Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee is a working group that assists the Board of Trustees in filling out its membership with additional expertise to better oversee the Wikimedia Foundation. There are four board seats designated to be appointed through this process. The Nominating Committee helps to identify the types of expertise needed, create a list of candidates, and make recommendations; the final decision of whom to appoint rests with the other members of the board.

The committee consists of six members:

• Two members of the Board of Trustees
• Two volunteers from the Wikimedia community
• One member of the Advisory Board
• The Executive Director

The appointed seats are for one-year terms, so a Nominating Committee needs to be organized each year. A rough outline of how the process would work is as follows:

• First, the board will brief the Nominating Committee regarding its role, the restructuring, and the board's assessment of its own strengths and skills gaps. That briefing will result in a set of criteria for potential board candidates.
• Then, the Nominating Committee will generate a list of possible board members. All community members should feel free to contribute to this list by sending names to any member of the Nominating Committee at any time. Names will also be generated by the Nominating Committee's own research, as well as recommendations solicited from other friends and supporters of Wikimedia.
• Once the Nominating Committee has generated a full and rich list of possibilities, it will begin a research and screening phase. At that point, it will research the names which have been put forward, and assess their fit against the selection criteria developed earlier. This will result in a shortlist of candidates.
• Once the shortlist has been developed, the Nominating Committee will begin contacting candidates to assess their level of interest in us.
• At that point, the Nominating Committee will deliver to the board a final list of interested candidates who fit the criteria for the "specific expertise" roles. The goal will be to give the board a full briefing on the top eight candidates for the four "expertise" seats, along with a recommendation for the four who the Nominating Committee thinks would be the best fit.
• Then the community board members will vote to determine who will fill the four seats.

2008 Nominating Committee

For the 2008 cycle, the Nominating Committee consists of:

• Board chair Michael Snow
• Ting Chen
• BirgitteSB
• millosh
• Advisory Board member Melissa Hagemann
• Executive Director Sue Gardner

People who wish to suggest names of potential board candidates or would like to provide other kinds of input are invited to contact a member of the committee.

Status report

The committee begins its work at August 12th 2008. Michael briefed the committee members of the mission and a rough timeline.

The timeline proposed is: before Oct. 3rd to 5th the board should have a list of candidates so that they can do face to face interviews during the board meeting. End November or begin of December the new board member should be named so that they can actively begin their turn on Jan. 1st.

The members begin discussion about the expertise that is considered as necessary for the board.

As of now, the following expertise are suggested:

• finance
  • Expertise to function as oversight of staff finances
  • Expertise to chair audit committee
• nonprofit governance
  • NGO experience
  • Experience with a grassroots organization
  • Membership in a Wikimedia community
• legal compliance
  • Knowledge of US corporate law
  • Knowledge of international (pick one: copyright, contract, slander) law
• fundraising
  • Expertise to function as oversight of staff fundraising
• Experience with the developer community
• Pairing professional expertise with representation from as many regions as possible