Earlier today I sent an e-mail to the Wikimedia Foundation’s mailing lists, letting people there know that I’m planning to leave my position as Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The purpose of this post is to get the news out to a somewhat larger group.

Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner

I will not be leaving right away. The Board and I anticipate it’ll take at least six months to recruit my successor, and I’ll be fully engaged as Executive Director all through the recruitment process and until we have a new person in place. And so, this note is not goodbye — not yet.

I want to say that making the decision to leave hasn’t been easy. It comes down to two things.

First, the movement and the Wikimedia Foundation are in a strong place now. When I joined, the Foundation was tiny and not yet able to reliably support the projects. Today we’re healthy, thriving, and a competent partner to the global network of Wikimedia volunteers. If that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t feel okay to leave, and in that sense, my leaving is very much a vote of confidence in our Board and executive team and staff. I know they will ably steer the Foundation through the years ahead, and I’m confident the Board will appoint a strong successor to me.

I feel that although we’re in good shape, with a promising future, the same is not true for the internet itself. (This is thing number two.) Increasingly, I’m finding myself uncomfortable about how the internet’s developing, who’s influencing its development, and who is not. Last year we at Wikimedia raised an alarm about SOPA/PIPA, and now CISPA is back. Wikipedia has experienced censorship at the hands of industry groups and governments, and we are –increasingly, I think– seeing important decisions made by unaccountable, non-transparent corporate players, a shift from the open web to mobile walled gardens, and a shift from the production-based internet to one that’s consumption-based. There are many organizations and individuals advocating for the public interest online — what’s good for ordinary people — but other interests are more numerous and powerful than they are. I want that to change. And that’s what I want to do next.

I’ve always aimed to make the biggest contribution I can to the general public good. Today, this is pulling me towards a new and different role, one very much aligned with Wikimedia values and informed by my experiences here, and with the purpose of amplifying the voices of people advocating for the free and open internet. I don’t know exactly what this will look like — I might write a book, or start a non-profit, or work in partnership with something that already exists. Either way, I strongly believe this is what I need to do.

I feel an increasing sense of urgency about this. That said, I also feel a strong sense of responsibility (and love!) for the Wikimedia movement, and so I’ve agreed with the Board that I’ll stay on as Executive Director until we have my successor in place. That’ll take some time — likely, at least six months.

Until then, nothing changes. The Wikimedia Foundation has lots of work to do, and you can expect me to focus fully on it until we have a new Executive Director.

To that end, the Board has appointed a Transition Team that consists of Wikimedia Foundation Chair of the Board of Trustees Kat Walsh, Vice-Chair Jan-Bart de Vreede, Chair of the Board’s governance committee Alice Wiegand, me, my deputy and the Wikimedia Foundation’s Vice-President of Product and Engineering Erik Moeller, Geoff Brigham our General Counsel, and Gayle Karen Young, our Chief Talent and Culture Officer. The Transition Team will be chaired by Jan-Bart, and I will facilitate its work on his behalf.

We haven’t yet defined exactly what the process will look like, although we do know that we will be engaging a search firm to help us. The Transition Team will be meeting informally over the next several weeks, and will have our first face-to-face meeting in mid-April. People who are potentially interested in the Executive Director role should keep an eye on the Foundation’s jobs page, where the position description and contact information for the recruiter will be posted.

Being the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation has been enormously rewarding for me, and I have loved my time with you all. There are many people I am going to want to thank, when we are closer to the date when I’ll be stepping down. For now though, I’ll just say that I love working with you all, I’m enormously proud of everything the Wikimedia movement is accomplishing, and I’m looking forward to our next six months together. I will, of course, always be your friend and advocate.

Thanks,

Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Later today, Wikimedia’s newly established Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) will be publishing its first-ever recommendations to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees about how to distribute money to organizations in the Wikimedia movement. This is an important step for the movement, marking a significant devolution of power to the global volunteer community of Wikimedians, in which the FDC will give away as much as $11.2 million in 2012-13. We wanted to take a moment today to reflect on why the Board chose to create the FDC, and what has happened over the past seven and a half months since we made that decision.

First, a little background. The goal of the FDC is to help the Board make decisions about how to effectively allocate movement funds to achieve Wikimedia’s mission, vision, and strategy. Last March in Berlin, we called for its creation.

We did it because we believe that a global body of committed, experienced Wikimedians, supported by a well-designed process and a dedicated staff, will be perceived by the Wikimedia community as fair, transparent and accountable, and will be able to make decisions about where the Wikimedia movement should spend its money to accomplish three important goals:

• Ensure the money is put towards activities aligned with the Wikimedia movement’s strategic objectives;
• Ensure the money is spent effectively, supporting greater impact and enabling us to make faster progress towards our goals;
• Gather and publish information that helps anyone interested to get smarter faster about which programmatic activities are effective, and why.

The FDC process was set into motion following a Board resolution in March 2012, which said that going forward “all funds raised via the Wikimedia project sites will be distributed via the recommendations of the FDC, with the exception of Wikimedia Foundation core operating costs and the operating reserve.”

After an invitation to serve on the inaugural FDC was posted on all the Wikimedia projects, 43 people self-nominated to serve on the inaugural FDC, and of those, the Board selected seven.

They are from seven different countries, and have worked on Wikipedia, Commons, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Meta-Wiki. They are or have been editors, patrollers, bureaucrats, administrators, stewards, strategy project contributors, and members of the Ombudsman Commission, the English Wikipedia ArbCom, the Funds Dissemination Advisory Group, the Chapters committee, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Audit committee and the Grant Advisory committee. They have also founded or have been Board members of five chapters: Bangladesh, India, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Among them all, they speak 13 languages. They were chosen for their experience within and outside of the Wikimedia movement, including familiarity with grantmaking, finance and project management. Both of us (Jan-Bart and Patricio) sat on the committee as non-voting observers on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.

Since the launch of the FDC, they’ve had weekly orientation meetings and continuous communication via Skype, IRC and mailing lists, leading to the committee’s first in-person meeting at the end of October.

On August 1st, a public FDC wiki page was established, upon which fund-seeking Wikimedia organizations were invited to submit their first proposals in public and on the wiki. On October 1 the Wikimedia Foundation and eleven Wikimedia chapters submitted twelve proposals for the first round of funding.

The process allowed everyone in the community the chance to examine and comment on the proposals, alongside the assessments by the FDC supporting staff at WMF and according to pre-defined, public criteria that are the same for each applying organization (the community-written newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” summarized the criteria and resulting assessments in an overview article).

Why is this important? Because it’s a lot of money. In this fiscal year, the FDC will make recommendations for how to give out as much as $11.2 million. To give that responsibility to a volunteer-driven body is a major step towards increased transparency, accountability, fairness and open collaboration in the Wikimedia movement.

We’d like to thank the people who have spent so much time making this whole process possible: the Wikimedia Foundation staff members who have been supporting the process, and the FDC members themselves. We believe this process shows great promise thus far, and we are excited to be getting the FDC’s recommendations later today.

If you have questions or wish to share feedback, you can do so on the FDC portal. We encourage you to read more about the process, and to get involved with it. All the proposals are open to your questions and feedback: we would welcome your contributions.

Jan-Bart de Vreede, Vice Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees,
Patricio Lorente, Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

As happens each year at Wikimania, the annual gathering of Wikimedia contributors from around the world, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees appoints its officers for the coming year. This year’s appointments were announced at Wikimania 2012 in Washington, DC, where more than 1000 participants from 87 countries have joined to celebrate the Wikimedia movement.

For 2012-13, Kat Walsh was appointed Chair of the Board, Jan-Bart de Vreede was re-appointed Vice-chair, Stuart West was re-appointed as Board Treasurer and Bishaka Dhatta becomes Board Secretary. The Board expressed its great thanks to former Board Chair Ting Chen, as well as outgoing trustees Arne Klempert and Phoebe Ayers. Their leadership has strengthened and nurtured the growth of the worldwide Wikimedia movement.

“I am honored to have been chosen to chair the Board in the coming year,” said Walsh. “I want to thank Ting Chen for his service in his period as Chair, and I look forward to working closely with him as I take on this new role. It’s an important time in the history of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement: I look forward to leading the Board in the year ahead.”

“It’s been a pleasure to serve the Wikimedia movement as Chair of the Board of Trustees,” said Chen. “Since I took on the role of Chair we’ve worked with our global community and the Foundation to introduce an ambitious five-year plan to increase the diversity and overall population of our community, while also establishing long-term financial plans to ensure sustainability for our movement and our projects. Our Board has matured and strengthened, and I’m proud of the tireless work of my colleagues.”

There are 10 seats on the Board and according to the Foundation’s bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia community, two are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, the Founder seat is held by Jimmy Wales, and four members are appointed by the Board itself to provide additional, specific expertise.

The Foundation is happy to welcome its two newest members of the Board, Patricio Lorente and Alice Wiegand, who were elected to the Board by the Wikimedia chapters in May 2012. The chapters seat selection process was created in April 2008, in order to demonstrate the Board’s commitment to the chapters as an important player in the fulfillment of the Wikimedia mission.

Patricio Lorente is the former President of Wikimedia Argentina. He has worked as Project Manager of the Association for Social Development in Argentina and he currently serves as General ProSecretary of the National University of La Plata. Alice Wiegand is personal aide to the Mayor of Meerbusch, Germany. She has recently begun her Master’s studies in Public Policy and Governance.

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for 2012-2013:

• Kat Walsh, Board Chair (current term until July 2013)
• Jan-Bart de Vreede, Vice Chair (current term until December 2013)
• Stuart West, Treasurer (current term until December 2013)
• Bishakha Datta, Secretary (current term until December 2012)
• Jimmy Wales, Founder
• Ting Chen (current term until 2013)
• Samuel Klein (current term until July 2013)
• Matt Halprin (current term until December 2012)
• Alice Wiegand (current term until July 2014)
• Patricio Lorente (current term until July 2014)

Matthew Roth, Global Communications Manager

Group photo of participants at Wikimedia Conference 2012

Wikimedia Conference 2012 – the annual gathering of the various organizations of the global Wikimedia movement – took place in Berlin recently, hosted by the German Wikimedia chapter. The conference produced several important milestones in the continuing maturing process of the Wikimedia movement on its path towards a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

There were approximately 120 participants, including representatives for Wikimedia chapters around the world, the Board of Trustees, various employees of the Wikimedia Foundation, and several working groups (such as organizers of the annual photo contest “Wiki Loves Monuments”). Check out the “state of the chapters” presentations on Commons, Meta-Wiki (I, II, III) and YouTube, where each chapter gave a summary of its activities during the past year.

In an important step, 25 chapters have signed the Berlin Agreement declaring their intention to join the “Wikimedia Chapters Association” (WCA), formally initiating the founding of this new body (with seven other chapters expressing their support). The WCA will be an umbrella organization for chapters that articulates their common interests, facilitates knowledge exchange and chapters’ organizational development, and promotes standards of accountability and participation among its members. Work is still in progress for selecting a Secretary-General for the new body and choosing its place of registration, preparing for the association’s first meeting at July’s Wikimania conference in Washington D.C. But hopes are high that the WCA will make a huge contribution to help chapters develop, and lift the relationship between WMF and chapters to a new level. The Foundation congratulates the chapters and looks forward to working with the new organization.

Also in Berlin, the Wikimedia Board of Trustees passed several resolutions on fundraising, funds dissemination, and models of affiliation with the Wikimedia movement (“movement roles”), recognizing the increasing diversity of groups contributing to the movement.

Tilman Bayer, Movement Communications

Since the WMF Strategic Plan was released this past March, the realization of an ambitious set of goals surrounding Wikipedia’s progress over the next five years has been widely discussed among our community. We’ve now moved into the second of the five year strategic plan we’re pleased to share the Foundation’s 2011-12 Annual Plan, which our Board of Trustees approved on June 28, 2011.

The Annual Plan provides an overview of the Foundation’s main work through the fiscal year (July 1 through June 30), most importantly highlighting our efforts on diversifying and expanding the Wikimedia project editor/contributor community, growing our presence in India and Brazil, increasing our reach via mobile devices, and ensuring our financial sustainability.

We have seven big targets for the fiscal year.  Highlighting two:

1. We want to increase Wikipedia page views on mobile devices to two billion by June 2012, up from 726 million in March 2011. This will mean a big emphasis on partnerships with mobile service providers and technological improvements to our mobile Wikipedia gateway. Mobile is crucial for engaging online users, particularly those from the Global South, where mobile devices are already the primary method of accessing the Internet, and for some, the only method available to edit.

2. The declining participation of seasoned Wikipedia editors must be reversed. We’re aiming to increase the number of active editors from just under 90K in March 2011, to 95K by June 2012. Our community has been continuously engaged in this conversation for several years, and the Foundation has made the decline a major focus of our work over the coming years. Proactive steps must be taken to reinforce Wikipedia’s core community of strong editors, and we must continue our research into the causes and solutions for the decline.

Our other major targets in this fiscal year:

3. Increase the number of Global South active editors from approximately 15.7K in March 2011, to 19K in June 2012.
4. Increase the number of female editors from approximately 9K in spring 2011 to 11.7K in spring 2012.
5. Develop the Visual Editor. First opt-in user-facing production usage by December 2011, and first small wiki default deployment by June 2012.
6. Develop a sandbox for research, prototyping, and tools development, with initial hardware build-out and first project access by December 2011, and full access for all qualifying individuals/projects by June 2012.
7. Increase read uptime from 99.8% in 2010-11 to 99.85% in 2011-12.

The full plan includes more details and footnotes related to these goals. We’ve also posted detailed questions and answers on the annual plan hosted on the Foundation wiki.

In addition to the Foundation’s monthly report card meetings, where progress on these goals will be regularly reported, we’ll also be blogging about our efforts throughout the year.  Get involved if you’d like to help.  Join our projects and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge!

Jay Walsh, Communications

Today we’ve shared some exciting news about the newest member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Bishakha Datta. The Wikimedia Board of Trustees is the governing body that oversees the Wikimedia Foundation, the US-based non-profit that operates Wikipedia.

Bishakha is the first Board member to join us who lives and works in India.  She brings a wealth of experience about outreach and empowerment among rural populations around the world, and as a journalist and filmmaker she also brings a deep awareness of media and communication to the Board.  And like so many of our supporters she’s got some big views on Wikipedia:

“Wikipedia is groundbreaking in so many ways. It’s an encyclopedia collaboratively created by hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the world, and has become a primary point of reference. It’s a free knowledge resource, not just in English, but in so many of the languages that we speak everyday, and it’s a hybrid editing model where we both produce and consume reliable, authoritative and credible information.”

With Bishakha’s appointment we now have a full Board membership of ten.

Welcome aboard, Bishakha!

Jay Walsh, Communications

Earlier in May Jan-Bart de Vreede, Vice Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees announced the newest appointment to our Board.  Arne Klempert is the very first chapter-appointed member of our board.  The Wikipedia Signpost also covered the announcement. Welcome Arne!

The Board also announced that our current chair, Michael Snow, has been re-appointed to his post.  Both posts run until July 2010. More details from Jan-Bart’s note to the Foundation-l mailing list below.

In April 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation gave the chapters a role in the board member selection process, by asking them to select candidates to fill two of the Trustees seats.

The Wikimedia chapters have selected Arne Klempert as a new candidate. In agreement with the board, they have decided to propose Michael Snow as their second candidate, with the intent of confirming his position on the Board of Trustees as occupying one of the chapters selected Board seats. The chapters are glad that both candidates have accepted their selection and hope that the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation will be able to formalize this as soon as possible. The selection of those candidates comes after many heated but fruitful discussions and represents the chapters’ will to introduce novelty and ensure continuity in the board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Arne Klempert is Head of Digital Communications at IFOK, a German consulting firm. He is one of the founders of the German chapter. He was involved in the development of Wikimedia Deutschland first as vice-chair and then as Executive Director, until September 2008.

Michael Snow has served on the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation since December 2007, and was chosen in July 2008 to be its chair. Michael is a lawyer and has been involved in Wikimedia for many years as Head of the Wikimedia Communications Committee and creator of the Wikipedia Signpost, amongst other roles.

The chapters are confident that this selection brings quality, diversity and stability to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation, and that both candidates will capably handle the responsibilities of being Trustees. Both candidates are selected to fill a term that ends in July 2010.

Please join me in welcoming Arne to the board and congratulating Michael on his re-appointment. On behalf of the board I would like to thank all those involved in facilitating the process and making these appointments possible.

Jan-Bart de Vreede
Vice Chair Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Congratulations to both Arne and Michael, and to the chapters for putting forth their first Board appointments.

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

Among the many major activities and goings-on at this year’s Wikimania was a decision from our Board of Trustees about new appointments to the WMF Board.

In a press release sent out yesterday, Jan-Bart De Vreede, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees announced that fellow Board member Michael Snow will assume the role of Chair of the Board of Trustees.  Long-standing Board member Florence Devouard stepped down as Board Chair, however we are very pleased to announce that she will assume a seat on the Wikimedia Advisory Board.

The Board also took the opportunity to formally welcome new Board member Ting Chen, who was elected by the Wikimedia community during the recent Board seat election.

Welcome Ting Chen, and congratulations Michael!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications<

The voting in the 2008 elections for the Board of Trustees is currently being held through June 22.  This summer’s election is to fill the seat currently held by Board Chairperson Florence Devouard.   This is the first Trustee election to take place under the Board restructuring approved by the board in April 2008.

Why are we having board elections?  The Wikimedia Foundation is a unique entity in the fact that our projects are managed by a great number of people around the world, volunteers who create and edit the content on the Wikipedia sites and our other projects like Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons.  The volunteers are members of related project communities from which members have agglomerated to form a meta-community of individuals interested in the Wikimedia Foundation and having a voice to participate in determining how Wikimedia fulfill its mission both short-term and in the years to come.

Who is eligible to vote?  The 2008 Board Election Committee has provided guidelines as to which members of the community are eligible to vote in the election.  It effectively covers anyone who is presently active on at least one Wikimedia project, has a history with some edit contributions.

Is Florence Devouard running again?  It saddens me to say that Florence has chosen to pursue other endeavors in lieu of returning to her position as Chairperson of the Wikimedia Foundation.  Florence has overseen the board during a period of rapid growth and maturity of the Wikimedia Foundation and left a legacy that will be difficult for subsequent board to follow.

Is the candidate running for board chairperson?  Although Florence is vacating the position, the election is only for a board seat.  The board then determines among them who they want to perform the duties of Chair.

Who is running for office?  Candidate presentations are located here.  Each candidate for board has provided personal details and a statement as to how they believe they can benefit the Wikimedia Foundation.  There is also a question and answer section where community members have asked candidates a number of questions pertaining to how they see their roles as board members.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator<