User:Kaarel Vaidla (WM EE)/Vision&Scope

This is a vision & scope document to support my candidature to the position of the executive director of Wikimedia Eesti for the time period from the 1st of July 2014 to the 31st of December 2014. The aim of the document is to provide information about my vision and plans for making it possible for people concerned to evaluate my aptitude to the position of the executive director of Wikimedia Eesti.

VISION

Wikimedia Eesti will be a recognized advocate of free culture and free knowledge in Estonia and as such provides inspiration for on-wiki contributors and off-wiki volunteers.

Wikimedia Eesti will have a clear strategy with a mission and vision for upcoming years,
Wikimedia Eesti will have strong nationwide programs to support its outreach efforts,
Wikimedia Eesti will have a base of volunteers to support its wide scope of activities,
Wikimedia Eesti will be a recognized and trustworthy partner on the international level,
Wikimedia Eesti will be present and represented in important discussions about free culture and digitization policies,
Wikimedia Eesti will continue as the umbrella organization for the community of Estonian Wikipedia,
Wikimedia Eesti will have implemented good practices in recording its activities.

SCOPE

VISION & STRATEGY

Wikimedia Eesti will have a clear strategy with a mission and vision for upcoming years.

Wikimedia Eesti started its strategy creation process with the creation of the organization in the year 2010. There have been on-wiki discussions, real-life meetings between different groups of the community with the result of several strategy note collections, but without a clear strategy document to follow in the quotidian activity of the organization.

Having a previous experience from strategy process in a non-profit organization and needing a clear strategy to follow to fulfill my work tasks I started my input to the strategy process soon after hiring in October 2013. As a result we have reached a document compiling the development principles of the organization.

On the general assembly on the 8th of March 2014 a new strategy team with 9 members was composed with the aim to provide a clear strategy for the years 2015 and 2016 by the end of September 2014. The work of the team consists of creating the structure of the strategy and discussing its key points with other members of the organization and wider community of users of Estonian Wikipedia.

As a result of my input as an executive director

Wikimedia Eesti will go through a managed strategy process, including:

daily discussions of the strategy group on the mailing list,
online hangouts or real-life meetings of the strategy group to discuss fundamental issues or make conclusions,
discussions of the most important steps in strategy with other members of the organization and the community,
public discussion of the strategy to include all interested Wikipedia editors and most importantly readers,
creation of the strategy document for the upcoming years.

Wikimedia Eesti will have a strategy document to follow in upcoming years, including:

specific goals and targets to be achieved,
lists of programs and activities that will help us to achieve the goals,
annual agendas (including time plans) and budgets that will help us to achieve the goals,
ways of overseeing the implementation process of the strategy,
a clear development plan for the near future.

Steps:

Management of strategy group, maintaining daily discussion and organizing meetings,
Creating a public on-wiki discussion page,
Completing the draft of the strategy document (in Estonian and in English) by the end of September 2014,
Working through the comments made on the draft and producing a final strategy document for 2015 and 2016 by the end of December 2014.

PROGRAMS & PROJECTS

Wikimedia Eesti will have strong nationwide programs to support its outreach efforts and a base of volunteers to support its wide scope of activities.

Wikimedia Eesti has a wide scope of different projects, programs and activities, varying from education program to photo competitions and GLAM cooperation. It is important for Wikimedia Eesti to run programs with nationwide scope in order to support the outreach efforts and increase wiki-contributions and participation.

At the moment Wikimedia Eesti has focused on the education program and has introduced different sub-programs fitting to the fields of secondary schooling, higher education and lifelong learning. We have a school pilot project run in cooperation with Ministry of Education and Science, university project in the University of Tartu, civic education program. In August 2014 a new education program concentrating on the nature awareness with the funding from Estonian Environmental Investment Center will be launched.

On the field of GLAM cooperation we have launched a long-term wide-scope program to ameliorate the level of Wikipedia entries on cultural heritage of Estonia for the year 2018. At the moment we have 12 partner organizations and institutions. Wikimedia Eesti organizes also several photo and article competitions every year.

Nevertheless our programmatic activity needs to have a more clear structure, as well as volunteer input needs to be increased to achieve better results. This will be the main task for the executive director in the upcoming period.

As a result of my input as an executive director

There will be more off-wiki volunteers as a result of a targeted recruitment process, including

An organogram of Wikimedia Eesti with volunteer positions will be designed,
All the voluntary positions will be described in terms of required skills and measures of success,
There will be cooperation with other organizations experienced in volunteer recruitment to guarantee better results.

Activities of Wikimedia Eesti will be more structured, they will be more coherent and will be aligned in respect of the strategic goals:

There will be a continued emphasis on education program, but efforts will be made to integrate all sub-programs to a comprehensible whole,
GLAM-cooperation already has an umbrella program - efforts will be made to support a good continuation of the program,
If possible, competitions will be related to larger programs or sub-programs,
Participation in unforeseen adventures will be reduced.

Steps:

Creation of a clear organogram of the organization, including structure of voluntary positions by the end of July 2014,
Discussing the details of the voluntary recruitment with experts from experienced NPOs in the region,
Carrying through a recruitment process in August-September 2014,
Assigning volunteers to their tasks and have a working voluntary structure by the end of December 2014,
Introducing new activities of the education program and developing a coherent structure of the program,
Continuing GLAM-operation in the frames of cultural heritage program and sign cooperation agreement in September 2014,
Create an annual agenda for the year 2015 by the end of November 2014, which will create relations between various activities of Wikimedia Eesti.

COMMUNITY & PUBLIC RELATIONS

Wikimedia Eesti will be a recognized and trustworthy partner on the international level,

Wikimedia Eesti will be present and represented in important discussions about free culture and digitization policies and

Wikimedia Eesti will continue as the umbrella organization for the community of Estonian Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Eesti is the umbrella organization for the community of Estonian Wikipedia and I thoroughly support such position. In order to maintain that position, Wikimedia Eesti should work towards overcoming dissenting opinions within the organization and start better communication with users who do not belong to Wikimedia Eesti. The role of the executive director will be a diplomatic one, with an aim to maintain a dialogue instead of renouncing silence.

Wikimedia Eesti has already a notable role in the discussions about free culture and digitization policies. Nevertheless we are left aside in discussion which really matter, i.e. the ones where decisions are made. Although Wikimedia Eesti is already trying to increase its influence with a publication of the translation of Free Culture in Estonian, the role of the executive director is to find further possibilities to include Wikimedia Eesti in circles that decide over the questions of free culture.

Wikimedia Eesti has been present on international meetings of Wikimedia movement and will be in the future. We have also tried to share our experiences (e.g. Wikimedia Eesti made 2 presentations on Wikimedia Conference) and will be looking forward to new channels (e.g. Wikimedia blog). It has been decided that Wikimedia Eesti will try to initiate an international education project and we have an application pending in Erasmus+ program. Also we would like to organize WM CEE conference in the near future. The role of the executive director will be international interaction and preparatory work to ensure a good execution of the foreseen projects.

As a result of my input as an executive director

There will be more communication within the organization and community of Estonian Wikipedia, including:

There will be more information available on the internal list of the organization,
Discussions related to essential questions will be brought to internal list,
There will be more information about Wikimedia Eesti and its programs available on Estonian Wikipedia.

Wikimedia Eesti will become a serious partner in discussions about free culture policies in Estonia:

Contacts with the Legal Affairs Committee in Estonian Parliament will be refreshed and the free culture will be advocated,
Contacts with Ministry of Justice will be refreshed and the free culture will be advocated.

Wikimedia Eesti will increase its activity on the international level:

New channels for sharing our experiences will be used,
The preparations will be made to bring the WM CEE conference to Estonia in 2015,
International education project will be prepared and initiated, if the funding will be received.

Steps:

Creation of good practices of information-sharing within the executive team from the beginning,
Introduce more comprehensive overviews of the activities of Wikimedia Eesti for members of organization and wider community,
Exchange letters with representatives of Legal Affairs Committee in Estonian Parliament and Ministry of Justice,
Introduce a voluntary legal counsel to the team of Wikimedia Eesti to increase our legal competence and legal activity,
Increase the level of participation in international discussions and share the experiences,
Prepare for possible organization of WM CEE conference in Estonia in 2015,
Prepare for international education program and initiate it, if funded.

ADMINISTRATION & REPORTING

Wikimedia Eesti will have implemented good practices in recording its activities.

For some time Wikimedia Eesti has struggled to provide all the reports in the right time. Partly it is related to the perfectionism of Estonians, partly it is due to bad practices in recording the activities of the organization. As an executive director I will try to make use of my prior experiences in dealing with administrative questions and will introduce better practices of dealing with administrative and reporting issues.

As a result of my input as an executive director

Recording of activities will be improved:

Continuous recording of all the activities will be ensured,
Simultaneous recording of the costs in project accounting and in nominal ledger will be ensured.

Reporting practices will be improved:

Quarterly reporting will be adapted to prepare the organization for FDC funding,
Interim reporting practices will be introduced in order to improve the possibilities of tracking project progress.

Steps:

Continuous recording practices will be introduced as swiftly as possible,
Templates will be made for recording expenditures simultaneously in project accounting and in nominal ledger,
Quarterly reports for the first three quarters of the year will be published for the end of the year,
At least one interim report regarding 2014 grant and for the use of WMF advance for Wikimedia Eesti office rental will be published.

ORGANOGRAM

Proposed structure of executive voluntary team within the organization. The emphasis will be on completing the program team.