Grants:Project/MSIG/Stronger CEE Hub/Report

Movement Strategy Implementation Grant Report
Draft

Please review the notes below before submitting your report.

Your draft implementation plan document should address the following questions clearly:

• What movement strategy initiative or goal are you addressing?
• What activities will you be doing to address that initiative?
• What do you expect will happen as a result of your activities? How do those outcomes address the movement strategy initiative?
• How will you measure or evaluate your activities? What tools or methods will you use to evaluate your activities?

To create a draft implementation plan, we recommend the use of a logic model, which will help you and your team think about goals, activities, outcomes, and other factors in an organized way. Please refer the following resources to develop a logic model:

• Overview of logic models on Meta-wiki
• Example logic models for reference for other movement activities (such as partnerships and edit-a-thons)
• Blank logic model template on Google Drive

Outcomes

Please respond to the following questions below:

Where have you published your draft plan? Share the link to it here:

• Our draft plan was published on Meta and it can be found here: Stronger CEE Hub.

What Movement Strategy initiative is this draft plan supporting?

• Our draft plan was supporting Movement strategy recommendation Ensuring Equity in Decision-Making and more precisely it focused on MS initiative nr. 26 which is about Regional & thematic hubs. The project’s main focus was the implementation of activities which lead towards the building of the CEE Hub which is a regional Hub, and its focus is Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The CEE Hub was initiated to empower and to provide support structures that enable closer cooperation, capacity building and the transfer of knowledge between communities and individuals who work in the CEE region. CEE Hub is a sort of a back-office of the CEE, offering support in 3 fields:

• administrative,
• programmatic, and
• related to communications.

What activities have you completed to produce this draft plan?

• To provide support to the CEE communities in three areas which are the focus of the CEE Hub’s work i.e. to provide support in administrative, programmatic and communication area, the CEE Hub developed a wide range of activities in each of these three areas. In the table below you can find a detailed description of all activities we implemented as well as the explanation of concrete outcomes we achieved. Also, where possible we included links to Meta pages which show concrete examples of our work.

KPI 2024	Specific goals and activities	Status	Final outcome
1	ADMINISTRATIVE	completed
1.1.	Min. 3 individuals or communities supported in writing grant applications	completed	During January 2024, we commented and make suggestions for three rapid grant proposals: The Visible Ones - women artists in art museums in Croatia (funded) Introduction of the Wikimedia movement and its projects at Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus (funded) CIP101 Wikipedia Project for Sustainable Development (not funded) Emailing potential General Support Fund grantees to inform Chris and grant team on time about their plans We promote all of the grant opportunities by the Wikimedia Foundation, along with possible support (if needed) Communication with the WMF and trying to get additional funds (because rapid grant rounds are closed for the CEE) Commenting and making suggestions for the project Wiki Loves Audio, which become part of the grant proposal of Wikimedia Polska
1.2.	Min. one external grant application submitted (with several CEE communities as project partners)	completed, but in a different way	Discussion with Wikimedia Sverige (Wikimedia Sweden) about two other grants, and with Wikimedia Polska (Wikimedia Poland) about youth group grant In March, Mari (youth member) and Barbara drafted the grant application, which Wikimedia Polska later submitted, but at the end was not not funded Swedish Institute (SI) seed project (Heritage Guard Network) was extended because the new SI grant round is scheduled in 2025. Instead of working on the new grant application in June 2024 (as planned) this activity is postponed till winter 2024/2025 In July, oordination with Sezis regarding external grant that she will be preparing (for Greek and Cypriot communities) In October, coordination for Erasmus / partners
1.3.	2 communities supported in event organization (materials, logistics or the process)	completed	CEE Hub staff member Barbara Klen and CEE Hub Steering Committee member Philip Kopetzky attended during the HERitage Amplified event, where they assist with the implementation of the awarded rapid grant Discussion/meeting with Bulgarian community about organising an event Recording video message for the Greek UG
4	UNPLANNED
4.1.	RAPID FUNDS	completed	Coordination with Wikimedia Foundation after we discovered and it was officially confirmed that CEECA region will be left without Rapid Funds after January due to the lack of funding As a continuation of the discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation with the current lack of funding for the rapid funds in the CEECA region, CEE Hub published our vision for some future funds distribution In April, CEE Hub created a short survey, where we want to gather information on how many communities/affiliates from the region plan to apply for the Rapid Funds. Additionally, we invited everyone who applied in cycles 3 and 4 and got a rejection due lack of funds to fill in this survey. WMF decided to open semi-closed extraordinary round for rapid funds in May, and the task of the CEE Hub was to contact the previous grantees that were rejected due to lack of funding and the new ones who express their desire to apply in the survey that has been sent to the CEE affiliates, but they do not have a chance to do that. From this effort we supported and evaluated following applications and they get funding through WMF: Wikipedia Trainings in Lebanon & Egypt done by the Western Armenian Language UG; Seniors Create Wikipedia Bratislava dones by the Wikimedians of Slovakia; Wiki Loves Earth 2024 in Kazakhstan done by the Wikimedia Community of Kazakh language User Group; and Documenting DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art archives in commons done by the Wikimedia Community User Group Albania.
4.2.	CEE HUB BRANDING EFFORTS	completed	After unsuccessful attempt to get a logo working with the Branding Studio from WMF during our first year, CEE Hub revived the idea to get a logo in August 2024 with opening an open call for new logo and askind community members to apply with their own visuals and designs. During CEE Meeting 2024, it was decided to continue working with Caner about visual identity of the CEE Hub, which was followed by one workshop between him and Steering Committee members In December, we got an official visual guide by Caner, but we wait for response by WMF about usage of the word 'Wikimedia' in the logo, which turned out that we cannot use

In which community channels have you announced your draft plan?

• We are in regular contact with communities and individuals from the CEE region thus affiliate representatives as well as all CEE community members were involved and participated in the process of creation of this grant. After we wrote the first draft of this grant proposal, during August 2023 we held two online meet-ups to present the Year 2 CEE Hub plan and to also collect feedback. During the CEE meeting which took place in Tbilisi in September 2023 we organised a workshop about CEE Hub Year 2 Plan with a goal to additionally explain planned activities and to collect valuable comments and ideas about the support that is expected and needed from the CEE Hub. Although we were able to collect some feedback during online sessions and meetings with CEE communities during July and August, it was the workshop that we organised in Tbilisi that proved to be a much more efficient method to receive both positive and negative feedback. The Tbilisi workshop was a resource of valuable comments and ideas which are now incorporated into this grant proposal.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?