Content Partnerships Hub/White paper/4. Finding support internally and externally

Developing a Thematic Hub in the Wikimedia Movement

Insights from Wikimedia Sverige's exploratory work to form a first thematic hub

White Paper

1. Why Wikimedia Sverige initiated the work to become a Thematic hub	2. Purpose and structure of the White Paper	3. Growing and reorganizing the current organization
4. Finding support internally and externally	5. Ensuring financial sustainability for the work	6. Final remarks

Finding support internally and externally

Background/context

After two years of consultations and conversations, the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Recommendations were published in May 2020. A number of transition conversations were held in November-December 2020 and then followed up by specific discussions January-February 2021. During these Transition conversations a global prioritization effort was made. Regional and Thematic hubs were identified as one of the top priorities in the conversations.

The recommendations as a whole contain a number of specific recommendations applicable to the creation of Thematic hubs in the movement. One recommendation in particular bears mention: Ensure equity in decision-making. It is in this recommendation that the notion of (thematic) hubs are introduced:

“Regional and thematic hubs will empower existing and future communities to have the capacity and resources to make and implement their own decisions to meet their differing needs. This will ensure sustainability, resilience, and growth for the whole Movement. Thematic hubs allow for specialization and work across the Movement, where shared objectives benefit from coordinated solutions. As a result, new connections and structures will emerge, or existing ones will be strengthened, which will bring the principle of subsidiarity into practice.”

As the Thematic hub is a new type of movement entity, for which the boundaries of responsibility and power are yet to be defined, the need to have support and trust is crucial to even initiate an early investigation.

However, this is more easily said than done. The Wikimedia movement has grown organically over the past 15 years or so, and now have organizations or volunteer groups in most countries of the world. There are also hundreds of thousands of volunteers that are actively involved in the online communities. All these actors have a stake in the work done through a future Thematic hub. It might directly affect them through the work it does, but at the very least it will use resources which could have been used somewhere else, which they might have seen as more relevant.

A subsection of the Wikimedia community is the GLAMwiki community which consists of volunteers and staff that are working to develop a deeper integration between the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) institutions of the world with the Wikimedia (wiki) communities. This group was identified as a key stakeholder to engage in the planned work.

The Swedish chapter was formed in 2007. Today, it has around 500 members. For this group the development of Wikimedia Sverige into a hub is a new development. The change is exciting for some while worrying for others.

Any major change to an organization risks facing opposition as roles changes, resources get reallocated and power shifts. The change risks creating fear, uncertainty and doubt. In order to find support for a change, an ongoing dialog is needed. This dialog must aim to identify the perceived, and real, risks or problems, so that they can be addressed. It must also aim for additional insights, when more perspectives are added. The party suggesting that the change is beneficial needs to explain the opportunities, possibilities and how risks are being minimized. This needs to be clearly articulated and communicated. If the change means that the old guard will get new roles, they need to understand what these roles are. If the change will take place without uprooting the current situation, they need to feel confident that they will be able to continue to work in the same or a similar way.

Raising the profile of the work can help to create interest and gain support for the proposed internationalization work in a national organization. One way of achieving this is to connect the suggested changes to other major trends in the world. Examples of this could be the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the goal would be to show how they align and the great value the work can have for the world at large. This can help put the risks associated with the changes into perspective.

What has been done

Wikimedia Sverige actively participated in the development of the final version of the Strategy Recommendations and will also actively participate in the implementation work that follows. The new strategic recommendations will of course also influence the development of Wikimedia Sverige’s new multi-year strategy for 2021-2024. This work allowed the association to both communicate the insights which were gathered ongoingly through this practical work and from the deep-thinking done around this topic.

The participation in the strategy discussions also allowed us to gain insight into what kind of recommendations people from across the movement supported, what they were hesitant about and what they outright did not approve of. This helped refine the association’s understanding and its communication, so that initial support could be gained to move forward with the work, or at least prevent outright opposition when some might have felt apprehension to the possibility of change or a perceived power-grab.

In line with the recommendation “Ensure equity in decision-making”, the work conducted by Wikimedia Sverige over the last years should be viewed as an initial investigation into the viability of a Thematic hub for institutional content partnerships and what scope such a hub could have.

Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia Foundation also engaged the Wikimedia communities during a number of events where the initiative was presented and discussed. The feedback from the GLAMwiki community was positive and cautiously optimistic, as many questions still had to be ironed out in the future. The main worry stated was about how strong the support actually was from Wikimedia Foundation for decentralized technical development and how sustainable the initiative would be.

The need for a more developed and well maintained techno-social infrastructure was highlighted in numerous discussions. Exactly how this should be achieved was the main sticking-point. Participants from smaller Wikimedia communities and affiliates stressed (1) the need for formalized paths of exchange and support for capacity building and (2) the need for assurances that investments would be done which fulfil the needs of their specific contexts.

Other discussions pointed out that there was a need to conduct research to gain a deeper understanding of the needs of different stakeholders.

GLAM actors highlighted the need for an ongoing conversation with them as there are many other initiatives that try to provide better coordination around digitization and capacity building for their staff.

Volunteer developers pointed out the need for clear requirements for when and how the hub adopts a volunteer developed tool, for having a transparent and clear mechanism for deciding when to drop a developed tool. They also expressed a clear preference for modular rather than monolithic tools, as the development of modular tools can be done more distributed and flexibly.

The chapter worked slowly and steadily to adjust its national focus and orient more towards international work, inspired by a tortoise rather than a hare. Funding through external grants were identified for initial international work which would allow for experimentation and to develop a clearer understanding of the costs and benefits. As the external funding did not directly cannibalize existing projects nor change the power dynamics in the short term it allowed all interested stakeholders to think, adjust and prepare for a possible change. For three years these internationally oriented GLAM projects took place before any more radical changes were proposed.

Wikimedia Sverige had the honor to host the international Wikimedia conference Wikimania 2019 and in connection with this the chapter stated its intention to start exploring the formation of a Thematic hub. The choice of theme was carefully chosen to put the changes in the movement into perspective and to highlight future opportunities and responsibilities. The theme for Wikimania 2019 was therefore chosen to be “Stronger together: Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals.“ The rationale for the theme was to directly connect the Sustainable Development Goals with the Wikimania 2030 strategy, with the hope to highlight the shared benefits for a more internationally oriented approach to the work done by Wikimedia chapters.

In early 2020 it became clear that the plans would have to be delayed as the COVID-19 pandemic created perceived risks to the long-term financial stability of the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia Sverige received continued funding for a second year to further develop its work with technical support to GLAM institutions and for coordination with the GLAMwiki and OpenGLAM communities. Fortunately, Wikimedia Sverige had been wary about the hiring of new staff until the funding had been fully secured. Combined with the more limited funds for a second year, this meant that drastic actions did not have to be taken to secure the financial stability of the organization. In 2021 a final project grant was given to actively work on implementing some of the initiatives that had been conceptualized in the previous projects and start engaging the international community more directly. As the grant was, again, not multi-year, the focus on software development was postponed until 2022, when further clarity of funding opportunities is expected.

Future work

The implementation of the strategic recommendations will take place over the coming decade. Organizations will change roles, power will shift and resources will be allocated to allow for a more diverse and distributed movement. Affiliates that have a functional professional team should, in our opinion, take the opportunity to support the wider movement.

The trailblazing of what a hub is and could be is part of Wikimedia Sverige's commitment in this regard. As such, Wikimedia Sverige will actively continue to pursue the opportunities provided through this process. At the same time, the chapter will actively be working to shift responsibilities, power and resources to other affiliates as they further develop. The goal is to create a more solidified path for effective international work, and not to grab responsibility for work that could and should be done locally. The goal we have with creating a thematic hub is not to centralize decision-making or add bureaucracy, but to act as a facilitator around content partnerships – an area where there are as many opportunities as there are organizations in the world that host content.

A more in depth study for the GLAMwiki community about their needs and wants will be conducted. This will hopefully lead to new insights into opportunities or risks and what the perception is amongst this stakeholder group around international coordination, support and development. The hub is intended to, over time, support a wide variety of challenges for the people working with content partnerships – but it has to start somewhere. Through interviews and discussions, we hope to form a better understanding of what the volunteers and affiliates are interested in, what they struggle with and what they see in the future. The contacts throughout such an investigation will also improve the network and understanding of our aims and intentions amongst the GLAMwiki community.

With the delay of the hub development the FUD has increased amongst Wikimedia Sverige’s members, board and staff. This might lead to pushback from this stakeholder group to continue the work and of key members leaving the organization before the plans can be realized.

For the work of becoming a Thematic hub to continue effectively, one key piece is to ensure that the internationalization efforts are included in Wikimedia Sverige’s national strategy, or at a minimum that the national strategy is indifferent to whether the work takes place in Sweden or abroad and therefore does not actively prevent the internationalization.

Lessons learned and key takeaways

• Lesson learned: Think about and hone your edge – experiment and test to identify what your organization does best. Think about how to add value to the movement and why the investment into your organization is worthwhile and should be prioritized.
  • Key takeaway: Organize activities with stakeholders in the organization to self-assess your work, skills and interests to decide what the organization should focus on.
• Lesson learned: You need to spend time establishing trust from within the movement – do not assume that trust or support will be given.
  • Key takeaway: Continuous communication is key. Ensure ample time for conversations with stakeholders in the movement and in your organization and listen to what they want and hope for.
• Lesson learned: As the Wikimedia movement is in an active process of change, based on a set of defined strategic recommendations, any major adjustments to the work of the Wikimedia affiliate should take these recommendations into consideration or risk missing out on both direct opportunities and also on a powerful message of change.
  • Key takeaway: The organizations working to redefine themselves to take on a larger role should invest time and effort to deeply think about and familiarize themselves with the strategic recommendations for Wikimedia 2030.
• Lesson learned: It takes a long time for an international movement to agree on a strategic shift. As the devil is in the details the shift might turn out to be understood differently, or not at all (due to e.g. information overload), by different actors in the movement. What initially seemed to be a clear path reveals hurdles as the work progresses.
  • Key takeaway: The plans for the transformation of the organization must be flexible and possible to adjust as the unexpected hurdles are discovered. At Wikimedia Sverige, the operational responsibility has been delegated to the staff by the board, which allows for quick readjustments when needed.
• Lesson learned: There is a risk that the work done by the thematic hubs overlap with work done by other Wikimedia organizations, and that could create conflicts. Where this line is will be a moving target, but there are some areas that clearly are not covered by any Wikimedia organization at this point.
  • Key takeaway: Even the perception that this is happening, or is about to happen, can swing the support against the thematic hub.
  • Key takeaway: As there is so much activity in the movement two-way communication is crucial. The hub might accidentally start initiatives in areas where others are working, without knowing and without the intent to take over. To focus on the opportunities around coordination and partnerships are key, as the insight can create new opportunities if the different strengths and goals of the organizations are taken into careful consideration.
  • Key takeaway: There is a risk that other Wikimedia organizations would be slowing down their decisions or actions if they, incorrectly, think that they need the approval of the thematic hubs. However, per the point above, the coordination possibilities might still make early contacts valuable.
• Lesson learned: Communication is foundational for a successful change within an organization. For the communication to be powerful and convincing, a clear vision first needs to be in place. There is also a strong need for a plan built on deep-thinking to underpin the communication. Wikimedia Sverige staff discussed and thought about the opportunities, internally and with contacts throughout the movement, for a couple of years before actively starting communication efforts.
  • Key takeaway: The biggest challenge of change is not only financial but to a large extent about buy-in from key players within the organization. If this is not achieved any change risks being short-lived.
  • Key takeaway: The changes initiated globally, through the Strategy process, have created a change in the discourse at many Wikimedia affiliates where a vision of a more international approach now seems to exist at the leadership level. The challenge is now to develop understanding and interest amongst the rest of the stakeholders within the affiliates.
  • Key takeaway: Any momentum, created through the massive investments made in the international Strategy process, is likely to be lost if investments are not also made in the near-term to allow affiliate leadership to start developing a path towards international work and coordination. The delays experienced by Wikimedia Sverige has led to many of the stakeholders in the chapter to start questioning whether or not the initiative will be successful in the end and if resources should be reallocated to other priorities.
  • Key takeaway: If possible connect your communication and effort with an established and powerful vision that is understood and well-known by many stakeholders. For Wikimedia Sverige the Sustainable Development Goals was a powerful vehicle to further the discussions and consensus building around the association’s goal of working internationally and aspire to become a Thematic hub.
• Lesson learned: Different groups have different interests and needs and therefore perceive risk differently. In order to at least provide some cushioning during a major change, both time and money need to be invested. The investment and opportunity for the organization’s sustainability, as well as the impact on the achievability of the long term vision the change is striving for, must be large enough to justify the perceived risk.
  • Key takeaway: For change to happen, with a minimum of conflict and upheaval, each affiliate will need a significant multi-year investment.
  • Key takeaway: It should be made clear if, and to what extent, the initiative is using resources previously used for work nationally. To avoid uncertainty in this regard the organization should be as transparent as possible and publicly share e.g. detailed budgets, all plans, formal decisions by board and ED and grant applications.
  • Key takeaway: If the international work also supports the national work this should be clearly communicated, e.g. if work on international volunteer engagement also will create processes and structures beneficial for volunteers in the country.
• Lesson learned: For staff members to engage in the change in a positive and productive way there is a strong need to provide clarity early on about what their role could be in a new organization and to highlight the benefits and opportunities thereof.
  • Key takeaway: An inclusive decision-making process is key but also to provide individuals with clarity about how the change will affect them specifically. This helps to avoid rumors, worries or uncertainty.
  • Key takeaway: The increased stability of funding opportunities that such a change delivers should be highlighted.
• Lesson learned: With all the risk associated with a change from a status quo, the process needs to be firmly anchored within the organization. This is needed especially for continued work if there are initial setbacks.
  • Key takeaway: The change needs to be formalized and accepted through an open and democratic process. The voting members of the organization, the board and staff should all have plenty of time and opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns before the change is actively taking place.
• Lesson learned: External partner organizations and funders are largely unaware of the significant challenges that are being addressed through the Strategy 2030 recommendations and as such have not yet considered what their possible involvement or support could look like.
  • Key takeaway: Any involvement from external organizations or funding from external sources will demand a very clear message from the Wikimedia affiliate, outlining the benefits and values underpinning the effort. Spend the time to prepare a solid communication plan and to fully execute it.
• Lesson learned: It is not always easy to create engagement for an idea in the Wikimedia movement. A clear path for engagement has to be provided. This is a movement of doers and an initiative such as this will compete with other exciting things. The affiliates have significantly different organizational capabilities.
  • Key takeaway: Develop clear structures where volunteers and staff of other affiliates can contribute with their expertise. E.g. different types of committees that have real decision-making power.
  • Key takeaway: Provide opportunities to engage in the initiatives organized in a distributed fashion. E.g. similar to how Wiki Loves Monuments or WikiGap are structured, with an international coordinator and local teams with significant independence.