Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Iteration 1/Capacity Building/5

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it.

Most likely, new comments will not be taken into account by the new three Working Group members in their work of developing the final Recommendations. You are free however to continue discussing in the spirit of "discussing about Wikipedia is a work in progress". :)

Thanks for this set of suggestions, which seem to be on the right track. When I looked into capacity building for a local chapter, it became clear that non-profit work is a recognized career path, and that it takes considerable time and effort for amateurs to re-invent the wheel, even with donated legal and accounting services.

"... we believe a major risk is that the Wikimedia Movement will embrace the idea of resourcing capacity building and then proceed to diminish support for capacity building to move resources to other areas (such as technology, or centralized programs run by the WMF)."

Agreed. The capacity building piece needs to be an ongoing operation if it is to be successful. Even my local non-profit run by and for retirees hires a paid staff person for coordination during business hours, who stays in touch with the latest information, is available to answer questions, maintains the computer, the newsletter, and coordinates events and volunteers. A paid coordinator available during business hours made a big difference for my local Wikimedia group.

"For example, they may decide to pay for a centralized staff team to support a capacity building system for the movement, but do little to support the staff and volunteers engaged in these global efforts."

Another good point. The volunteers may not need or want full time positions, but volunteers will need some funds and equipment to do their work, technical support and information, access to appropriate training as needed to carry out their projects, staff assistance with the local administrative and evaluation tasks that volunteers avoid, etc.

"... we may also rely too much on partners and external experts who may try to implement capacity building without having enough familiarity with communities and the contexts they are working in ..."

Since legal requirements for non-profits and community organization are different all over the world, it will be important to help local groups find assistance from people with local knowledge. Oliveleaf4 (talk) 23:47, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback on this Oliveleaf4. In this way, we are trying to capture the need that volunteers have all over the world, yet the particulars are highly contextual. I like to think of this related to fund-raising (only as an example to illustrate this point) -- many affiliates need funds to do their activities, and while those funds all need to be generated, managed, and reported differently depending on context, the needs themselves remain. We are trying to be attentive to this interaction between needs across the Movement and how that is realized. --- FULBERT (talk) 13:10, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

thanks for this. we have added that point to recommendation 4 (org development) --Nicola Zeuner (WMDE) (talk) 17:32, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

From Catalan Salon

Ok to avoid paternalistic grant. If We link funding to success rate (...)