Movement Strategy/Events/Movement Charter Global Conversation, 26-27 June 2021

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The Movement Charter will define roles and responsibilities in the Wikimedia Movement, and it will lay out a new Global Council for movement governance. This Charter is the cornerstone of the Movement Strategy implementation. Given the need to start working on this important document, we are dedicating the next round of conversations to the Movement Charter drafting committee.

Why participate?[edit]

Registration open for the next round of Global Conversations on June 27 with three sessions on composition of the Movement Charter drafting committee, its (s)election process, and the roles and expectations towards its members.

This is a Charter for the whole movement. We need participation from all corners of the world, and especially from the groups traditionally underrepresented. There have been many conversations about this Charter, and we need more perspectives to agree on a short-term plan to create the drafting committee.

This is how you can participate:

Check the Local conversations section below to join a conversation near you.

Creating the drafting committee[edit]

The Movement Charter drafting committee is expected to work as a diverse and skilled team of about 15 members for several months. They should receive regular support from experts, regular community reviews, and opportunities for training and an allowance to offset costs. When the draft is completed, the committee will oversee a wide community ratification process.

Three questions[edit]

There have been many conversations about the Movement Charter and a few proposals for its creation. There is some agreement and some disagreement. The Movement Strategy team has identified three questions that need answers in order to create the committee. We are organizing as many local conversations as possible to collect answers to these questions. In addition to this, we are organizing video conversations for each question on June 26-27.

After this round, we will collect all the feedback received and publish a draft proposal to create the drafting committee, for community consideration.

1. What composition should the committee have in terms of movement roles, gender, regions, affiliations and other diversity factors?

  • There is broad agreement on the diversity and the expertise that the committee needs to have as a team (see Diversity & Expertise matrix).
  • Some believe that there should be specific seats or quotas assigned to members with specific qualities (affiliation, region, gender…), some believe that the composition should be flexible as long as it meets the diversity and expertise requirements.

2. What is the best process to select the committee members to form a competent and diverse team?

  • There is broad agreement on the need to form a diverse and competent team, but opinions differ about how to achieve this.
  • Some believe that self-nominations, invitations and appointments are the best way to form the team, some believe that it is better to have a majority of seats elected by the communities and the affiliates.
  • In the case of appointments, some believe the decisions could come from a self-appointed group with participation of the Foundation, some prefer a selection committee that would be elected.
  • In the case of elections, there are different opinions about the distribution of seats elected by communities, elected by affiliates, and appointed by the Foundation.

3. How much dedication is it reasonable to expect from committee members, in terms of hours per week and months of work?

  • There is broad agreement that committee membership drafting a Charter is serious work, but too demanding requirements are likely to affect the diversity and competence of the team.
  • The default expectation of committees is that members stay for the entirety of the project and they carry most of the work.
  • Some ideas have been suggested to reduce the burden, like rely on professionals for certain tasks, organize volunteer groups to work on certain questions, or include a process for membership renewals.

Local conversations[edit]

Anyone can organize text or video conversations to discuss these three questions in their preferred language. The objective is to collect questions, opinions, ideas, points of agreement and disagreement in your community. Just add your conversation to the list, so we can all keep track.

You can also request support to facilitate your community text or video conversation at strategy2030(_AT_)wikimedia.org. With optional help from the facilitators, a first report of each local conversation will be published by the end of Friday June 25.

Text[edit]

Video/Audio[edit]

See also[edit]