Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/Wikimedia Norge 2025

Feedback and questions from the Global Advocacy Team on the Public Policy Advocacy part of the application

Dear Wikimedia Norge,

Thank you for your interest in applying for support to implement public policy advocacy activities in Norway. Since this is a new process recently introduced, first, allow us to share again this PPA resource prepared by the Global Advocacy team on what is understood under each types of advocacy action and what specific legislative processes are considered a priority. After checking this resource carefully, please be so kind as to respond to the following questions that the Global Advocacy team could not fully evaluate:

• While focusing on copyright law and AI impact on Wikimedia are in general good priorities, what specific existing laws on either of these topics in Norway the group plans to influence?
• In which ways do you plan to support government officials as a knowledgeable partner, and what existing government contacts does Wikimedia Norge already have, are you e.g. members of existing expert groups that the government consults on these topics?
• Are you already or are you planning on joining WM EU discussions or other peer learning opportunities in these topics?

Thank you for the clarifications. Depending on the answers, the Global Advocacy team will make a final recommendation for the Regional Funds Committee concerning funding these advocacy activities. ABruszik-WMF (talk) 17:42, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Dear Global Advocacy Team,

Thank you for contacting us. I was not aware that our efforts within public policy advocacy would be considered separate from our GSF application. With a staff of only three, we have limited capacity. I estimate that as an Executive Director working under the guidance of our board, only about one month of my time every year is spent on PPA.

• EUs Digital Services Act (DSA) and the AI Act is not yet implemented in Norwegian legislation. DSA means substantial changes will have to be made to the Norwegian Copyright Act, and WMNO has been monitoring this process closely. Our contacts at the Ministry of Culture and Equality expected a bill to be introduced to the Parliament this autumn, but this is now uncertain. WMNO will be taking part in the public discourse about the bill, as well as offer our advice to Ministry officials and politicians. As we continue to build a public profile as part of our communications efforts, it will hopefully get easier for us to be heard in processes such as this. The need for a legal framework for AI affects Norwegian law in different ways, and of particular interest to us is how language models, AI services and Wikimedia Projects can carry out text and data mining (which is regulated by our strict Copyright Act). Currently, WMNO is preparing comments for the consultation process on "NOU 2024:14 Med lov skal data deles", a Norwegian Official Report about how public entities should accommodate businesses, researchers, media and others that want to make use of public data. The report is the first step towards implementing the Open Data Directive and the Data Governance Act in a new Norwegian law about data sharing.
• WMNO is working to position ourselves as the national number one non-profit that offer input on how to maintain public digital spaces and support free knowledge. Taking part in public consultation processes is one way of doing this, but currently we are also investing time in being part of the stakeholder forum for a proposed AI RISK research centre. The research team, led by the University of Oslo and the independent research organisation Sintef, has applied for a 100 million NOK grant to conduct research on how to best handle the risks and changes that AI poses to democracy, values and social inclusion. Just yesterday we presented the strategic impact of AI on Wikimedia projects to other stakeholders, including the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, the Norwegian Media Authority, the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud and others. This is descriptive of how we want to interact with entities that strongly influence legislative processes. Communications efforts support our objectives, such as earlier this month when taking part in a 15 minute interview about the Wikipedia model on national radio.
• We benefit from the briefings and advice that WMEU (and the Global Advocacy Team) publishes, but we have yet to take part in peer learning sessions apart from at the WMEU general assembly. We would like to part in movement and WMEU discussions about PPA, but as always, it's a matter of capacity. Also, how we can best be heard by public entities and politicians depends upon cultural context, and we are focusing on being a partner for positive dialogue, rather than taking a more aggressive or reactionary approach that might work for larger affiliates with a more established public profile.

I hope this adds detail to how we want to continue our PPA efforts, and please don't hesitate to get back to me for further clarifications. Kind regards, Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO) (talk) 14:42, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Feedback from the NWE Regional Funds Committee

Dear Wikimedia Norge Team,

Thank you very much for your proposal, and submitting your activities and projects in support of the Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement. The Northern and Western European Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wishes to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review.

• The Committee felt that the overall direction of this proposal is productive and positive. In particular, the Committee is grateful to see a strong focus in your annual plan on community and editor engagement through training and support, and extended efforts on inclusivity by addressing underrepresented groups like the Sámi communities and women.
• We appreciated the intention to build and maintain partnerships with local institutions that align well with Wikimedia's mission to improve knowledge equity as well as help you build momentum to celebrate Wikipedia's 25th anniversary.
• Furthermore, we were glad to observe a much needed and concentrated work addressing references (fix-it! project) on Wikipedia pages to allow these articles to be taken seriously by the educational and cultural environment.

While elaborating on your proposed plans, the committee members suggested for you to consider:

• Develop separate metrics for your Sámi knowledge preservation work and for your gender equity work to assess the impact on these programs.
• Reflect on how to ensure that sufficient support mechanisms are in place to retain the volunteers that the small core team relies on to sustain activities over time. Perhaps consider regular engagement with interns or government supported employment schemes to extend available human resources while providing employability skills to young individuals/university students are also worth considering.
• Open up from Wikipedia to other sister projects, in particular to WikiData which could foster the minority language work, connect with OpenStreetMap editors, and target collaborations with Open Knowledge organisations in general to amplify the networking and communication potentials of your goals and impact. Wikimedia Finland and Wikimedia Sweden could provide support in these areas, especially in WikiData and WikiBase.
• Reflect on what does “topics for impact” mean for WM Norge, how to address a balance of locally relevant information in local and minority languages, their translation to globally accessible languages, and global issues e.g. the ten thousand most important article’s availability in local and minority languages.

It would be supportive of the Committee’s understanding of your plans if you’d be so kind as to elaborate on our following specific few questions:

• How does WM Norge involve the community in the strategic and annual planning processes, and in general in giving you feedback about how your programs impact them? This is particularly relevant if multi-annual plans are submitted which is what you have indicated as your plan for next year.
• How do you evaluate the impact of your communication efforts, in terms of how it helps to position WM Norge in the country as a key player for Open Knowledge?
• You have a plan to grow your membership by 40% each year. To open doors to multi-annual funding opportunities, a membership of around 100 would get more stability for WM Norge. What membership growth do you consider realistic?"
• What plans are you contemplating for external funding, e.g. for exploring GLAM related funding sources, or minority language support with others in the region for the Sámi language work?
• Can you please tell us more about your plans in education? Finding a clear approach, and focus on a specific age group to start with would be quite useful. Will you focus on digital skill improvement through editing or educating students on how Wikipedia and the open knowledge environment is valuable for the future?
• What initiatives are you planning beyond Wikipedia, e.g. for WikiData or Wikimedia Commons?
• And lastly, what do you think about the breadth and depth of your work to avoid burnout and overstretching? In your context, which are the areas where breadth is more important, and which ones do you plan for depths in the long run?

In terms of the schedule for our review process, please complete your review and responses to committee feedback by November 22nd, 2024. After this time, the Regional Committee will begin a final review of the proposal to make a formal decision.

Thank you for your replies to our questions.

On behalf of the Regional Funds Committee, ABruszik-WMF (talk) 20:05, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Dear Committee,

Thank you for your positive feedback to our proposal, as well as your suggestions on how we can develop it. Our 2023-2028 Strategic Plan is ambitious, and in our annual plan we have to make tough priorities based on needs, opportunities and access to external funding. We don’t want to spread our limited resources thin, but at the same time need to stay agile and able to make the most of the many opportunities that are arising.

Some of your suggestions are part of our day-to-day operations, even though they are not specifically mentioned in our proposal.

• We compile and analyse a wide range of metrics, and only the most general ones are shared in our Metrics bank. Metrics and analysis are also part of our Annual Report and the results’ report corresponding to our annual plan (only available in Norwegian). There are financial reports and impact reports for all of our projects, including those that sort under Sámi knowledge and gender gap efforts. But most importantly, metrics are continually being used by our staff and board to understand and develop our operations.
• Support mechanisms to retain volunteers are at the core of our community outreach. We offer meetups, training and workshops not just as learning opportunities, but to strengthen volunteer peer support that is independent of WMNO. We have put a lot of effort into stimulating or building local communities in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim, which yielded results this November when volunteers organised wiki meetups in all three cities. Furthermore, WMNO has identified core groups that we offer support, so that they in turn can offer support to their community: Admins on Wikimedia projects, mentors and a reference group for gender gap efforts. Interns and participants in employment schemes have contributed to our operations in recent years. August 2023-February 2024 a staff position was subsidised with NOK 126 000 from an employment scheme. Even so, considering the time and effort spent on onboarding and follow-up, and the limited output of that position, that particular scheme may not have been cost-efficient. This is an important lesson, and future schemes, whether with interns or staff, will have to match our needs better.
• We are working hard to recruit editors, not least to Northern Sámi Wikipedia, which has been more or less dormant for many years. In our context, the best entry point to Wikimedia projects are Wikipedia and Commons, so that is where we focus our efforts for now. Many of our seasoned contributors work on WikiData or OpenStreetMap, and we sometimes offer learning opportunities. Also, this autumn we provided a Wiki grant for a member that is working on Wikidata in an arts project, and we are happy to offer resources to other volunteer initiatives. We communicate with open knowledge organisations and are happy to collaborate when we have shared interests, but WMNO is probably the open knowledge organisation in Norway that is most actively working on communications and advocacy. We communicate with the public and with decision-makers more than we do within an open knowledge potential echo chamber.

Here are some elaborations on your more specific questions:

• Strategic and annual planning is discussed and drafted by our board and ED, firmly rooted in the needs of and input from our community. Members can submit proposals to the Annual General Assembly in February, and the AGA discusses and decides upon our plans. In August-September we have a hybrid members’ meeting, where updates are given and members are invited to offer input to current activities and future plans. Actually, that input is welcomed at any time, and that often happens during our monthly Wiki Lunch Breaks or on village pumps.
• Our communications efforts are starting to yield a visible public profile, with substantial growth in our website traffic, social media reach and the number of news items in editorial press: no.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statistikkbank/en#Communications . Our cultural heritage and GLAM projects, as well as our gender gap efforts, have been key to this, but we are now starting to receive invitations to provide input on open knowledge. We have just accepted an invitation to be a formal partner in the AI Risk project mentioned in our proposal, and we are currently preparing to submit our input to a government hearing on how public entities share data. Hopefully, our communications and advocacy efforts will earn us “a seat around the table” when open knowledge is discussed in Norway.
• Membership growth: Our numbers are low, but we offer support to the community at large, not just our members. E.g. our recent two-day admin retreat, where 4 of 12 participants were non-members. Our membership growth in 2023 was 31 %, and we are likely to reach 100 members in 2025.
• In 2025, we expect 34 % of our revenues to come from other sources than the WMF. We have made a strategic choice to compete for large, multi-year external grants, rather than many small (typically GLAM) grants. We have secured a large grant for our gender gap work, and we are working to do the same for our Wiki into Education project. Also, we have initiated a conversation with Wikimedia Sweden, Wikimedia Finland, AvoinGLAM and the Inari Sámi Language Association about a shared staff position for a Sámi Wikimedia projects and content co-ordinator. I am optimistic about funding for that, e.g. from the Sámi parliaments or the Nordic Council of Ministers/Nordic Council. But before we can pursue grants, we need to map out needs and expectations of these affiliates and partners. A shared staff resource is only possible if all involved have capacity and will to invest in preparations and follow-up.
• Wiki into Education: The pre-project is coming to an end, and our staff Anne Sande, who is a teacher and a journalist, has conducted a mapping exercise of high school and university curriculums. We will be aiming our project at the age group 19-26 years, which will enable us to qualify for public funding for youth projects. A key word in our teaching materials and lessons will be digital public spaces, and our topics are source criticism, digital etiquette and open knowledge sharing in the Wikimedia projects and beyond. Topics will provide background when learning Wikimedia editing skills. We have moved away from the idea of custom-made digital tools that can be integrated in the digital learning platforms that the educational sector is using, but will instead make use of Growth team beginner’s functions and general Wikimedia learning tools. We are now in the phase of firming up partnerships and finding funding for our project.
• Initiatives tied to Wikimedia projects: When we organise training, competitions, projects and campaigns on Wikipedia, WikiData editing and image uploads to Commons naturally follow. We also have at least one big push to recruit photographers and grow Commons every year, when we organise the national Wiki Loves Monuments competition. We have merged WLM with our efforts to document living heritage, so our competition Cultural Heritage covers both. Our timeline illustrates how we divide our capacity between different initiatives throughout the year.
• Burnout and overstretching is a constant worry for us, for Wikimedia project contributors as well as our staff. At our recent admins retreat, WMF staff Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska presented on that particular topic, and the participant feedback indicates that this, along with conflict resolution, is a topic we need to follow-up on. For our staff, the biggest problem is the overwhelming flow of opportunities and propositions from our global movement. The priorities for our work are clear, and the corresponding workload is at the right level. But pressures from elsewhere are often distracting and causes backlog for our general operations. As a whole, our administration is struggling to find the right balance between our commitment to supporting and developing Norwegian and Sápmi Wikimedia efforts and our eagerness to contribute to the global movement.
• Breadth versus depth: Our work to support Wikimedia communities will always have breadth and follow shifting needs, whereas our work on knowledge equity has two distinct long-term tracks: Sámi knowledge and gender imbalance on Wikimedia projects. Our international efforts are focused on minority languages, firmly rooted in our Sámi projects.

I hope that this adds detail to our proposal, and we are of course available to provide info as needed or to attend a call with the committee or its individual members. Thank you for your constructive support of our work.

For Wikimedia Norge, Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO) (talk) 10:27, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Addition to WMNOs 2025 plan

Dear Global Advocacy Team and NWE Regional Funds Committee,

This week WMNO has agreed to take on a more committing role in the proposed AI RISK research centre initiated by Sintef and the University of Oslo. Please refer to our second bullet point in this comment. We have been part of the stakeholder forum, but moving forward we will be a project partner along with the Norwegian Media Authority and the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud. The coming weeks we will focus on providing input to the design of three of eleven work packages: Democratic AI, Values and norms in AI and Public policy input. If the centre is granted funding, our main responsibilities in 2025-2030 will be:

• Help the research team and their PhD students access data from Wikimedia projects.
• Liaise with relevant research projects centred around Wikimedia projects and share findings.
• Provide input as the researchers develop recommendations and tools to handle the risks that AI pose on different aspects of society.

The AI RISK team has opted to go for a research commons project design, and all of their findings will be published with open access. Tools they develop will have open source code.

The outline for the research centre has been approved by the The Research Council of Norway, but if funding is not granted (a decision is expected first half of 2025), there are contingency plans to merge with or collaborate with other AI reseach centres. In any case, our participation in the current processes is a great learning opportunity for us and valuable to our public policy advocacy efforts.

We are pleased that WMNO's participation in the project might have larger impact and offer more opportunities than first expected, which will of course affect our plans for 2025. We will, however, be able to shift resources (mostly staff-time) to these efforts within the frames described in our current GSF proposal.

On behalf of Wikimedia Norge, Elisabeth Carrera (WMNO) (talk) 11:01, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Round 1 - 2025 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to fund your proposal in full for 2,460,000.00 NOK for the period of 1st January - 31st December 2025.

Comments regarding this decision:
The Committee appreciated the clear delineation in the proposal of priorities and opportunities that are in line with staff capacity and needs of the country and the region. In particular, efforts to coordinate work among affiliates about the Sámi work and embark on public policy advocacy to a greater level, embracing new project opportunities in AI, gender and minority languages, next to maintaining staff and community health were greatly appreciated. The proposal, and especially the responses to the question of the Committee proved that WM Norway is on track towards organisational and programmatic maturity, with clear focal areas and realistic implementation plans.

We wish WM Norge the best of luck throughout 2025!

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, ABruszik-WMF (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)