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Lila Tretikov: the WMF needs your input in developing our strategy

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By Lila Tretikov

In 2010, the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation collaborated to develop a five-year strategy for the movement. The final strategy focused on major priorities such as increasing the number and diversity of contributors to our movement, the amount and quality of knowledge in our projects, and the number of people we reached every month. Last year, in anticipation of the end of those five years, the Foundation began reviewing our progress. In 2015 the movement reached a long-standing goal of stabilizing the overall number of highly active editors on the projects. In other areas, such as increasing Global South contributors and improving gender diversity, more progress is needed. Overall, the movement targets adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees in 2010 have not been reached yet and are still applicable today. Therefore this year, we decided to focus on the role of the Foundation in supporting our movement and our vision, which we see as conceptual triangle of reach, communities, and knowledge:

Reach: Reaching every human being
Communities: Empowering more people from all walks of life to share in knowledge
Knowledge: Growing the quality and depth of all free knowledge

While these provide a framework for our overarching goals, the Foundation needs a practical plan that will:

Outline how we will address these three key areas
Prepare us for changes in the overall landscape of free knowledge
Guide our activities in cooperation with Wikimedia’s communities, projects, and affiliates
Keep the Wikimedia Foundation on track and accountable with clear and achievable goals
Provide direction for the next 2–3 years

To make our plan as effective as possible, we will limit the scope of this strategic planning to the Foundation as one global organization within the broader movement. We are inspired by the efforts of the communities and Wikimedia movement affiliates, which support overall movement goals through independent local strategies tailored to their own strengths, capacities, and operating environments. Last week, we launched a community discussion about this planning, focused on the topics of reach, communities, and knowledge. Building on the outcomes of our spring 2015 consultation with readers and editors, we have identified a number of approaches that could guide the the Foundation’s future plan and actions. Today, we’re asking for your input and contributions. The community is the primary catalyst of the movement, and the success, health, and participation of contributors is central to any Wikimedia Foundation strategy. Your thoughts will be essential in informing how the Foundation can best contribute to the Wikimedia movement going forward. The consultation will be open until February 15. We invite you to participate and look forward to your thoughts.

Lila Tretikov is the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

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29 June
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