Volunteer Coordinator

The Wikimedia Foundation is largely a volunteer driven organization. The Volunteer Coordinator leads the way in opening up new opportunities for volunteers to contribute to the mission and day-to-day work of the Foundation, and typically works in the Wikimedia Office in San Francisco, California.

Responsibilities

Volunteer Coordinator responsibilities include:

• Maintaining a global, public list of tasks across different work areas, through communicating with committees/officers, indicating which areas need volunteer work the most critically at any given time.
• Advising the Board of Trustees and the Executive Director during the setup of new volunteer groups and committees.
• Ensuring that all volunteer groups in the WMF are operational and reporting their activities on a regular basis and evaluating performance.
• Being the first personal point of contact for people who wish to do volunteer work for the organization, but don't know where to start.
• Organizing and advertising regular online events and tutorials to educate people about different areas of volunteering.
• Identifying and reporting when existing volunteer groups such as committees or workgroups may have challenges, and recommending structural changes where needed.
• Collecting and documenting best practices for volunteer management, partially based on communicating with other non-profits and by research on the topic.
• Representing Wikimedia at events where we might find useful volunteers from a specific background.

In short, the Volunteer Coordinator is responsible for achieving what is essential to the long term sustainability of the Foundation: involving volunteers in every part of our mission.

As of 2010, the Volunteer Coordinator is Cary Bass, who, as a long time community member, adminstrator, bureaucrat and steward, has good familiarity with the Wikimedia Foundation, its processes, and our projects.