Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Chile/2020

Questions about your plan

Hello, Wikimedia Chile colleagues!

Thank you for this quality plan. We have a number of questions below and look forward to your responses.

Update on 2019 programs

1. Since you are still in the midst of your 2019 programs, it would be great to have an update since you posted the midpoint report. Can you please provide brief updates on your different program areas, specifically those that had not yet begun since you reported last, including WikiCafe, Wiki Climbs Chile, Wikipuentes, Wikimedian in Residence, and Bridges Across Cultures. We are most interested in if there are specific successes or challenges from this past year that are informing your plans for 2020.
2. Is the 2019 data in the metrics worksheet up-to-date or are these the numbers from your 2019 proposal?

Free knowledge

1. In the "How will we do it?" section, your write that you will work with new institutions especially in the education field as well as expert communities that have technical knowledge. Do you have specific organizations that you are already planning on working with?
2. In terms of the indicators for the program, can you give us a sense of how the numbers compare to last year? This will also help us understand the rationale for increasing the working time for the Education Manager.
3. In order to better understand the "Wikimedia in the classroom program", can you provide an example of what "potential concrete educational actions teachers could use in their contexts" that would be developed through the program?
4. For the "Experts for Wikimedia" program and your work with institutional partners, have you already identified which organizations you want to work with? Can you give some examples of who they might be? How would you define a successful partnership in this area?

Content

1. We are very excited about the work you have been doing and hope to expand in this area. It would be great to understand some of the successes and challenges over the past year in this program area and how this 2020 plan reflects those.
2. Wiki Climbs Chile: Can you provide more details on how this program would work in practice? Would members from Santiago travel to other areas of the country, partner with local organizations, run a series of events over several days, and then provide online mentorship? If not, what is the model you're working with? How are you choosing which areas to focus on and how are you supporting new editors engaged through this program?
3. Indigenous languages and cultures: We understand it has been challenging to work in this area without members that are indigenous themselves, but that you have established two good contacts that can help serve as a connection within these communities. What indigenous languages or cultures will you be working with? How do you plan to "incorporate local perspectives"? The Whose Knowledge? group has written a very helpful learning pattern related to centering marginalized knowledge and being good allies that might be a good reference: Center Marginalized Knowledge.

Metrics

1. It looks like you expect to double the number of activities and total number of participants in 2020 compared to last year, but that the expected content stays the same. Why is this?

Staff

1. In order to better understand your proposal for a Community Manager, it would be great to know how you expect partnerships to grow over the next year.
2. We understand that many of the core group of Wikimedians have increasing demands on their time. In addition to adding more staff to support the different programs, have you thought about more proactive activities to support leadership development in the chapter?
3. Thank you for the additional context regarding the labor contracts. In addition to the increased cost associated with the social security and insurance contributions, what impact (if any) does the change to an "indefinite employment contract" have on the organization? Does it make it harder to end those contracts if there are performance issues?

Please post your responses by the end of the week so the committee can take them into consideration as they review the proposal. And please let us know if you have any questions. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Responses from WMCL

Hello Alex! Thank you for your comments. Here we will try to answer to your different questions. Please, if there is anything else you would like to clarify or specify, do not hesitate to contact us again. Here we go!

Update on 2019 programs

2019 programs development and social/political context:

Our plans for 2019, being burnt in the riots.

During the second semester 2019, we were hardly working in our Community activities, as well as those related to our Free Knowledge axis. However, it is important to consider that the protests and riots currently taking place in Chile has taken an impact in all the activities in the country, including ours. Even a month after the start of the protests, most of the jobs have reduced their workday, transportation is working at half of its capacity and most events have been cancelled or suspended.

As you pointed out, our specific programs and projects were the following ones (with their respective updates):

• Wikicafé: we started this cycle of community encounters in August 2019. We have had 4 meetings until November 2019 (one every month), with a total number of 37 participants (93% of success), and 18 different participants (120% of success). We still have 2 others encounters to perform in order to fulfill our 2019 proposal, but this will depend on our local political and social situation.
• Wikipuentes: We started a new version of Wikipuentes (now called “Wikipedia in the Classroom”) on October the 14th. We had a total of 16 registered participants (160% of success). The course was supposed to last 4 weeks. Unfortunately, because of the social revolt that started 4 days later, the number of active participants (most of them school teachers, on a national strike) have declined. We tried to restructure the course, giving to the participants guides and tools in order to discuss the responsible use of Internet and information in the current context, but still we haven't been able to increase participation, so the teachers could actively use the platform and its contents for their teaching activities.
• Wiki Climbs Chile: this project has been really affected by the current national situation. We had several activities (workshops, meetings, seminars, etc) programed during October, November and December in cities like Concepción and Valdivia, and they were all suspended or cancelled.
• WiR: we decided to restructure this project and to work with a different institution (Sagrados Corazones School) in order to develop a new Wikisource project that could start in December 2019. However, due the national situation, the institution decided to close its school year and we haven’t had further news from them.
• Bridges Across Cultures: this project is expected to take place in December. Because it is a project that works mostly online and with an international editors community, we think we would be able to reach our current goals.
• Learning experiences in 2019: this last activities and their course have taught us the following: even thought we seek to work with specific institutions and that we normally try very hard to formalize those projects, the realization of some activities are not always in our hands. National or local context (even institutional context or agenda) could affect our work, and we should be flexible, responsive and independent enough to adapt ourself to those new situations, in order to keep concreting our main objectives as a chapter.

Still, we have tried to continue our work given the current situation. We believe free knowledge is important for the construction of the new country that will emerge after this protest. We are working on a project with Amnesty International and other NGOs to document the violation of human rights currently taking place in the country and we have reached people participating in the protests to upload images of them (until now, more than 200 files).

Data metrics worksheet

The date of 2019 in 2020 metrics worksheet ar the numbers from the 2019 proposal; however, we've included also an update for October 2019.

Free knowledge

Work with institutions:

We have some ideas and names of institutions that we would like to work with during 2020, especially regarding some we already know and had reach in the past, like the ECLAC, the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM) and the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (UAH). But we do not want to narrow down our proposal to those specific names; we prefer to think about content areas that we would like to promote or work with (education, culture, heritage, international collaboration, human rights, etc), instead of specific institutions.

Program indicators:

For 2020, we are proposing a new way to measure our work in our three different areas, including the Free Knowledge axis. For example, we moved the Outreach activities from this area to the Community Axis, something that already represents a different way to develop and measure those activities. Knowing that metrics are very important to count and to transmit the success of an specific working area, we are including new indicators in the Free Knowledge axis, such as: the number of activities, the number of institutions we could work with, the number of participants and new participants, and the number of created content items (that could include images or documents donated, and not only articles created or edited). It is important to point out that some of these indicators were not necessarily considered in our last work proposal, so, for now, we can't compare the results of the 2019 annual plan and our 2020 goals. In any case, regarding our “Expert Community” program, that is a main program within the Free Knowledge axis, we are proposing an increase of at least a 20% in every indicator (activities, participants and content).

Regarding our Education program, we are not only proposing to keep the number of activities (at least 8), participants (at least 150) and created content (at least 100 articles or content items), but we are also proposing to develop a new specific project within this area, “Wikimedia in the classroom”. The activities related with this new project (mostly meetings and workshops with teachers) will engaged more work from our Education Program Manager, and that is why we are expecting to increase her working time from 0,5 FTE to 1 FTE.

Wikimedia in the Classroom:

According to specific researches in the area, Chilean teenagers are among the most connected to Internet in the Latam region. On the contrary, Chilean schools, especially public ones, have very little Internet connection and access to computers. This translates into a disconnection between students and teachers, who are not related to how young people use Internet, nor how to guide them in this process. And this includes Wikipedia. We think that we can contribute to this situation, showing teachers and professors how Wikimedia projects work and how they can have a very high educational potential; we would like to encourage them to use the Wikimedia projects in their classrooms (instead of fear them), to develop some concrete actions to enhance specific skills, like: reading comprehension, critical perspective, know how knowledge is produce, learn how to differentiate real content from fake news, and others. And by "concrete actions", we mean concrete exercises or projects teachers could propose to their students, like: reading and reviewing Wikipedia articles; taking pictures on some specific topics and then donate it to Wikimedia Commons; analyzing Wikipedia articles section by section and discussing how arguments are constructed; learning how to quote and why, etc. The idea is that teachers could relate with Wikipedia in general and use it, even if they do not have Internet or computers in their local contexts.

Experts for Wikipedia:

We have already identified some institutional partners, like educational, cultural and social institutions, that have approached us during 2019, and with which we would like to continue working during 2020. In this matter, we would define the relations with these institutions as a “successful partnership” if we can develop at least 2 different activities (meetings, editing session, workshops, etc) or at least 1 large project (Wikisource project, for example) with each of them, during 2020.

Content

Successes and challenges during 2019:

During 2019, we have expand the idea of "content creation" beyond the edition of Wikipedia articles, by promoting new content like photos and images in our projects. This has been very helpful for us and it has allowed us to meet new users that are not necessarily familiar with editing but interested in photography, social memory, local and natural heritage, and other subjects that have been important for us during this year. This has also been challenging for us, at least when measuring this new content, which was not considered as an item in itself in our 2019 plan.

During 2020, we want to continue developing and measuring this type of content, by proposing specific activities like: new photo contests, like the second version of "Revelando Sitios") and “New looks on my city”; wikitours and safaris that allow us to have more and new images of our cities; new alliances with institutions that want to donate historical images; and photo campaigns, such as "Chile Protests", to promote local and relevant content related to the Chilean society in Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia projects.

Wikimedia Climbs Chile:

We want to support the creation of new Wikimedia communities throughout the country. This includes providing and spreading the uses of the Wikimedia projects within institutions and local organizations; then training new editors and users; and then supporting them in the developing of different activities. To do so, we are proposing that members from our team could visit those places in order to create those links and lead concrete actions (such as editathons, workshops, presentations, meetings, etc) to motivate those communities, and then keep in contact with them to support new activities (online or face-to-face). Regarding the content, our main goal is to support activities related to local content and local cultures (local history, local heritage, local creators, etc), knowing how regional perspectives are currently very low-represented in the Wikimedia projects.

Indigenous languages and cultures:

This is a project that is very sensitive for us a chapter. Indeed, we are very concern about the fact that we do not what to impose any "neocolonial" perspective or way to do things over these new editors in particular, specially knowing that we do not have indigenous members in our current team. This is why, before proposing any big activity, we seek to work directly with institutions and communities that have already some kind of special bond with indigenous languages and cultures, like Mapuche culture. We already have some contacts in Universidad de la Frontera in Temuco (the city with the largest amount of Mapuche population in the country), as well as with other NGOs and local institutions in Santiago. Regarding the work of the Whose Knowledge? Initiative, we already have some connections with some of their members, and we think it is a very good idea to incorporate their perspectives and practical tools in this matter. Thank you for the recommendation!

Metrics

One of our main lessons during 2019, is that the number of created content (articles, images, etc) does not necessarily reflect the success of an activity or a partnership. In May 2019, for example, we concreted a very important activity and alliance with the ECLAC team, a specific number of modern architecture experts, and Wikimedia Chile. In that moment, we created the ECLAC head-quarters building article in the Spanish Wikipedia, an article that did not exist, even though this particular building is widely recognized as a landmark of modern architecture in Chile. Despite the limited amount of content created that day (we normally expect to create/edit several articles in each encounter, but we only created 1 article that day), we consider this was a very successful activity: we not only had the chance to work and to train a new community of users (experts who normally are not very open to work with Wikipedia), but also to engage a very important alliance with the ECLAC team, that has allow us to keep working together. That said, in 2020 we would like to focus more in the number and type of activities that we could perform, instead of the number of contents we could create; even though content is still a mayor indicator in our annual work plan.

Staff

Community Manager:

We expect our number of potential partnerships to grow during 2020, especially by engaging more and new users, communities and institutions. That is why we are proposing to increase the number of Outreach activities from 6 to 11 (an increase of the 80%), as well as the number of participants in each one of them. Having a Community Manager will help us to develop those activities, as well as promoting them, by reaching more and more potential participants using social media. We also expect this new member of our staff could help us in the develop of other community activities, such as the Wikicafé cycle.

New leaderships within the chapter:

We expect to motivate a “renewal process” within our chapter, in which new or younger Wikimedians could be more involve in our activities. For do so, we are counting in the developing of the Wikicafé cycle; originally, the Wikicafé encounters were thought has a way to expand the Wikimedia culture and enhance our local community; during 2020, we want these meetings to become more an opportunity to work, discuss and listen our historical community, members and closest friends, in orden to make them feel a part of our team.

Labor contracts:

We believe that every labor contract represents an opportunity for every organization in order to show and expect a greater commitment to/from workers. Even though this new formal status would eventually make us harder to end labor relations with our current and future staff members, we would not offer them this opportunity if we were not convinced or pleased with their professional performances until know, after a year of working together.

Best --PDiazR (WMCL) (talk) 00:47, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi PDiazR (WMCL). Thank you for the very thoughtful and complete responses. We will let you know if there are any additional questions. Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 04:50, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Simple APG Committee recommendation

We recommend that Wikimedia Chile receive a grant of CL$70,000,000, for one year. It is clear that the focus last year on professionalization and organizational development has benefited the chapter in terms of additional capacity to organize and deliver on their programs. They have a clear program strategy focused on communities, free knowledge, and content and local culture. We are particularly interested in seeing how challenges in supporting indigenous knowledge can be addressed next year with better contacts and relationships in several communities. We appreciate that the expected targets match their growth in staff. We also understand and are empathetic to the fact that the current political climate in Chile is making it difficult to deliver on the remainder of their 2019 projects and may also impact their 2020 goals. We encourage the team to keep their expectations realistic and focus on taking care of themselves and their communities.

For the committee, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 12:22, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedia Chile’s grant is approved in the amount of 90,000 USD for 12 months

Congratulations! This grant is approved in the amount of 90,000 USD, for 12 months, and includes funding for the increase in staff you have requested. This is a significant increase (30%) over the last year and we appreciate all of the work dedicated to organizational development, professionalization, and strategy done in 2019.

We are sensitive to the political situation, both how it has affected your programs currently and how it may affect them in the future. While we hope the disruptions will decrease, we understand you will need to be flexible, priorities may shift, and your goals may need to be adjusted. We encourage you to prioritize your well being and not try to push too much on growth. We want to reassure you it is fine to scale back if needed.

In terms of programming, we are happy to see a clear strategy focused on three main areas: communities, free knowledge, and content and local culture. The diversity of education activities is particularly interesting as a model for meeting students where they are at in their educational development and level of accessibility -- university students in traditional Wikimedia education programs, high school students with limited internet access, and online education trainings such as MOOCs.

We are especially interested to see how your program to support more indigenous knowledge develops as a result of better connections in those communities as we know this is a complex and sensitive area to work in. We hope we can learn from your experiences. We also appreciate your focus on human rights content and the partnerships developed across the region on this work.

We understand that as the chapter matures, you continue to think about how to measure your success and impact beyond the simple metrics of content and participation. We appreciate how you are developing new targets for goals around partnership that more clearly reflect the impact of that work. We hope to support you as you think more about leadership development, community growth, and quality.

In terms of your staffing, we are excited to see how the elevation of your Executive Director and the addition of a Community Manager impact your program and community development. The chapter is experiencing what many affiliates go through as the original core group of organizers cycles out of leadership. Increasing outreach activities, and focusing on mentorship and leadership development will all support a strengthened core group of organizers.

We hope 2020 will be a year of stability and focus. We look forward to working together.

Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:35, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Midpoint Report Accepted

Hello PDiazR (WMCL), thank you for taking the time to speak to me regarding your midpoint report. As I mentioned on the call I really appreciated all the changes you've made to your Annual Plan to adapt to this ever changing world. I especially appreciated learning about the new projects you've instituted to deal with the COVID-19 lockdown. I saw that you've updated the metrics and it's looking like you're going to be on track or exceeding your goal with the exception of one area. I also totally understand that you might not be able to reach your goals in the education programs because of COVID-19. Please don't worry about that. You've already done above and beyond what is expected during this time. Thank you again for all the amazing work you have done and continue to do in our movement! Best regards, WJifar (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 29 July 2020 (UTC)