There's a big leap between the "advisory" role that Maria mentioned in her notice of resignation and a full-on consultancy. In that email, dated one day after the June Board of Trustees meeting chaired by Maria, she told us that the WMF had already approached her to take on the "advisory" role; this email was sent to the community *before* Maria's resignation had taken effect. Maria is not specific on who approached her to take on the advisory role before her resignation took effect, but clearly somebody did, or she would not have mentioned it in her farewell email.
I am very sad about all of this. It taints the entire governance process. It is precisely the type of issue that grants committees at all levels have been asked to "address" in their comments and recommendations; I know for a fact that governance and leadership issues like this had a very significant impact on grants recommendations for multiple grantee organizations in the past, usually with the urging of WMF staff and leadership.
It also does nothing to reassure the community about the strategy process, especially at a time when the absence of a community-selected board member would have been particularly useful. Instead, we now have a paid consultant for a position that (as best I can tell) was never advertised, posted, or even head-hunted.
And I'm sad for Maria, who has made many contributions to the movement, and who is now in a situation where whatever work she was contracted to do is going to be made so much more difficult because of this.
Just because something is legal and does not actively violate the bylaws, doesn't make it the right thing to do. The message that's being sent here isn't helpful to the movement. It puts others who are trying to carry the movement message out to new and existing communities into a really difficult position.
Risker/Anne
On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 at 00:51, aketon@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, All, I’m Amanda Keton, the General Counsel of the Foundation, and I’d like to clarify some of the questions and comments that have been raised over the engagement of María as a Foundation consultant. I want to assure you that we carefully followed our policies, compensated this in line with similar consultants, and legitimately assessed her as the best person for the role. The need. Maria’s engagement comes at a time of transition for both the Board and the Foundation executive staff. This is also a time where the Community Resilience & Sustainability (CR&S) unit is setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Foundation provides seamless service to our growing community in its areas of responsibility. As many of you know, that team has taken on Movement Strategy due to the transition along with maintaining their support of Board elections, the Universal Code of Conduct, and leading our cross-departmental approach to supporting a Thriving Movement. As a unit, CR&S undertook a needs assessment of the workload ahead. This needs assessment revealed gaps in implementation of the Foundation’s Movement Strategy and in supporting staff with the ongoing Board selection process, upcoming onboarding, and supporting a smooth transition. The team currently supporting the Board expansion is quite stretched, monitoring multiple channels in many languages. Having another person who can step in immediately is tremendously helpful to these efforts. Based on this, CR&S considered the necessary skills and expertise for assistance in executing this work. While seeking this expertise, numerous factors were considered. Some of these factors included experience with the Board, volunteers and management. We also considered the qualifications with respect to the criteria and role at hand. The unique blend of circumstances at play and the importance of moving forward strongly at this time led us to carefully assess our needs and explore creative solutions. The role. In developing the scope of work for this role, we determined that María was a very strong candidate to support this critical work. With the transition at the executive level, and at the Board level, Maria brings long-term familiarity with the strategy process and strategy conversations that is crucial for the Foundation and the movement. Furthermore, she has been a big believer and a promoter of the Movement Strategy. We believe she can help ensure continuity in that work and can also support Maggie and others in the Foundation working to help expand the Board in service of bringing additional expertise, representation and capacity. Managing a potential conflict of interest. Maria first considered stepping down months ago, but she wanted to help navigate the transition at the helm of the Board. I followed our Conflict of Interest policy and brought this staff idea to the Transition Committee, the Human Resources Committee, and ultimately discussed this idea in principle in the last executive session of the Board of Trustees -- without Maria. The Board does not generally discuss individual contracts, but I wanted to make sure that the Board knew about it to respect the spirit of the conflict of interest policy even if that would be shortly mitigated by her stepping down from her trusteeship for unrelated reasons. I appreciate the concerns that were raised about Affiliates receiving different advice. I'm not aware of this, and because I want to respond timely, I can't check with all the relevant staff. However, I have not found reference to this in internal or Meta documentation and would appreciate more information on where this policy can be found so we can review it when we next update our policies, and ensure we consistently uphold our policies throughout the movement. I agree we want to be consistent, and I appreciate that this was pointed out. Fair compensation. I understand that a lot of questions have been raised pertaining to Maria’s remuneration. As many of you already know, we do not discuss remuneration of staff or consultants in public forums, although we do disclose appropriately as we are required to as a US nonprofit on our Form 990. It can be difficult to balance transparency and privacy, and we find it best to adhere to a general approach that balances our values of transparency and privacy as well as possible. However, all consultant compensation is reviewed according to our standard rates and market comparables. María’s compensation was set by the same process, and this is in line with how others are paid for similar work in similar regions. I hope this clarifies any questions and doubts that you may have. Best, Amanda _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org