Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration 1/Resource Allocation/H

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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 H: Allocate resources to new types of partners/organisations (essential infrastructure of the free knowledge ecosystem)

Q 1 What is your Recommendation?

We will allocate resources to groups outside of Wikimedia contributors and Wikimedia affiliates - so that “anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us”. The strategic direction is clear that we must be able to provide ‘essential infrastructure’ to other free-knowledge activities beyond those specifically associated to Wikimedia. This means that we must create a method to allocate resources to non-Wikimedia activities/projects.

We will allocate resources to developing support for effective partnership development - technical tools, documentation, capacity building for partnership leads.

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

• That Wikimedia is one of the most financially stable/secure and flexible organisations in the free knowledge movement and is able to support others.
• That there are many other organisations doing activities that we are not doing (and not planning to do), but that we think are important.
• That not everything in the free knowledge ecosystem can/should ‘live’ on a Wikimedia website or be ‘owned’ by wikimedia volunteers.

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

• We are meant to be supporting the whole knowledge ecosystem. This means providing a service to support partner organisations who work towards our vision - e.g. funding their work or funding development of tools that can be used by them.
• We need to support places ‘outside of Wikimedia projects’ that hold knowledge and that people are accessing.

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

It will be clearer and easier for external partners to get resources. Partnership tools (e.g. GLAM tools) will be well supported.

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

External partners

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

Resources going to external partners, diverted from existing movement players.

Q 4-2 What could be done to mitigate this risk?

Perhaps that’s simply the risk we are happy to take, given the new strategic direction.

Q 5 How does this Recommendation relate to the current structural reality? Does it keep something, change something, stop something, or add something new?

It builds on the current situation, making it clearer to potential partner organisations why we’d want to work with them/resource them. It calls on more resources for supporting partnerships.

Q 6-1 Does this Recommendation connect or depend on another of your Recommendations? If yes, how?

How we fund partners will depend on our principles, and how the decision making will be done - it cuts across most of our other recommendations.

Q 6-2 Does this Recommendation connect or relate to your Scoping Questions? If yes, how?

It addresses question 5. Who should be the recipients of resources? How do we determine the boundaries, who or what is included? Would the rules be different for Wikimedia movement vs entities/communities from broader ecosystem of Free Knowledge?

Q 7 How is this Recommendation connected to other WGs?

• Partnerships

Q 8 Do you have anything to add that was not covered with previous questions, yet essential for understanding the recommendation?

The group is discussing whether this should be folded into other existing recommendations (the discussion below; would like to keep a record of it for now)