Movement Strategy/Recommendations/Iteration 2/Partnerships/10

Overview

Recommendations

Implementation

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FAQ

This is an archive for draft recommendations. Visit Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations to read the final recommendations.

Recommendation 10: Support the skills development of people working on partnerships

Q 1 What is your Recommendation?

Successful partnerships require a great deal of knowledge, skills and experience. Reaching our 2030 strategic direction will require more people working on more partnerships. This will require an easier skills development process which assist individual volunteers, affiliates and partners grow their capacity and learn from existing experience. This could include but not be limited to the development of capacity building resources which are usable by all.

Q 2-1 What assumptions are you making about the future context that led you to make this Recommendation?

We are assuming that the future will not differ from the present state, where existing Wikimedians are in need for skills development to help them scale their work, learn new skills and tools etc, and newcomers will continue joining us, and will need help to gain relevant skills to develop partnerships in their own region, language and context. We must support those efforts through providing proper capacity building tools for them.

Trying to apply the same partnership models in all geographical areas does not work and we have to consider the cultural diversity and the different realities of different countries. This can be done be empowering people to work on locally relevant partnerships.

Q 2-2 What is your thinking and logic behind this recommendation?

Volunteers, affiliates and partners are constantly evolving their work, with new tools being developed and deployed to assist the work around partnerships. In addition, newcomes join our movement and find themselves asking the same questions and needing the same type of assistance (though its content may differ from one place to the other). We should be assisting both veterans and newcomers scale their work and build their capacity by providing the resources they could use.

This could include capacity building resources for newcomes on topics such as: “How to talk to partners”, “How to start a partnership in a developing country?”, “How to cultivate a successful partnership without internet access?”, “How to create a successful offline event?”, “How to measure your success?” and “How to report back on your project and curate the knowledge gained?”. As well as training modules for existing / new tools.

Q 3-1 What will change because of the Recommendation?

Our volunteers, affiliates and partners will have the skills they need to fulfill their potential.

Q 3-2 Who specifically will be influenced by this recommendation?

What is the key target group for the recommendation, e.g. user groups, chapters, WMF, project communities, external partners, individual editors, etc.

All of the above.

Q 4-1 Could this Recommendation have a negative impact/change?

That people think there is a formula to partnerships and use the resources that are created without question and without looking for innovation.

Q 5 How does this Recommendation relate to the current structural reality?

Currently, there is no systematic means for capacity building. Volunteers sometimes create tutorials or other documentations, but they are not done professionally, not maintained, hard to find and scattered all over the web. One has to be “well connected” to hear about a new tool and learn how it works, not to mention someone new trying to learn the complexity that is the Wikimedia movement.