ComDev minutes 2024-01-16

Community Development Committee

Monday 16th January, 1-2:30 pm (online)

Welcome and apologies

Present: Lucy Crompton-Reid, Rod Ward, Kelly Foster, Sara Thomas, Caroline Ball, Chuks Ogbonna (minuting).

Declaration of interests

None

Approval of previous minutes

Inaugural meeting

Review of Committee Charter and focus on practice

In her introduction to a review of the Charter, LCR noted that the remit was the most important section to consider, as this would shape the focus and content of the committee’s discussions. LCR emphasised that the intended role of this Committee is not to act as a liaison with the volunteer community, but to provide additional oversight of this work from the board’s perspective. It was agreed by the Committee that whilst the Charter feels fit for purpose, it should be reviewed regularly and revised as necessary.

Action: To review the Charter in a year’s time (i.e. the first meeting of 2024).

Overview of Community and Volunteer development in relation to the existing strategic framework, staff team, and resource allocation

LCR highlighted the areas of our Strategic Framework where volunteers and communities are explicitly mentioned. She also noted that even where there is no explicit mention of involving volunteers, this is something she would expect all staff to be thinking about given the ethos of the movement. LCR noted the appointment of a new, part-time Volunteer Coordinator in May 2022, and the very recent staff restructure in which Sara Thomas has been given a strategic remit for volunteer development.

LCR highlighted where expenditure for Volunteer Support appears in the budget, and noted that there is a modest increase in planned expenditure in 2023/24. KF asked to what extent our external grant applications incorporate funding towards volunteer support. LCR responded that this would vary depending on the bid, but that generally this would be for specific direct costs e.g. travel, childcare or an honorarium.  

Overview of how we currently work with volunteers

ST gave an overview of how volunteers are currently supported. She emphasised the fact that community leaders are key to programme delivery. She highlighted the Train the Trainer programme and reported that there are around 40 to 50 Wikimedia UK accredited trainers across the UK.

ST also highlighted that project grants and equipment loans have been quieter over the pandemic years, but that she is hopeful these will pick up again.

KF asked if the terms volunteer and community are used synonymously; and what support and training staff are given to work with marginalised communities. Both ST and LCR felt that the terms are sometimes used interchangeably but sometimes they mean very different things in different contexts. LCR added that no community is homogenous, whether that’s English Wikipedia editors or a particular language or ethnic community. It was agreed that this is something that may need further unpicking at a future meeting, and that Wikimedia UK should be as clear as possible when using these terms.

ST mentioned that in terms of support, Wikimedia UK & Wikimedia Argentina have recently taken on responsibility for the Volunteer Supporters Network (VSN), which enables people working with volunteers across the world to exchange knowledge and build capacity. LCR added that she would discuss with DC the question of support and training for staff working with people from minoritised groups and communities.

Committee discussion on ways to implement existing objectives and/or additional opportunities/issues/priorities/objectives for community development

RW asked what support there is for community leaders to help them in doing their work. He added that there are lots of people even in England who may not know that Wikimedia even exists. ST responded that it is difficult to keep track of how individual volunteers are supported by staff, as that work is often quite invisible.

RW asked if there are specific targets that need to be reported to donors with regards to the volunteers. LCR responded that there are specific metrics for the Wikimedia Foundation, but not our individual donors. Some grants will also have targets for participation (although that’s not necessarily volunteers). KF asked whether there were gaps in our metrics, and LCR responded that we do not have data available about all Wikimedia UK volunteers. LCR added that she was keen for this group to help Wikimedia UK set relevant metrics for volunteer and community engagement. It was noted that Wikimedia UK should explore the use of geo notices to conduct a wider survey of contributors within the UK.

Action: LCR/ST to follow up on the possibility of using geo notices to collect data on UK based contributors, who may or may not be involved with Wikimedia UK

Future Meeting Schedule

There was a discussion about how often the committee should meet, and it was agreed that this should happen on a quarterly basis in line with the other subcommittees.

Action: LCR/Chuks to establish a schedule of meetings and send this to members

AOB

LCR noted that although she had Chaired this first meeting, ideally one of the three trustees in attendance should become the Chair of the Committee. She invited any interested members to contact her.

LCR noted that as with the other subcommittees, the Charter allows for members who aren’t trustees, and that this could be opened up to the Wikimedia UK volunteer community. RW asked whether it would be helpful to have someone on the Committee who works with volunteers, or engages with communities as part of a professional role. LCR agreed that this was a good idea.

Action: LCR to follow up with the Committee about other possible members. Any member interested in the Chair role should contact Lucy.

POST MEETING NOTE

Following the meeting, Sara sent the following email to all members:

Good to see you all on Monday, I just wanted to follow up with a few links and comments as discussed.

• 5% engagement with chapters
  • Just to cite my sources… I referenced this in the most recent Community Leaders’ Survey - under full answers to Question 15, “Is there anything we could change to improve your experience?” - We are conscious through our own experience, and as pointed out in the work of others, that a large proportion of active editors on any Wikipedia may not engage with a chapter. (For example Jemielniak, Dariusz, Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia, Stanford University Press, (2014) p. 130, pointed out that only around 5% of active editors will join a chapter.)
• Metrics
  • Our regular reporting (latest example for easy reference) for the Board and the Foundation has 23 quantitative metrics, alongside the qualitative / narrative reporting against the Strategic Aims. The quantitative metrics are set as part of our WMF funding reporting, and of particular interest to the Committee would likely be metrics 3-10 (where 8-10 are derived from the annual Community Leaders’ Survey) and 16-18.  
• Project grants
  • As discussed, take up of Project Grants is generally low; between 1-4 per year for the last couple of years.  We have had 1 application so far for 2023.
  • I would highlight that part of Esma’s role is to promote our grants with volunteers, and most recently she’s actively been suggesting this as an option to support one contact working with a Syrian community centre in Manchester (as well as pairing them up with an existing volunteer trainer in the area).
• Volunteer / Staff leads on events
  • There were a couple of questions around this, so I thought I’d offer some data to help illustrate.  Looking back at the activity tracker for 2022/3, I counted 206 events, covering mostly training and associated workshops, but also a few public speaking events and conferences. We are a couple of weeks away from year end, so Q4 is likely incomplete, but given the pandemic, it seemed a more representative year to look at, and the numbers for Q4 are broadly similar to Q1-3.
  • Of these, 51.46% were led solely by community leaders, 27.18% solely by WMUK staff, and 21.36% were led jointly.  
  • The 206 events represent 277 attendances (ie, that each event may have more than one wiki representative in attendance), of which 61.01% were community leaders, and 40.07% were WMUK staff.  
  • In terms of how a decision is made as to who can be approached to support an event, there are a number of factors that we take into consideration, including but not limited to: existing relationship with the organisation, expectations of the organisation, number of trainers required to support the event, timing of the event, subject matter of the event, demographic of audience including digital skill level, location of the event.