Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Working Groups/Partnerships
Movement Strategy Working Groups |
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Thematic Working Groups (2018-2019) |
Writing Working Groups (2019-2020) |
Movement strategy working groups are currently undergoing a transition as the process moves from drafting recommendations to synthesizing those recommendations into one coherent set. We are not in an open consultation phase at the moment, but you can review the draft recommendations below. |
Overview
Keywords
Collaboration, Big Open, GLAM, Open Science, Education, Revenue Streams
Focus
- opportunities and challenges related to building partnerships at the local, regional and global levels;
- strategic approaches to scaling the work that we do in ways beyond our own capacity and reach;
- collaboration with other organizations and movements to promote our vision and values;
- and move in our strategic direction with opportunities for wider impact.
Rationale
Our vision statement says nothing about Wikimedia being the only entity that brings us closer to our vision. Partnerships are happening on global, regional and local basis, and some of our successes would not have been possible without the critical support from our partners. Partners are crucial to increase our scope, outreach, and impact, and can also be funding partners. Partnerships can also help us focus on our specific field of expertise and avoid duplicating structures in the broader open movement beyond ourselves.
Organizations and groups are lacking the necessary resources and capacities to fully tap into the benefits of working together with others in local, regional and global partnerships. Movement entities also have different approaches to deciding whom to partner with, and how to ensure alignment between our goals and the goals of partners.
There are no established practices of how to best share responsibilities with partners from within and outside of our movement, and how to communicate about partnerships and share experiences. There are no clear means for agreeing to and executing partnerships at a global level. Most of our movement and the majority of our projects were designed around individual contributors, and our technologies and practices do not easily accommodate collaboration or contributions from institutions.
We want to become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge. How do we then build the capacities to successfully work together with our ecosystem and create the needed impact to collectively change the world, especially in those regions where we are still lacking sustainable partnerships?
Guiding Questions
These questions are not meant to be answered one-to-one but should help the group frame their own conversations and their consultations with movement stakeholders.
- How do we build our collaborative capacity to be the best and most effective partner?
- What are the specific areas where we need partners to advance in our strategic direction?
- What are the partners we want to work with, and how do we ensure alignment in our goals?
- How do we best share global, local and thematic responsibilities with entities inside and beyond our movement?
- What structural, including technical, changes might we need to make to be more partner-friendly?
Mailing list
wg2030-partnershipswikimedia.org
Members
Name | Organization / project | Role | Geography |
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Abhinav Srivastava | Wikimedia India | Volunteer | South Asia |
Alek Tarkowski | Creative Commons, Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation | Volunteer | Central and Eastern Europe |
Andrea Patricia Kleiman | Wikimedia Argentina. Muj(lh)eres latinoamericanas en Wikimedia. Wikimedia Uruguay. Wikimedia España. | Volunteer | Latin America |
Ben Vershbow | Wikimedia Foundation | Staff member | Northern America, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe |
Jack Rabah | Wikimedia Foundation | Staff member | West Asia, Northern America |
John Cummings | UNESCO | Volunteer | Western Europe |
Olaniyan Olushola | Affiliations Committee | Volunteer | West Africa |
Lisa Lewin | Wikimedia Foundation | Board member | North America |
Shani Evenstein | Wikipedia & Education User Group; WikiProject Medicine User Group; WMIL; GLAMWiki; WikiWomen | Volunteer | Western Asia |
Stuart Prior | Wikimedia UK | Staff member | Western Europe |
Reports and documents
Recommendations
Please take a look at the draft recommendations (September 2019):
- Provide the knowledge needed for understanding and solving global issues
- Wikimedia as steward of the Free Knowledge Ecosystem
- Shared ecosystem of services and tools for content partnerships
- Data partnerships approach to fulfill the vision of knowledge as a service for our partners
- Focus on knowledge equity when determining priorities for Partnerships
- Partnerships as part of a Distributed Vision
- Partnerships as a shared and equitable resource and activity
- Prioritise documentation
- Invest in sharing knowledge about partnerships across the movement
- Support the skills development of people working on partnerships
- Invest in the leadership potential of community members
- Establish recognition principles for new partners for attribution and content donation
- Additional research for areas where we have identified issues but haven’t made recommendations
First draft recommendations are available as well (August 2019).
There is also an abbreviated, translated version prepared for easier engagement.
Scoping document
- Scoping document (March 2019)
Activities and reports
Wikimedia Conference Working Group Report (2018)
This is an overview of the outputs from the discussion about Partnerships at the Wikimedia Conference 2018. The group discussed 1. What the scope of this thematic area should be, 2. Who should be in the Working Group, 3. How the Working Group should work.
- Focus of the conversation
One of the core messages from the discussion group was that partnerships on different levels and in different cultures (geographical, organisational, etc.) will have different structures and practices. Given the scope of the movement, the implementation of multi-layered partnership structures might be one of the biggest challenges in the work of the Working Group and the Strategy Process in general.
What? | Who? | How? |
Shared understanding of reasons for partnering and flexible [enough] system of decision making that enables creating partnerships/collaboration/alliances by different actors and on different levels.
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There should be a good balance of people representing
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The group tried to come up with a realistic plan for a one year process, which can include:
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If you would like to know more details about the Working Group discussions on this theme, please consult the documentation.
Resources
Existing materials
This is a non-exhaustive list. Please add more sources that provide context, background information and insights related to the thematic area.