Grants:Project/Rapid/InFormAzioni/Wiki Loves Earth Italy/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/InFormAzioni/Wiki Loves Earth Italy.
• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
• You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

This was the first edition of Wiki Loves Earth in Italy, so first of all we didn't know what answer we had to expect from the public. Second, we couldn't compare it with the previous editions of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy, because as for the Italian situation the nature of the two contests is different and because this first edition of Wiki Loves Earth didn't involved the whole country but only the Alpine area.

During the organization we also found some difficulties, as the absence of a unified and national-level database about all the protected areas: we worked on matching different databases from the Ministry of Environment, Regions and Provinces to create our clean and unique database, move it to Wikidata and then create the lists on Wikipedia.

Despite this difficulties, the project could count on 481 photographable areas which allowed to reach the huge amount of 5,777 images (fifth place worldwide) uploaded from 662 photographers (third place worldwide).

But our objectives were not only linked to the achievement of quantitative data (images and photographers), but also related to the achievement of qualitative objectives, such as the creation of a network of partners and the creation of interesting collaborations. In this sense we have received support from all the Alpine regions and provinces, as well as national level institutions involved in environmental protection. Furthermore, we were able to create a network of sponsors who decided to promote and support the project by conferring their special prizes (details about our network of supporters).

So, yes, we reached our goals and we are very happy with how the project went: we can consider it a success!

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
About 500 participants	662 participants	Target achieved
Between 5,000 and 10,000 photos uploaded	5,777 photos uploaded	Target achieved
About 10% of photos used on Wikimedia projects	5% of photos usage (on August 4th)	We have started to add the most valuable photo of every area to the corresponding Wikidata item, but this is still a work in progress. In the next months we will organize an edit-a-thon about natural heritage sites, where we will use the uploaded images.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?
  • We are surprised by the good response from the institutions, that granted their patronage from the very beginning. We are also pleased to discover that this contest has a good appeal with tourism companies, which were more willing to grant a sponsorship. We haven't had any problem with the communities of the Italian Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, and we also worked very well with the international team of Wiki Loves Earth and the team that manage the Montage jury tool.

• What did not work so well?
  • We worked hardly on communication using a lot of channels: official site, social networks, and press releases. Unfortunately we didn't receive a great media coverage, so our press mentions were under the expectations.

• What would you do differently next time?
  • Next year we will extend the contest from the Alpine area to the whole country, so we will work on a bigger level. We will start sooner on working on a lot of things, as database migration, communication and fund raising. The last aspect needs work that has to start a lot of months before the contest. We will start from the contact that we created this year and we'll extend our range geographically and sectorally.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

The budget was 1,468.42 EUR, from the remaining funds of itWikiCon 2017. The grant was allocated for:

• Prizes for the 10 national winners: 1,057.07 EUR
• Prizes for the 7 regional winners: 231.70 EUR
• Booklet of 20 postal shipments: 207.00 EUR

Total expenses: 1,495.77 EUR

The difference between total expenses and the sum of the grant (27.35 EUR) was kindly covered by Arci del Trentino, the fiscal sponsor.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

We have circumscribed this edition to the Alpine area because we were unable to start directly with the whole country, for the difficulties described above; second, we made it so because we had the support from the WikiAlpenforum. This caused some disappointment, and we received some mails from people living far away from the Alps that didn't agree with our choice. From one side this is good, because it indicates that the project has a good appeal not only for Wikipedians but mostly for people outside our movement. But this disappointment can also create problems, so we want to alert other groups that intend to organize a "geographically-located" contest: be ready to disappoint someone and to answer to a lot of questions!