This page describes the process to propose and implement changes needed for higher effectiveness and stronger impact of the ecosystem of Wikimedia organizations.

Over the years, the organic evolution of this ecosystem has brought fundamental questions that remain unsolved. Questions like what should be the distinction between chapters and user groups, should there be stricter criteria to (de)recognize affiliates, who approves hubs and how… and many more. This project is one of the three movement pilots approved by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2024, and it is led by WMF staff with support of a focus group formed by a range of stakeholders (coming soon).

This project is planned in three phases:

Publish a paper describing the status quo and identifying key questions – completed in August 2025.
- The purpose of this paper is to start the discussion about movement organizations, explaining their history and current status. It presents questions and preliminary proposals to stir the discussions. The paper doesn’t intend to bring decisions on any of these questions..
Select key questions and co-create their answers. September 2025 - August 2026.
- Prioritized questions agreed by the end of December 2025.
- Initial draft proposal addressing the selected questions ready for discussion by the beginning of March 2026.
- Plans to implement the proposals agreed with the community, affiliate, and Foundation stakeholders by the end of June 2026.
Implement the agreed changes. September 2026 - August 2027.

News

2026-03-05: Draft proposal for a Future Affiliate Landscape
2025-11-18: Ecosystem of Wikimedia Organizations pilot update - November 2025

Request for feedback

As of 5 March 2026, we welcome your feedback on the Draft proposal for a Future Affiliate Landscape. Please comment By April 16 on the Discussion page. The output of the previous request for feedback and the various workshops run during September-December 2025 has been integrated to this draft proposal.

Focus group

From August to December 2025 feedback and insights from across the movement have been collected on the ecosystem paper and key question areas in it. The pilot coordination team is convening a volunteer focus group for a deeper dive into these key areas. The group consists of volunteers and affiliate staff with organizational experience related to Wikimedia, covering all the regions and the main themes.

Purpose - Converge and advance the conversations, including sufficient contextual knowledge in the process.
Output - List of prioritized questions and early draft proposals on key topic areas, creating an informed basis for future conversations.

Members (alphabetical order based on first name):

Barbara Klen - CEE Hub
Biyanto Rebin - ESEAP Hub
Candy Khohliwe - Wikimedia Botswana
Daria Cybulska - Wikimedia UK, former member of MCDC
Donatien Kangah - Wikimedia Côte D’Ivoire
Eva Martin - Wikimedia Deutschland
Harriet Bayel - Global Open Initiative, AffCom
Herschal Jackson - Wikimedia South Africa, GRDC
João Peschanski - Wikimedia Brasil
LiAnna Davis - WikiEdu Foundation
Mari Avetisyan - Wikimedia Armenia, AffCom
Robert Sim - Wikimedians of Singapore UG
Tanveer Hasan - former ED of CIS-A2K

The group was convened in December 2025 with conversations taking place through December, January, and February, concluding with publishing of a draft proposal early March 2026 for the next public conversation cycle.

Background

One of the three movement experiments approved by the WMF board

The Movement Charter proposal from June 2024 included a section about Wikimedia Movement Organizations. In July 2024, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees resolved not to ratify the proposed charter and approved three experiments on resource distribution, technology advancement, and support of Wikimedia movement organizations.

This third experiment was originally referred to as “an improved strategy (...) that will help to answer critical questions around the growth of new affiliates and the distribution of funds”. It builds upon the Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy, which mostly focuses on strengthening the Affiliations Committee.

The basic objectives of this experiment were discussed with the movement in different spaces.

The paper “Towards a Healthy Ecosystem of Wikimedia Organizations”

A paper titled Towards a Healthy Ecosystem of Wikimedia Organizations was drafted between May and August 2025, and presented at Wikimania 2025. This paper describes the Wikimedia ecosystem of movement organizations, including existing affiliates and new entities like hubs.

Wikimedia Foundation staff started drafting this paper internally and formed a small team of co-authors including 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. This paper serves as a starting point to have an agreed general landscape of the current state of affairs, and provide a space to look at some of the main key questions to be discussed and resolved around the Movement Organizations.

This paper aims to look at the entire ecosystem of movement organizations including affiliates, the Foundation, and newer stakeholders like hubs. This paper is a first milestone in the process, offering a general overview of the history and status quo, and starts listing some of the key questions that should be further discussed to evolve the Movement Ecosystem. It focuses on clarifying roles and responsibilities across these organizations, by suggesting a new approach on the focus areas for affiliates. It also makes preliminary recommendations to the Affiliations Committee, the interim Global Resource Distribution Committee, and the Wikimedia Foundation to address longstanding problems around entity recognition and resource allocation.

The goals of the paper were achieved:

Provide a high-level description of the different types of existing organizations within the Wikimedia Movement, including affiliates, the Foundation, and emerging structures like hubs.
Pose key strategic questions about these types of organization to collectively clarify and improve.
Propose a refreshed framework for the roles and responsibilities of Wikimedia Affiliates.
Provide preliminary and high-level recommendations, with clear accountability for implementation, on how to address certain challenges that have impacted our movement ecosystem for years.

Timeline

Expect updates and additions to this timeline as we proceed. All future dates are tentative.

Phase 1 - Publish a paper describing the status quo and identifying key questions.

2025-05-15 - First draft produced by the Wikimedia Foundation internally is shared with a small team of co-authors including Wikimedia organizational leaders Bobby Shabangu (Wikimedia South Africa), Lucy Compton-Reid (Wikimedia UK), and Tanveer Hasan (CIS-A2K, India), in consultation with Wikimedia affiliate leaders.
2025-07-07 - Feedback provided by the co-authors has been integrated into an updated draft.
2025-07-08 - Draft paper published and community review starts (announcement on the discussion page and on Diff).
2025-07-29 - Community feedback ends.
2025-07-31 - Updated version integrating the community feedback received.
2025-08-6/8 - Presentation of the paper at Wikimania.

Phase 2 - Select key questions and co-create their answers.

2025-09-25 - This project page updated, including an initial list of questions proposed.
2025-10-31 - The project team proposes a first complete draft of key questions prioritized and improved.
2025-11-30 - Second complete draft of key questions prioritized and improved with community and affiliate feedback.
2025-12-31 - List of prioritized key questions ready for discussion.
2026-03-15 - Feedback gathered from the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees and staff senior management.
2026-03-31 - First complete draft of proposals to address the prioritized questions.
2026-04-01 - Start the conversation about the prioritized questions with the wider movement.
2026-04-30 - Selected proposals have an initial pilot plan approved, with Foundation staff and budget assigned.
2026-05-31 - Pilot project plans improved based on community, affiliate, and Foundation staff feedback. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning framework integrated.
2026-06-30 - Pilot projects ready to start.

Phase 3 - Implement the agreed changes.

2026-09-30 - Pilot projects communicated across the movement.
2026-09-30 - Quarterly report regarding the progress of the pilots.
2026-11-30 - Outreach completed to all affiliates to help them integrate the pilot projects in their annual plans.
2026-12-31 - Quarterly report regarding the progress of the pilots.
2026-03-31 - Quarterly report regarding the progress of the pilots.
2026-06-30 - Final assessment of the pilots and decision regarding future steps.