Job openings/Partnerships

Title

Head of Partnerships, Wikimedia Foundation [CLOSED]

Job Purpose

As head of partnerships, your job is to develop and execute a strategy that will enable the Foundation to better fulfill its mission and further its goals through partnerships, particularly ones which fit into the higher level strategic planning of the Foundation. This is not a public/stakeholder/community outreach or relationship-building role: the intent is to partner with institutions, particularly non-profits, to create mission-driven projects, and get them funded and executed.

Mission of the Wikimedia Foundation

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free content license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

Summary

This position will develop and execute a partnerships strategy for the Wikimedia Foundation designed to further its mission of providing free information for everyone in the world. Currently the Foundation has very little experience in building partnerships: this is in many ways a start-up role. This role requires a strong ability to analyze, to think strategically, understand the Foundation’s goals and maintain a sharp focus on what will further them.

Responsibilities

• Develop strategy: including identifying the major assets and capabilities that the Foundation brings to partnership activities and relationships, and developing and implementing a process for evaluating opportunities and ideas in terms of mission/goals fit and organizational capacity;
• Manage ongoing activities, including triaging all opportunities; developing relationships with partners and potential partners; managing the partnerships pipeline; researching opportunities and selecting the most appropriate to be developed; creating and implementing realistic project plans and timelines; coordinating and managing multiple projects simultaneously;
• Develop and track measures of success and create progress reports for all partnerships;
• Create templates and processes for partnership deals and grants proposals enabling the Foundation volunteer community to initiate partnerships of its own;
• Secure funding sources for partnerships, including grants;
• Develop and maintain a database of partners and prospective partners;
• Work closely with the head of fundraising and the head of business development.

Example Projects

• Develop a grant proposal together with contributors to the Wikinews community that will lead to improvements to the open source software used by the project;
• Partner with a major museum to digitize large quantities of public domain pictures and to import them into Wikimedia Commons, and mobilize volunteers to help with the execution of the project;
• Identify strategic partners who can help produce a high quality DVD and USB stick version of Wikipedia content, using only open source software.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred;
• 8+ years of progressively-responsible positions in a non-profit or not-for-profit context, ideally in an organization that is active internationally;
• Experience developing strategic plans, grant proposals, budgets; analyzing, tracking and measuring and reporting project success;
• Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken;
• Good general understanding of the international operational NGO/not-for-profit/voluntary-organization context, particularly those involved in education and technology;
• Technology literate; comfortable and proficient using a variety of tools (e.g., mailing lists, IM, IRC, wikis, Skype, etc.);
• Understanding of the free culture and open source movement is a major plus;
• The ability to speak multiple languages is a major plus;
• Experience living or working outside the United States is a major plus;
• The ideal candidate will be highly-organized, motivated and able to operate effectively in a collaborative, consensus-oriented environment.