Wikipedysta:Nadzik/Raport za 2021

FINAL report

Note: This report focuses on WMPL activities related to our 2020–2021 grant sAPG request. As such, it does not detail the entirety of our activities, most notably in the area of Education – which was funded exclusively from our funds gathered via 1% tax deduction contributions.

Program story

2021 was the second year of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While still cautious, our organization managed to accomplish plenty of activities related to the mission of expanding open knowledge.

Learning from lessons from previous years, we focused on our strengths and started to optimize our actions. Once again, we started the year with the unified annual budget which gave the employees more freedom in their actions and unburdened our volunteer-only Board. As a result, the Board could focus on managing the organization, while our team (8 full-time employees + Executive Director) worked on day-to-day operations. In addition, we started implementing agile methods and the use of project management tools.

By improving our processes and focusing on our strengths, the organization’s goal was to thrive, despite the still harsh public health situation.

It was also the year of Wikipedia’s 20th birthday. As one of the first projects created, Polish Wikipedia turned 20 in September. While our ambitious projects related to the celebrations could not be safely accomplished, we supported the community and helped them enjoy the last two decades of their success.

While remaining active in Poland, 2021 was the year of increased international activities. WMPL’s commitment to the CEE Hub grew, and together with fellow affiliates in the region, we started conducting surveys to learn the community needs. We were also dedicated to working on improving volunteer support in the global movement by engaging in the Volunteer Supporters Network and its activities - from training on organizing safe and inclusive meetings to an international Wikipedia20 birthday Jaunt!  In addition, we supported the Wikimedia Foundation and European affiliates in the Board of Trustees election by co-organizing the biggest candidate debate during the election!

By the end of 2021, our organization was solid and efficient. Our hope was to march into 2022 with the same energy and willingness to learn more lessons from the upcoming future.

Michał Buczyński

President of the Board

Wikimedia Poland

Program Progress

Income Diversification Push

• Szablon:Done 1% of the Yearly Income Tax income not more than 80% of WMPL yearly income
• Szablon:Pending a communications audit and marketing strategy conducted by end of Q3 2020
• Szablon:Not done collect funds from at least 4 earmarked Polish grants, including:
  • at least 1 grant by a local government
  • at least 1 grant by the central agency
  • at least 1 grant by a Polish NGO
• Szablon:Done collect funds from at least 3 fundraising campaigns, including:
  • at least 1 campaign in collaboration with partnering institutions
  • at least 1 campaign on online platforms
• Szablon:Done Done generate at least 2.000,00 PLN as financial income

Activities:

• Szablon:Done invest existing funds in multi-year low-risk financial instruments and rotate operational funds with low-risk financial instruments
• Szablon:Done apply for public as well as private grants
• Szablon:Pending apply the Total Fundraising Organization methods
• Szablon:Done introduce the chargeable public benefit activities (under Polish law, Public Benefit Organizations may perform both chargeable and non-chargeable activities which are not considered as commercial activity)
• Szablon:Done create a paid role dedicated for managing fundraising campaigns

Throughout the grant, we had established WMPL's team dedicated to outreach and fundraising. In May 2020, we hired a new Spokesperson & Communication Specialist, Nina Gabryś. In addition, WMPL's first fundraiser, Jacek Broda, joined our organisation at the end of the year.

WMPL's treasurer decided on investing funds into both long and short-term Polish treasury bonds, which yielded 2000 PLN in 2000 PLN and ??? in 2021. This strategy will allow the organisation to withstand the dangers of growing inflation, provoked by the Polish and European governments' reaction to the COVID-19 recession.

In 2021 we had made a hard decision to postpone the audit of communication channels. Unfortunately, our cooperation with the auditor was interrupted by the several waves of the covid pandemic and the restrictions that followed. Nevertheless, we remain committed to finishing it in the future.

We have also finished the work on our new website. Wikimedia.pl is our public-facing landing page, where people can learn more about the organisation. At the same time, pl.wikimedia.org remains a members-oriented page with transparency, reports and helpful information to the members of the Movement.

In 2021 we achieved our highest ever amount from the 1% tax deduction campaign. We have raised over 878 000 PLN (~227 000 USD), an increase of 18.5 pp to the year 2019 (the tax year 2018), before hiring communication and fundraising staff.

Additionally, in 2020 the Board prepared, and the General Assembly approved changes to Wikimedia Poland's bylaws, enabling us to engage in "paid public benefit activities" – a type of Polish business-like legal construct, which allows non-profits to sell services and goods, as long as all proceeds are used towards their non-profit mission. This option was used for the first time in 2021 when selling tickets to the WMPL winter conference (scheduled for January 2022 but later rescheduled for April 2022).

In 2021 the government of Poland had announced the most sweeping change in tax law since the introduction of the 1% tax deduction mechanism. This action, condemned by many economists, reassures our organisation in our mission to diversify the source of income. While currently, around 79.5% of WMPL's income comes from this mechanism (compared to 89% in 2019), we remain committed to further work on this matter.

Unfortunately, our work on acquiring government grants was unsuccessful in 2020 and 2021, despite many large grant requests. We intend to continue to submit grant requests in the future while not relying on government funding for mission-critical functions.

Supercharging GLAM

• Szablon:Done 25000 new media files uploaded by the end of 2020 (actual result: 33 782 new files)
• Szablon:Done 500 new GLAM files used in Polish Wikimedia projects by the end of 2020 (actual result: 3087 new used files)

At the beginning of 2021 WMPL parted ways with the GLAM coordinator. We hired the new coordinator (Specialist of Open Culture), Kamila Neuman, in Q4 of 2021.

We are Wikipedia

• Szablon:Done 7 podcast episodes published by the end of 2020 (actual: 10 episodes published)
• Szablon:Done 2 other mentions in national-level media outlets by the end of 2020
• Szablon:Pending 5 new permanent non-editor volunteers onboarded by the end of 2020
• Szablon:Done at least one new partner providing professional services pro bono (legal, marketing, etc.) acquired by the end of 2020

Thanks to great networking by our new spokesperson, Nina, we have established a relationship with Semahead, a SEO and marketing agency based in Kraków. Their pro bono services enabled us to elevate the design of our social media posts and increase their effectiveness. We actively continued to cooperate with businesses and agencies in the sphere of social media engagement.

We have published 10 podcast episodes in season 1 of our “How Wikipedia is changing the world” series, and are now preparing to launch season 2. (See the Diff post for more details.)

Between August 2020 and February 2021, the podcast episodes were downloaded 1164 times and streamed 130 times, which for an online media initiative in Poland is a rather small audience.

We have found, however, that while the audience is small, it seems to be the right audience. We were contacted by two new partners (in the education and GLAM space) who mentioned they were inspired to reach out by listening to our podcast. This seems to suggest that our content is appealing to culture workers and educators, and may serve as an effective outreach mechanism in the future.

For season 2, initially planned for 2021, but postponed to 2022, we are planning a bigger marketing push, including promoting the podcast on Wikipedia for a much broader reach.

In 2020, we established working relationships with a number of traditional media outlets, resulting in articles such as (content in Polish):

• Wikipedia’s 20th birthday. Site grows during the pandemic for the first time in years
• At night, after work, and for free – this is how Wikipedians are creating the encyclopaedia of the 21st century

Community Support 2.0

• expanded objectives section:
  • Szablon:Done develop a community health process for self-correction in collaboration with a group of trusted volunteers,
  • Szablon:Done establish 5 active volunteer groups of at least 3 volunteers each by the end of 2020
• basic objectives section:
  • Szablon:Done organize at least one major live on-line event in 2020, to facilitate community integration in the absence of in-person meetings
  • Szablon:Done increase the number of active users by 5% by the end of 2020
  • Szablon:Done produce 5000 new or improved pages of content by mobilizing volunteers through contests (actual result: 5735)
  • Szablon:Done at least 125 people participate in trainings for new editors (actual result: 264)
  • Szablon:Done at least 100 editors participate in trainings for experienced editors (actual result: 316)

Activities:

• Szablon:Done develop a way to measure and monitor user retention
• Szablon:Done organize and co-host trainings for new and advanced users
• Szablon:Done organize conferences and meetups
• Szablon:Done give out appreciation rewards to motivate users and showcase exemplars of our Movement
• Partially Szablon:Done create and facilitate volunteer groups for community-led initiatives and volunteer-supported staff activities and recruit skilled volunteers, including but not limited to:
  • Szablon:Done New User Guides’ Group
  • Szablon:Done Community Health Group
  • Szablon:Not done Social Media Helpers Group
• Szablon:Done provide psychological supervision to employees to help handle sensitive situations and conflicts

Using funds from the grant, in 2020 we have expanded our Community Support team by hiring a Junior Community Support Specialist. This allowed us to meet all of the goals outlined above and expand gradually support services by:

• creating a process to request paid subscriptions to magazine and other sources,
• introducing a peer-to-peer volunteer-driven gifts scheme,
• expanding our microgrants program.

Polish Wikipedia 20th birthday

In 2020 community support aspect of our work was also one of the most affected by COVID-19 and related lockdowns and meeting limitations. Whereas we have traditionally relied on in-person trainings and workshops for user onboarding and skill development, as well as in-person events for community integration – we needed to rapidly adjust to continue to support our communities during the pandemic.

We are happy to report that we've managed to switch to on-line events and deploy two parallel series of weekly meetings in just a few weeks, providing:

• a series of open trainings and introductory talks on Wikipedia to the general audience, attracting some new Wikipedians,
• a series of advanced trainings and "fireside chats" to experienced Wikipedians, helping keep the community connected and active during lockdown,
• our first major fully on-line conference.

In 2021, with some of the restrictions being phased out and the COVID-19 vaccination programme ongoing, we organised several small and local meet-ups for the communities.

• Wikispotkanie 2021 – In June, we organized meetings in 6 cities across Poland, as well as online meet-ups for interested volunteers. In total 68 Wikimedians attended!
• Wikimania 2021 – WMPL offered scholarships to Wikimedians in Poland. Co-working spaces were rented, lunch and coffee offered, equipment bought, as well as an allowance for dependent care issued.
• Źródłosłów 2021 – In September, around 30 contributors to pl.wikisource and pl.wiktionary met in Warsaw for a conference and series of workshops relating to their work in those wiki-projects.

Wikipedia przy kawie, Poznań

WMPL has also been involved in planning and organising the Wikimedia CEE online meeting and Volunteer Support Programme meetings throughout the year.

In fact, moving to online trainings and meetings greatly improved attendance and helped us engage members of our community who we've never met at live events.

See also: Fourteen things we’ve learned by moving Polish Wikimedia conference online

Wikimedia Poland also made it easier for the Product Managers working at the Product department of the Wikimedia Foundation to reach out to the Polish wikis communities. In 2021, we invited Olga Vasileva, Lead Product Manager for Web to give a presentation about the Desktop Improvements at our annual conference organized again as an online event.

We have also collaborated with researchers on creating a tool that would allow us to track the growth, stability and balance of our editing community in order to better plan our future activities around community support. The Community Vital Signs can now show us what groups of editors (newbies or advanced, tech wizards or community organizers etc.) need our support the most, which allows us create Community Support tailored to the exact needs of our community.

See: Community Vital Signs - Polish Community Report An important aspect of our work was also supporting our community in becoming more inclusive, safe and supportive, and aiming towards a Wikimedia 2030 goal of providing for safety and inclusion. We organized professional mediations training to support a good and constructive conflict resolution in the community (and we are happy to report that at least one conflict has been resolved and an Arbitration Committee case has been withdrawn thanks to a successful mediation!). We aimed towards reducing volunteer burnout by supporting a culture of rest (by tracking volunteer engagement and reacting to cases of work overload) and providing mindfulness training for Wikimedians. See:

• Wikimedia Poland: building a holistic support infrastructure
• Why we taught wikimedians how to breathe mindfully. And what you should know if you want to do the same.

Microgrants

The ​WikiGrants volunteer microgrant programme is the easiest and the most direct way of supporting editors in their editing plans and intentions. Volunteers can apply for reimbursement of sources or tools they need for writing articles, entrance tickets or photo expeditions. Applications are reviewed by a committee of experienced volunteers.

In 2020-2021, 64 applications were submitted. 50 grants were awarded, for the total sum of 17700 PLN (~ 5000 USD). The programme resulted in ​more than 2,500 new or extended pages in Wikimedia projects, including 1,777 new photos​. Impressive as these results may seem, WikiGrants have noted a certain decline compared to previous years, both when it comes to the number of applications and the allocated funds. It prompted us to take a closer look at this mechanism and strengthen it in the years to come.

Infrastructure and basic capacity

Aleja Szucha 16 in Warsaw, WMPL office building since 2021

• at least 4 internal trainings conducted by end of 2020, including:
  • Szablon:Done Kanban training and Asana onboarding,
  • Szablon:Done task management training.
• Szablon:Done office relocation complete by end of Q3 2020

In 2020 we moved our office to the Imperial Castle in Poznan (currently a culture centre and NGO-friendly office space).

As specified in the grant request, the Board of WMPL recognised the need for a more central location, closer to the community and the majority of WMPL’s employees – Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Therefore, in cooperation with another NGO and the city of Warsaw, we had secured a location for our office in Warsaw at the beginning of 2021. Thanks to this cooperation, we are part of the NGO support programme, which offers office space to NGOs on a preferential basis [Lokale dla organizacji pozarządowych]. After securing this office space, WMPL’s General Assembly approved moving the official headquarters to Warsaw.

In March 2021, we hired an office manager, Grzegorz Kopaczewski. He is responsible for managing our Warsaw office, administrative tasks in the organization, and helping volunteers and other employees with travel, logistics and financial matters. This vital role took day-to-day administrative tasks away from the Board and the Executive Director, who could focus on more broad management actions in the organization.

As of the end of 2021, our staff is still being trained in agile project management practices, recruitment techniques, and peer-to-peer feedback. While the work is not yet done, we are working on increasing our activities in this region.

General Assemblies

In 2020 and 2021 six General Assemblies took place (bolded GA’s indicate Annual General Assemblies required by Polish Law and WMPL Statue):

• 2020
  • 25 January 2020 (in person) – bylaws change, approval of the 2020 plan
  • 27 June 2020 (online) – Association elections and acceptance of the 2019 report
  • 18 July 2020 (online, continuation of the previous one)
• 2021
  • 27 March 2021 (online), approval of the 2021 plan
  • 26 June 2021 (online) – Association elections and acceptance of the 2020 report
  • 25 September 2021 (online) – bylaws and headquarters change