Movement Charter/Content/Glossary

This was a historical draft of the Wikimedia Movement Charter. The latest version of the Charter that is up for a global ratification vote from June 25 to July 9, 2024 is available in the main Meta page. We thank the stakeholders of the Wikimedia movement for their feedback and insights in producing this draft.

Affiliates

Movement affiliates are entities in the Wikimedia Movement that have been formally recognized: either by the Wikimedia Foundation, or (from 2026 onward) by the Wikimedia Foundation after positive advice from the Global Council. There are four types of movement affiliates:

Chapters – Incorporated independent non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting movement work globally, focused within a geography. Chapters or national/sub-national organizations use a name clearly linking them to Wikimedia and are granted use of Wikimedia trademarks for their work, publicity, and fundraising.
Thematic organizations – Incorporated independent non-profits representing the Wikimedia movement and supporting work focused on a specific theme, topic, subject or issue within or across countries and regions. Thematic organizations use a name clearly linking them to Wikimedia and are granted use of Wikimedia trademarks for their work, publicity, and fundraising.
Wikimedia User Groups – Open membership groups with an established contact person and history of projects, designed to be easy to form. User groups may or may not choose to incorporate and are granted limited use of the Wikimedia marks for publicity related to events and projects.
Other affiliate types – as approved by the Global Council and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Charter

This is the charter for the Wikimedia Movement. It is a document outlining the roles, responsibilities, rights, and common values of the Movement.

Content

Any material added, removed, altered, revised, edited, deleted, or otherwise modified by a registered or unregistered user using any user interface that creates a change to any aspect of a Wikimedia project.

Contributors

In this document, a contributor is anyone who participates in the creation or management of content, or to the technical support for content creation, of a Wikimedia project.

Equity

Equity is an attempt to set standards of treating everyone justly based upon their circumstances and with consideration of the barriers that prevent them from having the same level of achievement. It cannot be accomplished by treating everyone equally.

External Partners

Entities outside of the Wikimedia Movement that align with our values and mission and collaborate with one or more stakeholders from within the Movement. Not used directly.

Fiscal Sponsor

A fiscal sponsor is an organization that administers a grant on behalf of a grantee. In the context of this document, Fiscal sponsors do not need to be Wikimedia affiliates. Fiscal sponsors must be incorporated organizations registered as a charity/nonprofit in their local contexts, and need to meet some basic eligibility requirements which will be determined by the organization making the grant

Free knowledge

Open knowledge (or free knowledge) is knowledge that is free to use, reuse, and redistribute without monetary, social, or technological restriction.

Fundraising

Fundraising is the act of seeking and acquiring donations. In this document, the term “fundraising” is used to describe the process of seeking monetary donations from independent organizations and individual donors. This includes grants provided by third parties, often to support specific objectives.

Fundraising carried out by affiliates and regional hubs is referred to as locally co-ordinated fundraising. Fundraising carried out by the Wikimedia Foundation is referred to as globally co-ordinated fundraising.

Inclusivity

The act of reducing exclusion and discrimination (e.g., regarding age, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) by both individuals and groups through modifying settings, policies, and structures to create the conditions for the emergence of diversity.

Movement/Wikimedia movement

The “movement” or “Wikimedia Movement” refers to the totality of people, organizations, activities and values which revolve around Wikimedia sites and projects.

Projects

Wikimedia has a series of knowledge projects (e.g. Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons etc). Local projects are primarily lingual variants of a knowledge project (e.g. English Wikipedia, Turkish Wiktionary). Certain knowledge projects are cross-language and do not have local projects, but may be both “project” and “local project”. There are also projects that act as infrastructure for the Wikimedia community, such as Meta-Wiki and MediaWiki Wiki.

Revenue generation

Revenue generation is the process of obtaining funds to support one or more aspects of the movement. Some examples of revenue generation are:
Fundraising
- Including grants provided by third parties, often to support specific objectives
Membership fees for affiliates
Wikimedia Enterprise

Related to revenue generation is donation-in-kind, when an organization or individual provides a service or physical items without charge, or by charging a discounted fee. Examples can include:

Meeting rooms or office space
Internet access
Free access to archival material

Resources

Resources are a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, knowledge and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively. (Oxford Dictionary)

In the case of the Wikimedia movement, resources include:

Monetary assets obtained by revenue generation
Human resources, including the very large number of volunteers who drive the movement, and the small number of paid staff who support the volunteers
The reputation of the Wikimedia movement and its projects and activities as a source of information made available to the world without charge
The content of the projects, as developed and managed by volunteers
The physical storage that contains the software and the content of the projects
The educational and informational documentation to support the projects and other movement activities.

Stakeholders

Any individual or group, whether volunteer or not, having invested human, financial, or other capital in an organization, who can affect the realization of organizational objectives or is affected by the realization of those objectives.

In this document, a stakeholder is everyone who has a stake in fulfilling the Movement’s vision. More precisely, the term includes online and offline communities, organized groups like affiliates and the Wikimedia Foundation, and members from our broader ecosystem, like partners and allies.

Subsidiarity

The principle of subsidiarity holds that decision-making authority is best placed (a) where responsibility for outcomes will occur; and (b) in the closest appropriate proximity to where the actions will be taken that will produce the outcomes.

Wikimedia Foundation

Also known as the WMF. An international non-profit organization located in the United States that hosts the Wikimedia projects, has overall responsibility for their underlying technical infrastructure, and provides a wide range of support for Wikimedia entities and contributors. The WMF is the legal host of the Wikimedia projects and related websites. It owns the trademarks that relate to the Wikimedia Foundation specifically, as well as the trademarks associated with the Wikimedia projects.

Wikimedians

In this document, a Wikimedian is anyone who contributes to the mission of the Movement. It can be an editor, MediaWiki developer, a curator, an organizer, staff, or anyone else who invests time in Movement activities.