Sending in a re-formatted version:

Hi everyone,

As we consider the new strategic direction we identified from Wikimedia
2030[1], the Foundation is evolving how we work with partners to address
barriers to participating in free knowledge around the world.

After careful evaluation, we’ve decided to discontinue the Wikipedia Zero
program[2] as one of the partnership approaches we offer. Over the course
of this year, we won’t be taking on any new Wikipedia Zero partnerships,
and current partnerships will expire.

The Wikipedia Zero program was first created to address one barrier to
participating in free knowledge globally: high mobile data costs. Through
the program, we partnered with mobile operators to waive mobile data fees
for their customers to freely access Wikipedia on mobile devices. In the
program’s six year tenure, we have partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72
countries to provide access to Wikipedia to more than 800 million people
free of mobile data charges. As stewards of Wikipedia Zero, I want to
congratulate and thank the Global Reach team for the success of this
program during its tenure, and for their leadership in continuing to
support new and meaningful partnerships aligned with our movement’s values
and vision.

In the past couple of years, we identified a few developments that have
impacted Wikipedia Zero’s continued relevance. Beginning in 2016, we’ve
seen a significant drop off in adoption and interest in Wikipedia Zero, and
as a result, our reach today stands at a quarter of where it was at its
peak. During this time, we also conducted research[3] to better understand
the full scope of barriers to using Wikipedia around the world. For
example, awareness is one of the key issues we identified - even when
people have smartphones and use Facebook, Google, or WhatsApp, many of
those same people have never heard of Wikipedia.  In addition, limited
local language content is another barrier we identified that inhibits the
discovery and use of our projects.

We’ve had initial success with projects and partnerships[4] designed to
build awareness in parts of the world where Wikipedia is not widely known
or used. These successes have given us several ideas for where we may take
our partnership work next, and over the coming year, we will explore other
ways we can leverage the findings from our research and the Wikipedia Zero
program to direct future work with partners.

We remain committed to creating impactful partnerships that align with our
own values and direction for the Wikimedia movement’s future. We look
forward to sharing more information and updates on our work with partners
in the coming year.

Thank you,
Lisa

We’ve also published a blog post about this announcement here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/partnerships-new-approach/

[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
[2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Insights and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers
[4] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/21/nigeria-wikipedia-awareness/

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 1:11 PM, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell@wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell@wikimedia.org>
> Date: Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 1:08 PM
> Subject: Update on Wikimedia partnerships
> To: "Staff (All)" <wmfall@lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> *Hi everyone,As we consider the new strategic direction we identified from
> Wikimedia 2030[1], the Foundation is evolving how we work with partners to
> address barriers to participating in free knowledge around the world. After
> careful evaluation, we’ve decided to discontinue the Wikipedia Zero
> program[2] as one of the partnership approaches we offer. Over the course
> of this year, we won’t be taking on any new Wikipedia Zero partnerships,
> and current partnerships will expire. The Wikipedia Zero program was first
> created to address one barrier to participating in free knowledge globally:
> high mobile data costs. Through the program, we partnered with mobile
> operators to waive mobile data fees for their customers to freely access
> Wikipedia on mobile devices. In the program’s six year tenure, we have
> partnered with 97 mobile carriers in 72 countries to provide access to
> Wikipedia to more than 800 million people free of mobile data charges. As
> stewards of Wikipedia Zero, I want to congratulate and thank the Global
> Reach team for the success of this program during its tenure, and for their
> leadership in continuing to support new and meaningful partnerships aligned
> with our movement’s values and vision. In the past couple of years, we
> identified a few developments that have impacted Wikipedia Zero’s continued
> relevance. Beginning in 2016, we’ve seen a significant drop off in adoption
> and interest in Wikipedia Zero, and as a result, our reach today stands at
> a quarter of where it was at its peak. During this time, we also conducted
> research[3] to better understand the full scope of barriers to using
> Wikipedia around the world. For example, awareness is one of the key issues
> we identified - even when people have smartphones and use Facebook, Google,
> or WhatsApp, many of those same people have never heard of Wikipedia.  In
> addition, limited local language content is another barrier we identified
> that inhibits the discovery and use of our projects. We’ve had initial
> success with projects and partnerships[4] designed to build awareness in
> parts of the world where Wikipedia is not widely known or used. These
> successes have given us several ideas for where we may take our partnership
> work next, and over the coming year, we will explore other ways we can
> leverage the findings from our research and the Wikipedia Zero program to
> direct future work with partners. We remain committed to creating impactful
> partnerships that align with our own values and direction for the Wikimedia
> movement’s future. We look forward to sharing more information and updates
> on our work with partners in the coming year. Thank you, LisaWe’ve also
> published a blog post about this announcement here:
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/partnerships-new-approach/
> <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/02/16/partnerships-new-approach/>[1]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_
> movement/2017/Direction>[2]
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>[3]
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Insights
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Insights> and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>[4]
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/21/nigeria-wikipedia-awareness/
> <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/21/nigeria-wikipedia-awareness/>*
> _______________________________________________
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--
*Samantha Lien*
Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
1Montgomery Street
Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
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