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 drafts edit


About edit

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.

Timeline edit

This is a dynamic 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 First batch of the Movement Charter draft chapters (Preamble, Values & Principles, and Roles & Responsibilities statement of intent) published
November 2022 – January 2023 Community consultation on the first batch of the Movement Charter draft chapters
February – March 2023 Reflecting upon feedback and revising of the first batch of the draft chapters
April 2023 Community consultation on the Movement Charter ratification methodology proposal
April – July 2023 Drafting the second batch of Movement Charter draft chapters
July 2023 Second batch of the Movement Charter draft chapters (Hubs, Global Council, Roles & Responsibilities and Glossary) published
July – September 2023 Community consultation on the second batch of the Movement Charter draft chapters
September – December 2023 MCDC consultations at local events
November 2023 – March 2024 Review of feedback and second iteration drafting of full Movement Charter
early April 2024 First version of the full Movement Charter published
April 2024 Community consultation of the full charter draft
May 2024 Preparation for the ratification vote of the Movement Charter
June 2024 Ratification vote for the Movement Charter

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