The first half of 2026 has been shaped by two milestones: Wikimedia CH’s 20th anniversary and Wikipedia’s 25th. Both have set the tone for a year of celebration, public visibility, and strategic positioning. Wikipedia Day on 30 May at Schwellenmätteli in Bern celebrated both anniversaries alongside the General Assembly. The event’s theme, “The stage is yours,” invited contributors to perform and shape the day themselves.

Another defining project during this period has been the ongoing strategy development process for 2026–2030, which will reshape our organisation’s priorities and structure for the years ahead. A strategy retreat in February brought together key stakeholders, with the outcomes shared with all staff in March. Learning conversations with the community and partners are ongoing, feeding into the next phase of synthesis and planning.

Across the programmes, the first half of the year showed clear strategic direction. The Education programme began embedding Wikimedia tools into the platforms Swiss teachers already use, moving from one-off workshops toward sustainable classroom integration.

GLAM advanced co-creation projects where openly licensed cultural heritage found new institutional uses. The Innovation programme worked to position Wikimedia CH at the centre of the movement’s response to AI by framing Wikimedia platforms as critical public knowledge infrastructure and building coalitions to shape the rules of a rapidly changing knowledge ecosystem.

The Community programme supported grassroots and community-led activities across all language regions, expanding local formats and investing in contributor accessibility. Advocacy work gave the chapter a voice in international discussions on open knowledge and digital rights, from the Political Tech Summit in Berlin to UN events in Geneva.

During this period, we strengthened capacity in several areas: communications, programme reporting and impact measurement, and community support in the Romandie. Several freelance specialists joined to meet the increased workload of the Jubilee year, and preparations for the first Italian-speaking itWikiCon in Switzerland drew on additional advisory expertise. We also engaged an external agency to support our ongoing awareness campaign through the jubilee year.

Operationally, we advanced risk mitigation and crisis communication planning to prepare for a rapidly changing landscape. The ongoing implementation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is bringing email campaigns fully in-house, shifting from outsourced to internally managed digital marketing.