Annual Report 2024

Introduction

The year has been characterized by significant changes and adjustments to our operations. The year began with uncertainty regarding funding from the Wikimedia Foundation, both in terms of the operational support grant and funding for the development of a thematic hub. In addition, a significant portion of the budget consisted of project funds that had not yet been secured. The available funding also did not fully align with the existing staff composition, which required strategic reprioritization.

To meet these challenges, the focus of operations was adjusted in accordance with the strategy adopted in 2021. This meant an increased focus on fundraising and a reduction in direct staff costs as part of a broader efficiency initiative.

During the year, the Wikimedia Foundation unexpectedly changed its funding policy, making it possible to apply for three-year funding, although certain restrictions remained. Our application was successful, and we were able to secure the funds we had hoped for. The board also decided to use strategic reserves to compensate for the limitations in funding.

The year has been marked by continued work on several major initiatives that were started in previous years, enabling the staff to continue working effectively. The work has been going on well. To better measure success and evaluate outcomes, our projects and activities were divided into four programmatic strategic areas:

• Access
• Use
• Community
• Enabling

The association continued its active work with 70 events, attracting a total of over 3 800 participants. These events were often conducted as part of partnerships with other organizations, which we had a total of 84 during the year. The activities contributed to hundreds of thousands of improvements on the Wikimedia platforms. Additionally, a large number of new concepts and methods were developed, and key tools were developed and maintained as well.

Below, you can find more detailed reports from our successes (Stories) and the setbacks we experienced and learned from (Fail Fests). The texts can be read separately and you can choose what you're most interested in.

Major financial developments

The year was marked by significant financial fluctuations. Initially, there was a lot of uncertainty due to expected cuts in funding from the Wikimedia Foundation, which included both the annual operational support grant and funds for the development of a thematic hub. Additionally, a significant portion of the budget relied on project funds that had not yet been secured, and the requested funds did not fully match the staff's expertise. As a result, it became necessary to adjust the focus of our work in line with the strategy adopted in 2021. This involved both a sharp increase in fundraising efforts and a reduction in direct staff costs as part of a broader efficiency initiative and adjusted focus.

However, the Wikimedia Foundation suddenly changed its plans and offered the opportunity to apply for three-year funding, albeit with certain restrictions. Our application was approved, and we successfully secured the desired funding. The board also decided to use strategic reserves to compensate for any limitations in funding from the Wikimedia Foundation.

The year’s revenue of 8,58 million SEK was lower than the budget of 9.7 million SEK presented at last year's Annual General Meeting. Our expenses for the year were approximately 0,49 million SEK lower than budgeted. Despite expenses being lower than budgeted, they were still larger compared to the previous fiscal year. The increase of the value of the funds bequeathed to the association has remained strong, and these funds will continue to be available for strategic initiatives in the coming years.

The decrease compared to our budgeted revenue was primarily due to the planned Wikispeech project launching later in the year than anticipated, as well as changes to the funding call for the content partnerships hub, which resulted in the project not receiving funding. At the same time, new projects related to our advocacy work were secured, which largely offset the loss.

About the association

Wikimedia Sverige (WMSE), headquartered in Stockholm, was established as a politically and religiously independent non-profit association in 2007. The association operates nationwide and also runs several international projects that support volunteers in a large number of countries around the world.

We are a local, legally independent support organization to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which operates some of the world's largest free knowledge sources, including Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and the other Wikimedia projects, among other things.

Wikimedia Sverige wants to support other organizations and individuals in different ways, ensuring that contributions to the global availability of freely accessible knowledge grows in the best way possible.

What does Wikimedia Sverige want to achieve?

Wikimedia Sverige (WMSE) works towards making knowledge freely accessible to everyone. Knowledge is free when it is accessible, usable, editable, and shareable. Free and accessible knowledge is a prerequisite for an open internet, just as an open internet is a prerequisite for free and accessible knowledge.

Free knowledge is an important piece of the puzzle for a better world and a prerequisite for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We envision a future where digitalization and global interconnectivity enable everyone to both create and share knowledge at no cost. No matter where a person is or what language they speak, everyone should have the opportunity to contribute their perspectives and experiences.

When people have access to knowledge, they are empowered to improve their own lives and contribute to a better society. Free knowledge promotes understanding of important issues and enables innovative solutions to common challenges.It is also a cornerstone of a functioning democracy and a more informed public debate.

We work for increased openness around free knowledge, especially knowledge, data and resources linked to democracy, research, education and culture. For this to become a reality, collaboration between organizations and individuals, increased transparency, functioning digital tools and legislation that supports free knowledge are required. Society needs to actively work with digitization and new ways of working. Wikimedia Sverige drives these issues and works to strengthen these conditions at various levels.

We work with a long-term perspective, aiming to change the way organizations and society view the dissemination and production of knowledge. By influencing decision-makers to adopt open access policies, we lay the foundation for future access to open knowledge. Changing attitudes is crucial for the full potential of open knowledge to be realized.

How does Wikimedia Sverige work to achieve its goals?

Wikimedia Sverige works to drive social change and ensure high-quality information on the Wikimedia platforms. We also want their users to be able to access and read more credible sources to deepen their knowledge. This work is done by a dedicated group of volunteers, the association's board and the office staff.

We support and train volunteers and partner organizations to contribute knowledge to the platforms. We also develop the technical infrastructure by improving Wikipedia's software, creating tools and implementing solutions.The aim is to make it easier to contribute high-quality content.

Target groups: Volunteers, partner organizations, members and donors

In order for the information to be accessible to the public, it is crucial that individuals, cultural heritage institutions, and other actors use our platforms to create and distribute content. Here we will discuss our two primary target groups: volunteers and partner organizations.

The Wikimedia movement needs two different types of volunteers, who, to some extent, overlap:

• Volunteers who contribute online, for instance by writing Wikipedia articles, photographing for Wikimedia Commons or editing data on Wikidata.
• Volunteers who want to support free knowledge offline in various ways, such as by organizing events, giving lectures, recruiting new members, or initiating new partnerships.

In addition to volunteers, we partner with organizations that can contribute to the platforms and strengthen the dissemination of free knowledge in society. Our partners are in the GLAM sector, the education sector, public agencies, UN bodies and civil society.

Innovation and partners

Wikimedia Sverige is an innovative organization, and we love partnerships. Our organization brings change to society and experimenting is essential to us as there most often is not a premade template for us to follow. In our efforts to make high-quality information available via the Wikimedia platforms, we also collaborate with experts, networks, and organizations.

We continuously work on engaging and initiating new collaborations, while continuing to support the partners we already have through joint projects and initiatives focusing on useful content. Examples of partners not mentioned previously include global networks and Wikimedia affiliates worldwide, as well as non-profit associations that believe in and strive for free knowledge just like we do.

Program

Wikimedia Sverige has adopted a new strategic direction in 2021, which spans over the period from 2021 to 2025. Our four programs were kept intact in this new strategy:

Program	Access	Use	Community	Enabling
Description	Where more material is being shared on the Wikimedia platforms.	Where we work to get more people to use the material and to gain knowledge about it.	Where we support our active volunteers and grow and diversify the group.	Where we ensure that our association is working well and keeps developing in a number of areas.

Access

Access is a program that focuses on improving the free content available on, or accessible to, the Wikimedia platforms – both short- and long term. Each year we contribute by sharing valuable material on the Wikimedia platforms thanks to content partnerships with, for example, museums, archives and libraries, public agencies, research institutions, UN agencies, etc. We contribute by tying together information that was previously fragmented and hard to access.

Apart from that, our work also has a long-term aspect: we aim to change attitudes and contribute to changed practices as well as improved policy documents in organizations and legislation, both nationally and internationally. We strive to change the way organizations and society thinks about the dissemination and production of knowledge.

Access has, for several years, been our largest program with regard to both the number of ongoing projects and the amount of work, which is also reflected in the budget. We work with the program both in Sweden and internationally and have taken an international leadership role within the Wikimedia movement.

A key part of our work is to support the global Wikimedia community with practical help around content partnerships. This is in line with the Wikimedia Movement's strategic recommendations, which emphasize that support should be provided not only in the form of funding, but also through expertise, technical support and labor. In this way, we maximize the global commitment to free knowledge.

Deep dive

Story: Thematic hub for content partnerships – extensive planning and preparations for 2025: In this story, we focus on the development of a thematic hub for content partnerships. Despite changing funding conditions, important steps were taken, including further development of Metabase, support for the Helpdesk project, and collaborations with several Wikimedia organizations. The work continues with a planned funding application in 2025.… Click here to read more

Story: Important contributions to OpenRefine – a central tool: In this story, we focus on our further development of the software tool OpenRefine as an example of our involvement in external tools that benefit everyone working with open knowledge.… Click here to read more

Story: Cultural and natural heritage under threat – active support to Ukraine, new networks and opportunities: In this story, we focus on how Wikimedia Sverige, through initiatives such as the Heritage Guard Network and collaborations with Wikimedia Ukraine, the Swedish National Archives and other actors, has taken a leading role in using the Wikimedia platforms for digital preservation of endangered cultural and natural heritage, especially in light of the war in Ukraine.… Click here to read more

Story: Advocacy – the association is gaining ground: In this story, we focus on Wikimedia Sverige's increased engagement in copyright policy advocacy, supported by the Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21) project. Over the year, the association has organized seminars, influenced legislation, developed learning modules, and published a comprehensive report on copyright and AI.… Click here to read more

Fail fest: Structures that don't stand the test of time – international anchoring and engagement: In this fail fest, we focus on the challenges and development of the Helpdesk within the thematic hub for content partnerships. Despite appreciation from volunteers, limited resources have made the work more difficult, and the pilot phase has continued longer than planned. To create a more sustainable structure, Wikimedia Sverige has decided to recruit a secretary to coordinate the committee's work and ensure a long-term solution.… Click here to read more

• 
  Vi blev inbjudna till Luleå för att hjälpa tre museer i Sveriges nordligaste län att börja engagera sig på Wikimediaplattformarna.
• 
  I samarbete med Svensk biblioteksförening och Institutionen för immaterialrätt och marknadsrätt vid Stockholms universitet organiserade vi ett seminarium om AI och text- och datautvinning, ett mycket aktuellt ämne, inte minst för alla som brinner för fri kunskap.
• 
  Vi publicerade även tre rapporter där vi utforskar viktiga områden inom text- och datautvinning, artificiell intelligens och öppen vetenskap.
• 
  Projektet 100000 Bildminnen, i samarbete med Nordiska museet och KulturIT, avslutades under högtidliga former…
• 
  och i samband med detta passade vi på att hålla en skrivstuga och botanisera bland projektets tusentals bilder på Wikimedia Commons.
• 
  Slutrapporten från projektet presenterar både våra och Nordiska museets resultat och lärdomar.
• 
  En rundfråga bland Wikimediaorganisationer gav vid handen att många finner det svårt att orientera sig bland rörelsens otaliga dokument och lärresurser. En signal att ett projekt som Metabase, som samlar information om dessa i en strukturerad form, behövs.
• 
  Vi jobbade intensivt i projektet Heritage Guard Network, tillsammans med flera andra organisationer, för att utforska och utveckla hur Wikimediaplattformarna kan användas för att dokumentera kultur- och naturarv under hot.
• 
  Medlemmarna i projektet hade flera fysiska träffar, bland annat på Riksarkivet i Stockholm…
• 
  ...och i Tbilisi, Georgien.

Use

Use is a program that focuses on ensuring a high quality of the information on the Wikimedia platforms through tool development and support for volunteers. The work within the program also contributes to improving the user experience, as well as to creating equal opportunities for contribution on the Wikimedia platforms and actively inviting underrepresented groups.

We focus on public education by informing the general public and prioritized groups about how the Wikimedia platforms work, as well as about the opportunities and risks of information consumption. We have also continued our long-term work on developing missing functionalities to enable more people to access information on Wikipedia. One example is the further development of the speech synthesis tool Wikispeech, which makes it possible to listen to Wikipedia articles – an important feature for those who for various reasons are affected by reading difficulties. We have also explored how we can simplify other parts of the platforms to improve the user experience and lower the thresholds for engagement.

During the year, the program was less extensive than planned, as the external project funds we had hoped for were only secured at the end of the year.

Deep dive

Story: Wikispeech takes off again: In this Story, we focus on how we, through the project A Wikispeech for everybody, secured our largest project grant ever to further develop Wikispeech, an open-source text-to-speech solution, as well as a broader initiative to improve digital accessibility.… Click here to read more

Community

The aim of the Community program is to both actively support the existing communities in Sweden in order to make the most of their involvement and increase their capacity, as well as to engage more people in new communities. Communities that were previously missing or underrepresented are identified, and targeted efforts are made to include them and change the status quo.

By communities we mean groups that contribute to the various Wikimedia platforms, for instance by editing Wikipedia, taking photos for Wikimedia Commons or adding data to Wikidata. In addition, communities that in other ways contribute to free knowledge, such as by organizing events, giving presentations, recruiting new members or forming new partnerships, are also a focus of the program.

We offer different types of support to our volunteers, thanks to the broad expertise of our staff and the infrastructure we have built up in recent years. During the year, we have carried out activities to strengthen local engagement and create meeting places, while offering support through several national programs. We have also worked on increasing our capacity to support the international community of volunteer developers who are helping to develop important tools within the Wikimedia movement.

During the year, we have taken important steps to further develop our work, with a long-term goal of ensuring the association's presence and activities throughout the country.

Deep dive

Story: A people's movement – a foundation is being laid: In this story, we focus on our initiative to become a people's movement by increasing member engagement, strengthening participation guidelines, introducing a new Ideas Program, and running a successful digital campaign that led to greater visibility and more members.… Click here to read more

Story: Investing more in community support: In this story, we focus on how the association supports its dedicated volunteer community through grants, equipment, and access to sources. Over the year, the demand for support increased significantly, and investments in photo competitions and a member-driven decision-making process strengthened community engagement.… Click here to read more

Fail fest: Volunteer engagement – a challenge: In this fail fest, we focus on our ambitions to involve the volunteer community in organizing activities, including photo competitions, which we did not manage to fully implement.… Click here to read more

• 
  En stjärtmes, vinnare i Wiki Loves Earth.
• 
  I år introducerade vi ett pris för bästa fotoserie i WLE. Vinnarserien kommer från naturreservatet Stigfjorden
• 
  Vanäs fyr, vinnare i Wiki Loves Monuments.
• 
  Presenterade på årets Wikipediadag gjorde bland andra journalisten Martin Schibbye, som berättade om fri kunskap vid reportageresor till svårtillgängliga platser…
• …och Viacheslav Mamon, bibliotekarie i Charkiv, Ukraina, delade med sig av sina tankar om bibliotekariens roll i ett krigsdrabbat land.
• 
  Vi hjälpte volontärfotografer att få pressackreditering till flera kulturevenemang, som Salas 400-årsdag…
• 
  ...och Homecomig Festival i Uppsala där bland annat den brittiske musikern Cassö uppträdde.
• 
  Sedan flera år tillbaka är Wikimediagemenskapens deltagande på Bokmässan i Göteborg givet, tack vare projektet Stöd till gemenskapen.
• 
  Även 2024 fick volontärerna tillfälle att fotografera många kulturpersonligheter på mässan. Denna bild på Ebba Witt-Brattström används nu i Wikipediaartiklar på norska, ukrainska och armeniska.

Enabling

Enabling is a program where we build up the organizational and financial capacity of our organization. The work is long-term and ensures our continued relevance in the future. To achieve this, we need to be a good employer, a strong partner and a well-functioning, democratic and transparent membership organization that works closely with a strong volunteer community.

We aim to be an active part of the international Wikimedia movement, both learning from others and contributing to capacity building efforts. As part of a global movement full of innovative organizations and volunteers, we see great potential in learning from each other. That's why our staff, board and volunteers have had opportunities to meet, listen to and exchange experiences with representatives from the Wikimedia movement around the world.

An important part of the program is to experiment with new ways of broadening our revenue sources and creating sustainable funding. Although we are still at an early stage, a long-term increase in membership numbers and donations is a key part of this work.

As the program focuses on strategic development rather than direct content creation, the projects contribute only marginally to new material on the Wikimedia platforms in the short term. In the longer term, however, they are crucial to ensure the success and sustainability of the association.

Deep dive

Story: Applications – Our work has been greatly successful!: In this story, we focus on how our work on project grant applications has been very successful this year and that we continue to build on this work.… Click here to read more

Story: A learning organization and movement – the foundations for structured approaches have been laid during the year: In this story, we focus on our journey toward both learning new ways of working and making it easier for the global movement to learn from each other, using the growing platforms Metabase and learn.wiki as examples of how existing knowledge can be structured and made accessible.… Click here to read more

Story: Fundraising – strategic investments for long-term development: In this story, we focus on our ongoing development of member care and fundraising work through banners and a newly implemented system for member and donor management (CRM).… Click here to read more

Story: Wikipedia Day – theses tested and rejected: In this story, we focus on how Wikipedia Day 2024 was, for the first time, organized as a standalone event rather than in connection with our Annual General Meeting. The Wikipedia Day, organized in collaboration with two cultural heritage institutions, was a successful and well-attended event.… Click here to read more

Fail fest: Metabase – growing fast, but few contribute: In this fail fest, we focus on the challenges we've faced when trying to engage the Wikimedia community with the Metabase platform, possible reasons behind them, and the ways forward that we want to explore.… Click here to read more

• 
  Arbetet med att utveckla en tematisk hubb för innehållspartnerskap var en fortsatt central del under 2024.
• 
  På årsmötet rapporterades arbetet med mångfaldsrapporten. Ett utökat arbete och analys av föreningens mångfald skedde under 2024 med rapporter publicerade under 2025.
• 
  Wikimediapriset 2024 delades ut årsmötet till Lars Aronsson för arbetet med tillgängliggörande av källor genom Projekt Runeberg] samt användarna Thuresson och Thurs för gediget arbete på Wikisource.
• 
  Vid flera tillfällen under året ordnades workshops med medlemmarna för att samla in tankar och idéer runt verksamheten. Här var fokuset på att vidareutveckla föreningens kommunikationsarbete.
• 
  Under året lanserade föreningen 11 stycken nya eller uppdaterade lärmoduler på learn.wiki, bland annat om hur man börjar bidra till Wikipedia och Wikimedia Commons, men även om källkritik, föreningens värderingar och projektbidrag.

The year's goals

Our work had a number of goals for 2024 which were established on different occasions. In our application for a support grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, four target metrics based on our strategy and six so-called Core Metrics were determined; these metrics make it possible to compare our work with that of other Wikimedia affiliates. These ten metrics were general for the entirety of our work.

The grant from from the Wikimedia Foundation made up only about 40% of the project budgets, while the remaining projects were financed through project grants or consulting fees; they had their own specific project goals, which were stated in the relevant application or project description.

Whether the 2024 targets were met is indicated in the tables below using colors as follows:

• Green if the goal was met.
• Yellow if the goal was met partially.
• Red if the goal was not met.

Grantee-defined metrics

Goal	Results	Comments
More volunteers are involved in our work than the previous year (40 individuals).	The number of active volunteers increased from 38 to 39 individuals. The goal of 40 individuals was not met.	Again this year, the number of volunteers involved increased, but only marginally, so our target was not met. During the year, the staff continued to focus on improving learning resources to help members take on a more active volunteering role. However, we expect to see the results of this only in subsequent years. We did, however, see a significant increase in the number of hours volunteers put in, partly as a result of the regular stream of students volunteering as interns with us.
The number of members in the association is larger by 40% compared to the previous year (reaching 660 members).	The number of members fell to 446 (-4%), so the goal of 660 members was not met.	The goal of increasing our membership base by 40% was very ambitious. We did not reach this target, nor did we manage to retain all of the membership growth we experienced in 2023. Our ambitious goal was based on our plans to have several major digital membership and fundraising initiatives in 2024, linked to the implementation of a new CRM system. We did run these initiatives, but while we can see that this resulted in an increase in the number of donations, the same cannot be said for the number of new members. The reason for this is not entirely clear. The introduction of a new CRM system took place so late in the year that it did not affect this target. However, we expect it to have a positive impact in 2025 by strengthening our ability to retain members, making it easier to become a member and increasing our understanding of the circumstances that lead someone to become a member. With the CRM migration underway, we sent out fewer membership renewal reminders than in previous years. This may have had an effect on the lower number of members and we can already see that some of the members we lost in 2024 have returned in 2025.
Establish and deepen more partnerships. (The goal for the year was 100 partnership, an expected decrease from 2023).	The number of partnerships decreased from 116 to 84.	By partnership we mean a collaboration with an organization, rather than an individual, where there is an active choice to work together and an idea of a long-term relationship. The decrease in the number of partnerships this year was expected, however, the decrease itself was greater than expected and as a result we did not reach our target. The factors that led to the decrease were as expected, that is: With the reorganization came a shift in focus towards more long-term projects and partnerships, whereby the focus instead ended up on deepening existing partnerships. The project Wikipedia for all of Sweden entered its final phase where the focus on partnerships was not as pronounced as before. This year's partnerships again range from local museums to IGOs and other Wikimedia affiliates. 12 of the partnerships were brand new.
The gender distribution among the organizers of the association's events should be such that no group is larger than 50%.	The largest group (men) made up 49%.	The gender distribution only takes into account the organizers who self-declared their gender. Women made up 38% and non-binary people 6%. All per cents here are rounded. 21 % of the organizers did not declare their gender.

Core Metrics

Goal	Results	Comment
2 700 participants.	2 731 of 2 700.	We did meet the target. The Access program greatly exceeded expectations, while the other programs fell short. As expected, the Use program had fewer participants than expected, an effect of Wikispeech starting later in the year. A significant part of the increased number of participants comes from the advocacy work funded through the Knowledge Rights 21 project. In addition, we improved the way we follow up on the targets linked to Community Support.
205 editors.	277 of 205.	This metric exceeded our expectations, with increased participation in Wiki Loves Earth and our improved monitoring of Community Support more than compensating for the slight decrease in the Access program.
165 organizers.	171 of 165.	The result slightly exceeded our expectations, despite the fact that Wikispeech did not have time to influence the metric and despite the hub work not receiving external funding. Again, the advocacy work funded through the Knowledge Rights 21 project contributed to the increase along with increased engagement from our existing community.
690 Wikipedia content pages.	1905 of 690.	The result exceeded our expectations despite the decrease from the Access program (see the target number for editors). A better understanding of the impact of our Community Support explains part of the increase. What this shows is that by supporting the creation of content on Wikimedia Commons, it also has a very positive effect on Wikipedia as new media content is frequently added to articles.
156 600 Wikimedia Commons content pages.	186 198 of 156 600.	The result exceeded our expectations but it did not come from the source we predicted. Instead of being a result of enrichment of international material with SDC, requested via the hub's Helpdesk, the source was instead an enrichment of older GLAM uploads from Sweden. The shift in focus for the staff was caused by the limited resources available to work with the hub.
70 500 Wikidata content pages.	7 818 of 70 500.	The plan was that the enrichment of Wikidata would come from three primary sources: Swedish library data, geographic data through the project A Network of Places, and Wiki Loves data through requests to the hub's Helpdesk. Due to the cut in hub funding and the shift in focus within the projects, neither of these initiatives could be implemented. Instead, the focus became SDC enrichment and supporting GLAM staff to work on enriching Wikidata themselves.

About the annual report

In preparation for the association's annual meeting, the administrative office produces an annual report that describes the events of the previous year. The activity report is approved by the board and is one of the annual meeting documents. Wikimedia Sverige is a member of the Swedish Fundraising Control and the Swedish Fundraising Association. This annual report is also used to fulfill the reporting requirements that the association has towards the Swedish Fundraising Association.

See also

• Ordlista
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2023
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2022
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2021
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2020
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2019
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2018
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2017
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2016
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2015
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2014
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2013
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2012
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2011
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2010
• Verksamhetsberättelse 2009