Community Engagement
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Community Engagement was a Wikimedia Foundation staff department focused on the goal of increasing the quantity, quality, diversity, and reach of free knowledge by supporting people and organizations aligned with the Wikimedia Foundation mission. It was created in February 2015 under the direction of Luis Villa. Subsequent leadership included Maggie Dennis (2 2016-1 2019) and Valerie D'Costa (1 2019 - 11 2019). In November 2019, the decision was made to distribute the teams of the department into other departments, as community engagement had through the years of the department's existence become increasingly common for multiple departments within the Foundation. For more information, see the announcement
The function of the department was to support contributors by representing them in the development of new technical tools, by supporting community governance and innovations, by implementing trust & safety, by scaling strategic programs, and by making grants to individuals, groups and organizations working on building community and growing content on Wikimedia projects and sites as well as related open knowledge projects. We are committed to supporting under-represented contributors and emerging regions, languages, and communities.
The Community Engagement teams
The Learning and Evaluation team (L&E) helps monitor the impact of the work being done across the movement and guides other Community Engagement teams in executing effective grants through ongoing analysis, learning and evaluation support. The team is focused on sharing best practices and facilitating community knowledge sharing, listening to community voices for better decision making through community leader/editor surveys, and fostering collaboration and support to and with Wikimedia Affiliates.
Resources offers grants and other capacity-building resources to support community-led impact. Resources they offer include:
| Grants | Resources funds communities (individuals, groups and organizations) to build impactful programs, technologies, communities and organizations |
| IdeaLab Campaigns | Resources connects ideas with people and resources to foster community-driven innovation |
| Community capacity-building | Resources supports emerging communities to build key capacities that help grow their participation, content and reach |
| Conference Support | Resources supports the movement to connect and share at events around the world |
Programs supports shared learning for growing core programs, especially Wikipedia Education Programs, The Wikipedia Library, and the initiatives of GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums).
Trust and Safety serves the Wikimedia Foundation, readers and contributors by providing support on Foundation initiatives with a focus on community consultations, governance, and training, and by addressing trust and safety concerns including around appropriately escalating threats communicated on our projects and helping to safeguard the safety of attendees of Wikimedia Foundation supported events.
Community Relations helps developers to build features in collaboration with our communities. The team supports WMF Product teams, tech ambassadors, and other contributors willing to get involved in the planning, development, and deployment of software features in Wikimedia. We act as liaisons between non-technical communities and developers.
Until June 2018, the team was called Technical Collaboration and was organized in two subteams based on primary audiences: Community Liaisons (editors) and Developer Relations (developers).
See also
- 2019-10-28 - Diversity, leadership and safety for a thriving movement — a short-term plan. An overview of CE's top priorities as we start implementing the Foundation's Medium-term plan.
Quarterly Reviews
Current fiscal year
Older reviews
- April 2015
- July 2015
- October 2015
- January 2016
- April 2016
- April–June 2016 goals
- June 2016 Review
- July–September 2016 goals
- October 2016 review
- October–December 2016 goals
- January 2017 (Part 1)
- January 2017 (Part 2)
- April 2017 (Part 1)
- April 2017 (Part 2)
- July 2017 (Part 1)
- July 2017 (Part 2)
- October 2017 (Part 1)
- October 2017 (Part 2)
- January 2018
- May 2018