Grants:Project/Rapid/WMPT/Wiki Loves Earth 2020/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2019-20 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/WMPT/Wiki Loves Earth 2020.
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? Yes, this edition was organized under extremely difficult conditions, due to uncertainty in how it could be organized successfully without putting people at risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19. The number of participants was somewhat lower then what we expected (78 vs 100-150), as were the number of photos uploaded (1245 photos uploaded vs 1500-2000 expected), of which 104 are currently being used in the projects. So, all indicators were below the target, but given the uncertainty we are pleased with the result. In any case, number of photos uploaded were better than the 2019 edition.

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
100-150 participants	78 participants	64 (82%) newcomers, which means the vast majority of participants are new to Wikimedia projects. A contrast to WLM where we see lower percentages of newcomers, meaning there we are getting more "regulars".
1500-2000 uploaded pictures	1245 uploaded pictures	We are getting mostly landscape images, not as many photos of wildlife as seen in other countries. Perhaps we need to make clear that these are also accepted photos (taken the necessary precautions not to disturb wild animals).
15-20% photos used in projects	104 photos used in projects	There were movement restrictions in place that may have prevented people from travelling to where protected areas were, resulting in fewer areas being photographed.

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?

The protected areas database is stable from previous years, leading to less work to the organizers to updated. We got ownership of the domain wikilovesearth.pt from our Spanish counterparts (Thanks to them for maintaining it for the past few years!) and updated the website so we now have a similar theme for WLE and WLM. Our social media campaign worked well, but the engagement resulting from that seems residual compared to that coming from the sitenotice at Wikimedia projects.

What did not work so well?

COVID-19. The number of prizes was high (10) and we had some issues with purchasing Amazon gift vouchers that delayed the purchase of prizes.

What would you do differently next time?

Next time we will try to improve our website, showcasing previous years winners. We will probably not buy ads from social media, as we don't see any evidence of significant engagement through those venues.

Finances

Grant funds spent

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

1st prize: 600€ gift voucher
2nd prize: 400€ gift voucher
3rd prize: 150€ gift voucher
4th to 10th prize: 50€ gift voucher each
Communication: 45.92€ on social media advertising
Mail: 7.70€ on postages
Total: 1 553.62€

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds have been used or will be used for other approved mission-aligned activities. This use has been requested in writing and approved by WMF.

Yes, we did not spend the 220€ for printing the winning photographs. We still would like to print them to use in a photo exhibit as soon as it is possible to have in-person meetings without the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. We also spent 7.70€ on postages that we had not budgeted for, as some of the gift vouchers had to be sent by post to winners. We would like to request that this expense is covered by this grant. We would like to keep the remaining funds (1770-1553.62=216.38€) for printing the photographs and organize the photo exhibit as soon as conditions allow.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?