Wikimedia Foundation Annual Plan/2023-2024/History
A History of Foundation Planning
The Wikimedia Foundation is currently using the 2017 Strategic Direction of "Knowledge Equity and Knowledge as a Service" as its compass for multi-year planning towards the 2030 Movement Strategy horizon.
Early efforts around strategic thinking at the Foundation were mostly led by executives and the Board of Trustees (for example through SWOT analysis). The 2009–2010 strategic process was the first exercise to seek wide input from the Movement. It "aimed to understand and address the critical challenges and opportunities facing the Wikimedia Movement through 2015," and "culminated in a series of priorities and goals, as well as specific operational initiatives for the Wikimedia Foundation." In retrospect, the resulting 2010–2015 Strategic Plan is now acknowledged to have been too ambitious, with goals difficult to reach.
In 2012, Executive Director Sue Gardner argued that Foundation staff was "over-stretched and over-mandated," and that "the major bottle-neck at the Wikimedia Foundation at this point" was not money, but rather "organizational attention." Sue decided to "Narrow the focus" of the organization, centering its efforts mainly around Technology and Grantmaking. This notably led to the creation of the Wiki Education Foundation as a separate nonprofit, to spin off and expand the Wikimedia Foundation's Education program in North America.
In 2016, Executive Director Lila Tretikov started a community discussion around a proposed "Interim Strategy." This process was consultative, asking for feedback on a predetermined plan rather than being co-created. The Foundation used this framework to guide its annual plans for a few years.
In 2017, Executive Director Katherine Maher launched the Movement Strategy process, an ambitious Movement-wide effort to determine a shared Strategic Direction for the 2030 horizon. After months of discussions, research, interviews, and events (Phase 1), the resulting Strategic Direction was endorsed by over a hundred Wikimedia organizations. Between 2018 and 2020 (Phase 2), nine thematic working groups composed of volunteers, staff, affiliates, and trustees prepared Recommendations for the Movement to work towards the Direction. The final list of Recommendations (and accompanying Principles) was published in 2020.
Between 2019 and 2022, the Foundation's activities were organized around the Medium-Term Plan, an attempt at multi-year planning to guide the Foundation's work until a more specific mandate emerged from Movement Strategy recommendations and implementation.
As of 2023, the Movement is now in Phase 3 of Movement Strategy: implementation through prioritized Initiatives. This last phase is notably hindered by strategy fatigue and loss of momentum. While the Recommendations are considered to be necessary, they are also unlikely sufficient to realize the 2030 vision of the Wikimedia Movement.
In 2022, the Foundation proceeded to ground its 2022–2023 annual plan in the Movement Strategy's Strategic Direction, and is now seeking to align its multi-year strategic planning more closely with the Movement Strategy Direction, Recommendations, Principles, and other strategic guideposts.
See also:
- Strategy on Meta-Wiki: An overview of all strategy efforts relating to the Wikimedia Movement, including links to strategic plans of other Wikimedia organizations.
- A more detailed audit of 2010–2016 strategy processes, written before the launch of the 2017 Movement Strategy process.