Recommendation 2: Partnerships as a shared and equitable resource and enterprise

Q 1 What is your Recommendation?

Partnerships need to be seen as a resource the movement is collectively responsible for, and collectively benefits from. Equity needs to be established as a fundamental principle of all partnerships.

In order to enable this, we recommend a basic statement of principles that all partnerships should try to follow to promote equity within partnerships.

Without imposing unrealistic demands on all partnerships, or expecting the capacity to fulfill all of these ideas, these should be a set of ideas that encourage the widest possible impact and access.

As a result, partnerships will be as open to movement participation as possible. This will also enable planning partnerships with others, ensuring language groups, regional and other identities have representation where possible.

Q 2-1 What assumptions are you making about the future context that led you to make this Recommendation?

Some partnerships will always be relevant to multiple groups within the movement or even the entire movement, we should think more about how to connect partners to all relevant stakeholders.

Q 2-2 What is your thinking and logic behind this recommendation?

In order to ensure that there is equitable access to partnership organisations, their content and their resources, we need an approach that allows wider participation in the planning and execution of projects.

As an example; a museum in France with a large collection of Senegalese items. The French Wikimedians would build Senegalese Wikimedian involvement into planning the partnership, and involve them in its development.

Q 3-2 Who specifically will be influenced by this recommendation?

Any Wikimedia communities initiating partnerships with multiple audiences.

Q 5 How does this Recommendation relate to the current structural reality?

Some of this is already happening, with chapters in Europe working with affiliates elsewhere to share more widely special collections relevant to specific communities. This would attempt to ensure the relationship was not about creating “clients” but more “partnerships” between Wikimedians with different levels of access to specific institutions.