Wikipedia:Education Program/Structure proposals/Pine proposal


 * Please list your name and/or Wikipedia username.

user:Pine and user:GreenPine. I started as GreenPine and later usurped Pine. Pine is my primary account now.


 * What idea(s) do you have for what the new structure for the U.S. and Canada Wikipedia Education Programs could look like?

This is a complicated question because we seem to be trying to do several important things simultaneously. We are trying to maintain continuity with the successes and good people that are involved with the program, we are trying to study the program's successes and problems such as the project at Ambassadors/Research to understand what we can do better, and we are trying to create a new and sustainable organizational structure that will handle fundraising and operational staffing needs.

A "normal" regional organization for Wikimedia is a Wikimedia chapter, but the United States chapters cover only limited portions of the country, and Canada has a separate chapter, so we can't easily transfer the education program into a single preexisting regional structure.

I tentatively agree with other proposals that a new nonprofit organization may be the best legal structure for the North American education programs. I am not specifying numbers or membership for a board of the new organization because my opinion isn't firm at this time. Another possibility might be that there would be a semi-independent "department" of WMF for the North American WEP programs which would have some independent fundraising and governance but could take advantage of WMF's existing staff and expertise in areas like law, accounting, insurance, travel, and fundraising, and would have some cost-sharing agreement with WMF about how the parent organization is reimbursed from the North American WEP "department" budget.


 * How would you ensure this new structure involves all key stakeholders, including academics and the Wikipedia community?

I hope that a new nonprofit for the North American WEP programs would have interested and competent university faculty or staff, Wikipedian volunteer ambassadors, a WMF representative, at least one representative from a North American established chapter, and individuals with business or nonprofit expertise on its board. The details of how that would work can be discussed by the Working Group. A possibility is that it may be better to have two boards, one that has final authority on legal and fundraising issues and a second board that works in advisory role and has significant on-wiki experience with the WEP program and could involve students, ambassadors, chapter representatives, and other individuals whose Wikipedia experiences are valuable to the program but who don't necessarily have legal, business, or fundraising experience. Unlike the Board of Directors, the Board of Advisers could have a more flexible number of members and I think that the flexibility would be advantageous as volunteers come and go.

If the new organization becomes a semi-independent "department" at WMF, there will be fewer legal and accounting issues to deal with and the "department" may be more cost-effective than a separate nonprofit would be, but there may be complicated issues with "turf", transfers of funds, and service level agreements between WMF and the "department." I think that the dual-board arrangement might be a good arrangement for a separate "department" although the "board of directors" for the "department" might be smaller because there may be fewer legal and business issues, but I think that a diverse "board of advisers" similar to what I described above would be very useful.


 * What are potential pitfalls of this approach?

All options that I described have challenges.
 * Setting up a new nonprofit will require a significant amount of time by staff and/or Working Group members.
 * Separating the North American WEP into a semi-independent "department" at WMF requires a lot of funding, jurisdictional, and service level agreement issues to get worked out.
 * Getting high quality people to volunteer for Boards of Directors and Boards of Advisers can be challenging.
 * I'm not sure how successfully the new organization will be able to raise funds independently or semi-independently of the WMF especially with the possibility that it may compete with WMF for grants and individual donations. I hope that WMF staff have some ideas on how fundraising could be done. I agree with comments that others have made that it's likely necessary to have at least one FTE and the new organization will need to fundraise for the expenses that come with having paid staff and possibly consultants.


 * Any other comments about your proposal?

As I mentioned in my comments here I have some concerns about the time commitments that may be required to make this transition work. I expect this transition to be challenging.