Wikimedia United States Coalition/Local entities

Wikimedia New York City was originally planned only for the New York metropolitan area, but was expanded to cover parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (including an organized group in Philadelphia) and Connecticut (including an organized group in Hartford).

Discussion has also been mooted of extending north toward Boston, and south toward DC into a decentralized "Wikimedia East Coast" that would function as one legal entity, and this general concept was approved of by participants from the different metropolitan areas at Wiki-Conference New York 2009 and Wiki-Conference New York 2010.

Similarly, other chapters may also emerge in metropolitan areas in other parts of the country, to also organically grow into regional-scale chapters.

In the future, when 2 or 3 such regional-scale chapters are firmly established, they may themselves consider a grand merger into a viable national "Wikimedia US" that would have a solid foundational basis, and that would be able to effectively accelerate organizing in the remaining regions.

Structure

Under IRS rules, a national or regional non-profit organization can file for group exemption to obtain nonprofit status for the parent and the affiliated sub-unit organizations. Local units can be either incorporated or not.

Local autonomous chapters

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Regional chapters with local affiliates

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National chapter with local affiliates

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Draft bylaws

Modified from Wikimedia New York City Inc. bylaws, showing what modifications would be needed.

• Wikimedia_United_States_Chapters_Council/Draft bylaws

Communications

For a regional IRC chat of Northeast US Wikimedians, please see:

#wikimedia-northeast^connect

Mailing lists

• WikimediaUS-l
• Wikimedia_NYC
• wikimedia-dc

Further reading

• Nonprofit Governance: Law, Practices, and Trends, by Bruce R. Hopkins, Virginia R. Gross, Virginia C. Gross