Application or grant stage: in progress

Applicant or grantee: Black Lunch Table Wikimedians

Amount requested: US$250,500.08

Amount granted: 127,544 USD

Funding period: January 2021 - December 2021

Midpoint report due: July 15, 2021

Final report due: January 30, 2022

Application

Background

Annual Plan

BLT's 2021 Annual Plan is largely a continuation of our 2020 goals and initiatives. Due to the disruption of COVID-19 and the additional crisis of the M4BL expected progress for our 2020 cycle was altered and we carry out many of our goals with some revisions into the 2021 cycle. We have noted any changes in our three focus areas of Nonprofit, Team, and Edit-a-thons/Editors/Photobooth in the linked document.

sAPG 2021 BLT Annual Plan

Budget Plan

BLT's 2021 Budget reflects the costs required for our project to reach the goals we have set out for ourselves as well as the expected additional capacity required to meet the growth of the project, deeper engagement with WMF, and continuing to adapt our programmatic output to continuing national crises.

For any document access difficulties please be in touch wiki(at)blacklunchtable(dot)com

Revised 2021 based on WMF actual award

Staffing Plan

BLT's sAPG 2021 Staffing Plan includes a few title changes, one entirely new position, and various pay rate increases as we move to include two full-time staff members. Largely, BLT is working to retain our current hires, build momentum for the project, and increase cohesion and functionality across the team.

sAPG 2021 BLT Staffing Plan

Strategic plan

BLT's 2021 Strategic Plan, especially as related to Wikimedia, was drafted in 2020 after our NFP status was granted. The disruption of COVID-19 and the additional crisis of the M4BL have altered our progress during 2020, to say the least. At this time we do not see any significant differences in the vision for the strategic plan for the project and have linked our 2020 strategic plan here. Any changes to outcomes or staffing are noted in the annual or staffing plans.

sAPG 2020 BLT Strategic Plan

Introduction

This is the Black Lunch Table's application page for the 2021 cycle of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Simple Annual Plan Grant.

Wikimedia as a platform and digital space is critically important to The Black Lunch Table’s ambition of producing discursive sites, wherein the people of the community engage in critical dialogue with one another on topics directly affecting our community. We believe that equity is only possible if our stories are told by us, creating a record of our cultural, intellectual, and social contributions.

As a project, Black Lunch Table (BLT) creates a space to encourage people of color and women to join the Wikimedia movement while also creating spaces for all editors to focus on gaps in coverage on Wikimedia. We mobilize the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikimedia documents that pertain to the lives and works of Black visual artists.

We recognize that our involvement with Wikipedia is a critical part of our larger project. We imagine continuing to cultivate our relationship with the Wikipedia movement, seeking out ways we can innovate within it, and continue to grow our project annually and sustainably. This year’s application finds our organization requesting a significant increase in financial and organizational support. We submit this funding increase with an equal commitment to a sustained dedication of BLT's aims and increased impact of all the work we do with communities and on Wiki.

BLT 2021 Programming

BLT’s 2021 Programming is grouped below by BLT branded digital events and pre-pandemic in-person type programming. We anticipate that we will remain largely online for at least the first half of 2021 due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. If deemed safe and possible for our team and communities we will host in-person events in the second half of 2021.

While it was necessary to make the shift to all online programming as directed by the Foundation and science, we would like to acknowledge that our efforts to engage digital communities still reflect our concerted efforts of outreach to specific physical localities/communities as our traditional all-in-person programming.

BLT:Live (online)
BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons (online)
BLT: BLT (online)
BLT Contests (online)

Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Photobooth (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Proxy engagements (in-person)

BLT Branded Online Events

With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, stay at home orders and protest in the streets, we as artists continue to look at creatively bridging gaps and the heavy digital moment that began in 2020 will continue into 2021. While being mindful of the many ethical, ideological, and practical challenges bound up in this online shift we wanted to find ways to be supportive of already precariously positioned artists and workers, while also providing those who may find new opportunities to engage with Wikipedia a path to doing so.

The grouping of programs below happens variously across Wikipedia, social media platforms, Google meet/Zoom, and aggregation sites, like Vimeo or IGTV, that function as asynchronous resources for our community.

BLT: Bacon + Lettuce + Tomato: BLT has always sought to provide a space for communion, affirmation, and discourse and has been the reason for our roundtable series. We recognize the extraordinary need for community spaces and see value in conversation as a space for catharsis and movement, of communication and resource. Meet virtual neighbors! Bring a bag brunch to your computer, take that short commute to your couch. Noon, EST.

BLT: Live on IG Live: Artists are central to all facets of BLT. As exhibitions and freelance work are canceled due to the virus, what we can do to support the continuation of the archive we depend on is ask and compensate artists as they share and commune with us through a series of online “talks”. Find them on IG Live @blacklunchtable.

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons: Join us for online Wikipedia editing and assistance. Help record history as it unfolds by updating related Wikipedia articles, editing know-how is not necessary. In addition to regular editing together, Topic Focus sessions will feature experts on WikiEDU, editing on mobile devices, Wikidata, and Spanish language editing. All skill levels are welcome! Noon, EST.

BLT CONTESTS: BLT BINGO is a monthly contest series that celebrates the work of artists by working to increase information about them on Wikimedia platforms and increasing editor's fluency with all the Wiki platforms. New cards and prizes are released each month.

Program Objectives

Maintain engagement and expand our editorship despite social distancing limitations
Provide opportunities and strategies for EDU/classroom support as education moves largely online
Compensate workers and artists for their time as traditional in-person artist opportunities are canceled or postponed
Highlight and activate the project generally, even off of the Wiki platform, as a means of making aware and educating the public about what we do so that when invitations are made they are more readily accepted

Planned activities

Host a consistent schedule of events that feature artists and experts to speak about their work and expertise on Wiki
Host regular online edit-a-thons that offer opportunities to new and returning editors to contribute to Wiki.
Host time-dependent and task-based contests that motivate editors with prizes to add information about artists on our focus list.

Why are we doing this?

This particular group of programs is in response to the cessation of in-person edit-a-thons. We have created four types of online programming to engage and maintain community and editorship. They maintain many of our original APG goals with necessary amendments to the situation. BLT remains dedicated to creating a space to encourage people of color and women to join the Wikimedia movement and encouraging all editors to focus on gaps in coverage on Wikimedia.

Program metrics and targets

We have spoken up about the challenges of traditional metrics reporting as it relates to the work of BLT. Our ability to frame success/engagement/etc. via traditional quantitative outcomes does not account for an entire connected network of events and community that deepens and makes possible the work we do on Wikipedia. Nonetheless, we have included engagement target numbers such as total video plays, number of contest participants, alongside traditional outcomes from our edit-a-thons. These can and should be held with our Wikipedia specific metrics as a more total vision of the work BLT is doing.

Number of views on BLT: Live videos: 2000
Number of institutional partnerships: 25
Number of contest participants: 100
Number of artists/experts compensated: 36

Black Lunch Table In-person Events

The core activity of the BLT Wikimedians user group has always been edit-a-thons. It allows BLT as a user group to work together to increase the information and participation about and by our community. It also allows us to invite all editors to focus on the knowledge gap that exists around the lives and works of Black artists on the platform.

This work is bolstered by our regional proxies who are Wikimedians based outside of the New York/northeast and Chicago/Northern midwest areas. Regional proxies help establish or expand editorship and BLT’s goals in their own community. At this point we host both new and legacy proxies, deepening the connections made in previous years and continuing outreach.

Recognizing that Wikipedia is not the only platform that lacks information about the lives of Black artists the BLT Photobooth increases images of Black artists on Wikicommons. We host photographers and artists local to an event and upload the images taken during the event, thereby increasing the actual visibility of Black artists on Wikicommons.

These three kinds of events as a set of puzzle pieces underline and complete an approach to our central goal of engagement and awareness. In 2021, if possible, we will return to modified in-person edit-a-thons and photobooths. The metrics here reflect a modest expectation for that possibility.

Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons

Black Lunch Table Photobooths

Black Lunch Table Proxy Engagements

Program Objectives

Increase information and images about the lives of Black Artists on Wiki platforms
Increase and teach skills/techniques that support editing fluency on the Wiki platforms
Engage new editors and offer returning editors continued opportunities for support, especially women and people of color
Provide an accessible inroad to the Wiki universe for anyone interested in participating
Increase the quality and diversify images of Black artists on Wikicommons
Utilize Wikimedians based outside of the New York/northeast and Chicago/Northern midwest areas to help establish BLT’s Wikipedia initiative in additional diverse communities.
Introduce and encourage editors to create “structurally complete” articles
Develop a more thoughtful approach to translating pages and multilingual presence on Wiki, centering interpretation and self-awareness.

Planned activities

Host edit-a-thons with institutional and community partners that offer opportunities to new and returning editors to contribute to Wiki
Host BLT Photobooths with professional photographers and local artists to populate Wikicommons with images of Black artists
Host events/activities tailored to region/proxy, this may include contests, photobooths, or edit-a-thons

Why are we doing this? Black Lunch Table's central focus on Wikipedia is training editors, especially people of color and women, so that they may participate in the Movement and also asks white male editors to focus on gaps in coverage on Wikimedia. After introducing editors to the Movement BLT focuses on the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikimedia documents that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists. In order to do this, we need to offer editors and community members an opportunity to engage in this work and learn. Edit-a-thons, Proxy events, and Photobooths are the vehicle by which this work happens.

Program metrics and targets

As noted above we contend that quantitative outcomes and metrics do not show the entire impact of Black Lunch Table's work. They are however more easily reflected with these programs. Our metrics for 2021 include numbers assuming we can have modest gatherings in the second half of the year.

Number of participants to in-person edit-a-thons: 170
Number of content pages improved or created: 600
Number of pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: 200
Number of pictures of Black artists uploaded to Wikimedia Commons: 50

Grant Metrics Reporting

Required. Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Needs Request

Optional. The Community Resources team would like understand the best way to support the success of your programs and organization in general. If you have any requests or needs you have related to your programs, organizational operations, or other needs below under the appropriate section, please describe them here. You may instead e-mail simple wikimedia.org to reach your program officer if you prefer.

Suggestions for Simple APG Application process

...

Requests for programmatic support

For example, requesting guidance or expertise from Wikimedia Foundation staff on GLAM- or Education-related areas.

...

Requests for operational support

For example, requesting guidance or expertise from Wikimedia Foundation staff on public communications, financial practices, or hiring procedures.

....

Other requests

...

No requests needed

If you have no specific requests, please confirm this here.

...

Midterm report

Black Lunch Table is at the midpoint of our second annual plan grant. With this grant we continue to look at how we can innovate and lead the work of welcoming in new editors and closing knowledge gaps within the Wikipedia movement.

Black Lunch Table’s application for 2021, was largely a continuation of our 2020 goals due to the dual and continuing crises of COVID-19 and The Movement for Black Lives. Amidst the continued challenges of the past 16 months of global crises, we have done our best as a team to support one another and continue the work important and central to Black Lunch Table. This report outlines the progress we have made towards our goals so far this year. Below are summaries of our main goals in our three focus areas of nonprofit operations, team, and events.

NONPROFIT OPERATIONS

Developing a new board of advisors and expanding the board of directors
Increase BLT partnerships with cultural and academic institutions
Increase organizational sponsors for BLT activities

TEAM

Increase the stability of the team and retain effective team members including

Project managers and assistants
Regional Proxies
Bookkeepers, lawyers, strategists
Coders, digital specialists, consultants

Redistribute operations from leads to team

Leads should shift focus to strategy and vision.
Improve all of our staffing, training, hiring systems where each team member is operating more effectively, sustainably and the BLT project is becoming more stable overall.

EVENTS Events encompass our goals as it relates to edit-a-thons, editors, and our photobooth

Increase access to training and participation in marginalized communities
Host 40 Wiki events over 12 months
Develop and initiate a survey and assessment protocol within 6 months
Adopt GLAM and Wiki Education into our initiative
Develop contests that focus on our growing task list as well as ways to familiarize editors with Wikipedia’s many platforms and concerns.
Language and Translation (interpretation) initiatives and collaborations that connect Wikidata to Wikidata to our oral history database, and continuing to focus on events and methods that support thoughtful approaches to the multilingual space of Wiki and our project’s communities.

Program Progress

Nonprofit operations

Since the establishment of BLT as a nonprofit organization in 2019, we have significantly developed the project infrastructure. This includes expanding BLT staff (as well as providing robust support, resources, and compensation for them), convening and developing the advisory board, and developing a multi-year strategic plan (which includes fundraising, programming, and infrastructure development goals). This careful work of internal organization and restructuring is critical to both the long-term and short-term success of the project. This has been a central focus of the co-executve directors as they have moved the day to day operations off to directors.

This strategic development effort has been aided by the retention of a NFP Strategist for the last year and a half. We will continue this work with her for the next year. During the coming year we will build out our board, continue to refine our staffing structure and workflows, and plan for the next year/s of programming and the longer term, sustainable growth of the project.

There have been some unplanned needs as the organization continues to bloom.We have been generously supported by a lawyer working with us pro bono, however, as the project moves forward some services are no longer in the purview of this work agreement. We need legal advice on things like contract review, international visas, and so are seeking to retain the paid services of a new lawyer.

Team

We continue to solidify our core BLT team and this supports our ability to be efficient and effective as we move towards our goals. This, of course, means that there are also failures in the process of building a team. Particularly, this term, we have had to juggle how we imagined positions and who filled them when hiring has not worked out. We want to share both our successes and failures as they are important and impactful to a small nonprofit such as BLT.

This year we were pleased to be able to include funding for a communications specialist. This position is expected to clarify the organization's voice on social media platforms, strategize towards organizational goals, and support our general ability to make the project and our programming legible and visible to our audience through multiple digital means. During the first quarter of 2021 we filled this position, unfortunately the timing for the project and hire did not match and we needed to end the contract. The energy required from the team to hire, onboard, and then complete the work that the communications specialist was hired to do, was not a small dispensation of resources or responsibility. We do hope to seize the second half of 2021 and offer this position to a new person through a hiring process that more holistically reflects the project and considers how the hire will fit. Although we wished it had gone differently, we hope that the next search will offer an opportunity for clarity in this process and bring someone onto the project who we hope to maintain a long working relationship with.

We have noted in our budget section and will also narrativize here the need to increase the capacity/work expected of our financial + operations specialist as we implemented an entirely new HR and payroll system at the beginning of 2021. Shifting to automated payroll generally, and this operations system specifically, has been a learning experience but one that ultimately formalizes the organization. With a greater administrative need behind operations like payroll, hiring, and HR we are also planning to hire a dedicated executive assistant. Operational funding continues to be necessary for the project’s functioning and such a line was allotted but then redirected due to the pressing needs of our finance + operations specialist.

There have been many successes and goals met as we carry on. These include rehiring budget dependent team members and clarifying each team member's responsibilities. We have been able to meet the following goals:

Rehired legacy regional proxies for an engagement during the granting period
Rehired Wiki project mgr and promoted to director, moved them to full time for a year term
Rehired BLT operations manager and promoted to director, moved them to full time for a year term, cost split with larger BLT project scope
Continued engagement with our accountant for annual engagement, cost split with larger BLT project scope
Continued engagement with our nonprofit strategist for annual engagement, cost split with larger BLT project scope
Innovated ways through the global pandemic to engage and compensate artists as other opportunities were limited which lead to program changes, which have ultimately been valuable to the project.

Events and Edit-a-thons

2021 and the beginning of our second year as sAPG grantees was again shadowed by the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic and urgent needs around the Movement for Black Lives. After adapting much of our programming to an all digital format in 2020, we took what seemed to be working and planned for what may be possible in the future. Now half-way through the year, alterations were still needed but we have hosted a variety of digital events and recently our first in-person but socially distanced events. Below we note some of the highlights from our programming so far this year.

Edit-a-thons

Although we have consistently held a monthly online edit-a-thon, recurring the 4th Sunday of every month, BLT like many many others began 2021 with only digital programming as an option. We were pleased to return to a partnership with the Museum of Modern Art celebrating their Reconstructions exhibition. We continue to have success with arts institutions large and small as partners and engaged audiences. In the winter we held an artist talk and edit-a-thon with four Minneapolis institutions: The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and The Minnesota Museum of American Art. Our commitment to working in multiple national and international regions continues. In July we will return to Seattle, WA to partner with Wa Na Wari and The Grocery Studios. In June we inaugurated a new Caribbean relationship with Tern Gallery of the Bahamas. The Caribbean remains an important; co-hosting events again this year with Noircir Wikipédia and planning for additional training events that triangulate the Caribbean and our respective locations.

This year, while revising our edit-a-thon content for the all digital format we have enhanced how we welcome and prepare new and returning editors alike. We have focused on increased outreach and resources in advance of the edit-a-thon. This includes encouraging participants to get a Wiki username, complete their user profile, and offering up resources like microsites about relevant artists to support editors' research/curiosity. These changes were necessary as the differences between online and in person events became more evident and we have found it enhances editing and engagement during the event.

Photobooths

To celebrate Juneteenth and host our first distanced but in person events since the beginning of the pandemic we hosted Juneteenth Photobooths Coast to Coast. The images of artists that we capture and upload to Wikicommons continue to be an important part of the project and one enjoyed by our community. We were able to host multiple events in NYC with Creative Time and Pace Gallery, as well as events in Houston, TX and Chicago, IL. Importantly we didn’t forget all the folks who could not physically be a part of those planned celebrations and made sure that anyone who wanted to participate had a step-by-step guide to take their own photos and upload them to commons.

Our forced transition to all digital programming did bear fruit for BLT. Our alternate platform events, BLT:Live and BLT:Topic Focus alongside our BLT Bingo and international contests have all been great new ways to engage and inform our audience about our Wikipedia project. These programs happen variously across Wikipedia, social media platforms, Google meet/Zoom, and aggregation sites, like Vimeo or IGTV, that function as asynchronous resources for our community. They are detailed below.

All of our recorded BLT Live and Topic Focus series’ are available online HERE. Our full calendar of 2021 events is available HERE

BLT Live: Artists are central to all facets of BLT. As exhibitions and freelance work are canceled due to the virus, what we can do to support the continuation of the archive we depend on is ask and compensate artists as they share and commune with us through a series of online “talks”. Noon, EST. Find them on IG Live @blacklunchtable.

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons: Join us for online Wikipedia editing and assistance. Help record history as it unfolds by updating related Wikipedia articles, editing know-how is not necessary. In addition to regular editing together, Topic Focus sessions will feature experts on WikiEDU, editing on mobile devices, Wikidata, and Spanish language editing. All skill levels are welcome! Noon, EST.

BLT BINGO: is a contest series that celebrates the work of artists by working to increase information about them on Wikimedia platforms and increasing editors' fluency with all the Wiki platforms. New cards and prizes are released each month and a twitter ‘BLT BINGO Tip’ campaign that informs editors about the artists on the board, runs daily.

Spending update Midterm

As of this report we have spent include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:

$83,737.05 USD/Local currency

In April we requested and were approved for a line change to accommodate the increased workload of our finance + operations specialist. Our midpoint budget has some additional line changes for approval, detailed below, these will also be noted on our discussion page as is standard practice.

Line 26. additional increase for finance + operations specialist. This was funded by reallocating funds from an additional Wiki assistant, line 17, that was zeroed out though still necessary and looking to be funded another way.

Line 41, 42. Funds that were to be used for our team retreat, especially travel and accommodations, haven been scaled back. We will not be gathering all together at a specific site as planned, instead we will have small local gatherings/meals where possible in addition to some digital gathering to build team camaraderie. These funds were also partially redirected to fund line 26 increases.

Line 36. To support some of the changes we would like to make to our edit-a-thons and training for new editors, we are investing in WikiEdu classes for some team members.

Revised midpoint budget
Revised midpoint alternate, excel

Grant Metrics Reporting Midterm

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Our 2021 edit-a-thons and collaborations metrics that can be reflected on Outreach are HERE

We have noted before that many of our programs, especially those adapted after COVID, can not be easily tracked on Dashboard. These programs remain important channels for our audience and community. We always want to offer as many pathways into editing on Wikipedia as possible and there is more than one way to educate people about the work we do. This also means that we anticipate that overall our metrics on Outreach Dashboard will be lower than our stated goals for the year because of this expansion and the continuing pandemic.

Our social media campaigns promoting all of our programming can be seen across all our platforms:
FB- https://www.facebook.com/blacklunchtable
Twitter- https://twitter.com/BLACKLUNCHTABLE
IG- https://www.instagram.com/blacklunchtable

Final report

INTRODUCTION

BLT’s 2021 Programming was initially imagined as programs that occurred online and were adapted as “pandemic programming”. The second half of 2021 was planned as a gradual return to pre-pandemic activities. Of course this was not to be. Now in 2022, we remain online with the prospect of another year online ahead of us. We will discuss how this impacted each particular program below. In general it is necessary to state, as we have all experienced, what an incredible challenge the pandemic has been to BLT and our team members.

During 2021, our Wikipedia project hosted 42 events, mostly online with a handful of low-risk events in person. These included ongoing partnerships with large arts institutions like MoMA and new ones with PACE Gallery, Creative Time and The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center, Weisman Art Museum, and The Minnesota Museum of American Art. Despite the challenges of multiple national crises we carried on and found innovation within our online programming. We noticed a general decline in desire and ability to participate in online programming overall, which we attribute to the ongoing nature of the pandemic and online fatigue across the board. The programs we will be discussing in this report are:

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons (online)
BLT:Live (online)
BLT Contests (online)
BLT: BLT (online)

Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Photobooth (in-person)
Black Lunch Table Proxy engagements (in-person)

PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS

BLT: Topic Focus and Online Edit-a-thons Online Wikipedia editing and assistance. Creates an opportunity for participants to ask questions, edit with other Wikimedians, be in community, etc. Topic Focus sessions feature experts on WikiEDU, editing on mobile devices, Wikidata, and Spanish language editing, etc. Events are open to all skill levels. Monthly online.

BLT: Live on IG Live A series of Instagram live artist “talks” that highlight the work and interests of individual Black artists. This program was devised as a way to direct money to artists as exhibitions and freelance work were canceled due to COVID. Monthly online and video archive of past events on Vimeo.

BLT CONTESTS: BLT BINGO is a monthly contest series that celebrates the work of artists by working to increase information about them on Wikimedia platforms and increasing editor's fluency with all Wiki platforms. “BLT Bingo Tips” is a campaign run on Twitter to support the awareness of the contest and artists. A new card and theme is released each month.

BLT: Bacon + Lettuce + Tomato BLT has always sought to provide a space for communion, affirmation, and discourse and has been the reason for our roundtable series. We recognize the extraordinary need for community spaces and see value in conversation as a space for catharsis and movement of communication and resource. Meet virtual neighbors! Bring a bag brunch to your computer, take that short commute to your couch.

Black Lunch Table Edit-a-thons, Proxy engagements, and BLT Photobooth The core activity of the BLT Wikimedians user group has always been edit-a-thons. Black Lunch Table's central focus on Wikipedia is training editors, especially people of color and women, so that they may participate in the Movement and also asks the dominant editorship to focus on gaps in coverage on Wikimedia. After introducing editors to the Movement, BLT focuses on the creation and improvement of a specific set of Wikimedia documents that pertain to the lives and works of Black artists. We offer editors and community members an opportunity to engage in this work and learn through online and in person editing events.

Recognizing that Wikipedia is not the only platform that lacks information about the lives of Black artists, the BLT Photobooths increase images of Black artists on Wikicommons. We host photographers and artists local to an event and upload the images taken during the event, thereby increasing the actual visibility of Black artists on Wikicommons.

CHALLENGES AND LEARNING POINTS

As mentioned earlier, nearly all of our programming was forced to remain online in the second year of the pandemic. The adaptability of the edit-a-thon allowed our training and events to have a much greater reach. Institutions and organizations were eager to find ways to engage their audience virtually, and we were happily able to provide engaging and relevant programming. As a result of hosting 3+ hour-long events online, we are adapting our training and approaches to these events in a few ways. Importantly, we now do our best to establish a connection with participants in advance of events. Providing information about artists on our focus list and how to get a username. In our experience, this helps to create buy-in with participants. As they become curious about the Black artists we focus on and feel invested in learning Wikicode even before the event. The events where we have this connection result in more engaged participants who ask more questions and are more prepared.

The BLT Photobooth, something that we often ran alongside our in-person edit-a-thons, really came into its own during the pandemic. As the summer rolled around in the northern USA and temperate temps continued in others our Photobooth was our only event that was easily hosted outside and with necessary social distancing and COVID-19 measures. We now regard the Photobooth as its very own programmatic lane. In 2021 it headlined our celebration for Juneteenth. We hosted events in a variety of cities documenting the breadth of Black artists across the country and improving Wikicommons with images of Black artists.

Wikimania and Wiki North America Conference in-person cancellations were disappointing to growing our connection to other Wikimedians doing similar work and those that may desire to support the work we do and generally being connected to the larger community and movement.

We did apply for participation in Wikimania with a session titled #Wiki Sees Black, detailing the importance of using different Wiki entities for equity and visibility and our unique approach to each, but was not an accepted submission. Unfortunately, we did not see many, if any sessions attending to these issues. With the social climate as it is, and at a time that the Foundation and Movement are working to be more inclusive and considerate of the known knowledge and diversity gaps, this critical issue was barely present in the preeminent international convening of Wikimedians.

Alternately, we have been able to find a community with those Wikimedians and user groups who participated in WikiIndaba and are grateful that it is supported. We do hope that DEI concerns do not remain siloed within the movement.

Our regional proxy engagements continue to be an important part of our work. 2021 was BLT’s second engagement with Wa Na Wari, a center for Black art and culture in Seattle’s historically redlined Central District neighborhood. In 2020 we hosted two sessions of roundtables and an edit-a-thon. Happily, we returned via our proxy for an edit-a-thon in 2021. This year we also partnered with The Grocery Studios, a creative space that hosts occasional pop-up art exhibitions, workshops, lectures, music performances, and other creative activities. Our event hosted an intergenerational group of new and experienced Wikipedia editors working together for an afternoon. Wa Na Wari is on our programming schedule again for 2022 as a part of our annual Juneteenth celebrations during the summer. We look forward to cultivating sustained engagements such as this one with smaller organizations rooted in their local community.

ADAPTATIONS FOR FUTURE

BLT: Bacon + Lettuce + Tomato BLT:BLT has ended as a program. While there is a continued need for this kind of support in the community, the general fatigue of online work and fracturing of attention due to an abundance of virtual programming have led us to focus energy elsewhere.

BLT online edit-a-thons(online) We have opted to reshape our monthly online edit-a-thon, which happens the last Sunday of the month, so it more closely meets the needs of editors and our goals. Now called “BLT office hours” the name now more closely matches the reality of the program. All skill levels and users are welcome, however the onus on marathon editing has been shifted to encourage a more relaxed and accessible event.

BLT editathons(in-person) Throughout the year we host in person edit-a-thon events with host institutions, community partners, and other Wiki user groups. This particular version of programming was adapted and moved entirely online due to COVID. Until the threat of spread has subsided and people feel secure enough to gather, this style of event will remain online. Proxy events For 2022 we will be engaging our legacy proxies with one event each keeping our work in regions outside of the north eastern/midwest USA going and plan to expand with three new regional proxies.

BLT Photobooth Our Photobooth has become a real beacon in pandemic times. Photobooths have been the only in person event we have held in the last two years. The events are easily held outdoors in temperate weather and social distancing is achievable. We expect to continue hosting these events as standalone and expect to run a similar Juneteenth 2022 campaign.

BLT Bingo BLT Bingo is a monthly contest and another pandemic adaptation that we have decided to keep running. In 2022 we are working to better advertise and promote our contests through social media. The contest offers us a lot of opportunities to highlight living and working artists and connects to them and their networks.

Spending update Final

Link to final spending PDF

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:

$127,544.00 USD/Local currency

Grant Metrics Reporting Final