Dear Affiliate Liaisons,

We hope you and your communities are safe and well. We are writing today to share some big updates. 

1. The Brand Project will pause until March 2021. 

On 24 of September Zack McCune and Heather Walls attended the Board meeting and recommended that the Brand Project pauses until March 2021. As referenced in the community open letter, many Wikimedia movement activities, events and key collaborations have been put on hold or restructured due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we believe this should also include the Brand Project. The Board resolved to pause the project and stated this publicly on 30 September. 

2. The project’s process will evolve with guidance from a new ad-hoc Board committee

During the pause, a small ad-hoc Board committee will be formed to liaise with staff, and develop a process of collaboration and decision-making appropriate for the Movement’s brand. This committee will include Trustees James Heilman, Raju Narisetti, and Shani Evenstein Sigalov. There is also the intention to include a small number of community representatives from affiliates, open letter signatories, emerging communities, and Foundation staff to be designated by the Executive Director. We’ll update you with more details on the committee soon.

3. The naming survey report is now available

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback. Here is the executive summary:  

• Affiliates in Asia and Africa agree the most that a Wikipedia-based naming system "will help their affiliate" compared to European and North American affiliates who mostly disagree.

• “Network”, “Organization”, “Trust”, and “Wiki” terms were ranked low and should be removed from future naming considerations. “Movement” term was productively associated with humans, progression, the future, and social justice and should be further refined. 

• No single naming system showed sufficient scoring to be recommended, and a second round of revision is advised (as per original project plan) once the pause has been completed. 

To learn more about what naming elements should be removed, refined and recombined please view the full report. 

Thank you for all your participation in the Brand Project so far, we hope you enjoy the pause and we look forward to collaborating with you again next year.

Samir and the Brand Project Team