WikiConference UK 2013/Elections/Questions/Greyham Dawes

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Answers

1. What do you see as the key challenges for WMUK over the next 2-3 years, and what approaches would you advocate to meet them?

   Achieving full compliance with the charity law and regulatory constraints of the company’s attainment of charitable status since November 2011 in view of the reputational risks of any perceived failure to adhere to best practice by such a high-profile Voluntary Sector body as ours; switching over from the old hands-on management approach by our elected officials to the newly established “delegated management” structure needed for our growing team of permanent staff led by an experienced chief executive; developing relationships with our volunteers for further expansion of existing and new ‘open-access’ project activities now that these are largely funded out of charitable resources; restoring the company’s good standing for fundraising purposes with the Foundation and helping to develop the Chapters Association into a thriving family of independent bodies to complement the Foundation.

   My preferred approach to meeting these challenges would be to ensure adequate Board skills to enable us to be ‘fit for purpose’, to upgrade our internal financial reporting system for fully delegated charity management and for our Board to encourage and facilitate the setting up of a full range of advisory committees by our most active volunteers to lead the work of the key projects we will be funding in the coming years under the new Strategic Plan we are now developing.

2. Part of our vision as an organisation is to be true to the Wikimedia ethos of volunteers freely contributing their time and knowledge freely for the benefit of others. As Wikimedia UK grows in staff and budget, maintaining this ethos is likely to pose novel challenges. What do you think will be important in dealing with this, and what experience do you have that you think is likely to be relevant?

   A sharp and clear perception of the benefits and obligations of the company’s charitable status within what since the 1990’s has become the world’s leading regulatory regime for charities and of the distinctions between (i) delivering the public benefit for which we have been established as a charity and (ii) helping our volunteers to identify and engage with the kind of project we can properly support in line with their own altruism and aspirations. My experience of setting up the regulatory regime for UK charities in the 1990’s and as a professional adviser to the Sector since then has also included the special needs of charitable societies and associations concerning the interface between membership aspirations and the statutory obligations of the governing body. Wikimedia UK is a prime example of this.

3. In your opinion is it preferable for a membership organisation like Wikimedia UK to have a large, apathetic membership, or a smaller, more actively involved membership?

   Neither: In my view it needs a fully committed voting company membership who identify with and actively support our charitable aims and therefore appreciate our need for a Board with the skills that enable it to be ‘fit for purpose’, but at the same time it also needs a close but informal relationship with the wider community of volunteers whose enthusiasm for the open-access ethos and dedication to realising are essential for our current and future volunteer-led charitable projects.

4. Have you read the Hudson Review, what did you make of its recommendations, and what are the key lessons associated with this review that we have learnt?

   As a co-opted Board Member, the honorary treasurer and a member of the new Governance Committee set up in implementing the Report generated from that Governance Review, I have not only read the Report but am fully committed to the principles it embodies, which I recognise as the hallmarks for charity governance. We are already working our way through the Compass Partnership Report’s 50 separate recommendations, studying each one to see how best to implement it and thus upgrade our governance accordingly.

   In my view the key lesson is the need for the Board to adapt from the old ‘hands-on’ style of management by the elected officers to the new fully delegated charity management that we have already put in place as appropriate to the use of a permanent staffing led by a Chief Executive, and which needs to be supported by a robust internal financial management system – as is now under development for use by the new and larger Board post-AGM.

5. There is currently a discussion of what role metrics should play in assessing the effectiveness of the training delivered by WMUK. What do you think would be an important consideration in taking this forward?

   The provision of training to equip volunteers to be able to edit to the standard needed by our charity in pursuit of its public benefit purpose is hard to measure quantitatively as regards its effectiveness. Qualitative assessments can be obtained as trainee-feedback from training courses, as well as trainers’ assessments of the improvement they can discern in terms of edits before and after the event. Perhaps more important than trying to gauge how effective the course is, its ongoing popularity with volunteers in the longer term could provide a useful guide for us to decide whether to continue spending money on such a project and on what scale, etc.