Towards a Healthy Ecosystem of Wikimedia Organizations

Co-authored by Wikimedia Foundation staff and Wikimedia organizational leaders Bobby Shabangu (Wikimedia South Africa), Lucy Crompton-Reid (Wikimedia UK), and Tanveer Hasan (CIS-A2K, India), in consultation with Wikimedia affiliate leaders

Wikimedia Summit 2024

Introduction

This paper is based on a fundamental idea, one that may seem obvious to many, but is important to state out loud: all organizations in the Wikimedia ecosystem — from the Wikimedia Foundation, to Affiliates, to other entities — exist, above all, to support the growth and sustainability of Wikimedia projects, the volunteer contributors who drive them, and the readers who benefit from them.

In 2025, the Wikimedia movement faces global trends that will strongly affect how we work: declining trust in online information, the rise of generative AI, and increasing threats to free speech and knowledge sharing. Additionally, research shows declines in awareness, registrations, active editors, and administrator retention. The Wikimedia movement's great strength is its global network of people, organizations, partners, and collaboration structures, ensuring Wikimedia thrives as a digital public good, trusted and cherished around the world. We must now ask: how can we best organize ourselves to ensure our communities stay healthy and our projects remain relevant for years, even generations, to come?

In August 2024, two months after its non-ratification vote, the Foundation affirmed its commitment to a future Movement Charter but prioritized clarifying shared roles and responsibilities. The WMF board suggested three pilot projects for new and improved community-based decision-making. This paper, a collaboration between the Foundation and Affiliate leaders, provides a common perspective to guide these test projects on Movement Organizations and Resource Distribution.

Specifically, this paper:

1. Provides a high-level description of existing Wikimedia Movement organizations, to serve as a common point of reference.
2. Poses key strategic questions about all actors in the ecosystem, to guide future discussions and solutions.
3. Provides high-level recommendations on addressing challenges that prevent us from effectively delivering what the world needs, including a proposal for refreshing Affiliate focus areas (found in the Appendix section).

This paper also recognizes past efforts to understand the complex relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation, Affiliates, and on-wiki communities. It’s no secret that these discussions have not always been easy. But given the incredible external challenges we face, agreeing on these key issues is vital for quick and strong unified action. Success means a movement ecosystem with a healthy distribution of actors, all: understanding their roles and delivering impact, enjoying equitable and sustainable access to resources, and united in building a multigenerational Wikimedia movement.

Current landscape of movement organizations

Wikimedia Foundation

According to the 2024-25 annual plan, the Foundation’s fundamental role is platform provider for Wikimedia communities leading collaborative knowledge production around the world. This includes the maintenance and development of the Wikimedia technical infrastructure and core user experience, and coordination of the broader Wikimedia technical ecosystem. The Foundation manages the Wikimedia movement’s financial model and primary revenue streams. It helps keep volunteers and organizations safe, connected, and funded (for example, through Trust & Safety, Wikimania and regional conferences, and managing grants). Finally, the Foundation handles the Wikimedia trademarks. It also promotes and legally protects the Wikimedia movement, its way of working, and its brand.

During the Movement Charter writing process, people asked for clearer roles, particularly in areas such as Education, where the Foundation had recently built more centralized support structures that were viewed by some as competing with community-based programs. The Foundation promised to move these responsibilities to community-led groups, and to continue exploring where other functions, such as grantmaking, could be more strongly owned by community-based bodies such as the Global Resource Distribution Committee (GRDC) and Regional Fund Committees. These shifts follow the principle of 'Subsidiarity & Self-Management' from the Movement Strategy.

Wikimedia Affiliates

The role of Affiliates

It's been 14 years since we last defined what Affiliates do. A lot has changed since then. As we asked at the start of this paper: how can we best organize and support all of these groups in a way that best responds to what the world needs from Wikimedia, and keep our communities and projects strong? To begin, here are seven main areas Affiliates focused on in the past. These were set in 2011 as part of the 2015 Movement Strategy. Together, they are the closest thing we have had to an official list of duties for Wikimedia Affiliates.

7 Historical Focus Areas expanding and diversifying communities expanding awareness of Wikimedia advocating for free knowledge building community bonds through activities adding content via knowledge-creation projects building cultural and knowledge institution (GLAM) connections increasing financial resources for the movement and Affiliates’ own work

Affiliate models and recognition

In 2012, the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee (AffCom) officially recognized three types of Affiliates: Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and User Groups. Since then, other movement groups have appeared. Some are not officially recognized as Affiliates, but they can still get money from the Foundation’s Wikimedia Community Fund or use Wikimedia trademarks (although not in accord with any defined policy or criteria). Here is the breakdown of recognized Affiliates, as of June, 2025:

Wikimedia Chapters (blue) and geographic User Groups (yellow); some countries host more than one User Group. Not depicted in the map are Affiliates with a linguistic or thematic focus, as they're not bound by geography.

• 40 Chapters: Wikimedia Chapters are independent non-profit organizations founded to support and promote the projects in a specified geographical region (usually a country).

• 156 User Groups: Wikimedia User Groups are intended to be simple and flexible Affiliates as an alternative to Chapters and Thematic Organizations, which have more formal requirements.
• 2 Thematic Organizations: Wikimedia Thematic Organizations are independent non-profit organizations founded to support and promote the Wikimedia projects within a specified focal area. (Amical Wikimedia and Wiki Project Med)

Over the last ten years, the number of User Groups has grown very quickly. This clearly shows that many language and editor communities are more interested and involved in our projects. However, this growth hasn't always happened naturally or in a healthy way. Many User Groups started because there were no good ways (or weak rules) to handle disagreements and conflicts. So, in some places, you find several Affiliates competing with each other.

Affiliate funding

Recognized Affiliates (like Chapters, Thematic Organizations, or User Groups) and even some unrecognized groups can get money from the Community Fund. Today, there aren't many practical differences in the rules for who can get this money, although this wasn’t always how it worked. Chapters used to be the only groups that could get annual grants, which is why they had more complicated rules to become an Affiliate. This changed in 2015 with the proposal Simple Annual Plan Grants (which launched in 2017). This change, along with the community conflicts and governance challenges mentioned above, has contributed to a situation that many believe to be unsustainable: fast, unmanaged growth of User Groups, often in the same areas or with the same thematic focus. To explain the challenge in simple financial terms: the Foundation incrementally increases grant budgets each year, but new Affiliates are being created faster than that. This means that, if the present trends hold, competition for core movement resources will only increase over time.

Another problem with the current grant system is that, since the grants strategy was relaunched in 2021, money is given out based on location. This means that groups focused on a specific theme or topic, whose work is not limited to one place, have to ask for money from the Regional Funds Committee where they are incorporated. Often, they compete for money with regular geographic or language-focused Affiliates. There is wide agreement that this situation must be addressed, but even if we create new ways to fund thematic groups (which the Global Resource Distribution Committee might consider), we will still have limited resources, meaning difficult choices will need to be made.

Other entities lacking formal definition/recognition

Movement Partners (or “allied organizations”)

Earlier ideas for Affiliates suggested a fourth type for similar organizations that help the movement. But this model never officially launched. Even so, these organizations are a very real part of the movement and do important work that fits our goals, often in areas like education or underrepresented knowledge.  These organizations can bring unique expertise and connections to the movement, building bridges to adjacent movements and knowledge professions. Some existing organizations work like this. They have received money from the General Support Fund but not all are officially recognized. Examples include Wiki Education, Centre for Internet and Society / Access 2 Knowledge (India), and Wiki In Africa. There are other actors — such as Black Lunch Table, Wikitongues, Whose Knowledge?, Art + Feminism (all Affiliated) or the Africa Library and Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) (not Affiliated) — who operate significant Wikimedia programs in the context of a larger knowledge mission and are relevant to this category.

Hubs and collaborative networks

Wikimedia Affiliates also form groups to work together on specific topics or support areas. These groups led to the more established idea of a 'Hub.' Right now, there's no official way to recognize a Hub, apart from the guidelines for Hub Pilot projects, which were updated in January 2025. Examples include the CEE and ESEAP Hub, the Language Diversity and Content Partnerships Hubs, WM Europe (not self-described as a Hub, but a collaborative of Affiliates working towards common goals in a region). The Wikipedia & Education User Group is currently exploring evolving into a “Hub-like structure.” There is also a range of collaboration networks that are relevant to consider:  Iberocoop, WikiFranca, WikiIndaba Steering Committee, WikiWomen* Task Force, WikiLoves Monuments/Earth.

Key questions to guide the evolution of our ecosystem

Questions about the Wikimedia Foundation

• Helping the Affiliations Committee succeed: According to its Charter, AffCom’s role is “to support the overall health of the ecosystem of Wikimedia movement affiliates and to advise the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees on matters related to affiliate recognition and the affiliate ecosystem.” What additional support does AffCom need to do its job well? Has it been realistic to expect a volunteer committee like AffCom to handle particularly hard and sensitive duties beyond its core focus of recognition and affiliation: like mediating Affiliate conflicts and helping organizations to grow? What additional backbone support can the Foundation provide to ensure these functions are carried out effectively, but still with expert guidance and oversight by AffCom, the GRDC and others?
• Working together toward shared goals: The 2030 Movement Strategy recommendations provide a widely agreed shared framework, but it is articulated at a very high level. How do we ensure that more specific strategies and objectives of movement organizations align with the Foundation's own multi-year vision? The Foundation's yearly global trends overview provides a common way to discuss goals and priorities in the light of a shared understanding of external challenges facing the movement. How can the Foundation build upon these new community engagement practices and go further to communicate and rally the movement around its vision (which many Affiliates are still not sufficiently aware of)? Conversely, what sorts of shared strategic conversations and collaborative planning rituals could help the Foundation to better understand and appreciate the point of view of affiliates etc.? Going further, could we imagine co-creating a shared theory of change and success metrics, following the Movement Strategy recommendation to 'Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt'?
• Clear rules for technical collaboration: The WMF is the main platform provider. So, what should other groups do when it comes to creating and guiding technology that helps Affiliates and other movement organizations? Sometimes these groups are closer to the actual problem (like the needs of a specific language group or a special type of contributor, like GLAMs). What clear rules and agreements do we need to make sure technical teamwork in our system is well-aligned and sustainable? What shared systems (like the Community Wishlist or the Product & Tech Advisory Council) can help make sure the right people work on the right problems at the right time, and that the movement's most important technical needs are met?

Questions about Affiliates, Movement Partners, and Hubs

Roles and responsibilities

• Affiliate focus areas and accountability: How might Affiliates need to change their role and duties to help the movement keep Wikimedia projects and volunteers strong, especially with today's challenges? What is the theory of change that the Affiliate role supports? What are key definitions and metrics of success? To whom are affiliates ultimately accountable (i.e. who evaluates those success metrics and decides what to do with the information)?
• Movement Partners: Do these groups do something different than Affiliates? Or are they doing mostly the same work, but from a different organizational background (meaning, they are not official Foundation Affiliates, but independent organizations with a strong focus on Wikimedia in their plans)?
• Hubs: What common needs and missing support do Affiliates have? How could Hubs and other regional/thematic groups handle these more efficiently and fairly? What kind of work can only Hubs do? Could Hubs take on roles currently held by AffCom, like solving conflicts between or within Affiliates, or capacity-building?

Models and recognition

• Why we recognize organizations: Are the rules for becoming an Affiliate suitable? Do they focus enough on supporting our projects and volunteers? Are we expecting enough from groups in terms of helping contributions and content grow? Are there groups today not performing well enough, or that have moved away from these main goals?
• Differences between Affiliate types: Are the differences between Chapters and User Groups no longer clear enough that we need to take a fresh look at their definitions and rules? Is there a real difference between Thematic Organizations and User Groups that focus on themes (or, for that matter, Thematic Hubs)? Are the current types helping us? Can we think of a new way? One that focuses less on the type of organization and more on what it does? For example, based on how developed an organization is, the scale of the services it offers, its funding needs, and the clear results it shows?
• Coordination across the Affiliations and Language Committees: How can AffCom and the Language Committee (LangCom) work together more closely? This is especially important when recognizing and supporting groups and communities focused on specific languages. Responding to global trends and Wikimedia health indicators, how might LangCom need to update its charter and policies around language creation, community sustainability, and security? How would such policies interact with the rules for movement organizations?
• Managed growth: The number of new Affiliates is growing faster than our resources. How can we still include many different groups and ways for people to belong to the movement? How can we help energized groups of contributors to work together and create a Wikimedia presence, but with guardrails to prevent unsustainable growth? Could we create a simpler form of affiliation that gives groups basic benefits (like using the Wikimedia name and logos, access to Wikimedia services, spaces, and decision-making, and chances to learn and connect), but without the pressure to develop complex organizational structures and governance (and without the expectation of significant funding)? How could more established affiliates or hubs support this lighter model? What can we learn from other online communities?
• The question of Movement Partners:  The movement includes hundreds, possibly thousands, of partners, from local organizations to global tech companies and the UN. But are there some less common partners who, even with a broader mission, contribute so much to Wikimedia and are so involved in the movement that they deserve a recognized place in our system? Should we create a formal category for Movement Partners, and if so, what would be the requirements for recognition? Should any current Affiliates be reclassified as Movement Partners? What would be the pros and cons of doing this?
• The question of Hubs: How do we decide if a Hub is a good addition to a region or theme, or if things are working fine without one? Is a Hub needed for every region or theme? How do Hubs fit in with the roles of the Foundation and Affiliates? What defines a Hub, and is it a formal entity recognized by AffCom? If not, who do Hubs report to? What other ways can we collaborate and offer support instead of a Hub, and do these alternatives need special recognition or access to resources?

Funding

• Global Resource Distribution Committee + Regional Fund Committees: There has been a great deal of community discussion and detailed feedback about the current grantmaking structures (e.g. in response to the initial GRDC proposal), acknowledging both successes and areas to improve. One fundamental question is: how to address funding for global thematic areas (e.g. Education, GLAM, Gender, Climate), given that current funding mechanisms are primarily geographically based? Is this something that can be integrated into regional portfolios, or are there certain global efforts and infrastructures that require dedicated funds?
• Hubs: If we move forward with Hubs, how should their funding work, and how do we avoid the past mistake of adding costly new structures instead of improving existing ones? Should Hub funding be integrated into regional (and possible future thematic) portfolios? If so, how can we avoid placing Hubs and Affiliates in unhealthy competition for resources? Is there a one-size-fits-all approach, or is this something that would need to be determined case by case (i.e. by region or theme)? This is especially important when thinking about how money is given out in regions and if Hubs might start giving out money themselves. Because many emerging Hubs are networks of Affiliates, could their funding come as a share of these organizational budgets? Are there other in-kind contributions (staff time, administrative support) that make Hubs more sustainable? What have we learned from current Hub pilots that suggests a way forward?
• Movement Partners: Would these entities have the same funding pathways as Affiliates, or would there be criteria/restrictions specific to Movement Partners?

Recommendations

Based on the current landscape of movement organizations, as well as on the key questions above, the following are concrete recommendations for efforts to be undertaken in the coming year in the context of the Movement Organizations and Global Resource Distribution pilots. It is assumed that there would be close coordination across these efforts, supported by the Foundation.

For the Wikimedia Foundation:

• In close consultation with the Affiliate network and other stakeholders, update the AffCom Charter (last approved in 2022) to narrow down core responsibilities, removing Affiliate conflict management and capacity-building. Determine how these responsibilities are moved to other actors (e.g. WMF, Hubs).
• In close consultation with AffCom, the Affiliate network, and other stakeholders, update the AffCom Charter to include a revised definition of the role of Affiliates (see detailed proposal of new focus areas — Context, Community, Content — in the Appendix).
• Working closely with AffCom, the GRDC, and the Affiliate network, develop a theory of change and shared success metrics based on the updated Affiliate focus areas, encompassing all organizational actors in the Wikimedia ecosystem.
• Continue to actively support deeper alignment between movement organizations and WMF annual and multiyear planning and progress (e.g. WMF bulletin, global trends conversations). Increase communication about the multigenerational strategy. Explore future opportunities for alignment around WMF Core Metrics.
• Define a refresh strategy for the Language Committee, in close coordination with Product & Tech and other teams supporting multilinguality in the movement.
• In consultation with the Product & Tech Advisory Council, define guardrails for technical contribution by movement organizations.

For the Affiliations Committee:

• Taking the new proposed framework (Context, Communities, Content) as a starting point, work with the Foundation and the Affiliate network to update Affiliate Focus areas, with a shared theory of change and success metrics.
• Based on the updated focus areas for Affiliates, and informed by key questions in this paper, evaluate current affiliate models and make necessary updates. Evaluate current eligibility requirements and expectations for maintaining recognition across all updated Affiliate types.
• Make decisions on whether/how to incorporate and clearly define Movement Partners, Hubs, and other unaffiliated entities.
• Based on these updates, modify recognition procedures using new guidelines and begin conversations, where appropriate, about derecognition.

For the Global Resource Distribution Committee:

• Coordinating closely with AffCom, define new funding pathways specific to different affiliation models, and anchored in the updated focus areas (including Hubs and thematic groups poorly served by today’s regional funding system).
• Define how we move collectively toward subsidiarity in resource distribution and recommend roles for different actors (e.g. for Affiliates, Hubs, Foundation).

For Wikimedia Affiliates, Movement Partners, proto-Hubs, and volunteers

• Commit to co-monitor global trends and be responsive and adaptive to what the world needs from the movement. Commit to build on what works, and to have the courage to let go of what does not serve the core focus areas (Context, Community, Content).
• Commit to keep conversations focused on purpose before form, need before structure/solution. Problems have to be clear before we design solutions. Always ask, first, what needs to be done? Only when that is clear, move on to determining who is best positioned to do it, and what is the structure/funding?
• Engage meaningfully with all the above actors and hold them accountable to delivering this process toward the best possible outcome.

Appendix

Proposed Update of Affiliate Focus Areas: Context, Community, Content

The new framework that follows builds directly on the Affiliate focus areas from 2011. We also considered a recent review by the WMF Community Resources team, and discussions among Affiliate leaders in Oslo in late 2024. And we kept in mind global changes and Wikimedia's health. With all this, we're offering a new definition of what Wikimedia Affiliates do. We've also included examples of important work Affiliates have done in these areas. (Note: examples are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive, and some might fit more than one area.)

➤ CONTEXT: Ensure the movement is visible and relevant in all corners of the world

Potential metrics: number + impact of partnerships or number of allies engaged, knowledge professionals certified, advocacy and awareness campaign reach/impact (e.g. policy change, positive media coverage), new $ resources mobilized...

1. Promote the Wikimedia brand/model in national and regional contexts

Affiliates are typically the actors best positioned to engage policymakers, media, and institutions at the local, national and sometimes regional level. They increase Wikimedia’s visibility, advocate for public policies favorable to the Wikimedia model, mission, and values, and enhance our reputation with specific audiences. Affiliates are also well placed to build alliances and collaborations with other aligned movements and communities on the ground (e.g. Creative Commons, Internet Society, or OpenStreetMap chapters, local tech or open source communities). Especially when well coordinated with the Foundation's global and region-level legal, communications, and advocacy work (and with other collaborative structures, like Wikimedia Europe), Affiliates are a key player in the ongoing effort to ensure the integrity of our projects, to improve public understanding of our model, to provide for the safety of volunteers, and to adapt to continuous change in all corners of the globe.

Examples:

• Wikimedia Colombia successfully influenced local copyright reforms (link in Spanish) to safeguard the public domain, open educational resources, and the preservation of indigenous languages. Other Affiliates like Wikimedia South Africa and Wikimedia Sweden also actively engage local governments and policymakers about copyright reform and issues like Freedom of Panorama. The WMF Global Advocacy team maintains a repository of high-quality copyright advocacy materials by different affiliates.
• Wikimedia UK called for an exemption for Wikipedia in the UK’s Online Safety Act. Wikimedia UK brought the relationship with government leaders, the local knowledge of the context, and the power of the community’s voice, while partnering with WMF to leverage its legal and global advocacy arm to raise the profile of WMUK’s call for action.

2. Expand the movement through partnerships and strategic fundraising

Affiliates serve as a bridge into the wider knowledge ecosystem. They represent the movement in specific contexts, weaving Wikimedia into civil society, education, research, media, and culture. They are the best explainers of our common mission with institutions and all sectors of knowledge. Their consistent local presence enables them to cultivate relationships and collaborations that can endure for years. This focus area is about making true the 2030 strategic direction’s aspiration “…and everyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.”

Examples:

• Wikimedia Brasil’s (and dozens of other Affiliates’) collaborations with cultural institutions like the Museu Paulista to share open-licensed media and data to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia, and Wikidata, or Wikimedia UK’s partnership with the Khalili Foundation to better document items in UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register.

• Cross-Affiliate collaborations like Wikimedia Switzerland’s International Museum Day campaigns, or the Heritage Guard Network (an effort by Wikimedia Sweden, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia to develop more responsive mechanisms for preserving cultural heritage endangered by human conflict and climate change). Wiki World Heritage (a recognized User Group) prioritizes work in endangered heritage jurisdictions lacking Wikimedia Affiliates, and works across Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata to document UNESCO World Heritage sites.

• Wikimedia South Africa’s collaboration with local and regional environmental professional networks to train scientists and communicators to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of climate change, or the network of Latin American Affiliates addressing environmental topics and indigenous knowledge with partners like the Green Screen Coalition or the Inter-American Development Bank. AfroCROWD holds monthly multilingual editathons and has built a whole network of institutional partners to increase the movement’s reach into audiences of African descent.

• Affiliate-led partnerships and local fundraising efforts can expand the pool of financial resources available to the movement, and many affiliates have had significant success in this area, such as Art + Feminism’s support by the Ford Foundation, Wiki Education’s support by the Mellon Foundation, or Wikimedia UK’s success with the UK National Lottery Heritage Fund. Wikimedia Indonesia’s partnerships with Google and UNESCO, developed with support of the Wikimedia Foundation, helped communities fight disinformation and improve local language coverage of high impact topic areas such as environmental sustainability, women’s health, and cultural heritage. Seven Latin American affiliates were supported by the Inter-American Development Bank to train young people to contribute to Wikimedia projects around sustainability-related topics as a way of building 21st century skills. Wikimedia Zambia worked with the Embassy of Sweden on activities to address the gender gap in Zambian online information. Among many other funders, Wikimedia Czech Republic’s widely admired “Seniors Write Wikipedia” program is funded by a “Charity Pot” grant from the cosmetics company, Lush.

➤ COMMUNITY: Support the people that power the movement

Potential metrics: number of affiliate members, number of newcomers engaged/trained/retained, experienced contributors supported…

1. Strengthen community connections, capacities, and resilience

A favorite Wikimedia folk saying goes something like: “you come for the knowledge and stay for the people.” Affiliates can help keep contributor communities thriving, fostering human connection and solidarity, working closely with the Foundation in this shared objective. They provide training and financial support, help secure access to research materials and workspace, and organize thousands of meetups and events. Affiliates are a critical support system that helps the never-finished work of our volunteers to continue.

Examples:

• Wikimedia France’s recurring AdminConf supports contributors doing the essential work of moderating content and managing conflicts on-wiki; Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group’s recurring Indic Wikimedia Hackathons bring together technical contributors focused on Indic-language projects; Wikimedia District of Columbia’s GLAM-Wiki and leadership bootcamps have upskilled and connected diverse rising organizers in the United States.
• Led by Wikimedia Argentina and Wikimedia UK, the Volunteer Supporters Network connects staff across Affiliates to share best practices and resources for improving the conditions for online and offline participation of volunteers.
• Communities like those represented by the Commons Photographers, Wikisource Community, or WikiJournal User Groups are dedicated to specific under-supported contributor ecosystems in Wikimedia sister projects.

2. Nurture the next generation of volunteers

Contributing to Wikimedia projects can be challenging. A friendly welcome, an inspiring introduction to the global movement, and practical support — especially in the days and months after beginning one’s wiki journey — can make a big difference. Local Wikimedia Affiliates are well-suited to:

• Welcome and train new contributors: They can do this locally, nationally, and sometimes regionally by working with other groups. There is an opportunity to be more intentional in connecting these activities to the user experience developed by the Wikimedia Foundation at the platform level.
• Find and connect with key groups: Affiliates can reach people who strongly support the Wikimedia mission and have useful skills. These include academics, experts, librarians, archivists, museum staff, journalists, educators, and others interested in open knowledge.

Thousands of new contributors start their journey through these outreach and training programs. Many of these people might not have joined otherwise. As internet users increasingly use other platforms or access Wikimedia knowledge less directly, the work of local Wikimedia organizations to recruit and retain new people will become even more important for the health of our project communities.

Examples:

• High-quality training and onboarding programs like Wikimedia Indonesia’s WikiLatih, Wikimedia Argentina’s Wikipuentes, Wikimedia Czech Republic’s Seniors Write Wikipedia, Wikimedia Ukraine’s implementation of Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom.
• Youth-focused outreach programs like Wikimedia Armenia’s long-running Wiki clubs and camps, or those run by Wikimedia Serbia, or the CEE Youth Group run by the CEE Hub and Wikimedia Czech Republic, seek to bring in a new generation of Wikimedians. Wikimedia France has experimented with other inventive ways of reaching younger audiences, such as the WiKeys game.
• Wiki Education (not a recognized Affiliate, but a grantee participating in the Affiliate ED group) brings in as many as 19% of new active editors on English Wikipedia through its university programs in the US and Canada, and 70% of program participants identify as women and nonbinary.

➤ CONTENT: Generate trustworthy, representative, accessible knowledge for all the world

Potential metrics: measurable impact on closing knowledge gaps, number of edits/articles/items contributed, increase in coverage and quality of topics/languages, reuse of partner-contributed content, increased access to Wikimedia content through outreach and partnerships…

1. Organize strategic content initiatives

Volunteer communities have all sorts of ways of organizing and collectively prioritizing content areas for improvement and translation. Affiliates are “force multipliers” that help scale the best collaborative instincts of our community, rallying them to address knowledge gaps and to improve information to support informed societies. These inspiring campaigns and initiatives also often serve as excellent on-ramps for new contributors, and provide predictable rhythms and cycles for the movement to focus its energies strategically and efficiently.

Examples:

• Successful interventions to close the Wikipedia biography gender gap by groups like Art + Feminism, 500 Women Scientists, Wiki Education, or Les sans pagEs.
• Long-term targeted content campaigns designed to fill gaps in areas that are relevant to the general public, like Wiki Education’s Communicating Science Campaign that has massively improved STEM content on the English Wikipedia, and will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2026.
• Productive regional content campaigns like the annual CEE Spring and Wikipedia Asian Month, or Open Foundation West Africa’s Africa Wiki Challenge, involve dozens of Wikimedia Affiliates and other groups to create and improve content on locally relevant topics in global and local languages.
• Volunteer organizers and dozens of Affiliates join forces annually to drive large-scale global and regional photography campaigns to close visual knowledge gaps, like Wiki Loves Monuments (anchored at WM Austria), Wiki Loves Earth (anchored at WM Ukraine), Wiki Loves Folklore, and Wiki Loves Africa.

2. Develop specialized tools to support content creation and access

Much technical innovation has come over the years from Affiliates and Movement Partners. However, this hasn't always been well-coordinated with the Foundation. This has led to unexpected problems with infrastructure maintenance, scalability, and many unsupported tools. As a movement, we need to improve. Affiliates want clear guidance and leadership from the Foundation in this area. They are encouraged by recent improvements in WMF technology planning, the new Community Wish List, the creation of the Product & Tech Advisory Council, and attention to long-standing issues for experienced editors. The Foundation has a huge job maintaining and developing the core platform, but it can't solve every problem. Especially when technology is needed for specific, local, and programmatic audiences and goals, qualified Affiliates and Movement Partners have a key role. This role would be clearer and more effective with better definition and support. The examples that follow are not a strict plan for future roles, but rather show what things are like now.

Examples:

• There is of course the large-scale example of Wikidata (and its underlying software Wikibase). Launched in 2012 by Wikimedia Deutschland, it is arguably the most globally significant Wikimedia project since Wikipedia. Wikidata propelled Wikimedia into the linked open data ecosystem, and has become semantic infrastructure for search engines, voice assistants, and AI, as well as in the GLAM sector and various scholarly disciplines. WMDE has also supported the growth of a software ecosystem around Wikidata, for example through the Software collaboration for Wikidata project, enlisting other affiliates like Igbo Wikimedians and Wikimedia Brasil to mentor developers and to improve undersupported tools.
• In several instances, Affiliates and Movement Partners have stepped up to adopt popular but orphaned tools, such as Wikimedia Israel’s adoption of the GLAMWiki Dashboard (based on an earlier version of the tool developed by Wikimedia Switzerland), or Wiki in Africa’s adoption of the Isa photo campaigns tool. As part of the afore-mentioned Wikidata collaboration project, Wikimedia Brasil is redeveloping the heavily used Quick Statements batch editing tool for Wikidata. WM Brasil in particular has emerged in recent years as a technical heavyweight, also driving community infrastructure projects Capacity Exchange, and recently unveiling a new analytics dashboard for Brazilian GLAMs.
• A very notable example of tech leadership from a Movement Partner is the Wiki Education Dashboard — a wiki-integrated course management tool that has enabled Wiki Education to achieve impact at considerable scale in its North American higher education programs. Wiki Education’s dashboard has been adapted into a lighter weight version, the Programs & Events Dashboard, used by thousands of community content programs and campaigns.
• Some affiliates prioritize supporting tools with a strong knowledge equity focus, like Wikimedia France’s support of Lingua Libre or Wikimedia Switzerland’s support of Kiwix. Before having to pause its activities due to regulatory challenges, CIS-A2K was developing plans to start providing more support for Wikisource, a project highly prioritized by communities worldwide seeking to grow source material in underrepresented languages.

How do Movement Partners and Hubs connect to the above focus areas?

Movement Partners

In 2017, the Wikimedia 2030 direction stated: “By 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us.” To make this last part true, we need to welcome organizations that have similar goals and see Wikimedia as a key way to make an impact. The details of how to define, recognize, and fund Movement Partners are for other groups like the Affiliations Committee and the Global Resource Distribution Committee to decide. However, the authors of this paper believe that Movement Partners are already part of our community and deserve to enjoy a clearer position. Some are recognized as Affiliates (because there's no other way to classify them), while others work in partnership with Affiliates, or have developed their own special place in our ecosystem, or are unsure where they fit. Their role is similar to that of Affiliates — and they often bring expertise, creativity, and access to audiences that make the movement stronger — even if they also have larger roles for other groups outside of Wikimedia.

Hubs

Will Hubs become a formally recognized type of group, or will they stay as flexible, context-specific arrangements that work alongside, or in a specific way with, formal recognition and funding processes? We don't know the answer yet, but we should all agree on one thing: the structure should fit the purpose. In other words, Hubs should only be created when there's a clear need they can fill. We shouldn't keep adding new structures on top of old ones unless we are also willing to rethink, combine, or get rid of things that are no longer useful. This might apply to some of the current ideas for Hubs.

Looking at the three main focus areas—Context, Community, Content—what are the common needs and support gaps among Affiliates and Movement Partners? How can Hubs and other regional or theme-based collaborative networks help more efficiently and fairly? What kind of teamwork and shared services could Hubs offer that neither the Foundation nor Affiliates are well positioned to offer? For example, could Hubs offer a different, or additional, model in areas where it's becoming difficult (or impossible) to create Affiliates? Or could they offer an alternative to the Chapter model in large, diverse countries (like India or the United States), by providing shared support services and helping to bring together a network of smaller local Affiliates, partners, and project communities?

Could Hubs take over tasks currently handled by other groups that would be better managed at their local level? For example, could Hubs take on the role of solving conflicts, which the Affiliations Committee currently handles (but not perfectly)? Or could Hubs become key go-betweens for Affiliates and the Foundation—for example, working closely with the Foundation's Global Advocacy, Trust & Safety, Human Rights, Community Resources, Regional Partnerships, or Movement Communications teams to coordinate effectively across regions or thematic networks?