Wikimedia New York City/Annual plan/2019-2020

Wikimedia NYC embarked on its first strategic planning process in 2017 and identified two strategic priorities: engagement and infrastructure. Commitment to its community is the foundation of Wikimedia NYC and remains central to its activities. The Chapter serves as mentors to new editors and seek to engage new communities in the furtherance of knowledge equity. However, sustaining this work requires us to build and leverage our organic volunteer capacities. We see the development of standard workflows and professionalization as ensuring our continued success in providing knowledge as a service to our communities.

Annual Plan 2019-2020

The Wikimedia NYC Strategic Plan 2018–2020 classifies Wikimedia NYC activities into four program areas, each of which encompasses activities that share similar (and sometimes overlapping) goals and methodologies:

• Chapter Membership and Community
• Partnerships
• Outreach and Education
• Content Contributions

The Annual Plan for the 2019–2020 fiscal year, which covers the period starting July 1, 2019 and ending June 30, 2020, defines the specific activities that are to be executed within each of these program areas. The measures of success for each program area are defined by the Strategic Plan, and include Wikimedia Foundation global impact metrics and additional program objectives defined by Wikimedia NYC.

Programs

Chapter Membership & Community

As a regional chapter, Wikimedia NYC’s primary aim is to grow community and deepen member engagement with Wikimedia and the larger free culture movement.

In its 2018-2020 Strategic Plan, Wikimedia NYC identified the following goals to measure our success in this program area:

• Attendance at member events such as Wikipedia Day and the monthly WikiWednesday Salon & Skill-Share increases by 25%.
• The total number of Wikimedia NYC members increases by 25%.
• The friendly-space policy (or its equivalent) is signed by every member of the Chapter and effective means of reporting harassment are in place.

Under the Annual Plan 2018-2019, Wikimedia NYC built the foundation to support more welcoming and inclusive spaces through its work with an external Support & Safety consultant. This work, combined with increased outreach, led to a 50% increase in membership. In the year ahead, Wikimedia NYC will build on this foundation to grow member engagement.

Edit-a-thons are the Chapter’s primary form of public outreach, but it’s monthly WikiWednesday Salon & Skillshare and annual Wikipedia Day celebration give new and existing editors an opportunity to engage with each other and the Chapter as a whole. These events offer flexible programming and social time, giving members the chance to talk with one another and to engage with larger topics within the community. They also provide community members an opportunity to learn more about the functioning of the Board and the Chapter’s relationship to the global movement. Participation at these events and in the Chapter’s functioning is central to the long-term health of Wikimedia NYC.

Based on the goals set in the 2018-2020 Strategic Plan, Wikimedia NYC aims to increase attendance at community events by 25% during the 2019-2020 fiscal year. In order to meet this goal, Wikimedia NYC is increasing its request for funding in this program to cover space and food costs. The Chapter does not have a physical location to host events and, while it receives in-kind space donations for edit-a-thons, the space for WikiWednesday is rented. Its longtime location, a video game gallery called Babycastles, moved to a space that isn’t wheelchair accessible, prompting a move to a space that can better accommodate our needs at a slightly higher rate. While the cost is specific to non-profits and below rate for NYC, it is an increase. Our annual Wikipedia Day celebration has also grown from previous years, requiring increased food costs (the space is an in-kind donation). The Chapter is very encouraged that we had approximately 300 people at the most recent Wikipedia Day, and the space was standing room only for much of it. However, we ran out of food in both 2018 and 2019, requiring onsite purchases at a higher rate. By budgeting for increased funds in advance, we can reduce the overall rate.

Partnerships

The partnerships program area provides support for programming and content contributions in collaboration with institutional partners, ranging from Wikimedia user groups and local activist organizations to cultural heritage organizations and universities. Each partner has a community that connects with it, and, thus, Wikimedia NYC is able to connect even more people with the Wikimedia project by establishing new partnerships and fostering its relationship with existing ones.

In its 2018-2020 Strategic Plan, Wikimedia NYC identified the following goals to measure our success in this program area:

• Wikimedia NYC identifies opportunities for deepened engagement through surveying primary contacts at institutional partners.
• Wikimedia NYC establishes five new partnerships with institutions that report less than 15 full-time employees.
• Wikimedia NYC establishes five new partnerships with institutions that represent the local knowledge of the New York metropolitan area.

In the 2018-2019 year, Wikimedia NYC strengthened its longstanding commitment to knowledge equity by establishing partnerships in each of NYC’s five boroughs, reaching new communities and the knowledge they hold. In the 2019-2020 year, Wikimedia NYC aims to continue growing partnerships informed by its commitment to knowledge equity. Wikimedia NYC has historically partnered with some of the largest and most prominent cultural heritage organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York Botanical Garden. These institutions are well positioned to support Wikimedia initiatives -- especially large donations to Wikimedia Commons or Wikidata -- because they have the staff and the funds to do so. However, most organizations do not have such resources available to them, and Wikimedia NYC is committed to supporting the movement’s goal of knowledge equity by engaging with less well resourced institutions so that, together, we might establish infrastructure for their participation as well. Thus, in the 2019-2020 year, Wikimedia NYC will establish five new partnerships with organizations with small staff or no staff at all.

Outreach and Education

Recognizing Wikimedia NYC’s role as a local node in global movements, the outreach and education program area focuses on activities that promote and advance the Chapter’s work in support of Wikimedia and free knowledge. This includes communicating its work to its members and the larger Wikimedia movement, as well as the broader public.

In its 2018-2020 Strategic Plan, Wikimedia NYC identified the following goals to measure our success in this program area:

• Wikimedia NYC members will speak about Wikimedia and/or open knowledge at five public events in the New York metropolitan area.
• Wikimedia NYC will achieve a 30% increase in communicating its work to the Wikimedia community via outlets such as The Wikipedia Signpost and This Month in GLAM.
• The Wikimedia NYC web presence is accurate, up to date, and developed with each of its audiences in mind (e.g., Wikimedians, Wikipedians, wider public).

In 2018-2019, the Chapter successfully increased its communications to the Wikimedia movement via community outlets, and its leadership spoke about the Wikimedia movement at three local events focused on open knowledge. The Chapter also begin initial work to improve its web presence so Wikimedians, members, partners, and the wider public can find the information they need about the Chapter. This work proved a much bigger task than initially anticipated.

In the 2019-2020 year, Wikimedia NYC will continue its outreach work to the Wikimedia and open knowledge community by speaking at local and national events within and outside of the Wikimedia movement. The Chapter will also continue to improve its web presence. This infrastructure project is critical to communicating the work of the Chapter to new and existing members, partners, and Wikimedians. Despite its contributions to the fifth largest website on the Internet, Wikimedia NYC does not have an easily accessible presence and it’s extremely difficult for anyone to connect with the Chapter unless they’ve personally met someone involved with it. For instance, individuals interested in finding local Wikimedians for speaking engagements, hosting or attending an edit-a-thon, or contributing to the Chapter with their time or finances often report that they struggle to connect with us. This also poses a barrier to implementing the work done with the Support & Safety lead over the course of the last year. When members and event attendees do not know how to contact the Chapter, they are unable to report incidents of harassment or moments when they felt unwelcome. Improving this key piece of infrastructure is imperative for the work of the Chapter as defined by the 2018--2020 Strategic Plan.

Wikimedia NYC plans to contract with Logic Department, a woman-owned company in NYC, to overhaul the information architecture across its three primary websites: meta.wikimedia.org, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC, and wikimedianyc.org. As the Chapter has tried to tackle its web presence over the course of the last year, it’s become clear that each board member has a different perspective about how the website is being used. Instead of the Chapter making changes based on our (often conflicting) instincts, Logic Department will conduct interviews with internal and external stakeholders in order to identify user need. Logic Department will then report on their findings and, using this data, provide their recommendations for an information architecture overhaul, where the structures and full plan of how to implement them will take shape. We are especially excited to work with Logic Department because they were previously contracted by the Wikimedia Foundation and, thus, have experience with Wikimedia projects. Upon completion of the report, Wikimedia NYC will move forward with making the recommended changes and distribute the report via meta so other chapters and user groups may apply it to their own web presence as they see fit.

Content Contributions

This program area focuses on institutional partnerships and public-facing events that contribute content to Wikimedia projects in the form of text, media, and data. Wikimedia NYC is committed to looking beyond quantitative evaluations of this content, but to instead identify and address gaps in the content and community of Wikipedia(s).

In its 2018-2020 Strategic Plan, Wikimedia NYC identified the following goals to measure our success in this program area:

• There is a 25 % increase in edit-a-thons on Wikimedia projects other than English Wikipedia.
• Wikimedia NYC facilitates one content donation from an institutional partner to a Wikimedia project.
• Wikimedia NYC addresses a content or community gap on a Wikimedia project, with the goal of increasing the number of edit-a-thons focused on that issue by 50 %.

Over the course of the last year, Wikimedia NYC has more than doubled the number of edit-a-thons focused on LGBT+ content, responded to growing requests for Wikidata training, and began to formalize a new type of edit-a-thon focused on translating across different language Wikipedias. The Chapter is thrilled about its work in each of these areas, and looks forward to sharing it in the final report. In 2019 - 2020, Wikimedia NYC will continue growing in each of these areas, and, as a part of this work, solicit a content donation from one of its institutional partners.

Operations

Wikimedia NYC embarked on its first strategic planning process in 2017, facilitating and focusing its work for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 fiscal years. The Chapter and the Wikimedia movement as a whole are in a period of growth and change, and, recognizing this, the Chapter will hire strategy consultants to guide this process. Barretto Consulting, LLC specializes in working with non-profits and comes to Wikimedia NYC recommended by the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, of which the Chapter is a member.

Working with an experienced consulting company that specializes in strategic planning will allow Wikimedia NYC to effectively plan what it wants to build on top of the infrastructure it established out of the 2018-2020 strategy process. The Chapter is incredibly adept at establishing a vision for its role in New York and the global Wikimedia movement. However, it struggles to balance that vision with the resources of its volunteer community, and this ultimately impacts effective implementation and growth. By working with Barretto Consulting, Wikimedia NYC will have an on-hand facilitator to structure these conversations, align vision with what’s possible, and, perhaps most importantly, provide an opportunity for every voice to be heard (something that’s difficult with an internal facilitator). This process will consist of six phases: assessment and preparation, a board retreat with invited members, an environmental scan of broader membership and movement, analysis and synthesis of this phase, an action plan, and, finally, adoption and integration of that plan. With appropriate support, we look forward to engaging with this process and further supporting our vision for Wikimedia in New York City and the movement’s vision for 2030.