Gender equity report 2018/Partnerships

Conversations with movement leaders




Participants at a discussion day on Native American knowledge and Wikipedia

Partnerships are a powerful way to align Wikimedians with people that are experts in and passionate about gender equity issues. Interviewees emphasized that partnerships led to:

  • More and better quality content that is relevant to the communities it is about
  • Access to valuable sources
  • More structured support systems
  • More expansive and inclusive discussions
  • Increased sense of solidarity, especially for Wikimedians without a strong gender equity editing community
  • Greater visibility for their project through social media, radio, TV, and other channels

They spoke to the fact that identifying shared values, developing trust, and sharing power are all elements of a successful partnership and that the outcomes from the investment of time and energy to identify, set up, and manage a good partnership are worth the effort.




Participant at the UN HerStory editathon in Cairo, Egpyt

Partnerships come in all different forms, including universities, GLAMs, gender equity nonprofits, tech labs, national and international organizations. Some examples from our conversations:


If you'd like to learn more about how to set up successful partnerships with marginalized communities, we recommend this learning pattern on Centering Marginalized Knowledge created by Whose Knowledge?.