikidata is assured and first lexicographical data is stored in Wikidata.	By end of 2017, first lexicographical data is stored in Wikidata.	The ability to store lexicographical data in a structured manner in Wikidata is a key technical condition for the future support of Wiktionary through Wikidata.

Activities

Wiktionary
Wiktionary is Wikidata’s third-largest sister project, both in terms of active editors and readers. It is a unique resource, with the goal to provide a dictionary for every language, in every language. Since the beginning of Wikidata but increasingly over the past months WMDE received more and more requests for supporting Wiktionary and lexicographical data in Wikidata. The 2017 plan to make Wikidata useful for Wiktionary will have implications beyond these two Wikimedia projects: For the first time, lexicographical data will be made machine-readable. In addition to providing a database of the things in this world, Wikidata will provide an open data system for the language(s) in this world. Having this data available openly and freely licensed is a major step forward in automated translation, text analysis, text generation and much more. It will also enable and ease research.

Most importantly this work will enable the individual Wiktionary communities to work more closely together, benefit from each others' work, help to support and grow these communities, and set the stage to build additional tools that support their editors.

In 2016, in preparation, we are working on automated inter-wiki links, connecting pages with the same name on the different Wiktionaries to each other. In 2017, we plan to make lexicographical data storable. Details can be found in the latest version of the Wiktionary proposal, in this presentation, and on the project page. We are currently soliciting comments and suggestions, from people familiar with either one or both projects, on this proposal which has been around and updated for over three years now.

Wikimedia Commons
We will continue the work around the Wikidata integration for Commons. This year’s groundwork includes finalizing the plan for migration based on tests and feedback, extending the system of demos, and then moving from demo versions to going live. Here, communication and constant feedback loops will be crucial.

Ultimately, we hope to see an increase in the KPIs that indicate the utilization of Wikidata in the Wikimedia projects. Using baselines as of January 1st, 2017, our quarterly forecasts, and relating them to the going live of features and functions we will be able to evaluate the progress towards our goals.

Goal 3: Continue development of MediaWiki jointly with the Wikimedia communities and the Wikimedia Foundation, so that volunteers are able to utilize the software effectively. This work includes the focus on community technical needs, sustained quality assurance and strengthened connections with Wikimedia communities internationally.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
The WMDE Software Development Department continuously implements solutions to user requests based on the ‘technical wishlist’, utilizing periodic feedback iterations.	At least 200 editors engage in voting on/ discussing the upcoming 2017 wish list. Minimum eight feedback iterations around new features with at least 80 participants in total (online & offline)	Baseline: 235 editors engaged in voting on/ discussing the 2015 German-speaking community’s wish list Note: By refining and expanding the technical wishes project during the last two years, we now offer many additional ways to participate in the discussion around technical wishes. Participation in the main survey therefore is not expected to increase indefinitely.
By the end of 2017, WMDE tests, evaluates and publishes a variety of support formats for volunteer developers.	At least 2 support formats are tested, evaluated and published until end of 2017.

Activities

The Technical Wishes Project Logo

Technical Wishes Project
In 2016, we further refined the processes around gathering and prioritizing the technical wishes from the German-speaking community, and addressing them, together with volunteer developers, through a dedicated developer team within the WMDE Software Development Department. The process in 2015 was also adapted by the WMF Community Tech Team. The process, as well as both the German and international wish lists and teams are now increasingly coordinated.

In 2017, we will continue the now proven processes of a community wish list survey, and the subsequent online prioritization of wishes through voting by the community. Identified and prioritized wishes will then be addressed by the product manager and developers. Here, several feedback loops are crucial to have new features tested and receive community evaluations, or to make decisions about which route to take on a given requested feature with community participation.

In addition, we will further increase the communication and coordination with the English-speaking and international communities. This will help ensuring that wikis across language versions do not increasingly look or function differently. This work includes collaborative steps such as announcing when a new feature has been created for the German community, to check if the feature is desired in other wikis. We also created an English version of the German wishlist featuring those wishes we are currently working on and allowing for feedback loops with the international community. We are in a continued collaboration with Community Tech and other WMF product teams, since many community wishes affect areas of other teams or even touch on basic MediaWiki development questions.

Support Formats
Volunteer developers all across the world work to improve the MediaWiki software. We want to assure that these volunteers continue to work on code, alone and with us, and that they feel ownership, recognition and empowerment. The fact that the WMDE Software Development Department addresses many of the articulated wishes is not intended to lead to a decrease in online volunteer engagement. Therefore we are planning to test formats to support these volunteers, which may include: code review, workshops, office hour, service hour, or hackathon supports. We will test two of these formats in 2017, evaluate the outcome and response, and report the results back into the movement.

Program 4: Advocacy – Strengthen legal and political conditions for free knowledge

Background

The development of free knowledge is dependent upon the political environment within which the many key decision-makers at the state, federal and EU-levels create policies and laws. Our success as Wikimedian advocates for free knowledge is highly influenced by whether this environment is negative, neutral or positive. Numerous behind-the-scenes situations are environment-dependent as well, such as key position appointments, strategic planning of other stakeholders, prioritizations in communication by key players and many more. Building a far-reaching network of contacts is both a means and an end in itself in this case, as the network serves as both a conduit and a storage of our policy positions and demands. As we gain new allies and convince them to adopt positions favoring free knowledge, positions that ideally are publicly visible, we build the environment for future policy and legal debates.

Looking at the legal and policy framework conditions for free knowledge, we see them manifest at two levels: At the first level, we work to influence law-making, i. e. statutory law and state regulations, as they are written at the state, federal and EU levels; and at the second level, we work with institutional policies and rule sets that govern the functioning of organizations, communities and projects.

At the law-making level we include, for example, copyright law, EU regulations and guidelines, state and federal budgets, liability rules in public media law and elsewhere, as well as the related court decisions. At the institutional level we consider those policies that affect user-generated content and impact professional groups that generate and publish knowledge, such as journalists, employees or public servants at heritage institutions and the creative sector in general. These may include regulatory acts created by the executive (such as regulations of a department of culture, or public funding guidelines for digitization projects), but also by-laws and publishing policies of public and private institutions, terms, conditions and user agreements of online portals, contributor agreements of community projects and content licenses.

The two policy levels mentioned above function in different ways and therefore require quite different approaches. Parliamentary hearings and committee work are dominated by formalized processes, and are the arena where high level laws are forged. In contrast, in executive and institutional environments, small networks of decision-makers are at work – often with limited mandates and little transparency.

Our goal is to incorporate favorable conditions for free knowledge in as many laws and policies as possible. We are not in a position to be picky here – whenever there is an opportunity for influence, we have to use it to the best of our ability. 2017 state and federal elections will provide opportunities for advocacy on both levels in Germany. EU level policy has a decisive influence on all other levels, inter alia because lawmakers at the federal and state levels in Germany may only create rules within the legal framework set by the EU – not only in copyright law. As a result, much of our lobbying attention is focused on Brussels. Last but not least, the full advocacy power of the Wikimedia movement can only unfold when the Wikimedia Foundation, chapters and affiliates coordinate well transnationally, between each other as well as in cooperation with allied NGO partners.

The main policy themes for 2017 were prioritized through the participation phase of our annual planning process. Eight themes were suggested across five priority levels:

1. Content, once in the public domain, stays in the public domain.
2. Free, open knowledge is default for all content produced with public funds.
3. Memory institutions refrain from prohibiting photography on their premises.
   Freedom of Panorama has been harmonized at a high level across the EU.
4. Orphan works are re-usable for open knowledge projects.
   No new ancillary copyright for media publishers at the EU Level.
5. State and non-state entities are enabled to handle public licenses.
   Text and data mining remains usable for free knowledge.

Additional policy issues continuously emerge on an ongoing basis, beyond our control, and require quick advocacy action. A recent example, which is part of the recent Digital Single Market proposal of the EU Commission, is an obligation for all platforms hosting considerable amounts of user-generated content to implement “measures” to ensure compliance with agreements made with copyright holders. This would basically mean an obligation to implement systems comparable to YouTube’s Content ID technology, also for all Wikimedia projects. The implications are severe not only because volunteer projects might break under this burden. This obligation would also give rise to an era of permanent general screening of user interaction, providing a first-class distributed infrastructure for censorship by/through non-state entities. Given these far-reaching consequences we had some first exchanges around this topic with other partners, especially open advocates and civil rights NGOs, and it has been identified as top negative issue for the coming year(s).

Goals, objectives and activities

Goal 1: The political climate affecting the Wikimedia movement becomes increasingly benevolent, and thus helps to promote movement goals around free knowledge.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
WMDE influences a minimum of ten relevant political decision-makers who previously did not have positive positions regarding free knowledge.	10 relevant political decision-makers have been influenced by end of Q4	‘Influencing’ is qualified by the respective decision-makers issuing specific statements of interest or intent that WMDE is able to utilize for free knowledge advocacy.
WMDE’s political network includes a high level, responsible decision-maker from each interest group that we have identified as relevant.	By the end of 2017, our network covers each identified interest group	The identification of relevant interest groups is currently under way and will be completed by the end of Q4 2016. We will report on this map of interest groups and how they are covered by our political network in our 2016-2017 APG Progress Report. ‘High level, responsible decision-maker’ covers staff at the level of executive, director, manager and upwards with decision-making power (qualified contacts, who know Wikimedia and its political positions)
WMDE reviews the premises of its political positions covering the policy areas of education, science and culture, and expands on the respective arguments through publication of at least two statements or studies.	At least two statements or studies published until end of Q4.

Activities

Fostering the Community Conversation
Utilizing a mix of communication and deliberation formats, such as town halls, mailing lists, members’ assemblies, WikiCon and other events, such as the ABC of Free Knowledge Salons at WMDE headquarters, or the European GLAM Coordinators Meeting, we will encourage the conversation and the shaping of opinion around crucial policy themes. We want to assure that the external communications around legal and policy issues are supported and backed up by our members and communities.

Publications
Through publications we will work to promote a positive perception of Wikimedia projects as useful, user friendly, valuable common goods. Publications will include blog posts, social media posts, co-authored articles and specific guidelines covering licenses, tools (such as the attribution generator) and legal processes useful for institutions interested in incorporating principles of open and free knowledge.

Public Works
We will focus on working with institutions in the areas of culture, education and science, towards shaping debates and increasing awareness about change opportunities in these fields – such as Open Access business models for scientific institutions, Open Educational Resources and successful Open GLAM practices.

Open Education Alliance
We will continue the successful work of the past years with our partners joined in the Open Education Alliance through allocation of WMDE staff time, thus increasing the activities and improving communication of this advocacy group. This will include a strong focus on the federal elections in 2017: We will prepare election touchstones and organize public discussion rounds. Furthermore we will be present at the regional OER-Camps, running our own sessions and tracks. From a networking perspective we will invite politicians for fireplace sessions, using an informal atmosphere for the exchange of ideas and thoughts.

Goal 2: The legal and policy conditions for free knowledge have been improved.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
WMDE successfully influences the development of essential policies and laws related to the re-use of content without permission (“Open by default”) which, as a result, will benefit collaboration in the Wikimedia movement.	Successfully influenced cases (qualitative).	This is done through providing impulses, consultation and new policy development. Strongly depends on opportunities for policy changes emerging Will be reported via qualitative storytelling
WMDE begins to work with at least five key institutions on the reform and development of their policies, regulations and procedures so that they favor free knowledge.	Work with at least five institutions has started.	‘Key institution’ describes institutions which are exemplary in their respective field and in a position of influence with regard to political processes. Typically these are the largest or most innovative institutions in their respective field.

Activities

Monitoring, Analysis and Planning
WMDE will engage in standard policy monitoring at the federal, state and EU levels, which also includes the analysis of publications and statements issued by other policy players. This information will help us to be better prepared for lawmaking processes and deliberations and to improve and refine our advocacy strategy over time. Ideally, we will also be able to recognize opportunities for policy involvement earlier.

Impacting the Lawmaking Process
Influence into policy making usually occurs in the form of concise information provided to decision makers in written or oral statements. These policy impulses can be issued quickly, if the necessary preparatory work has been done: deliberative conversations and agreements with our allies and communities as well as studies and whitepapers serve as a basis to draw impulse statements from. WMDE will assure this preparatory work on a continuous basis and share it with the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (FKAGEU), so that we all can respond to lawmaking issues as soon as they arise.

Legal Support /Self-defense
This activity in itself is an environmental pre-condition for free knowledge in the Wikimedia projects. OTRS team and sysops jointly assure that legal rules related to content are enforced. The WMDE Legal and Policy Advisor supports these activities by co-reviewing cases on an as-needed basis, soliciting a legal opinion for recurring questions, covering legal fees for OTRS members and sysops, and, planned for next year, through contracting psychological counseling for harassment and stalking cases.

WMBXL/FKAGEU
At the EU level, our man in Brussels, Dimitar Dimitrov will continue his work with the European allies and the WM chapters organized in the FKAGEU. Through deliberations in 2016, the group of Wikimedia Chapters developed and agreed on a new distribution of resources for this joint endeavor: In 2017, Dimi will be an employee of WMDE in order to provide him job safety and continuity for his quality work. The partner chapters continue to support the Wikimedia Brussels (WMBXL) activities financially as well, by covering the non-personnel costs. In 2017, the Brussels work will include involving additional Wikimedians in advocacy and networking activities, participating in dialogues and consultations, collaborating with other stakeholders, such as tech industry and assuring that copyright reform benefits Wikimedia projects. Jointly developed indicators can be reviewed here.

Program 5: Institutions and their Content – Together with communities, liberate content through cooperation with institutions

Background

Trusting collaborations between WMDE, communities and institutions are a precondition for ensuring that content is made openly available and reusable. Content to be liberated may be in the form of media files such as photos, scans, audio files, and movies. It may also be Open Educational Resources, research data and papers from academic institutions. Established WMDE projects and event formats such as Coding da Vinci and GLAM on Tour are conduits to collaboratively make available institutional content from GLAMs. These will be improved and expanded upon to scale their impact. For academic and educational institutions, we are still in the process of exploring new ideas and avenues on how to motivate these institutions to share their content.

An important precondition for institutions to share their content is providing information and practical advice on the benefits of free knowledge and open content. This is reason why we also place an increased emphasis on informational, consultative and professional development resources such as workshops, presentations, and educational materials. Through these, we aim to assist institutions with liberating content for reuse. We already have services and resources for culture and memory institutions available, which we will continue to apply, improve and expand upon. New formats are still needed for institutions in the education and science fields as groundwork for these institutions making their content available under open licenses.

Goals, objectives and activities

Goal 1: In order to provide access to content, work with communities to enter into cooperations and sustainable partnerships with cultural and memory institutions.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
Through cooperation with GLAM institutions and with volunteers, data sets are made available for Wikimedia projects, and are re-used a minimum 5,000 times in the Wikimedia projects by the end of 2017.	By the end of 2017: Media items are used a minimum 5,000 times in Wikimedia projects.	This target applies to the dedicated GLAM cooperations we plan for 2017 only. Here we are not counting the additional uses that will result from new media items generated by volunteer projects supported by WMDE in 2017 (~25,000 - 30,000 uses).
Experiences from these cooperations are shared in published success stories, in order to encourage additional institutions to contribute content for Wikimedia projects.	At least 3 success stories are published until end of Q4.

Activities

Coding da Vinci
This project, now in its fourth year, creates incentives for GLAM institutions to liberate their content for innovative uses by volunteer coders, hackers and developers. The cultural hackathon, consisting of a kick-off, sprint and award ceremony, will once again take place in Berlin in 2017. The four consortium partners, the German Digital Library, the Berlin Office of Digitization, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and WMDE, will work together towards a sustainable program for 2017-2020 that includes systems for preparing data, collecting data, supporting GLAMs and coders beyond the event, and ensuring data access in the Wikimedia projects. Over the mid-term, the consortium aims to present the resulting applications and websites to a larger audience, beyond the two target groups of coders and GLAMs.

Goal 2: Improve our existing resources around information and consultation for cultural and memory institutions, and develop, based on needs, similar resources for the educational and science fields, so they are enabled to generate and make available open content.

Objectives

Objective	Target	Explanation
At least six cultural and memory institutions take advantage of our consultation, information and educational services.	6 cultural and memory institutions are consulted by the end of 2017.	In 2015 and 2016, WMDE’s training and information formats for GLAM institutions reached groups of GLAM representatives or provided basic information to staff from single institutions (e.g. 24 trainings for institutions in 2015). For 2017 we aim for a more targeted approach: working with fewer institutions, and moving beyond information to targeted consulting formats.
Jointly with volunteers, WMDE develops and tests the implementation of one new resource each for the fields of science and educational institutions.	2 new resources are tested by the end of 2017.	Q1: assess the needs of educational and science institutions Q2: develop formats Q3: test and adapt formats
80% of scientific institutions that host fellows as part of the pilot phase Open Science Fellows Program implement further steps towards Open Science (seminars, research projects, publications, and working groups) within six months.	Within six month after end of the program: 80% of the scientific institutions implement further steps	The first cycle of WMDE’s Open Science Fellows Program runs from September 2016 to February 2017. One mid-term goal of this program is to spark positive developments towards Open Science at scientific institutions in the aftermath of the program. We will check this target through follow-up interviews with the fellows and their scientific institutions.

Activities

Consultation, Information and Skill Building
For GLAM institutions, we will continue to offer and further develop formats such as ©©-change your mind and Wikiverse World Cafe. In addition, we are planning to offer a toolset that assists institutions to increase the re-use of their liberated content in the Wikimedia projects. All these formats and tools build on several years of experience in advising GLAM institutions. We will draw on these experiences in order to develop and test new, tailored services and resources for institutions from the education and science/research fields. So far, we have barely touched the surface in working with these institutions. First and foremost, we need to assess their needs with regards to information and consultation for liberating content. Based on this information, we will then develop and adapt our already existing formats for education and science institutions.

Open Science Fellows Program
The pilot Open Science Fellows Program started in autumn of 2016. Ten fellows were selected from 74 applicants, hailing from a variety of disciplines. They are supported by our mentors for six months as they learn about and apply principles of Open Science to their research projects. The closing workshop will take place in February. We will thoroughly evaluate this first round in terms of its impact, with the guiding question: To what degree where fellows enabled to introduce Open Science principles into their institutions? The 2017/18 program will be adjusted, based on what we learn. We are striving to obtain additional support by new partners and external funds, and to increase the number of fellows.

International Work – Sharing with and helping to advance the movement

In 2017, Wikimedia Deutschland will continue to contribute to the movement. We will provide shared learning, constructive input into movement deliberations and in particular to the upcoming movement strategy process, continued leadership for movement activities, such as the annual Wikimedia Conference, and peer support and coordination around capacity building. As described above, we will continue to develop Wikidata as the structured data backbone of the movement and beyond.

WMDE will work systematically and cross-departmentally to ensure that our organization and our communities benefit from the knowledge of other movement entities, that movement partners may learn from our experience, and that we are in a position to have a greater impact by collaborating with international partners. By again hosting and shaping the Wikimedia Conference in 2017, we will create the platform for movement strategy conversations, leadership development and capacity building. We will further develop the innovative approach of building the conference program directly from participant needs, making it more participative and sustainable and share this experience extensively with the movement. Acting as a learning partner for the movement, we will also continue our successful Visiting Wikimedian initiative during which we invite a Wikimedian from another affiliate to work and learn with us for up to six months on program and logistics for the WMCON.

WMDE will continue to serve as a learning partner for the movement. Besides our established approach to plan and budget for translations, learning patterns and travel to international events, we will share what we learn through our work in each of the five programs:

1. We will work together with other movement organizations to compare and develop approaches for attracting new editors and build upon existing research and technology.
2. We will work with our Wikimedia partners in Austria and Switzerland to further improve our volunteer support program as a model of excellence for the movement, plan to expand our collaboration with other organizations and share our experience via blog posts, presentations and other materials in English.
3. Our work on Wikidata as well as MediaWiki serves the international communities and enables them to effectively use the software in the projects. We will also work on creating stronger coordination with international communities and institutions as discussed in program 2.
4. Our work towards a better legal and political framework for free knowledge benefits from collaboration and exchange at the EU and international levels. We will coordinate closely with the Free Knowledge Advocacy EU group as well as the WMF Policy Advisor, create materials and exchange learnings to further movement-wide public policy work, and create conditions for movement goals to be achieved.
5. We are aiming to create a change of mind in GLAMs and convince them to become open by default. Doing this, we are building upon the international coordinated GLAM work and contribute to this network by sharing more of our experiences and resources.

Wikimedia Deutschland has advocated for a dialogue around movement strategy, affiliate roles and a better framework for impact for years. We appreciate that WMF leadership will address the big issues in the upcoming movement strategy process. Building upon the insights from our Chapters Dialogue and our comprehensive experience participating in the network of Wikimedia affiliates and communities, we plan to meaningfully contribute to the upcoming strategy process and to work on ways to include the outcomes into our own strategic and operative work.

Staff and contractors: upcoming year’s annual plan

Table 4

WMDE FTEs (1)
Department	End of 2016 (planned)	End of 2017 (planned)	Change	Explanation
Software Development	24.250	26.125	1.875	Annual Plan 2016: 24.25. Due to budget cuts, we delayed hiring of several positions.
Volunteer Support	6.400	7.200	0.800	Slight increase in Volunteer Support staff
Education, Science and Culture	10.050	7.550	-2.500	Annual Plan 2016: 10.05 due to Mapping OER project. Several of the project positions have not been continued in 2016/2017.
Communication	4.625	6.125	1.500	The function of membership services has been moved from the fundraising team at WMFG to the communications team at WMDE, and the FTE has increased due to a more sophisticated strategy and rising membership.
Event Management	3.000	2.950	-0.050
Partnerships and Development	3.600	3.600	0.000
Office of the ED (incl. Politics/Law, International, Board of Directors)	7.475	7.475	0.000	Includes 1 FTE for the Wikimedia office in Brussels
Operations (incl. Works Council, HR)	5.135	5.200	0.065
Finance	1.745	2.725	0.980	This reflects the upcoming hire of a Head of Finance and Administration at the end of 2016 which was already included in the ED budget for 2016 and has now shifted to the budget of the Finance department.
IT	2.125	2.125	0.000
Total WMDE (2)	68.405	71.075	2.670

Table 4 notes:
1) All figures are Annual Plan figures which include work study students but no interns. For staff joining WMDE during 2016, we included their FTEs proportionally to a full-year equivalent.
2) Only includes staff for WMDE. In addition, we employ staff through the Wikimedia Fördergesellschaft (WMFG), which is WMDE's fundraising unit, a corporation separate from WMDE. For WMFG, the Annual Plan figures are 5.1 FTE for 2016 (end of year) and 6.125 FTE for 2017 (end of year), with an increase of 1.025 FTE. In total, WMDE and WMFG are planning to employ 77.2 FTEs by the end of 2017, a change of 3.695 FTE in comparison to end of year 2016 (total FTE: 73.505).

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?

2016 (Planned)	EUR	USD
Expenses	3,807,458 €	$4,245,316

Note: These figures only include WMDE expenses.

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?

2017 (Planned)	EUR	USD
Expenses	3,972,841 €	$4,429,718

Note: These figures only include WMDE expenses.

Financials: upcoming year

Detailed budget: upcoming year

• WMDE Annual Plan 2017

Revenues: upcoming year

Table 5

Anticipated WMDE Revenue 2017
Revenue source	EUR	USD	Status	Use of funds
Donations	2,500,000 €	$2,787,500	Estimate	General operating
APG	279,198 €	$311,306	Application	General operating
WMF Wikidata contract	1,200,000 €	$1,338,000	Guaranteed	Wikidata
Membership fees	2,166,163 €	$2,415,272	Estimate	General operating
Carry-over from 2016	0 €	$0	N/A	N/A
Fundraising management overhead	30,417 €	$33,915	Guaranteed	Fundraising cost
External grants	437,500 €	$487,813	Guaranteed	Wiktionary
Other revenues	41,000 €	$45,715	Estimate	General operating
PEG	145,365 €	$162,082	Preliminary approval	Wikimedia Conference
Total revenue	6,799,643 €	$7,581,602

Operating reserves: current and upcoming years

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

WMDE Operating Reserves
Year	Year start		Year-to-date		Year End
	EUR	USD	EUR	USD	EUR	USD
2016	0 €	$0	0 €	$0	0 €	$0
2017	0 €	$0	0 €	$0	0 €	$0

Note: WMDE does not have operating reserves, as defined by the FDC, as we do not have a designated operating reserves policy. Previous expenses listed as operating reserves do not comply with the newly set-forth regulations for WMF designated operating reserves. As a result, we have included these funds above (table 2b) as risk liquidity.

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.

Zero

Expenses: upcoming year’s annual plan

1. Expenses by program (includes staff and operations)

Table 7

WMDE Expenses 2017
Program/Department		Nonpersonnel expenses	Personnel expenses	Total (EUR)	Total (USD)
Program 1: New Volunteers
	1.1: Increase the number of volunteers active in Wikipedia through an online campaign which motivates the highest possible number of Wikipedia readers to engage as active editors.	84,905 €	227,967 €	312,872 €	$348,852
	Subtotal Program 1	84,905 €	227,967 €	312,872 €	$348,852
Program 2: Volunteer Support
	2.1: Continue volunteer support services and facilitate access to support, including for volunteers active in Wikipedia’s sister projects.	552,349 €	288,204 €	840,554 €	$937,217
	2.2: Further develop volunteer support services to improve the program’s contribution to the viability and quality of Wikimedia projects.	1,349 €	13,391 €	14,740 €	$16,435
	Subtotal Program 2	553,699 €	301,595 €	855,294 €	$953,653
Program 3: Software Development
	3.1: Continue to assure the technical and social sustainability of Wikidata (software and community) as the central, structured knowledge data base for the Wikimedia movement and beyond.	125,635 €	463,014 €	588,649 €	$656,344
	3.2: Continue to increase the reach of Wikidata into the Wikimedia projects.(1)	90,635 €	480,831 €	571,466 €	$637,184
	3.3: Continue development of MediaWiki jointly with the Wikimedia Communities and the Wikimedia Foundation, so that volunteers are able to utilize the software effectively. This work includes the focus on community technical needs, sustained quality assurance and strengthened connections with Wikimedia communities internationally.	44,135 €	486,210 €	530,345 €	$591,334
	Subtotal Program 3	260,405 €	1,430,055 €	1,690,460 €	$1,884,862
Program 4: Advocacy
	4.1: The political environment affecting the Wikimedia Movement becomes increasingly benevolent, and thus helps to promote movement goals around free knowledge.	93,379 €	182,476 €	275,854 €	$307,578
	4.2: The legal and policy conditions for free knowledge have been improved.	55,439 €	114,629 €	170,067 €	$189,625
	Subtotal Program 4	148,817 €	297,105 €	445,922 €	$497,203
Program 5: Institutions and their Content
	5.1: In order to provide access to content, work with communities to enter into cooperations and sustainable partnerships with cultural and memory institutions.	27,582 €	68,548 €	96,130 €	$107,184
	5.2: Improve our existing resources around information and consultation for cultural and memory institutions, and develop, based on needs, similar resources for the educational and science fields, so they are enabled to generate and make available open content.	76,061 €	169,286 €	245,347 €	$273,562
	Subtotal Program 5	103,642 €	237,834 €	341,476 €	$380,746
	Subtotal program expenses	1,151,468 €	2,494,556 €	3,646,024 €	$4,065,316
Other program and program support expenses
	Education, Science and Culture	8,000 €	15,480 €	23,480 €	$26,180
	Volunteer Support	33,500 €	21,267 €	54,767 €	$61,065
	Software Development	-	-	-	-
	Communication	182,500 €	157,448 €	339,948 €	$379,042
	Event Management	16,761 €	127,315 €	144,076 €	$160,645
	International	117,367 €	47,911 €	165,278 €	$184,285
	Partnerships and Development	9,873 €	137,994 €	147,867 €	$164,872
	Subtotal	368,001 €	507,415 €	875,416 €	$976,089
Adminstrative and indirect program expenses
	Office of the ED, Board of Directors	150,100 €	272,973 €	423,073 €	$471,726
	Finance	29,339 €	179,086 €	208,425 €	$232,394
	IT	182,613 €	115,902 €	298,515 €	$332,844
	Operations (incl. Office, HR, Works Council, Fundraising)	811,954 €	402,911 €	1,214,865 €	$1,354,574
	Subtotal	1,174,006 €	970,872 €	2,144,878 €	$2,391,539
Total program and associated expenses		2,693,475 €	3,972,842 €	6,666,317 €	$7,432,944
	Risk liquidity	133,326 €	-	133,326 €	$148,658
Total annual expenses (incl. risk liquidity)		2,826,801 €	3,972,842 €	6,799,643 €	$7,581,602

Table 7 note: If your organization has significant funding designated for specific programs (e.g. a restricted grant), please make a note of that here.
1) We received a restricted external grant for the work on Wiktionary.

2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization’s total expenses overall

Total expenses are divided into five categories: (1) program expenses from table 7, (2) other program and program support expenses from table 7, (3) administrative and indirect program expenses from table 7, (4) amount added to operating reserves from table 6, and lastly (5) risk liquidity from table 7.

Table 8

Total WMDE Expenses
Expense type	EUR	USD
Program expenses (total from table 7)	3,646,024 €	$4,065,316
Other program and program support expenses (total from table 7)	875,416 €	$976,089
Adminstrative and indirect program expenses (total from table 7)	2,144,878 €	$2,391,539
Amount to be added to operating reserves (total from table 6)	0 €	$0
Risk liquidity (total from table 7)	133,326 €	$148,658
Total expenses	6,799,643 €	$7,581,602

Verification and signature

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 agreement

Yes

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.

Please sign here once this proposal form is complete, using four tildes.

Christian Rickerts (WMDE) (talk) 10:57, 30 September 2016 (UTC)