Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Ghana User Group/2021

Application or grant stage: in progress

Applicant or grantee: Wikimedia Ghana User Group

Amount requested: 75,851 USD

Amount granted: 39,000 USD

Funding period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2021

Midpoint report due: 30 June 2021

Final report due: 30 January 2022

Application

Background

Annual Plan

About

This year, the plan behind executing our mandate as promoters of Wikimedia projects in Ghana will be to recruit more editors, complete our policy and advocacy initiatives, hold content creation events and continue building a robust local Ghanaian Wikimedian community.

• We want to explore the creation and sharing of customisable digital resources that Wikipedia editing trainers who organise workshops south of the Sahara (English and French-speaking countries) can use. We want to build on-demand digital editing aids that recruits can also use to learn to edit Wikipedia on their own.

• To foster the creation of the content, we will hold editathons, form partnerships, embark on a photo drive and reboot our Wikimedia in Education projects.

• In line with movement-wide activism work, we have a policy and advocacy program. The program will include a study of the usefulness of local language Wikipedia for Ghanaian languages and also continue our work with creating a road-map for the achievement of Freedom of Panorama which we started in 2020.

• We also have measures to develop our 8-year-old community which has about 300 members who need to be integrated better into community work.

This year's reliance on digital means of recruitment comes out of the learnings from our COVID adaptation plans when the pandemic ruled out offline experiences.

Relationship between our 2021 programs

For wmgh, in 2021, our Increasing Participation (IP) and Content Creation (CC) programs are tightly-knit.

The IP activities will lead to new editors' recruitment; while the CC activities seek to engage existing editors recruited through IP events over the years and in 2021. Additionally, our Wikimedia Education participants will eventually fall our digital resources to continue learning, even after our offline engagements with them.

We have additional information about our programs here.

Budget Plan

Our budget plan.

Staffing Plan

Our staffing plan

Strategic plan

N/A

Introduction

Wikimedia Ghana Usergroup (wmgh) started operations in 2012 (initially as Planning Wikimedia Ghana) the first Ghanaian Wikimedian community. We pioneered Wikimedia community building in Ghana, West Africa and most parts of Sub Saharan Africa. We work to give every Ghanaian online a chance to discover Wikipedia and sister wikis and teach them how to use it and edit it.

Aside from recruiting and training new editors, existing editors also focus on improving content; embarking on advocacy work and building partnerships beneficial to the open knowledge cause.

Advocacy work includes campaigning for Freedom of Panorama in Ghana in 2018; while partnerships include ones with organisations like Impact Hub Accra, MTN Ghana, re:publica, GIMPA Law School, U.S. Agency for Global Media (formerly BBG), Barcamp Ghana, Africa Open Data Conference, Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2018 (FIFAfrica).

Wikimedia Ghana User Group 2021 Programs

Increasing Participation

Brief description

The 'Increasing Participation' program includes building online tools for both trainers and new editors.

Activities

• Building and using Nimble – a mobile-first and interactive website which will feature a nimble step by step guide to editing Wikipedia.
• Readapting Wikimedia workshop presentation slides by Art+ Feminism into non-themed and customizable slides for new Wikipedia instructors in the Sub Saharan African community.

SMART Goals

• The specific goal for this program is to provide digital tools to be used for recruiting new editors.
• The program success can be measured by 1 web tool for 500 new recruits to learn editing by themselves, and also 10 freely licensed kits for use by new Wikipedia instructors.
• This program will achieve its objective through a collaboration of graphic design, web design, Meta Wiki resources and social media publicity.
• The program's relevance is embedded in the fact that Meta Wiki resources guiding recruits and trainers alike, are voluminous and not easily customisable and hence, the program seeks to build light weight and friendly versions for use.
• Targets will be met by end of grant period.

Target Metrics

Participants	Newly Registered	Content Pages	Resources Created	Uploads
500	500	500	10	10

Bigger Picture

In line with the Movement Strategy this program seeks to create resources that will remove barriers to the process of learning to edit for recruits, and also give trainers flexible resources they can easily use.

Content Creation

Brief Description

The ‘Content Creation’ (CC) program aims to create content by engaging editors in edit-a-thons. We are ambitiously working towards the use of Nimble as our only means of providing workshop-like guidance to recruits. That said, the CC program is meant to engage and retain Nimble users, and other existing editors. Our CC programs that not run under education programs are usually branded as Ghana Edits Wikipedia. The main objective for these events is to generate content, not to teach the basics of editing. However, we also believe these events will help editors improve their skills.

Activities

• Embarking on a photo drive for 500 notable people without photos on Wikimedia projects
• Organising 12 edit-a-thons across the country for content creation including an event where Nimble users and other existing members (15 per event) to embed the 500 photos on Wikipedia pages as tasks.
• Engaging about 50 students of the University of Professional Studies and GIMPA (a former Wikimedia in Education partner) to create content in an education program

The cities or communities we are considering include:

• Accra

• Ho

• Takoradi

• Koforidua

• Winneba

• Tamale

• Kumasi
• Ghana Institute of Journalism
• Poetry and arts communities (Ghana Poets Association and Nubuke Foundation) through a Wiki Loves Art and Poetry event(s)
• Ghana Internet Conference

SMART Goals

• The specific objective for this program is to create content content for English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
• This program's success can be measured by how many content pages or uploads were done.
• This program will achieve its aim goals through organising events and forming partnerships through which editors can gather/collaborate to edit.
• This program is relevant because the basic requirement to keeping the Wikimedia wikis running is for there to be content on the pages.
• Events will start in February till the end of the grant year 2021.

Target Metrics

Participants	Newly Registered	Content Pages	Resources Created	Uploads
231	0	680	0	500

Bigger Picture

Content is the lifeblood of the Wikimedia Movement

Policy and Advocacy

Brief Description

The 'Policy and Advocacy' program supports our Freedom of Panorama advocacy and also includes our research work on the importance Ghanaian language Wikipedias.

Activities

• Continuing the drafting of a road map to achieving FoP in Ghana and documenting what has been done so far by the user group.
• Researching the importance of Ghanaian language Wikipedias and writing a white paper on the findings.

SMART Goals

• The specific object of our policy and advocacy work is to remove the challenges to content creation.
• Our objective can measured by 1 road map clearing the path for all discussions on FoP in Ghana and a white paper to help better advice local language projects in the Ghanaian community.
• This goal will be attained through working groups, surveys, policy events that bring stakeholders together for discussions.
• This goal is relevant because the documents produced will serve as building blocks for many content creation projects in the near and logterm future.
• The activities were scheduled for 2020 however were carried into 2021 due to COVID. We expect to start in the Q2.

Target Metrics

Participants	Newly Registered	Content Pages	Resources Created	Uploads
120	0	0	2	2

Bigger Picture

Without FoP, some encyclopedic content from Ghana is still not welcome on Wikipedia and that creates a gap in knowledge for Wikipedia. Additionally, a white paper on the usefulness of Ghanaian language will provide clarity on what language projects should look like and whether wmgh should invest in any at all.

Community Development

Brief Description

The 'Community Development' program includes membership-focused activities that will enhance user group growth.

Activities

• Annual General Meeting
• Membership Drive
• Wikipedia 20 celebrations

SMART Goals

• The specific goal for this program is to make membership more enjoyable and eventually that will enhance the user group's advancement.
• The goal can be measured by the execution of 3 membership focused events in 2021.
• The goal can be attained through a membership drive to full confer membership status on 300+ people in our contact records, give them orientation, involve them have team building activities, and let them participate in all that our recently drafted bylaws require.
• As a non-profit entity, the relevance of the activities come from the need to know our members and integrate them better as required by law.
• The program will run till the end of the grant period.

Target Metrics

Participants	Newly Registered	Content Pages	Resources Created	Uploads
550	0	0	0	0

Bigger Picture

It's beneficial to know our membership. That way they can know the group, and their rights and responsibilities. It helps in inclusion, it aids in feedback collection for the process of capacity buidling among other things.

Grant Metrics Reporting

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Requests for operational support

Coaching on Financing

Midterm report (January 1, 2021 – July 15, 2021)

This year the Wikimedia Ghana User Group set out to do several activities to further the goals we set out for ourselves at the beginning of our grant year. We planned on recruiting more editors, completing our policy and advocacy initiatives, holding content creation events and continuing building a robust local Ghanaian Wikimedian community.

Program story

Optional. Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

Program Progress

PROGRAM TITLE

• 2021 Mid-Year Report

Spending update Midterm

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the first half of your grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.

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

• USD 12,242.68 / GHS 67334.74

• Midterm

Grant Metrics Reporting Midterm

Metrics, targets and results:  grants metrics worksheet here.

Final report

Program story

Optional. Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

The Content Creation program is a good showcase of our work during the reporting period. As the name suggests, we planned to bring Wikimedians together to create or upload content unto the wikis.

We proposed three activities, but we would like to highlight the 500 Notable People photo project.

We aimed to collect and upload photos of notable people in Ghana who do not have images on Wikimedia Commons or on their Wikipedia biographies.

Taking or collecting photos of 500 people scattered across the country would be challenging, so we decided to group our subjects according to their common characteristics.

The first group to participate in 2021 were the members of Ghana's Parliament, from whom we collected about 275 photos of parliamentarians.

We did this in collaboration with the Public Relations Department of the Parliament of Ghana, which is led by Mrs Kate Addo, their Head of Public Relations.

We also took photos of 64 notable people in entertainment. We did this in collaboration with 3Music Network, organisers of the 3Music Awards, one of Ghana's notable music awards shows.

The project also obtained about 300 more photos of other topics related to the Parliament of Ghana and the 3Music Awards.

In June of 2022, we organised a 3-day workshop for students of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) and updated 162 pages with the photos.

We targeted notable members of Ghana's Judiciary Service and notable people who worked with or would make an appearance in the on-air programs of Multimedia Group Limited, Ghana's biggest media company.

We had contact persons in these organisations who were assisting us plan the content creation or collection. However, we did not begin working with them.

We did not meet our target of 500 photos of notable people, primarily because of how long it took for organisations to agree. We also paused about 99% of our work prematurely due to governance and staffing matters which we will capture in the introduction to our program impact.

500 Notable People project turned out well because of the relevance and clarity of the project, the reliable networks we had and the ideas of everyone on the team that executed this.

This program activity turned out well.

Learning story

Optional. Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

• None

Programs Impact

Increasing Participation

Brief description

The 'Increasing Participation' program includes building online tools for both trainers and new editors.

Program/Activities Impact

• We could not launch Nimble as it is still in development. But we have the site and the placeholder content available: https://nimble.toolforge.org.

• We could not readapt Wikimedia workshop presentation slides by Art+ Feminism into non-themed and customizable slides for new Wikipedia instructors in the Sub-Saharan African community. This activity would require resources only available if Nimble made progress.

Challenges

• Recruiting a MediaWiki developer
• Took time to watch the Wikimedia Foundation Growth Team's work to address overlaps and see where there can be integration
• Governance and staffing matters raised in the next section

Learning points

• We expected the challenges, so nothing new to share

Adaptation for next grant period

• We would like to continue building the tool; however, we would want to engage more with the Growth Team. We had two meetings with their Community Relations Specialist.
• Make the building process more open by inviting more community opinions about the tool.

Content Creation

Brief Description

The ‘Content Creation’ (CC) program aims to create content by engaging editors in edit-a-thons.

Program/Activities Impact

• We were ambitiously working towards using Nimble as our only means of providing workshop-like guidance to recruits. However we decided to use workshops since Nimble wasn't ready.

• For the first time since we became a nonprofit, we were able to host Wikipedia workshops in about six regions in Ghana outside of the national capital.
• We ran a mix of online and in-person workshops, which contributed to exceeding the 12 workshops target we set for ourselves in our grant. We had 24.

Challenges

• Delay of Nimble. However, we recognised this early and pursued events regardless.

Learning points

• New editors are eager to join the workshops which we organise in-person outside of the capital city, Accra. Also, editors in Accra are more interested in online editathons.

Adaptation for next grant period

• We are eager to trial migrating recruitment unto Nimble software to a point where Nimble can recruit and help editors get their first edits as they would at our hands-on events.

Policy and Advocacy

Brief Description

The 'Policy and Advocacy' program supports our Freedom of Panorama advocacy and also includes our research work on the importance Ghanaian language Wikipedias.

Program/Activities Impact

• The white paper hasn't been written because the six interviews and surveys we wanted to run are not complete.
• We successfully conducted three interviews
• We have surveyed some parts of our target, and we are left with the phase where we launch a second survey on selected wikis. We have prepared the Qualtrics platform with the help of the Global Data and Insights Team of the Wikimedia Foundation.
• We did not make significant progress on our FoP work

Challenges

• Availability of interviewees

Learning points

• This was the first time we used Qualtrics in projects

Adaptation for next grant period

• We want to postpone FoP work; we don't wish to tackle it next grant year

Community Development

Brief Description

The 'Community Development' program includes membership-focused activities that will enhance user group growth.

Program/Activities Impact

• The Annual General Meeting was not held and since it can only happen once a year, we have to target December 2022.

• For the Membership Drive, we re-connected with the 300+ Wikimedians. We duly ensured that all registered members who do not have Wikimedia accounts got their accounts and received orientation about Wikipedia, the usergroup and the Wikimedia movement.

• We had no time to plan a Wikipedia 20 celebration. There was so much going on with the other activities.

Challenges

• Availability of tools to stay connected and manage this large community

Learning points

• None

Adaptation for next grant period

• The program will likely evolve when Nimble launches. We are interested in seeing it next year.

Some other challenges

Before we share the spending final update, we want to mention that we underspent and also decided to end most of our projects in April 2022, two months before the grant period ended.

During the grant term, there were many times when we had to shift focus from project execution to the governance and staffing matters of our young nonprofit.

As a 9-year-old community but less than two years old as a nonprofit, we are still aligning with the practices of legal entities. Governance and staffing became a program in itself.

The grant we proposed was going to be executed by a team of six people:

• A paid Community Manager (CM) to work with the entire community and hence manage the organisation
• A volunteer who gets a stipend to assist the CM.
• Four unpaid volunteers. These four volunteers are the two grantees who handle funds the CM uses and two board members who supervise the CM.

We lost three teammates to personal commitments.

Hence with the budget for one paid CM and volunteer with a stipend, we adapted and hired four paid contractors to handle each of the programs to compensate for the reduction in team number. Though this was an extreme adjustment, the four part-time contractors seemed to have a better chance of handling the workload. At the same time, the other volunteers would assist optionally.

The time we took to hire and onboard contractors, correct some conflict of interest in our team structure in response to an Affcom recommendation, and stay in good standing with the agencies that oversee nonprofits would cost us about five months of focus on the funded programs.

One would even notice in our expenses document that from April 2022-June 2022, we didn't pay contractor fees. That period required hiring a new contractor, which we knew we could never recruit and onboard on time to finish our grant work before this report was due. And so we chose to stop work, and underspend rather than do something we knew wouldn't work.

Spending update Final

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.

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

• USD 31,915.03 / GHS 193,294.48
• Year Financial Report

Grant Metrics Reporting Final

Metrics, targets and results:  grants metrics worksheet here.