Re: WMF Board of Trustees: Board Selection Process Update

I entirely agree with Luis. Since 2022 <https://wikispore.wmflabs.org/w/index.php?title=WALDO_(Wikimedia_Academy_of_Leadership_and_Organization)&action=history> I've been trying to promote the idea of introducing governance and leadership training for people within the movement:
bit.ly/WikiWALDO<http://bit.ly/WikiWALDO>

best,

Dariusz

On Sun, Aug 9, 2026 at 4:39 PM Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Since there is more board news today, sending a long-drafted followup:

On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 7:45 PM Erik Moeller via Wikimedia-l <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Wikimedia Foundation needs folks with relevant governance experience
for an organization of this scale, but it also needs voices that
challenge it and push it in new directions on the Board. The trick is
to find the right balance between those goals. Requiring that people
advance along an internal functionary ladder towards the possibility
of standing for trusteeship is not that balance; it is the kind of
requirement structure you find in institutions that drift towards
stagnancy and self-reinforcement, often out of institutionalized fear.

A compromise proposal:
* Change the word "must" to "should" when it comes to the governance
experience criteria
* Require that candidates indicate comparable or equivalent experience
in their candidate profile if they do not meet these criteria.

To echo and add to what Erik said: Governance of an organization like WMF is a wickedly complex problem, requiring many different skillsets. It's not enough to have good *ideas* - you have to have the *skills* to make those ideas happen: how to understand an auditor's report; how to think through the human politics of governance; employee management skills; etc. etc.

So I think tightening skills and experience requirements is pretty reasonable.

I like Erik's suggestions, and would add: WMF should invest in board skills development, not just restrict those who don't yet have the skills.  Among other things, this could be formal training through services like https://boardsource.org/; or experiential learning through board observer seats/fellowships like Haas does for their b-school students: https://haas.berkeley.edu/cssl/programs-events/board-fellows/ The former would be good skills development for the movement, and the latter would double as a transparency move.

I mean *invest*, not "commit to invest"; the Foundation should do a few years of this investment and *then* put in stricter rules, since otherwise the temptation for new board members to say "this is not necessary" and pull the drawbridge up after them would be very strong.

I would also add, beating my recent drum: much of the energy that goes into Foundation board questions should instead be going into making the Foundation less central to the movement. That goes for the board -- who should be following through on the "infrastructure for open" commitments of 2030, not re-centralizing, so that the exact composition of the board is less important -- and for many movement leaders: *you can be a movement leader without being on the WMF board*. There are so many ways to lead.
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