Distributed Volunteer Support Network

The board of Wikimedia UK has always aimed to make our editors and volunteers an integral part of the operation of the chapter. We have also tried to not make the office and the London volunteer nucleus the point that all things rotate around. We have supported volunteers in attending wikimeets in an attempt to further propagate all over the country a truly pan-UK community and even to the extent of supporting meetups in Ireland as we try to support the irish community in their growth.

The aim of this initiative is to try and further decentralize the chapter and to create a network of individuals who can further support their local Wikimedia communities. In particular this would be to help further support volunteers who are highly active within our communities and would benefit greatly from additional support to be able to do their work.

Much of this support already exists through expense reimbursement and grants however for our most active volunteers this can result in a significant outlay and a delay before reimbursement or a delay in a grant being processed.

Support would include things such as:

• Pre-payment cards to assist with:

• Supporting the expenses of local volunteers
• Supporting the costs of running local small scale events.
• Supporting local volunteers with the purchasing of research materials and other

• Email address and business cards to assist when approaching local volunteer groups or organisations.
• PAYG phones to assist with the costs of contacting local organisations

The aim is not to create an upper tier of volunteer and no title will be associated with this. It is to further support the work of those who are already doing large amounts of volunteering or supporting their local community and to enable them to further build up theirs and others capacity to do this.

Reporting

We would like to see reporting from those who are provided with pre-paid cards. We already have some volunteers, who due to receiving funding from us, provide detailed reports on their activities. Reporting may seem like a burden but it is vital for us to be able to report on our activities and enable us to secure further funding in the future. It's something that applies at all levels.

We want to try and keep this as lightweight as possible however so as to avoid wasting volunteer time.

Trial

Such an initiative as this comes with risks, particularly when devolving immediate purchasing power to volunteers. There are expectations and a big degree of responsibility that would come with such abilities. As such this initiative will be trialed for a fixed period of time with a small number of invited highly active volunteers who already heavily utilize our existing processes.

With them we will work on reporting and accounting requirements that will allow us to decentralize the operating of the chapter without burdening volunteers with excessive paper work.