Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Mediagrant II

Funded

This submission to the Project and Event Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2013-14. This is a grant to an organization.

IMPORTANT: Please do not make changes to this page without the explicit approval of Project and Event Grants Program staff. They will be reverted.

This project has already been funded, but you may still add or review comments on the discussion page.
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Report: Please visit Grants:PEG/WM CZ/Mediagrant II/Report to read this report, comment on this report, or review its status.

Basic information

Grant details

Project details

Official project name: Mediagrant II
Project start date (include month, day, and year): ~~October 15th, 2013~~ January 1st, 2014
Project completion date (include month, day, and year): ~~October 15th, 2015~~ December 31st, 2015
Please describe the project in 1–2 sentences: Mediagrant is a successful program of WMCZ enriching Wikimedia Commons with multimedia content related to the Czech Republic. "Mediagrant II" aims to be its direct successor.

Financial details

Currency requested: Euros
Amount requested in currency requested: € 7722
Equivalent amount in US$ on the date of this submission: US$10,130
List the exchange rate used to calculate the amount listed in US$: US$1.3119 per euro

Grantee details

See the eligibility requirements for more information.

Are you an organization, an individual, or an individual submitting on behalf of a group?: Organization, official chapter of Wikimedia Foundation for the Czech Republic
Are you a for-profit entity?: No
Are you able to provide local proof of nonprofit status within your country?: Yes
Does your organization currently employ any fulltime or part-time staff or contractors?: Yes - 1 at the moment - the chapter's accountancy is done on a contract basis.

Contact information

Primary contact name: Vojtech.dostal, Packa and Chmee2
Primary contact username or email: mg granty.wikimedia.cz (forwards to all people above)
Primary contact title (position within the organization): Members of Wikimedia Czech Republic and members of the current Mediagrant 'Eye'

Goals and measures of success

Project goal

Please briefly describe what will be accomplished if the project is successful.

Project goal: Mediagrant is a project that enriches Wikimedia Commons with Czech Republic-related media. The goal of "Mediagrant II" is to continue with the activities of Mediagrant as primary target and maintain and further develop existing community of photographers as our second objective. Mediagrant (blog post here) was first created as a consolidated grant for multimedia acquisition in 2010. Since then, it has attracted many new participants and given rise to 21,277 uploaded pictures (in long-term topics, as of June 2013). Photographing of Czech Municipalities or Czech Jewish monuments (see blog post), as well as the famous "Protected Areas" project (related blog posts here) are all primarily financed from Mediagrant. Similarly, several photographic workshops took place thanks to Mediagrant, including one in Prague's famous Fata Morgana Greenhouse and other with botanist.

Measures of success

Please provide a list of measurable criteria that will be used determine how successful the project is. You will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed.

Measures of success: A proof of Mediagrant's past success is the statistics: more than 21,000 pictures of Czech towns, villages, nature and diverse sights taken by dozens of participants over a period of three years. We created a community of enthusiastic people who take pictures for Wikipedia in their free time; large communities are maintained on corresponding social sites (see [1]) as well. In the Mediagrant II, we will consider a success if we continue to attract new participants and, each year, create ~8000 pictures of previously undocumented sights. Representatives of "Protected Areas" Project think that 75% of Czech projected areas could be documented during the two-years time (at the end of year 2010, only <25% of areas were documented on Commons). Representatives of Czech Municipalities project think that about 500 "objects" (towns and villages) will be photographed in the grant during the time period. We also believe we can maintain - and develop - the existing photographic communities both online (Facebook) and in real life (during workshops).

Project scope and activities

This section describes what will happen if this project is funded. Who will do what, and when?

Mediagrant is a free interactive platform for acquisition of media concerning the Czech Republic. It has several long-running "topics" but anyone can ask for a new topic if it fits the goals of the Mediagrant. As of now, there are these topics in Mediagrant: Czech Municipalities, Protected Areas, ZOOs, Traditional Architecture, Traditional wear and customs, Scientific Photography, Current Events, Water Bodies and Jewish Monuments. These subgrants are independently providing large amounts of images on specialized topics (e.g., protected areas in the Czech Republic) by a wide range of participants. Several of them are long-running subgrants with own healthy and functioning communities of photographers where it can be assumed that they will continue their work if the financial support by the Foundation will continue. People take pictures during the year, then report their expenses in a freely-accessible Tracker and are reimbursed for their travel expenses.

The second, but equally important part of Mediagrant's activities is the active support of the community of photographers. We have already bought two cameras which are now available to all wannabe-photographers who do not own the proper, yet expensive equipment. Some expenses are needed for maintenance of these cameras (service, supplementary equipment) during the two-years period. The older of the two cameras will be 6 years old by the end of Mediagrant II and we plan to buy a new one (and an objective) during the next two years. We also plan to organize several workshops (as we did in past: 1, 2, 3). WikiProject Protected Areas wants funding for 4 workshops (two each year) aiming to improve the technical knowledge of nature photographers and to build up the community. WikiProject Czech Municipalities plans to hold 2 workshops (one each year), as it successfully did in recent years.

Reimbursement process has been well-defined during the last three years and most of the work is manageable by volunteer work. However, the collection of dozens of receipts from grant participants is a tedious accountancy work that no one enjoys doing and we had problems maintaining a continuous work flow because of this process. We believe that we could hire a student to do this work for us; preferentially, he/she should be a trustworthy person from outside the community in order to prevent possible conflicts of interest.

Examples of pictures within the scope of Mediagrant

(Taken by participants during the last 3 years)

Czech Municipalities: Church of Saint John the Baptist in the village of Zátoň
Protected Areas: nature reserve "Malý Blaník"; quality image on Commons
Scientific Photography: Cooking of "bramboráček"; quality image on Commons
Jewish monuments: Holocaust memorial in Valašské Meziříčí

Budget and resources

Please note that there is a substantial amount of money in the current Mediagrant (which has already been running for 3 years without a clear stop date); we want to return this money (~12,600-13,200 EUR) and negotiate a new grant, with a more rational budget and more explicit rules (in concordance with this discussion).

Project budget table

Number	Category	Item description	Unit	Number of units	Cost per unit	Total cost	Currency	Notes
1	Travel reimbursement					3500	EUR
1.1		Travel expenses for participants	-	-	-	3500	EUR	Average spending thus far: ~80 EUR (2010), ~500 EUR (2011), ~1500 EUR (2012)
2	Equipment					1620	EUR
2.1		Maintenance of currently owned cameras	-	-	-	220	EUR	Repair and minor photographic equipment for the existing cameras
2.2		New photographic equipment	-	-	-	1400	EUR	New camera and objective; see "Project scope and activities"
3	Workshops					1680	EUR
3.1		Weekend workshops	-	2	600	1200	EUR	Weekend-long Photographic workshops for training new participants and massive documentation of a selected Czech region
3.2		One-day workshops	-	4	120	480	EUR	One-day photographing workshops organized by WikiProject Protected Areas to support the community and learn to photograph nature
4	Administration					922	EUR
4.1		Accountancy	1 month	24	33	792	EUR	700 CZK (28 EUR) per month + tax; see "Project scope and activities"
4.2		Other expenses	-	-	-	130	EUR	Stationery, minor travel expenses, post office services, phone bills

Total cost of project: 7722 EUR

Total amount requested from the WMF Grants Program: 7722 EUR

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this project, and amounts funded: None.

Non-financial requirements

Requests for non-financial assistance: One of the main advantages and principles of Mediagrant was its flexibility; we could finance media-related events as they came during the years. We would like to be allowed to freely relocate up to as much as 30% of the funds between the main budget categories.

Resources

Travel expenses in the course of time; peaks during summers can be clearly seen

Resources: We have a three-year experience in making the documentation of Czech landmarks as simple, efficient and fun, as possible. The grant is managed by the 'Mediagrant Eye', consisting of Chmee2, Packa and Vojtech.dostal; members are installed by the chapter board. You can see our results on Commons and read our reflections on the project on the Wikimedia blog. Mediagrant (project page for Wikipedians here) is a stabilized institution offering everyone an opportunity to go out and take pictures and be refunded for the travel expenses.

Impact

In the sections below, please describe how the project is related to the Wikimedia mission and Wikimedia's strategic priorities.

Fit to strategy

How will this project support the key organizational objectives of

increasing reach (more people will access or contribute to Wikipedia or our other projects), participation (more people actually contributing), quality (more content, more useful content, or higher-quality content), credibility (more trust in our projects), organizational maturity and effectiveness (how it will move you or the Wikimedia community forward), or financial sustainability (how it will help you achieve more in the long run)?

"One picture is worth a page of text" - we can only speculate how many articles were enriched with a photo thanks to Mediagrant. The number is at least in hundreds now. Mediagrant is a unique project that combines quality improvement (high-quality pictures uploaded to Commons) and participation/reach (more people getting to know about how Wikipedia works and contributing to Commons).

Benefits

If the project will benefit a specific online community, please tell us.: Mediagrant benefits all projects that use images of Czech Republic-related pictures - all Wikipedias, although Czech Wikipedia probably has most Czech-related articles. Additionally, it benefits the Czech Wikicommunity due to the planned workshops.

Please provide a brief statement about how the project is related to other work in the Wikimedia movement. For example, does the project fit into a work area such as GLAM, education, organizational development, editor retention, or outreach?: Mediagrant is a content-oriented project that defines its category. It combines the elements of outreach (new photographers) and content support (new pictures).

If successful, will the project have the potential to be replicated successfully by other individuals, groups, or organizations? Please explain how in 1–2 sentences.: As long as the community expresses interest in Mediagrant, we plan to continue with it. The long-term potential of the project means that it can essentially go on forever.

Please list other benefits to the movement here.: Mediagrant attracts new potential partners (professional photographers to release their works under free license, archives, galleries) and thus provides an interesting link to GLAM activities.