Wikimedia Foundation Affiliates Strategy/Implementation/Affiliate health criteria

This page details a plan to test affiliate health criteria reporting, de-duplicating the reporting process for affiliates who are also WMF grantees, while we explore a long-term solution to a single reporting system. The long-term goal for affiliate reporting is to have one system where all affiliate reporting can be done, without additional burden on affiliates to report in multiple systems or at different times.

This work is being coordinated by the Committee Support team along with other teams in the Wikimedia Foundation. If you have questions, please email cst@wikimedia org or post to the main talk page.

Background

The Wikimedia Foundation Affiliate Strategy resulted in two resolutions to improve Affiliations Committee (AffCom) workflows and strengthen the affiliate ecosystem:

Adopting the affiliate health criteria (resolution), which aims to provide additional guidance to affiliates regarding what it means to be an active and healthy Wikimedia organization; and
Approving the updated user group recognition process (resolution), which aims to strengthen AffCom’s ability to assess potential user groups’ ability to become healthy and active movement participants.

This page outlines the next steps in implementing the affiliate health criteria resolution. Information about the updated user group recognition process will be provided here.

Timeline

This plan will include three phases – a learning phase, a decision point, and an iterative implementation phase – with the goal of incorporating the health criteria into affiliate reporting starting January 2026.

PHASE	DURATION
Learning	October 2024 - August 2025
Decision point	September - October 2025
Future implementation and iteration	January 2026 (to roll out)

Learning phase (October 2024 - August 2025)

As we test the collection of affiliate health criteria indicators, we will streamline reporting requirements for affiliates who are also General Support Fund (GSF) grantees. GSF grantees will fulfill their affiliate reporting requirements through their final or yearly grantee report on Wikimedia Foundation Funds Grantee Portal (Fluxx) during 1 July 2024 - 30 June 2025 (FY24-25). Affiliates who do not have a GSF report due in this period will report on Meta. (A list of those who fall into each category is available here.)

GSF grantees reporting in FY24-25 will not submit a separate report to AffCom, but use their existing final or yearly report form in Fluxx to address the affiliate health criteria, with no changes to their grant reporting timeline. WMF will provide written guidance and program officer support for affiliate grantees completing their final report. The Committee Support team at WMF will use these final reports to populate the Wikimedia Affiliates Data Portal.
Non-GSF grantee affiliates will need to submit one report, using a single form on Meta. This form will cover affiliate health criteria and the questions normally asked in the affiliate data portal in one place.

This will allow us to collect health data for all affiliates reporting during the learning phase. In October 2024 the Wikimedia Foundation will communicate with affiliates in both groups about next steps.

Decision point (September - October 2025)

Based on the learning phase, WMF teams will evaluate the best path forward to enable affiliate health reporting while minimizing the reporting burden for affiliate partners.

Questions for this phase

These are some of the questions WMF teams will be exploring during the learning phase in order to make additional recommendations about the next steps at the decision point.

Can and should we align grant and affiliate reporting schedules?
Are the questions we ask to collect affiliate health data valid-- that is, do they measure what they are intended to?
How can this information be collected, analyzed, and reported on most efficiently?
Should the schedule and/or questions vary per region to adapt to local contexts?

Implementation and iteration phase (November 2025 - January 2026)

Based on the learning phase, we will continue to iterate toward an efficient and effective single-system reporting structure and communicate any reporting changes to all grantees and affiliates impacted.