Movement Charter

The Movement Charter is a proposed document to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including to lay out a new Global Council for movement governance.

The Movement Charter Drafting Committee explains: what is the purpose of a 'movement charter'?

The Movement Charter is a Movement Strategy priority.

Current draftsEdit


AboutEdit

The Movement Strategy recommendation of “Ensure Equity in Decision-making” stated that a Movement Charter would:

  • Lay the values, principles and policy basis for Movement structures, including the roles and responsibilities of the Global Council, regional and thematic hubs, as well as other existing and new entities and decision-making bodies,
  • Set requirements and criteria for decisions and processes that are Movement-wide to be legitimate and trusted by all stakeholders, e.g. for:
    • Maintaining safe collaborative environments,
    • Ensuring Movement-wide revenue generation and distribution,
    • Giving a common direction on how resources should be allocated with appropriate accountability mechanisms.
    • Defining how communities work together and are accountable to each other.
    • Setting expectations for participation and the rights of participants.

TimelineEdit

This is a preliminary timeline. Although it broadly shows the steps involved in creating the Movement Charter, dates may be changed later on. Those changes will be potentially made to avoid rushing the process, especially when consulting with the community and other stakeholders, which is hard to limit within a fixed timeframe.

Period Step
November 2021 – January 2022
  • Setting up the support systems and internal processes of the Drafting Group
  • Research and information-gathering
February – October 2022
  • Research and information-gathering
  • Creating the initial draft of the Charter content in conversation with all stakeholders
November 2022 – January 2023 Call for review and amendments for all stakeholders
February – March 2023 Reflecting upon feedback and revising of MCDC text
April – May 2023 Community consultation on the Movement Charter Ratification Methodology
Drafting the next batch of chapters (see below)
June – July 2023 Second batch of the Movement Charter drafts published for review

The second batch will include the following chapters: Decision-making, Hubs, The Global Council and Roles & Responsibilities.

July – December 2023 Review for all stakeholders
Extra cycles: If all is well, we can move to ratification. If not, there will be another 3 month cycle for revising the text, 2 months for review, and so on.
January – March 2024 Ratification process for the Movement Charter
January – March 2024 Conversations regarding the set up of the next identified governance structure
April – June 2024 Set up and selection process of the next identified governance structure

Stay informed, get involvedEdit

ReferencesEdit