The Committee Support Team at year-in-review and now more supportive!

For more than a year, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Committee Support Team has worked to develop essential staff support for movement committees and groups to help sustain movement governance and health. Since we are supporting safety and equity goals that were recently iterated upon in the new annual plan, it’s time for some reflection.

Committee appointment process

The Committee Support Team provided administrative support to the committees as they sought new members in the latter half of 2023. Leading up to the appointment process, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Committee Support team and Community Resilience and Sustainability Communication team thought it would be a great idea to highlight some of the committee work happening in the movement, especially as the appointment round and applications opened for various committees. Read about the Ombuds Commission, the Affiliations Committee, the Case Review Committee and the work of the Arbitration Committees. These written pieces were created in collaboration with long-time Wikimedians and community leaders and published on Diff to reach a larger audience. While Arbitration Committees are independent, the team will be looking for new committee members again this year for several committees it supports, and you can follow the process at Committee appointments.

Onboarding committees

Just like any volunteer role, committee work can certainly be demanding at times. The Committee Support Team considered what might be helpful for committee members to know as they go about their work. We designed and tested an onboarding plan with the Elections Committee, who all gave great input about the process. We are now moving forward with developing onboarding materials for committees we currently support as well as materials that can be used or adapted more generally by any community committees.

Committee feedback

Feedback is a gift, and it helps us grow. We have received input from various committee members as we grow and evolve our support processes. Some of this feedback has led to our current work listed in this Diff post! Thank you to everyone who has taken time to provide feedback to make our support of movement committees and groups even, well, more supportive.

Use of a ticketing system for support

Our responsiveness to the needs of committees is important. Over the past few months, we started using a ticketing system similar to what the Trust and Safety team uses to manage communication with committee members. This system allows us to assign the request to a staff member and easily hand it over to another staff member as needed. This process will remove the need for forwarding emails and reduce the time it takes to respond to committee requests. as soon as possible. As the Affiliations Committee handles a large number of requests from the community, we thought they would provide the best test scenario so we could smooth out the workflow. Community members and committees are encouraged to use the new cst @ wikimedia.org email address to have their requests addressed as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Affiliate Strategy

Something many of you may have heard about recently is the updated Wikimedia Foundation affiliates strategy. Most recently, the feedback the community provided earlier this year was reviewed by AffCom members, the Board of Trustees and staff. They worked together to create documentation for the affiliate health criteria and reporting structures to better indicate the state of the affiliate at the time of reporting. The Committee Support Team is working closely with AffCom members to organize and carefully document the updates to the processes for affiliates and user groups.
Look forward to hearing more from the Committee Support Team in just a few months as we begin the call new members to apply to the various committees we support. If you have any questions about joining the committees, please contact the committees or the Committee Support Team at cst @ wikimedia.org.