Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wikimedia Canada 2022-2024/Yearly Report (2022)

Yearly Learning Report (Year 1 - 2022)

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 28 February 2023

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Yearly Learning Report (for multi-year fund recipients) , reporting year: 2022

Application Yearly Report (2023)

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General information

This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving multi-year Wikimedia Community Funds to report on their yearly results.

Name of Organization: Wikimedia Canada
Title of Proposal: Wikimedia Canada 2022-2024

Part 1 Understanding your work

1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.

2022 was an important year in the history of Wikimedia Canada. Indeed in 2022 we began the implementation of our strategic transformation plan that was recently finalized. The focus in 2022 was on the hiring of the first Executive Director of the chapter, which was successfully completed with the hiring of Louis Germain in October 2022.

In terms of strategy, two strategic meetings were held with Board members, facilitators and key partners. One of those strategic meetings was specifically aimed around the projects with the Indigenous communities while the other was about finalizing the strategic direction of the chapter, reinforcing the governance of the organization, and defining the necessary steps to hire the first Executive Director.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?

Professional support and facilitation were sought to facilitate the strategic planning of the chapter, and this proved to be very valuable in achieving our goals.

3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?

Since the main focus in 2022 was to concretize the beginning of the implementation of the strategic transformation plan, specifically with the first step being the hiring of the first Executive Director of the chapter,, there was a significant and deliberate reduction in the projects and programmatic activities delivered by the chapter in order to allow the Board members and their support to focus on governance and organizational efforts. As such, we can’t report that we did anything significantly different from other affiliates in 2022, but we completed some very important steps towards our strategic direction and we are actively planning to innovate in the future with this stronger foundation, one of our new main programs being “Research & Development” with the the intent to “initiate, prototype and test new projects, tools, methodologies and approaches”.

4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.

Two in-person strategic meetings were held in 2022 with Board members and key partners to finalize the strategic transformation plan of the chapter and reinforce our partnerships with Indigenous communities. The communities were regularly kept informed of the chapter’s activities through our blog and different social media channels. We also maintain active Telegram and Facebook groups to discuss directly with the communities and to provide spaces for the volunteers to discuss among themselves.

5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

https://www.wikimedia.ca/2022/12/08/nathalie-thibault-describes-her-experience/

https://www.wikimedia.ca/2022/12/12/the-francophone-wikiconvention-a-place-for-collective-commitments/ https://www.wikimedia.ca/2022/12/05/wikimedia-canada-at-the-2022-francophone-wikiconvention/

6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.

Our efforts during the Fund period have helped to...
A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups	Strongly agree
B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community	Strongly agree
C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups	Strongly agree
D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives	Strongly agree
E. Encourage the retention of editors	Agree
F. Encourage the retention of organizers	Strongly agree
G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement.	Strongly agree

7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?

Wikimedia Canada always had and continues to have a strong focus to bring participants and develop content from underrepresented groups in Canada. This is especially demonstrated in our partnership with the Atikamekw First Nation to develop the Wikipedia in the Atikamekw language. In the coming years, we are planning to establish new partnerships with other Indigenous communities in Canada to develop new Wikimedia projects in their languages, but also to share their knowledge in English and French (which can then be translated by the international communities). Furthermore we share our lessons learned with the Atikamekw Project in different international Wikimedia events and with other affiliates to encourage the development of Wikimedia projects in smaller and underrepresented languages.

We also continue to support workshops and campaigns aiming at encouraging participation and closing the gender gap as well as LGBTQI+ community. Wikimedia Canada is also highly involved in WikiFranca, the international francophone network of the Wikimedia movement, with a special focus on supporting the emerging community in Haiti.

Part 2: Your main learning

8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?

The pandemic, in our case, served us well, to some degree, although it was very difficult. We learnt a lot from it. We took this incredible opportunity to kick-start the chapter, write the strategic plan, and move on to hiring rather than focusing on projects and input (these tasks took up a considerable amount of time in labor shortages and wage wars). We ourselves suffered from the pandemic and its effects: morale was variable, some people left the board, volunteers were less forthcoming, but we kept going and we were confident that the plan and hiring would restore momentum, that we had to grit our teeth for 2.5 years. This was possible thanks to the loyalty of some board members.

A lesson learned : team work is very important and nothing could be done if we are alone.

9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?

No surprises, other than the hiring problem we got. Our first chosen candidate decided last minute that he didn't want the job, so we had to start it all over. We found it difficult, but the choice to use a recruiting firm for the ED position was one of the best strategic decisions we could have made. Without their work, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

It took us twice the time we had in mind to hire our ED. Instead of having him with us in May, we only found someone in October.

10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?

The lesson is to take the time to do things right. If you do things well and at your own pace, you avoid burnout, the disease of our century. You also ensure that you deliver quality. We must not put too much pressure on the "quantity" of actions undertaken in a year, but on the quality of each action taken. Also, we must know how to prioritize.

Our goal is to respect our strategic and action plan, but we want to stay open to new opportunities. Since we now have an ED, things might change, new ideas might come on the table. We want to stay open to that.

11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?

The highlights are the human experiences that give us the motivation to continue, each one behind our screen. The in-person board meetings, the WikiConvention, the Wikiconference NA. This is the core of our business: meetings are the secret of creativity, trust and new projects. Bonds are forged over decades. In the end, we are all humans, we all have our own personalities, but we're working for something that is bigger than us.

12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G0XBjdnv59FISJ8ts55djLohJteAXAin1k5D6EROxwk/edit#heading=h.tj3rsur8zsr2

https://www.wikimedia.ca/2021/05/31/100-years-of-environment-and-climate-change-canada-weather-data-in-commons/ https://www.wikimedia.ca/2021/10/25/guide-de-contribution-wikipedia/

Part 3: Metrics for Year 1

13a. Open and additional metrics data

Open Metrics
Open Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
N/A	N/A	N/A	1 strategic plan	One of our goal, in 2022, was to write our Strategic transformation plan. We spent a lot of hours to write it down. We also took the time to talk about our community, across Canada, to hear them about our plan. From there, we took the time to redact what would become our first strategic plan, followed by our first action plan.	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	1	Our goal for 2022 was to hire our 1st Executive director. Our ED has been hired and he has been in office since October.	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	55	That's the number of member. We would like to improve this target in 2023.	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	427	Number of individual donations. We also would like to improve this target in 2023	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of activities developed	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Number of volunteer hours	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

13b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics	Description	Target	Comments
Number of participants	N/A	3000	We didn't collect any data, in 2022, to measure Individuals who attend or benefit from the proposal’s activities, either in person (offline) or virtually (online).
Number of editors	N/A	2000	We didn't collect any data, in 2022, to measure People who edit Wikimedia projects, creating or improving content as a result of grantee activities).
Number of organizers	N/A	50	We didn't collect any data, in 2022, to measure Organizers

**Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project**
Wikimedia Project	Description	Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
Wikipedia	N/A	3000	N/A	N/A	N/A
Wikimedia Commons	N/A	3000	N/A	N/A	N/A
Wikidata	N/A	8000	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?

Yes

15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.

N/A

16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).

Upload Documents and Files

Here is an additional field to type in URLs.

N/A

Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships

17. Organizational Capacity

Organizational capacity dimension
A. Financial capacity and management	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
B. Conflict management or transformation	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values)	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
D. Partnership building	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
E. Strategic planning	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
F. Program design, implementation, and management	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer)	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers)	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
J. Governance	This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high
K. Communications, marketing, and social media	This capacity has grown but it should be further developed
L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
M. On-wiki technical skills	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
N. Accessing and using data	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
O. Evaluating and learning from our work	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders	This capacity is low, and we should prioritise developing it
N/A
N/A

17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Formal training provided by a Wikimedia Movement organizing group (i.e., Affiliates, Grantees, Regional or Thematic Hub, etc.), Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Using capacity building/training resources online from sources WITHIN the Wikimedia Movement

17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Lack of volunteer time to participate in capacity building/training, Lack of training that fits contextual needs and interests

18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?

The organizational capacity of Wikimedia Canada has grown significantly in 2022 with the finalization of the Strategic Transformation Plan, the hiring of the first Executive Director, and a continued improvement in governance standards, processes and policies of the chapter. The chapter is on the right path to continue this growth in 2023 and in the coming years with further capacity building.

19. Partnerships over the funding period.

Over the fund period...
A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame)	Agree
B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups	Strongly agree
C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups	Strongly agree

19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Board members’ outreach, Volunteers from our communities, Partners proactive interest

19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.

Lack of staff to conduct outreach to new strategic partners, Lack of knowledge or capacities to reach out to strategic partners

20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?

It takes time and patience to build relationships, especially with large institutions. The "credibility" must now transfer to the WMCA organization as a whole and not depend solely on the board members. We have been taken seriously, because what we promise, we deliver, often above expectations.

Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration

21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?

Wikimedia Canada always maintained and continues to maintain a high sense of belonging to the Wikimedia movement and free knowledge movement in general. Inside the Wikimedia movement, the chapter is highly involved in the Francophonie by being a key member of WikiFranca and by supporting the emerging community in Haiti. We are also seeking to increase our involvement in the North American region by hosting the WikiConference North America and participating in the discussions and research about a possible North American Hub. In particular, we are always looking for opportunities to share our experience with creating a Wikipedia in a smaller underrepresented language and to learn from other similar projects across the Wikimedia movement, for example by participating in the research of the pilot Language Diversity Hub.

22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Somewhat increased

23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

As stated in the previous question, Wikimedia Canada always maintained and continues to maintain a high sense of belonging to the Wikimedia movement and free knowledge movement in general. This hasn’t changed significantly over the fund period, but continued to be increased through participation in collaborative efforts with other affiliates, for example the WikiConvention francophone.

24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?

Somewhat increased

25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.

Same answer as question 22 above.

26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.

One of the main goals of Wikimedia Canada is to increase free knowledge in particular about the Indigenous communities in Canada, as well as other underrepresented groups in order to increase the diversity of the knowledge from Canada on the Wikimedia projects.

Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration

We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.

27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Partially

27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?

As stated in the beginning of this form, in 2022 Wikimedia Canada focused heavily on beginning its strategic transformation and the hiring of its first Executive Director in order to set the foundation for the implementation of our strategic direction and ensure the sustainability of our efforts. As such, we consider 2022 a very successful year. That being said, there aren't much results in terms of programs or learnings to be shared for this funding period as those activities were heavily reduced in order to allow us to focus on establishing the governance structure and framework to allow us to hire the Executive Director.

28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?

We do this regularly (at least once a month)

29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?

Wikimedia Canada has strong connections with other affiliates from the French-speaking world and we constantly learn from each other. As stated above, we take every opportunity to share about the Atikamekw Project to help other affiliates/grantees conduct projects with smaller or underrepresented languages, or with Indigenous knowledge. We maintain an active blog where we share lessons learned. In the coming year, we are planning to hire a staff which will be responsible, among other things, to help support the chapter with its communications.

Currently we share mutual learning through WikiFranca.

Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance

30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

63677

31. Local currency type

CAD

32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.

Report funds received and spent, if template not used.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1Rw3zfdKAUZapftcpnwBOIojR4IosBVzWqSTf--dDnb0/edit#gid=2021423801

33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.

N/A

34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?

34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.

The Foundation gave us 169 000$ and we used 63 677$ - That's 38% of the budget.

Two main reasons explain why we didn't use the budget in full :

1st - We were supposed to have our ED in May, than, a few months later, to hire a Communication and Philanthropy Officer. However, the hiring of our ED was way more difficult than expected. The first ED we hired finally declined our proposition. We had to go back and start the process all over again. It took way longer than expected. The job market in Canada is difficult as the unemployment rate is very very low. Our ED only started with us mid-October, more than 5 months after he was supposed to be. Big part of the money we haven't spend was to pay the ED and the Officer so they could participate in project with people of the community. All the projects are still on the table, but everything has been postponed. We also have commitments that we have had to push back with some partners, as a result of being short on staff. 2- The other reason why we haven't spent all the money, is that knowing the situation with COVID (in Canada, beginning of 2022 many places were still locked down), we decided to use this time to work on our strategic plan and to define our programs for the next few years. We felt that it was a good idea to work on our strategy for the end of the pandemic. We identified 6 programs that we want to work on, in the future. We also had a reflection on our governance. How to keep it up-to-date, how to improve it.

34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?

A. Propose to use the underspent funds within this Fund period with PO approval

34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.

We would appreciate if the Foundation would accept to let us the money unspent, as all our projects are still on the table and we would like to have the chance to make them happen.

Our ED is now in place and he gets his bearings in the organization. We open a new position earlier this week and we expect to have our Communication officer with us by the end of April. Later this year, we would like to hire a project manager. That's what we would do if we had the chance to keep our grant.

The new team could catch up on projects that should have been completed by 2022. All the energy could be devoted to our 6 programs identified in our strategic plan : Indigenous people, Francophonie, Wikiclubs, High impact topics, Collective for free knowledge and R&D. As stating above, a few of our partners are waiting for us so we can pursue our projects together.

Also, something we wanted to do in 2022 but wasn't done because of the situation we just mention, is to setup and implement a procedure to collect and analyze data : how many contributors, editors, participants, etc. That would be great for us as there is a lot to learn from these data to improve our activities and to better collaborate with our partner.

Finally, knowing we're going to take a big part in the organization of the North American Convention, we would be able to generate ressources and put all our energy in the success of this event.

35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?

As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?

Yes

37. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.

Yes

38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.

N/A