Annual plan (2013–2014)

Our programs

In the coming fiscal year, Wikimedia DC will realign its program structure to reflect the three interconnected factors that make the Wikimedia movement a success: content, technology, and community. The aim of Wikimedia DC is to make free content available to the world. The development and promotion of technology gives us the tools needed to distribute free content. Most importantly, building a vibrant community makes all of this possible.

CONTENT

Historical records at the National Archives

Washington, DC, is home to many institutions of knowledge and knowledgeable people. For the past three years, locally based institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution, have expressed interest in improving Wikipedia's content. To this end, we have had several successful collaborations with institutions of knowledge.

During the past fiscal year, we held five edit-a-thons with the Smithsonian Institution, resulting in 47 new articles, 105 existing articles improved, and 8 images uploaded. All of the images contributed have been from the Smithsonian's collections, and the articles have been on subject matters of interest to the Smithsonian.

George Washington University worked with Wikimedia DC to hold three edit-a-thons at their libraries and archives, covering such subjects as global affairs, labor history, and the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. As a result, 31 articles were created or improved, including one article in German. Access to university resources were instrumental in the improvement of these articles.

Wikimedia DC volunteers have aided the Cato Institute in its efforts to document bills introduced in Congress on Wikipedia. According to Jim Harper, the Director of Information Policy Studies, articles written through this effort have gotten 70,000 hits, promoting knowledge of the legislative process.

Events planned with these institutions have been fruitful in developing organizational relationships, yet there is still more work to be done. Wikimedia DC will look to build on these existing relationships by devising longer-term program plans, including a schedule of planned events and metrics for content contributions and volunteer outreach. More effort will also be made in hosting non-editing events such as scan-a-thons, which allow institutions to share their collections with a broader, global audience.

We also look forward to expanding our work to include additional cultural institutions and universities. For example, we look forward to holding additional events with the National Archives, with the help of Dominic McDevitt-Parks as their new full-time Wikipedia specialist. Additionally, we are interested in supporting Andrew Lih in his efforts to integrate Wikipedia into his curriculum at American University. These provide excellent opportunities to share the content of Washington, DC, with the rest of the world.

TECHNOLOGY

Open data hack-a-thon at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library

As we make progress with using the resources of DC to improve free content, further efforts need to be made to enhance the technology that underpins the Wikimedia movement. As the Wikimedia Foundation makes substantial investments in improving its MediaWiki software, we have opportunities to use technology to enhance our outreach efforts.

We will be holding hack-a-thons to improve MediaWiki functionality and to develop tools that make Wikipedia easier to use. This includes tools to allow cultural institutions to easily upload their collections to Wikimedia Commons en masse. We are also interested in creating tools and apps that will allow people to engage with Wikimedia content in new ways, including apps based on Wikidata and image discovery tools that make use of Wikimedia Commons' extensive collection of free media. We anticipate that these technology-centric events will raise awareness of the underlying technology that empowers the Wikimedia projects, and will improve engagement in DC's technology sector.

Technology is also useful to measure the success of our outreach activities. We will make extensive use of analytics, including the new Wiki Metrics tool, to measure the outcomes of our events, including the number of bytes added to Wikipedia and the number of articles contributed. Wiki Metrics will also allow us to measure editor retention rates for workshop participants. We will also work with our institutional partners to develop customized analytics tools that demonstrate the concrete ways that Wikimedia projects allow institutions to share their knowledge with the rest of the world.

COMMUNITY

Attendees at the "Women in the Arts" edit-a-thon at the Archives of American Art

Wikimedia is fundamentally a volunteer movement, and success in promoting free access to the world's knowledge and building the technology to makes this access possible depend on a strong community of volunteers and enthusiasts. Last year we started holding regular WikiSalons, informal events where people gather to discuss Wikipedia and work on improving articles. These WikiSalons have been successful in recruiting new participants in our movement and giving them access to resources to help them succeed at contributing to Wikipedia. We look forward to holding additional WikiSalons, as well as other social meetups, in the coming year.

Starting this year, we will have new opportunities to host social events at two collaborative spaces starting up in DC, including the Digital Commons at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, and a planned space at the downtown National Archives Building. These technologically equipped spaces will give us more opportunities to train volunteers in contributing to the Wikimedia projects, including contributions through ancillary tasks such as digitizing documents.

As we have succeeded with offline outreach, we are interested in enhancing our online outreach. This outreach includes using our website as a resource to teach prospective volunteers the ins and outs of contributing to Wikipedia, as well as building our community through social media. Online outreach will build a broader audience, including remote volunteers who cannot attend in-person events. Unlike current community-building efforts that focus exclusively on virtual organizing, volunteers recruited through our online efforts will have access to our in-person events as a resource to meet fellow Wikimedians.

Planned projects and events

Wikimedia DC intends to carry out the following projects and events in Fiscal Year 2013–14. These plans are contingent on having adequate financial and human resources.

Edit-a-thons	Edit-a-thons have been our most visible and successful means of reaching out to new Wikipedia editors while working with partnering institutions to fulfill their Wikipedia outreach goals. To this end, most of the edit-a-thons held to date have been hosted by professionals within cultural institutions, with Wikimedia DC providing expertise, funding, and a promotional platform. As we have seen successes with our edit-a-thons, including over 150 articles created or improved and over 200,000 bytes of text added to Wikipedia, we are interested in expanding the scope of this program to include additional subject areas and institutions. Wikimedia DC organized edit-a-thons with six partnering institutions in the past fiscal year. Our goal this year is to hold events with at least eight institutions, including at least two new institutions. These institutions will ideally be centers of specialized knowledge, with access to academic resources that can be used to improve Wikipedia articles on subjects that are under-covered, including women's history. Within the Smithsonian Institution, we are dedicated to building on the efforts of their Wikipedian-in-Residence this past summer to expand Wikimedia outreach within the Smithsonian. Having successfully run outreach events with two divisions within the Smithsonian Institution, our goal this year is to hold events with four Smithsonian divisions. A broader base of partnerships will allow for more opportunities to improve the Wikimedia projects through outreach events. With the assistance of new tools from the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia DC will make a stronger effort to reach out to individual attendees. By collecting usernames at events, we can use Wiki Metrics to determine the specific outcomes of editing events, including the number of bytes contributed to articles, as well as measuring long-term editor retention. Basic voluntary data collection also presents opportunities to reach out to Wikipedians through the Wikipedia interface and to provide assistance where needed. Our goal for this fiscal year is to develop a record of at least 50 volunteers logging a total of at least 700 volunteer hours and creating or improving at least 175 articles.
Scan-a-thons	We are pleased by the National Archives and Records Administration's decision to hire a full-time Wikipedia specialist. This development will allow us to further our work with the National Archives and place their historical resources in front of millions of online viewers. Additionally, given the needs of other organizations to digitize their content, a pilot program with the National Archives could be essential in developing a streamlined process to digitize and disseminate free media. Wikimedia DC's goal for this year is to hold two scan-a-thons with the National Archives, yielding at least 200 digitized documents. We will also work with the National Archives to develop a volunteer scanning program where volunteers can scan documents in their own free time; we are particularly interested in seeing digitized documents being used to improve Wikimedia projects.
Hack-a-thons	The survival of the Wikimedia projects depends on keeping the software infrastructure up-to-date, allowing Wikimedia content to be viewed and changed on different platforms. The work done by the Wikimedia Foundation to support MediaWiki must be supplemented by further initiatives that help make sense of big data, present Wikimedia content in new and compelling ways, and help make it easier for individuals and organizations to contribute their content and expertise to the Wikimedia projects. We are fortunate in having a sizable local community of tech-savvy individual using technology to improve the world around them. Both Wikimedia DC and the DC technology community value free access to knowledge, including structured data made available by state and federal agencies. Outreach to this sector presents many opportunities for the improvement of Wikimedia projects. Starting with the second quarter, Wikimedia DC will begin holding a series of quarterly hack-a-thons, holding a total of three hack-a-thons this fiscal year. These hack-a-thons will be our means to develop a volunteer community dedicated to the technical infrastructure, with each event building on the results of the last one. This will include at least one hack-a-thon planned with the guidance of the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as others intended to develop auxiliary tools or presentations of structured data that can serve as sources for Wikipedia articles. The specific deliverables of these hack-a-thons will depend on the initiative of attendees, but we anticipate the completion of at least two projects.
Analytics development	Data helps us determine how successful our projects are, and Wikimedia organizations worldwide are beginning to make use of data to inform their decision-making processes. Wikimedia DC seeks to support this move through the development and continued support of a stable set of online tools that can be used by partnering institutions to measure the impact of their investment in the improvement of Wikimedia projects. Currently, there are many analytics tools that can be found on Wikimedia projects themselves, on Wikimedia tool repositories such as Wikimedia Labs, as well as several external websites. Some of these are poorly maintained or lack highly requested features. Rather than creating yet another disconnected tool, our goal is to create a single analytics report which will aggregate statistics from various existing tools, possibly with new features as needed. Ideally, a user will be able to select from a menu of options for statistics to include in the report and subscribe to periodical updates by email. Such a tool will be of use to partner institutions as well as curious individuals.
NARA Innovation Lab	In the coming year, the National Archives is designating a space at their facility as an Innovation Lab, a room with tables and equipment where members of the public can collaborate on projects. Wikimedia DC will be supporting the National Archives in their effort by lending equipment for the room's use and by pioneering events and volunteer opportunities. Though shared with the National Archives, this space will be the first Wikimedia DC-branded workspace since the Library Lab was shut down in 2012. Not all the details are finalized, but Wikimedia DC anticipates that the space will be used to host National Archives-related edit-a-thons, as well as WikiSalons and other social events. We expect to hold at least one edit-a-thon in this space, making use of the resources of the National Archives. In the long term, we would like to see the Innovation Lab become a source of everyday access to the Wikimedia community.
Social events	Informal social events are the backbone of Wikimedia DC, and we look forward to hosting future meetups. Social events will be structured around weekday evenings as well as weekend afternoons to allow for widest possible participation. We plan on holding two social events per month, including evening WikiSalons as well as afternoon WikiSalons on the weekends followed by dinner meetups. These events will give members of the public access to the local Wikimedia community and give us the opportunity to promote our other events. Throughout the year, Wikimedia DC will plan at least four flagship events, designed to be of broadest appeal and accessibility to the DC community. These events include our annual meeting, photography exhibitions, the annual Wiknic, and a fourth event planned with a partnering organization. Rather than strictly promoting editing Wikipedia or anything of a technical nature, flagship events will boost our presence in the DC area and give an opportunity for us to reach out to an audience that would otherwise not be interested in participating in a Wikipedia-related event.

Fundraising

Grants—Wikimedia DC will continue to seek grant funding from the WIkimedia Foundation to cover the cost of its projects and events, and for the time being will decline to participate in the Foundation's annual plan-based grants program. We will be filing one grant proposal for approximately $25,000 to cover program expenses for four quarters, starting with Q2 (January 1, 2014 – March 31, 2014). This grant proposal will be funded by a combination of leftover funds from the "Bootstrapping" grant, in addition to new funds. Leftover funding from our current "Outreach 2013" grant will continue to fund programs for Q1 until such funds are depleted, when general funds will cover the remainder of program costs for the quarter. Wikimedia DC is also expected to receive about $20,000 from a proposal filed by Wikimedia New York City to administer the travel scholarship program for WikiConference USA, a Wikimedia NYC-hosted event to be held May 30 – June 1, 2014.

Event Sponsorship—Last fiscal year, Wikimedia DC established a set of contribution tiers for event sponsorships. These tiers include:

• Bronze Sponsor ($250):

  Sponsor mentioned by name on all promotional emails, EventBrite / Meetup listings, pre-event and post-event blog posts

  Mention on our social media platforms

  Verbal acknowledgement at event

• Silver Sponsor ($500):

  The above, plus:

  Logo included on all emails, EventBrite / Meetup listings, pre- and post-event blog posts

  Sponsor literature provided for attendees at event

• Gold Sponsor ($1,000):

  The above, plus:

  Guest post on our blog

  Company logo on a piece of giveaway swag

  Sponsor table at our finalists reception

Wikimedia DC will continue to develop event sponsorship opportunities, including with flagship social events.

Donations—Wikimedia DC will continue to pursue multiple sources of donations to cover general administrative costs. These include:

• Sponsor memberships: Small ($15-$90) donation amounts are packaged with the standard $10 membership fee as sponsor memberships.
• Individual donations: Solicit individuals to make substantial donations to the organization.
• Corporate donations: Solicit organizations and corporations with whom we have an existing relationship to make financial or in-kind contributions to the organization.

Personnel

Committees—Wikimedia DC will be making certain modifications to its structure of advisory committees to ensure that they provide the best support to the organization. The current Programs Committee will be restructured into different committees which reflect our strategic priorities. This restructuring will help us recruit volunteers interested in aiding the Board of Directors in planning its activities. We will also consider additional changes to the committee structure that promote their participation in Wikimedia DC's decision-making processes.

Staff—Wikimedia DC currently has three volunteer staff positions directly appointed by the Board of Directors: the Cultural Partnerships Coordinator, the Event Promotion Coordinator, and the Social Media Coordinator. This year we are interested in recruiting a Tech Partnerships Coordinator to plan technology-oriented events, who will be an ex officio member of the Technology Committee.

Logistics and infrastructure

• Changes to website to reflect program structure and to more actively recruit participants
• Event logistics
• Data collection and storage
• Contact management
• Mailing lists
• Research into virtual presence technology

Fit to strategy

On September 7, 2013, the Board of Directors of Wikimedia DC approved the following strategic priorities:

1. Foster a welcoming and supportive social environment for local and remote Wikimedia volunteers.
2. Empower academic, cultural, and government institutions to contribute content and expertise to Wikimedia projects.
3. Promote women's participation in all aspects of the Wikimedia movement.
4. Cultivate diversity of participation and content on Wikimedia projects.