Wikimedia Deutschland/Movement Report 2018

Overview

Volunteers

Software Development

Conditions for Free Knowledge

Wikimedia Movement

Finances

*** Below (and on the subpages) you can find Wikimedia Deutschland’s 2018 report to the Wikimedia Movement. As a Wikimedia organization, we are committed to sharing annually what we do and what we learn, being accountable for financial resources, and checking progress and impact based on our goals and objectives for the year 2018. ***

Organization

WMDE’s ED and board: Abraham, Peter, Harald, Marcus, Helene, Sabria, Daniel, Lukas, Kilian, Mirjam (from left to right).

Wikimedia Deutschland is looking back on a busy 2018. Our staff grew slightly to 116, our membership to over 65,000. In late 2017, the WMDE Board had added two new members through the process of ‘co-optation’ (as opposed to election), lending crucial expertise in areas of accounting and technology. These new members spent a year actively serving on the board and on committees. On 1 December 2018, the WMDE 23rd General Assembly elected a new board, with three new members joining, and four current members being re-elected for another two-year term. Lukas Mezger took over the role of board chair from longtime chairman Tim-Moritz Hector, who had served for the past five years. The co-optation process for two board members was continued in 2019.

The organizational chart was simplified, resulting in three departments: Central Services, Programs and Software Development. Programs includes the Science, Education and Culture, as well as the Volunteer Support and Advocacy teams.

The board reaffirmed WMDE’s commitment to commission staff to support and co-lead the movement strategy process and approved the respective agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation.

We began an organizational strategy development journey “Designing the Future” (in German: “Zukunftsprozess”), by developing new formats and artefacts, including trend/environmental analyses. We then proceeded to identifying, discussing and prioritizing strategic options that will guide program work and annual planning for the next few years. This process recognizes the movement strategic direction, considering how Wikimedia Deutschland can strengthen knowledge as a service and knowledge equity for the German-speaking and the international communities that we support. The plan for 2019 was then based on the outcomes of this strategy development journey.

• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": WMDE staff workshop impressions
• 
  "Designing the future": Board workshop

Programs

Wikimedia Deutschland's Plan and Budget 2018  was approved by WMDE's Supervisory Board and WMDE’s General Assembly on November 18, 2017. As per this Annual Plan 2018, we were focusing our programmatic work on three fields of action:

Fields of Action in Wikimedia Deutschland's Annual Plan 2018

In this report, we are describing the work of Wikimedia Deutschland in these three fields of action during the year 2018. Wikimedia Deutschland’s work in previous years and more detailed descriptions of past programs and initiatives can be found in previous reports and plans. A new plan 2019 was developed in the fall of 2018, keeping the fields of actions from previous years, but expanding our strategic directions for each of these fields and making sure our planning follows a more impact-oriented, multi-year approach.