As you know, we recently announced a restructuring of the Board of Trustees, which added two new avenues for selecting board members. One of these is the two seats to be selected by the chapters; the other is the use of a Nominating Committee to assist the community representatives in identifying needed expertise to fill out the board.

This note is about the formation of the Nominating Committee. (The chapters are actively discussing their selection process, and we'll have more information about that once it is finalized.)

The job of the Nominating Committee is to identify, research and pre-screen potential candidates for the appointed board positions involving "specific expertise". There are four of those seats in total; two are currently vacant, and the others are filled by Jan-Bart de Vreede and Stuart West. The Nominating Committee will not itself determine who takes those seats. Its job is to make recommendations to the community members on the board, who will make the final decision. (The appointed board members will not vote in these decisions, since it affects them personally.)

The Nominating Committee will include the following: * Two members of the current Board of Trustees * Two members of the volunteer community * One member of our Advisory Board * Sue Gardner, our Executive Director

Here's how we expect the nomination process will work: * 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 (currently myself, Kat, Frieda, Domas, Ting, and Jimmy) will vote to determine who will fill the four seats.

The goal is to have the four seats filled by January. The appointed board members' terms end in December, and this process would be repeated each year.

Of course the Nominating Committee, once established, is free to adjust and refine this process if it wants to. For example, if a current appointed board member should be retained for continuity, that may be handled more simply, although we also anticipate that these seats will bring in fresh voices from time to time. But at any rate, we imagine the nominating process will work more-or-less as described here.

So the purpose of this message is both to describe the process for filling those seats, and to ask for volunteers to fill the two "volunteer community" spots on the Nominating Committee. If you are interested in helping us by serving on the Nominating Committee, please send a note to me, or Sue, or any board member. We would like to hear from anyone who has the time and the interest to participate, and especially if you have any experience in non-profit management or governance, or in hiring. If you're interested, please let us know within the next week.

--Michael Snow