Grants:PEG/WM DE/Capacity Building 2010-2011

Funded

This submission to the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2010-11. This is a grant to an organization.

IMPORTANT: Please do not make changes to this page now. They will be reverted.

This project has been funded, completed, and a project report has been reviewed and accepted by WMF Staff.
To review a list of other funded submissions by fiscal year, please visit the Requests subpage, and to review the WMF Grants Program criteria for funding please visit the Grants:Index.

Legal name of chapter

Wikimedia Germany

Grant contact name

Pavel Richter

Grant contact user-name or e-mail

pavel.richter@wikimedia.de

Grant contact title (position)

Executive Director

Project lead name

Pavel Richter

Project lead user-name or e-mail

pavel.richter@wikimedia.de

Project lead title (position), if any

Full project name

Capacity Building 2010 / 2011

Amount requested (in USD)

194.000

Provisional target start date

1. October 2010

Provisional completion date

30. September 2011

Budget breakdown

New Positions

Project Manager “Usability & IT”: USD 63.000 (1)
Project Manager “Volunteer Support”: USD 63.000 (1)
PR Assistant: USD 32.000 (1)
Upgrade Fundraiser to Fulltime: USD 22.000

Technical Infrastructure

Upgrade Technical Infrastructure: USD 6.500 (2)
Fundraising Software: USD 7.500 (3)

(1) This includes labor costs, workspace set-up, travel costs, overhead

(2) Purchase and installation of a new office server

(3) Contractor for CiviCRM installation and initial localization or purchase of a commercial fundraising software package

Project scope

Wikimedia Germany undertook an extensive strategic planning process, called “Kompass 2020”. The board, together with WMDE members and volunteers from the Wikimedia projects outlined a vision of where the German chapter should be in 10 years’ time. Out of this vision, strategic goals for key departments were defined. These goals govern most of the work of the WMDE office and its staff.

Due to a lack of funding, WMDE was not able to budget for two key positions. With this grant request, we would be able to fill the following positions:

Project Manager “Volunteer Support” with strategic planning capacity and a background in volunteer support, who drives outreach and support projects.
Project Manager “Usability & IT” as an interface between projects, IT development and quality improvements, who drives the Accessibility initiatives of WMDE and interfaces with WMF and chapters.

In addition, in the 2010 budget we planned for the fundraiser position on the basis of 25 hours/week. With this grant request approved, we would increase this position to fulltime and invest in the improvement of our fundraising software.

Wikimedia Germany submits the grant request due to a pending payment: Wikimedia Germany owns Wikimedia Foundation money that results from the fundraiser 2009. For tax and legal reasons direct payment was not possible. This grant therefore serves as a revenue sharing forgiveness grant.

Project goal

The goal of this grant request is to strongly improve Wikimedia Germanys strategic projects in two key areas of our work, usability and volunteer support. To fulfill the long-term financial commitments coming with these new positions and projects, we need to upgrade the fundraiser position to fulltime. The following benefits would be achieved:

Benefits for WMDE

Huge step towards institutional growth
Staff increase from 14 FTE to 17 FTE, increasing effectiveness
Accelerating underfunded areas
Stronger revenue growth

Benefits for WMF

Better support of projects in Germany
Improved collaboration reg. product development and fundraising
Stronger revenue growth

Non-financial requirements

There are no non-financial requirements

Fit to strategy

The project directly supports three main goals of the Wikimedia Foundation’s strategy:

Increase Reach

We will lower or even remove barriers that currently make it harder for a lot of people (disabilities/impairments, non-native speakers, etc.) to use Wikimedia content easily.

Improve Content Quality

With the new positions funded through this grant request, we will be able to execute our strategic projects that aim to support the community of Wikimedia projects. We will be able to better promote our book scholarship program, our community budget (that funds mainly meet-ups of volunteers to discuss content). With the project manager “Usability and IT”, we plan to implement a number of technical interfaces that will support our “content liberation” approach, which in turn will increase the quality of meta data on Wikimedia Commons.

Increase participation

Removing barriers for editors is a key priority of our strategic plan. Both areas of improvement, usability / accessibility and volunteer support, are key to reach new editors as well as support and strengthen existing editors. With the development of programs that attract new people to participate in the Wikimedia projects we aim to increase the number of active contributors. One important part of this strategy will to highlight different ways to participate and support: One has not be an active editor, but can also contribute by reviewing existing articles, support portals with valuable scientific input, etc. In addition, we will work together with WMF to plan and execute technical development programs to implement tools (such as forms, templates, WYSIWIG, and other software developments) that help people to contribute easily.

In detail, we aim towards the following improvements:

Usability & Accessibility

Development of WYSIWYG-functionality (templates and forms) to alleviate the creation of new articles
All featured articles will be available in a format useful to visually impaired readers
Increase awareness of usability and accessibility issues in the media
Better coordination between WMDE and WMF through the Project Manager
Improvements in the Toolserver Governance

Volunteer Support

Better support for the OTRS team and the mentors (workshops about relevant topics, such as BLP)
Start of the “Welcome to Wikipedia” initiative to lower the barrier for new editors
Better coordination between WMDE projects and the larger Wikimedia community
Strategic development of the book scholarship program and the Community Budget

Other benefits

In addition to the functional and strategic improvements, Wikimedia Germany will increase its visibility within the Wikimedia movement by providing an internship program for other chapters. This will enable other chapters to build their own capacities in volunteer support and other strategic areas. With three new positions and a fulltime fundraiser, we can broaden the scope of these internships, covering all areas that might be interesting for other chapters.

In addition, Wikimedia Germany will be able to further enhance its international commitments. To support international exchange between chapters and between international Wikipedians, Wikimedia Germany will fund the following initiatives in 2011:

Wikimedia Conference: We will host the 2011 Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, without financial support by the Wikimedia Foundation. WMDE sets aside 54.000 US$ (39.000€) for travel grants, accomodation, etc. Other chapters are welcome to support the Wikimedia Conference as well
Wikimania Travel Grants: Wikimedia Germany will support the international travl grant program for the Wikimania 2011 with 34.000 US$ (25.000 €)

Measures of success

The long-term benefits are hard to measure (number of new authors, more visually impaired readers); the short-term benefits are the successful completion of the following strategic projects by the end of the grant duration:

At least 10 templates and forms have been developed by WMDE and implemented by WMF.
All featured articles are available in a format useful to visually impaired readers.
Three workshops (BLP, law, communication methods) have been conducted for OTRS team and mentors.
The “Welcome to Wikipedia” initiative has been implemented.
The book scholarship program and the Community Budget are well established within the community; 100 % more applications are handled by WMDE.

Wikimedia Germany will implement an evaluation process to measure success and improvements of this grant.