Wikimedia Chapters Association/Tasks (Brainstorming)

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The WCA is an international non-governmental organization. It serves the Wikimedia movement by supporting the work of the Wikimedia chapters. The goals of the WCA are described in its Charter.

This page will serve to collect the ideas about the tasks that the WCA should achieve.

Proposed Tasks[edit]

Please list below the tasks you think the WCA should take in charge. The "Who?" column should explain which type of body should achieve this task (a WCA members committee, astaff, an external review panel, etc). The "How?" column explains the means proposed to achieve this task. If the WCA should adopt a decentralized structure, this column should indicate the location that can be interested to hold the proposed structure; it could be a chapter or the global designation "WCA office". The last column allows chapters to show their support to the task as being important for the WCA; it's not a vote, but only an indicator of the task's importance in the eyes of the chapters.


This page is here to collect the ideas, discussion should take place in the talk page.

Ref Task Who? How? Where? Supporting organization
Getting started Helping new born chapter and chapters to be Chapters Incubator (probably staff) Providing infrastructure, financial support and transfer of knowledge -WMCH is willing to provide the IT infrastructure WMCH
FDC Analysing FDC process and preparing chapters for next round, ie. making sure that chapters understand who is eligible and who is not, how the process works etc. All (a workgroup?) Develop remarks about FDC process, make sure the process is understood/followed by all concerned chapters meta -
Grants Grant process preparation: for those chapters not eligible for the FDC process, the WCA should look at making sure they get funding by helping out with grant requests for single events or more Former grant recipients and future grant recipients By exchanging experiences, reviewing grants in advance of them being put up for review by the GAC etc. meta
Governance Provide a credible governance assessment process addressing financial control, chapter board competencies, compliance with regulatory and legal requirements, transparency and openness.
  1. Improve the draft Wikimedia Chapters Association/Governance/Checklist
  2. Create a maturity framework, so that competencies of Chapters (and non-Chapters) can be easily compared and benchmarked
  • meta
  • future chapter governance workshop (a big topic for chapters conference in Milan?)
Knowledge transfer
  • Provide a human face
  • Have a phone number available for any questions
  • Automated Searchable Activity File-database (database with all kind of possible activities, how to run them and where to find more information and who could be of assistance)
Communication Help chapters and other movement organizations to communicate more effectively with each other by offering platforms and motivation to do so.
Yellow pages Provide an easy way to find the right people when you need them. Offer an alternative to the informal circuit that is existing.
International project facilitation Making it possible and easy for chapters to collaborate on joint projects on an international scale. Facilitate smaller chapters to join such initiatives too. provide project database. provide easy reporting via come form of "concentrator" collecting monthly reports from chpaters source. provide projects on fundraising banners to allow donors select what they like.
Negotiator / Single point of contact Be a single voice in negotiation processes with the Wikimedia Foundation where necessary.
Chapter evaluation Provide a peer reviewing framework for chapters Evaluation committee biannual evaluation by the committee composed of two representative of other chapters plus one "external". Evaluation of the internal process, strategic plan etc. The evaluation will lead to a report aimed to help the evaluated chapter to face his challenges, it would be only consultative on site for chapters with staff and office, online for other chapters WMCH
Expense optimisation Optimising the usage of movement funds Individual chapter in the name of WCA or WCA itself -sharing the cost of IT , centralising some scholarships managment N/A WMCH
Policies Assure important policies are "movement applicable" Individual chapter in the name of WCA or WCA itself, WMF example: Privacy policy is duplicated on enwp, on wmf, a url redirection is set from wpen wikipedia space. and it suggests to concern the foundation only. The idea is that it is for the whole movement, g.g. for QRPedia as well? N/A
Benchmarking provide key performance indicators for income, and spending in countries Individual chapter in the name of WCA or WCA itself, WMF example: average donations per capita in all countries worldwide. N/A
Regionalization facilitating regional conferences and interchapter groups

Related Link[edit]

Meeting During wikimania 2012