Grants:Project/Rapid/UG ELiSo/Fundraising campaign 2021/Report

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Goals

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

We are still waiting for some statistics but it is now clear that we have not met our goals. We are not happy about how the project went. But despite not meeting the measurable indicators, we have created the infrastructure needed to repeat the project in future, with adaptations, much more easily and quickly.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of total participants (total number of ads impressions): 100 000	217 929	This statistic is quite polluted by using several different campaigns in Facebook ads (different campaigns have different cost per impression and are differently contributing to achieving the objectives). The original calculation was based on previous experiences, but use of new types of campaigns makes in less meaningful to make comparations.
Number of articles created or improved (if applicable) - not applicable	0	Not intended to help creation of articles.
Number of photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (if applicable) - not applicable	0	Not intended to help uploading to Wikimedia Commons.
Number of photos used on Wikimedia projects (if applicable) - not applicable	0	Not intended to help use photos on Wikimedia projects.
Funds raised: 1 000 €	75,92 €	In this campaign we have experienced a series of technical issues and problems with the functioning of Facebook ads (see "What did not work so well?" below). That caused significant delays and slover inflow of visitors to our campaign site, which resulted in significantly lower than expected donations.
Email addressed collected: 250	0	This was the first time our organisation participated in this campaign and used email opt-in form. This was coupled with a series of technical issues and problems with the functioning of Facebook ads (see "What did not work so well?" below). Overall, we were evidently optimistic about the outcome.
Postal addresses collected: 50	(waiting for data)	While we are still waiting for the data, it is clear that it is a significantly lower number than targeted 50. It was significantly hindered by a series of technical issues and problems of functioning of Facebook ads (see "What did not work so well?" below). Overall, we were evidently optimistic about the outcome.

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?

1. the necessary infrastructure (website, facebook page, tracking systems, contact management system etc) was created, is visually appealing and well prepared for next years campaigns and other uses
2. experience created and knowledge learned during the campaign is helping our organisation in other areas
3. the created Facebook page was and still is actively used to promote Wikimedia content for Slovakia public (as the most active Slovak wiki Facebook page)

• What did not work so well?

1. creation of the campaign website needed some additional technical settings, whose effect needed some time to propagate, causing delays
2. we had problems to fine set up our contact management system (for email opt-ins) and the quick fix we have used caused us to disable some wanted functionality on our main website
3. Facebook (where we have run our ads) in the very beginning of our campaign changed its targeting system, so we couldn't use as laser targeted ads as we wanted, but more general ones (and so less effective)
4. Facebook (where we have run our ads) changed its system of A/B testing for ads, so we had to relearn using it, causing more delays and less time, energy and attention for creating the creative part of ads and research
5. as a stepping stone we have run a campaign for Facebook page likes, but we was starting from very, very small aquired audience, making it harder to grow it up (Facebook needs some amount of data in order to find people most likely to perform the targeted action, in this case liking page)
6. we have followed recommended path for "warming up" our target audience ("warm" audience is more likely to perform the targeted action, in this case donation), consisting from several steps and bridging between steps; the problem was, that the bridging wasn't working well enough, to our best understanding because of small amount of gathered data during each step - this caused delays for the final step, the donation
7. the rate of taking action by our targeted audience was significantly slower than experienced previously, thus making progress in the individual steps much slower
8. we had plan to divide general work in our organisation during the campaign, but that plan slipped, adding more work for the main campaigner
9. Facebook visitors was surprised and untrusting about paid ads for wiki, only after showing the grant request they have accepted it
10. potential donors was very unwilingful to provide their email address, which was an important part of the campaign, both for optimization of the current year (optimisation of ads for conversion) and for the next years (contacting potential donors by free email)
11. Slovak Wikipedia community was confused about 2 organisations (the other one is WUG Wikimedians of Slovakia) asking for the donations in the same campaign in the same time
12. the donated funds are significantly lower than targeted

• What would you do differently next time?

1. asked for grant with enough time to be able to buy a web domain and create a website on it well in advance
2. asked for a grant high enough to provide enough data in each step of the "warming up" process, so these data could be effectively used for the next step
3. start website visitors campaign in parallel to the "warming up" process
4. asked for CentralNotice in addition to / instead of paid ads
5. managed the project using high-quality project management software
6. track finances using high-quality finance tracking system
7. maybe asked local marketing agency for help

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

Grand total: 396,59 EUR

• Main project: 243,31 EUR
  • web domain: 6,96 EUR
  • paid ads: 236,35 EUR
• Reallocation project:
  • Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Esperanto 2021: 153.28 EUR

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds: 138,41 EUR

We would like to use the remaining funds to fund the same campaign in 2022.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Realocation report - Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Esperanto 2021

As we underused funds for the main part of the project, we have requested realocation of 160 euros for the project Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Esperanto 2021 - the Esperanto edition of the federative contest / campaign Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos 2021. It is a continuation of our 2020 edition.

In 2020 we was calculating with the international prizes and intentionally haven't asked for an additional grant. But the international rules for early changed in reaction of non-fair participation in some language versions (not our). So in 2021 we have asked some small funds for local prizes to motivate participation.

The basic competition runs on Wikipedias in various languages and accepts images, sounds and videos.. We have considered running it also on non-Wikipedia projects (mostly for Esperanto Wikiquotes and Wikivoyage) and allowing also 3D objects. But after consultation with the international team and considerations of available tools we have decided to omit these additional options for this year. Still, we are considering them for some next editions.

The competition run on the Esperanto Wikipedia during whole July and August 2021.

Participated 22 participants:

• 3 novices
• 18 experienced
• 1 anonymous

During the competition, 22 users (2x more than the previous year) added multimedias to 1749 pages (8x more than the previous year).

During sending of prizes we had experienced some issues about gift cards providers from some countries, probably because they are not accustomed to international buyers. Based on that experience we had adapted our recomendations for communication with winners.

Most of the available prizes was provided. Only prize for adding sound files by novices haven't a winner.

Significant part of contributions was multimedias inside of templates, mostly infoboxes. From long term point of view, it would be preferably to provides multimedias in such context using data from Wikidata, and for competition adding multimedias in the free text rather. It is very considerable how to deal about it for future.