Grants talk:Programs/Hub Fund/Volunteer Supporters’ Network - Hub Pilot

Proposal feedback from the WMF hubs team

Latest comment: 10 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

VSN proposal: documentation reviewed

Strengths of the proposal

The proposal builds on several years of learning from working as a network with two principle nodes in Europe and Latin America. The current proposal has a narrow scope that will allow for more focused learning and more paced growth in the next 18 months. There is relevant community buy-in from existing members after several consultations.

The proposal has a clear structure and supporting documentation in the Theory of Change, evaluation plan, and timeline. It is encouraging to see this learning perspective captured in good learning questions and metrics that seek to document your learning. It is a model that will provide unique learning for Movement entities. For instance, how can a network model transition to a more global structure that can offer relevant contextualised support, as well as diverse cross-regional knowledge sharing? How does it operate with a unique staffing model embedded and supported by existing affiliate staff, expand on its membership system, and keep a light-touch governance structure?

Things to clarify/expand on:

Clarify the role of the node: Can you expand on the role and responsibility of this node? Would your metric only focus on bringing in 1 new chapter, or also measure the results of this chapter in terms of their outreach work to bring in more volunteer managers from that region/language group?
Other methods to increase diversity of members: Given the efforts to organise a new node in a different time zone/geography, how can you support more diversity and engagement of members through other means as well? For instance, having advisory members from these other regions who do the work of outreach in that region? You could explore some models that work with regional liaisons (Art+Feminism, Let’s Connect, CapX).
Type of members: In seeking diversity, are you considering opening membership to non-staff working in community support/volunteer management? Your proposal implies the inclusion of non-staff roles, but your current regulations give the impression that it is only open to staff. In many geographies, particularly emerging communities, those working in these roles are volunteer organisers who are not necessarily staff members of an affiliate; they can be unaffiliated independent organisers or volunteer members of a small affiliate (many of which do not yet have formal staff roles). It might be the case that you need to make this more explicit in your outreach and communications.
Engagement of members in service delivery: How do you hope members will be actively involved throughout the pilot, beyond the annual consultations? It is not too clear in the plan document. Most activities appear to rest with WMUK/WMAR and the new role you hope to hire. Would members also have responsibilities to hold peer-sharing spaces or curate/document resources? Could they have a role replicating localised peer sharing spaces (as proposed in point 5)? Would there be a way to engage in any working group dynamics that can support the day-to-day operations of hub services? Understanding what makes members more or less engaged would be a good learning from this pilot.
Clarity on the scope of the advisory group: Please elaborate more on this group’s role in supporting the pilot operations. Would they come from the group of members, or would you also seek external partners for this role? Do you have any ideas of representation in these groups in terms of geographic/language diversity and/or skill set?
Clarity on the dynamics and expected outcomes of the peer spaces:

Clarity on more impactful outcomes: How do you measure if VSN is moving in the right direction in creating better-capacitated volunteer managers? Your metrics column leans heavily on participant attitudinal reports (e.g., "people feel this was helpful"). Instead of only attitudinal questions ("feel"), you could ask questions that get more at behavior change, e.g,. whether they have reused resources from VSN or the extent to which they attribute their community's growth to the strategies/learnings they gained from VSN. For instance, are volunteer managers organising more effective training/events, have they increased the number of new volunteers, or are they using tools to make their work more effective? Have you considered using the Event Registration tool to track volunteer managers' events organising and see how their work has changed as a result of VSN - for instance, changes in volunteer numbers, demography, and editing activities?
Topics, skills, and methods: It is clear from your learning reports that you want to transition to a more intimate peer-sharing space rather than an open skills share. However, more clarity is needed on how these spaces will be structured, based on the outcomes you hope to achieve. For instance:
- Are they only open to members? What type of learning dynamics will be used? Will it be a one-off space, or will you seek deeper collaboration through joint projects or mentorship (as members suggested in the annual meeting)?
- How does this fit in with the idea of holding regular check-ins and smaller thematic meetings throughout the year that you also mention in your plan?
- Will they be recorded for asynchronous participation or as learning resources?
- Are there any specific areas you plan to focus on to build capacities, given some of the global trends identified and some of the barriers that members expressed in the annual meeting, such as technological changes, reaching new generations, and toxic environments, amongst others?
Learning resources: Please expand on how you will develop/curate these learning resources and in what formats. What plans do you have to make them available in the languages that serve the three nodes? If live or officially paid interpretation is not in your plans, do you have plans to use AI to carry out some of this work?
Face-to-face learning spaces: The learning from your annual meeting highlights the limitations with online-only spaces and the interest in “encouraging local initiatives”. Have you considered holding face-to-face workshops in the context of other regional or global meet-ups? It might be worth exploring how members can replicate peer sharing within their geographies through regional or thematic conferences. For instance, supporting them in developing workshop proposals to replicate some of the knowledge locally. Let’s Connect did this through localised learning clinics with interesting results (see an example).

7. Clarity around Goal C: Can you expand on the need for this service? For instance, can you give examples of how the voices of volunteer managers are not sufficiently heard in the Movement today, and around what topics you hope to support volunteer managers to have a unified and more effective voice?

8. Connection with other hub/peer learning spaces:

There are several actors within the capacity-building and volunteer management ecosystem, and there must be clear agreements and outcomes for these collaborations. Consider including in your timeline an early planning session to design these collaborations, formalise an agreement where necessary, and have regular check-ins to discuss the outcomes.

Capacity Exchange: You state that VSN would not offer 1:1 support through the Capacity Exchange, but are you considering how to use this system to:
- 1. Expand membership by using the tool to map paid and nonpaid staff/organisers who work in roles to manage volunteers and reach out to them?
- 2. Actively communicate VSN services through the platform?
- 3. Get current and future VSN members to actively use the CapX tool to enhance their skills and connections with others in the Movement?

We strongly recommend you seek formalising a partnership with CapX to use it in this way.

Let’s Connect: Let’s Connect does, in fact, offer many peer learning spaces for those working with volunteers, either as staff or volunteer organisers. About 50% of Clinics are focused on organising work that deals with issues around volunteer management/community support (see resources for over 65 clinics). In light of this, what perspectives do you have to either work with Let’s Connect to provide joint spaces/learning resources or offer other types of support (for instance, going deeper in some of the topics with mentoring support) or using Let’s Connect skills directory to map new members for your outreach efforts.
Wikimedia Europe: You mention ongoing conversations to work together. Please specify any ways you might develop joint services to amplify each other's work.
Connection with CEE and ESEAP hubs: As mentioned in some earlier conversations, these hubs are thinking about creating tools/resources to support those working with volunteers. Do you have plans to build partnerships with these hubs to work on these initiatives together? In turn, this could support VSN in contextualising and curating material better and vice versa.

9. Formatting issue on question 8: On Meta, the section on number activities seems to read more as paragraphs that are numbered. You may want to adjust this to provide more clarity on the specific activities per area of work, as stated more clearly in your other documentation linked in.

10. Budget clarity and review: Regarding the budget line 6-7: what is "Full cost recovery"? Given the above comments, you may want to consider extending your budget slightly to account for some of this work. Particularly to explore any extra resources you may need for staff, designing spaces for peer sharing learning resources curation, and access in various languages, and opportunities to replicate these locally through members’ participation in conferences/meet-ups (particularly lines 15, 17 , and human resources costs). JStephenson (WMF) (talk) 15:31, 18 April 2025 (UTC)Reply

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