Movement Charter

Movement Charter

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The Movement Charter Drafting Committee explains: what is the purpose of a 'movement charter'?

Latest news about the Movement Charter (Contribute!)

Learn about the Movement Charter Drafting Committee's work in October: The Committee released its regular monthly update from October 2022. It includes highlights about the Committee's progress in drafting the Movement Charter content, its upcoming community consultation and participation at Wikimedia events. Become a Movement Charter Ambassador for your community: The Movement Charter Drafting Committee announces a program inviting any willing community member to become an "ambassador" in bringing the Movement Charter conversations to their community. Join the Movement Charter consultation meetings: Join the Movement Charter "Ask Me Anything" meetings (held on 12 November) and consultation/discussion meetings (held from 20 November to 9 December). The meeting times fit many regions and time zones. Learn about the Movement Charter Drafting Committee's work in September: The Committee released its regular monthly update from September 2022. It includes highlights about the Committee's progress in creating the Movement Charter content, results of the Wikimedia Summit, and an important announcement about membership.

The Movement Charter will be a document defining roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including laying out a new Global Council for movement governance. The Movement Charter is a Movement Strategy priority. A broad ratification process is expected for its adoption.

About

“ According to the strategy recommendations, the Movement Charter would:

• Lay the values, principles and policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs, as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies,
• Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, e.g. for:
  • Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
  • Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
  • Giving a common direction on how resources should be allocated with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
  • Defining how communities work together and are accountable to each other.
  • Setting expectations for participation and the rights of participants.

”

Enforcing Movement organizations' compliance with the Charter will be the responsibility of the Global Council.

Timeline

This is a preliminary timeline. Although it broadly shows the steps involved in creating the Movement Charter, dates may be changed later on. Those changes will be potentially made to avoid rushing the process, especially when consulting with the community and other stakeholders, which is hard to limit within a fixed timeframe.

Period	Step
November 2021 - January 2022	Setting up the support systems and internal processes of the Drafting Group Research and information-gathering
February - October 2022	Research and information-gathering Creating the initial draft of the Charter content in conversation with all stakeholders
November 2022 - January 2023	Call for review and amendments for all stakeholders
February - March 2023	Reflecting upon feedback and revising of MCDC text
June - July 2023	Second batch of the Movement Charter drafts published for review The second batch will include the following chapters: Decision-making, Hubs, The Global Council and Roles & Responsibilities.
July - December 2023	Review for all stakeholders
Extra cycles: If all is well, we can move to ratification. If not, there will be another 3 month cycle for revising the text, 2 months for review, and so on.
January - March 2024	Ratification process for the Movement Charter
January - March 2024	Conversations regarding the set up of the next identified governance structure
April - June 2024	Set up and selection process of the next identified governance structure

Process

The Movement Charter will have 3 key steps:

• Define the people to work on the Charter (Drafting Group)
• Define and develop the content of the Charter (Charter content)
• Define the ways for consensus-building and ratification (Ratification)

Further reading

• Monthly Updates of the Drafting Committee
• Drafting committee proposal by the Wikimedia Foundation (2021)
• Summary of 27 June 2021 Global Conversations
• Report of 12-13 June 2021 Global Conversations
• Summary of the 31 May 2021 design conversation
• Movement roles project: Charter (2011)
• Roles & Responsibilities recommendations: Scenario in Strategy iteration 2 - Earlier overview of the Movement Charter concept (2019)
• Roles & Responsibilities recommendations 4&5 in Strategy iteration 2 -- Earlier draft of the Strategy proposal to introduce a Movement Charter (2019)
• Drafting proposal meeting notes (2021)
• Movement Charter Ambassadors Program