Annual plan (2014–2015)

This plan documents Wikimedia District of Columbia's program and organizational development plans for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015. Wikimedia DC embarked on a strategic planning process during fiscal year 2013–14, a process that will result in a completed strategic plan during this fiscal year. We have diversified our outreach efforts to include historical, scientific, and technological organizations, and we began improving our technical infrastructure to support our work.

This year, we are focused on increasing our outreach efforts to firmly establish our presence as knowledge workers while working to embed the values of the Wikimedia movement in our current partner organizations. We are developing an infrastructure of best practices and technologies that will boost our ranks as a membership organization and as a volunteer organization. These efforts work together to institutionalize Wikimedia DC as a Washington-based organization working to share our knowledge with the world.

Content programs

In 2015 our content programs will focus on encouraging individual content contributors and empowering broader institutional participation. During the last fiscal year we hosted several edit-a-thons with institutions in various subject areas, including the fine arts, chemistry, history, and law. These events allowed us to build connections with these organizations and to develop a list of over 100 potential Wikipedia editors. Through the research of Emily Temple-Wood, our Vice President and an Individual Engagement Grant recipient of the Wikimedia Foundation, we have developed a program to train small groups of motivated individuals in writing Wikipedia articles through recurring events. Our goal this year is to implement this program in at least two organizations. We will also continue to host regular edit-a-thons with organizations that share our goals.

Wikipedia Workshops

Wikipedia Workshops build on the edit-a-thon concept that has been successfully implemented at Wikimedia DC events. While edit-a-thons as currently carried out are successful promotional events that give participating individuals and organizations a taste of editing Wikipedia, they have not been proven effective to recruit people to become Wikipedia editors. The workshop concept developed by Wikimedia DC works to improve the editing skills of participants through small instructional groups and pre-scheduled recurring events.

We are currently planning two workshop programs in Washington, DC, one focused on art history and another on public health. Our goal is to recruit ten participating editors and one facilitator for each program. Each program will include one session a week for four weeks, focusing on creating content on Wikipedia. Our goal is to see one new article created (or an existing article substantially expanded) per person per session, i.e. 80 new or expanded articles between the two programs. An article is substantially expanded if at least 1,000 bytes of content is added.

Edit-a-Thons

This past fiscal year, Wikimedia DC scheduled 20 edit-a-thons. At these edit-a-thons, over 130 participants contributed over 250,000 bytes of content. More importantly, these edit-a-thons allowed us to become better acquainted with cultural, scientific, historical, or government institutions that share our mission, including the National Archives and Records Administration, American Chemical Society, Smithsonian Institution, the DC Historical Society, and the University of Maryland Libraries. There is growing interest in hosting edit-a-thons with our organization, with many organizations willing to contribute all the event hosting costs in-kind. There is also interest from existing partners to carry out longer-term Wikimedia-related programming, as reflected in our annual plan and in the National Archives' decision to hire a full-time Wikipedian in Residence.

As edit-a-thons are the primary recruitment vehicle for Wikimedia DC, we would like to continue hosting them this fiscal year. Our goal this fiscal year is to host edit-a-thons with at least 15 institutions, expanding on the prior year's nine. Of these 15, we would like to organize at least two with scientific institutions and three with government institutions. Between our edit-a-thons, our goal is to engage at least 175 participants.

Cultural Partnerships

Partnering with cultural institutions to share content with the world is one of our founding principles, and we have been expanding on our past work. In July 2014, Wikimedia DC kicked off Wikipedia Summer of Monuments, a campaign dedicated to improving coverage of historic places, particularly in the Southern United States. Between our work with cultural institutions and the contest, over 10,000 photographs of historic sties were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons between July 1 and September 30, 2014. This campaign allowed us to build connections with numerous historical societies and cultural institutions in our target region. We will be extending the contract of our project manager so that we can continue these relationships and allow for more time to reach our goal of having 50% photographic coverage of our five outreach states. This will help ensure we receive a maximum return on our investment. Our tentative plan is to extend the campaign into January 2015, although the contest portion of the campaign has already ended.

Thinking beyond Summer of Monuments, Wikimedia DC is interested in scaling institutional outreach efforts throughout the country. With our resources in Washington, DC, our programs training volunteers for the Wikimedia movement, and our experience managing outreach projects, we are in a unique position to provide infrastructural support to the GLAM-Wiki movement in the United States. We will be launching a one-year pilot this April to carry out cultural outreach in support of the national GLAM-Wiki effort. Our Cultural Partnerships program will focus on giving cultural institutions access to the Wikimedia community and guidance on participation. We would like to target institutions for their potential to contribute primary sources, including media and source texts, and also institutions with highly knowledgeable staff who could contribute to Wikipedia articles. To sustain these efforts, we will be training volunteers through the GLAM Boot Camp training program, targeting Wikipedians in geographic regions according to the need to develop capacity.

The purpose of the cultural partnerships program is to, very broadly, include the cultural sector as partners for promoting free knowledge. Specifically, by the conclusion of the program, our goal is to see ten new relationships established with cultural institutions, culminating in the upload of 10,000 media files and the recruitment of 30 new Wikipedia editors. We will be conducting this program over the course of one year, with half in Fiscal Year 2014–15 and the other half in Fiscal Year 2015–16, as we have observed that the key to cultural partnerships is being able to nurture a relationship over a longer term.

Technology programs

Wikimedia DC piloted a new technology program this past fiscal year with two "WikiHack" events themed on open data.

Community programs

The role of our community programs is to build a community around the Wikimedia mission, and to train volunteers in carrying out programs that fulfill the Wikimedia mission. Wikimedia DC has seen success in carrying out programs that train experienced Wikipedia editors to carry on outreach activity, as these programs both teach practical skills and also develop networks around a shared interest. GLAM Boot Camp successfully built a community of Wikipedians engaged in outreach work, while we expect similar returns from the Workshop Facilitator Training held in August 2014. Reflecting on our successes, we will continue to carry out volunteer training programs. We will also focus on community building in a broader sense through active participation in industry events. These efforts combined seek to engage more people in our mission.

Volunteer Training

• Workshop Facilitator
• GLAM Boot Camp with National Archives
• Safe Space Training

Promotional Events

• Public Health Summit
• Diversity Conference

Staff and volunteers

• President: Building connections within the broader Wikimedia movement and the DC community; overseeing and carrying out programs
• Secretary: Managing organizational communications, reports, and the event calendar