Volunteer Coordinator

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Revision as of 04:43, 19 October 2008 by Az1568 (talk | contribs) (thanks to m:UserKylu; for the last two edits ;))
Volunteer Coordinator

The Wikimedia Foundation, with less than twenty paid employees, is largely a volunteer 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 and 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 absolutely critical for the long term sustainability of the Foundation: involving volunteers in every part of our mission.

Our current 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 its projects (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, and others).