Movement roles/Recommendations/board

Recommendations to the Board

The movement roles working group makes the following recommendations to the Wikimedia Foundation board.

Movement Identity and Affiliation

We recommend that the board

• Support and comment on a movement charter laying out principles shared by the whole movement. We recommend that the Wikimedia Foundation invite all other Wikimedia movement groups to do the same.

• Recognize three new models of Wikimedia groups furthering our movement: incorporated "Partner Organizations", informal "Associations", and fellow-traveller "Affiliates".

• Appoint an Affiliations Committee to expand on the ChapCom model to support both chapters and new models. It would support new and developing groups, make recommendations to the Board regarding group status, and produce an annual review of the state of the movement.

Accountability and governance

We recommend that the board

• Define an annual planning task force to develop a planning cycle for the movement, reviewing movement goals reflectively and transparently. This task force would consider the movement's progress towards strategic goals, resource allocation, and tradeoffs; and recommend resource allocation to different Wikimedia groups.

• Endorse review mechanisms including self-assessment, peer review, and auditing, for affiliated groups. Support a pilot of peer review this winter, with engagement from the Foundation and Chapters, for review at the Board and Wikimedia Meetings in March 2012.

• Define minimum standards for accountability for affiliated groups.

• Define minimum standards for committees of the Board and Foundation.

The initial members of the affiliation committee and annual planning task force could be nominated by the working group, and would be appointed by the Board. Their first task would be to develop processes and guidelines for their work, to present to the Board for review within three months.