Wikimedia Summit 2024
Program
Registration & Participants
Logistics
Where and when? edit
August 2023 – March 2024
Online engagement process (documentation)
April 19-21, 2024
Wikimedia Summit 2024 in Berlin
Final Outputs of the Wikimedia Summit 2024 edit
Purpose 1 edit
Bringing people together to make significant progress on the design of the future Wikimedia governance.
This is a list of the final outputs generated by the on-site participating affiliates, ranked by the level of support received for each statement during the final poll. The Summit organizers hope that this will be a useful resource for affiliates (including those not represented at the event) to provide feedback on the final draft of the Movement Charter before April 30. The full documentation of the event will be published by the end of June 2024.
Note: Members of the Movement Charter Drafting Committee, and Wikimedia Foundation staff and Board of Trustees present at the Summit did not participate in the poll.
Deal-breakers edit
| Statements | Support | Oppose | No Response |
| 1. The Global Council must have directly managed staff, which must report directly to the Global Council Board. | 94 | 6 | 6 |
| 2. For resource distribution, there must be ‘full transparency’ added as a value at every level, for all parties, and to the criteria for decision-making. | 91 | 8 | 7 |
| 3. There must be a process for the Global Council to be held accountable to the movement. The Charter must address how the Global Council’s work is evaluated by stakeholders. | 87 | 4 | 15 |
| 4. There must be a clear separation of powers (e.g. decision-making and resource distribution) between the Global Council and Wikimedia Foundation. This must include a roadmap for transferring those powers over time, with an operational plan. | 86 | 7 | 13 |
| 5. There must be clarity about Global Council Assembly composition and how its representatives are elected in the Charter from the outset. | 83 | 10 | 13 |
| 6. There must be a more clearly expressed purpose of the Global Council which addresses strategy, finance and structure to improve decision-making in and for the movement. | 83 | 5 | 17 |
| 7. There must be a regional budget for grant making that is equitable. | 82 | 9 | 15 |
| 8. There must be an allowance for thematic organisations and chapters that cannot incorporate locally to operate with fiscal sponsors. | 81 | 12 | 13 |
| 9. The Movement Charter must make it clear that fundraising is desirable but always optional for all movement bodies including Hubs and Movement partners. | 81 | 6 | 19 |
| 10. We must have tangible commitments and actions to ensure that equity is central (such as training, peer support and capacity building), in order that the Movement embodies the world’s best examples of Human Rights. | 80 | 6 | 20 |
| 11. Hubs and affiliates must have a right to participate in developing core technology. | 78 | 12 | 16 |
| 12. The Global Council must be guaranteed an independent budget, separate from the Wikimedia Foundation’s general budget, which the Global Council handles autonomously. The Global Council’s budget has to be approved by its members. | 72 | 17 | 17 |
| 13. Supplementary documents must have official status. They can be amended by simple resolution of the Global Council or one of its bodies. | 70 | 15 | 21 |
| 14. The Global Council must be the highest decision-making body in the movement on strategy and budget. | 66 | 19 | 21 |
| 15. There must be a cap so that no gender has more than 70% representation in Hub governing bodies. | 64 | 26 | 16 |
| 16. There must be an increase in the baseline requirement to start a Hub. Minimum of three founding affiliate members. External organizations can join as a fourth founding member. | 63 | 26 | 17 |
| 17. The Charter must develop a statement on the ‘basic right’ of all movement bodies to fundraise using ALL methods in accordance with the fundraising policy to be developed by the Global Council. | 58 | 15 | 33 |
| 18. We must move the requirement for Hubs and Affiliates to participate in collaborations and partnerships to become only a right. | 57 | 15 | 34 |
| 19. Processes must ensure that unorganized volunteers are significantly represented in regional batches of seats. | 56 | 31 | 18 |
| 20. There must be clear differentiation of core and non-core spendings: Global Council must decide the non-core part, and governance structure of core spending must be evolved. | 55 | 12 | 39 |
| 21. Processes must ensure that at least 40% of Global Council Assembly seats are occupied by non-male. | 51 | 38 | 17 |
Suggestions for improvements edit
| Statements | Support | Oppose | No response |
| 22. We should expand the glossary with collectively negotiated definitions of English-specific terms, prior to translation - e.g. ‘capacity building’, ‘equity’ and ‘core technology’ - ensuring the involvement of other language speakers in this process. | 91 | 2 | 13 |
| 23. There could be an outline for mechanisms to clarify and ensure accountability of Global Council Board and Global Council Staff. | 84 | 3 | 18 |
| 24. There could be an improvement in wording to clarify that the main purpose of a hub is for aligned affiliates to pool resources or access more resources, such as knowledge, experiences, money and so on. | 83 | 9 | 14 |
| 25. Hubs should be given appropriate resources in order to deliver their responsibilities around peer support and peer learning. | 83 | 11 | 12 |
| 26. Add capacity building methods for fundraising (training, evaluation, tech tools, solidarity mechanisms, knowledge transparency). | 82 | 8 | 16 |
| 27. Add ‘banner fundraising’ to the Revenue Generation glossary. | 75 | 8 | 22 |
| 28. The Charter should specify that the Global Council technology advancement committee should solicit input from Hubs and Affiliates in order to provide advice to WMF and other tech providers. | 75 | 17 | 14 |
| 29. The Charter should strive to ensure equity and fairness in fiscal sponsorship for hubs + affiliates. | 74 | 8 | 24 |
| 30. Full transparency in resource distribution could include: (a) Policy; (b) Criteria; (c) Evaluation; and (d) Safety & Vetting. | 70 | 11 | 25 |
| 31. There should be a dot point on movement organization rights and responsibilities, including: “Working in service of the Wikimedia movement with care & solidarity”. | 68 | 6 | 32 |
| 32. There could be thematic grant budgets to be distributed by priorities set by Global Council. | 66 | 16 | 24 |
| 33. There could be an ombuds committee. Wikimedia Foundation board community seats could be filled by Global Council representatives. Two-thirds of the Global Council can veto Wikimedia Foundation decisions that affect the whole movement. | 63 | 17 | 26 |
| 34. Clarify whether Affiliates can charge membership fees. | 53 | 30 | 23 |
| 35. User Groups with full-time, Wikimedia Foundation-funded staff could be formalized as thematic Orgs or Chapters | 48 | 34 | 24 |
| 36. The Global Council Assembly’s seats should be equally divided between 8 regions and 1 thematic batch, e.g. 11 seats from each, which would give us a GCA with 99 seats. Each voter selects one region or the thematic batch to cast their vote in. | 47 | 23 | 36 |
| 37. The existing section of “Revenue generation” should be moved out of supplement into Charter (move from Sandbox to Mainspace). | 43 | 12 | 51 |
Considerations beyond the Charter edit
| Statements | Support | Oppose | No response |
| 38. All movement bodies should create a culture of transparency in all fundraising. | 87 | 11 | 8 |
| 39. There should be research and discussions regarding Global Council election / selection strategies and criteria (e.g. diversity of perspectives, skills etc. / Participatory Budgeting Governance Document). | 83 | 5 | 18 |
| 40. There could be a budget to include free and open source software and tools development for example, on governance, translations, training. | 80 | 3 | 23 |
| 41. The charter should be evergreen (don’t address things that need constant amendment). There should be a separate operational plan for changing things and a transition plan for handing over responsibilities of the Wikimedia Foundation. | 79 | 8 | 19 |
| 42. All Banner Fundraisers should create opt-ins for donors to receive communication from relevant movement bodies. | 72 | 5 | 29 |
| 43. The supplementary material for Future Affiliate Landscape could encourage groups of higher tiers to support the growth of other tiers through peer support. | 70 | 6 | 30 |
| 44. The Global Council’s first task is to work with the Wikimedia Foundation on creating a plan to become the final decision-making body on all resource distribution. | 67 | 20 | 19 |
| 45. There must be mechanisms to protect staff from internal / external lobbying. | 66 | 10 | 29 |
| 46. All movement bodies should coordinate fundraising to avoid competition. | 66 | 15 | 25 |
Purpose 2 edit
Discussing the Future of global affiliate gatherings, because Wikimedia Summit 2024 will be the last of its kind.
A group of affiliates has made a commitment to designing a new concept for future affiliate gatherings (the working assumption is that the next affiliate gathering will take place in 2026):
- Rajene Hardeman, Wikimedia New York City
- Jeffrey (User:FULBERT), Affiliations Committee
- Nanor (User:NANöR), Wiki World Heritage
- Olushola, Wikimedia Community Nigeria
- Aafi, Deoband Community Wikimedia
- Emmanuelle Guebo, Wikimedia Community Côte d'Ivoire
- Sadik Shahadu, Dagbani Wikimedians User Group
- Sandra Rientjes, Wikimedia Nederland
