[Foundation-l] Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia

[Sue Gardner]

Thanks Thomas; we're sorry about it too.

The real problem won't be so much "who will take over the work" -- Jennifer had only been on the job about five months, so she was mostly in building/thinking/planning mode rather than executing mode. So the real problem will be a hit to our ability to plan and think deeply about program work in general. (What I mean by that is our thinking will be stalled, and won't advance as quickly as it would have with a CPO in place. And some long-wanted, hoped-for work will be on hold, or will proceed more slowly than it otherwise would have.)

Here's an example: As you know, we have long wanted to create a program making grants to volunteers -- both to chapters and individual Wikimedians.  Erik and I launched the chapters grantmaking process prior to Jennifer's arrival, but by ourselves we didn't have capacity to put much time into it.  When she arrived, Jennifer picked it up and successfully made grants to 21 chapters.  We had wanted to expand the program to include grants to individuals, which Jennifer would have done. With her leaving, three things will happen. 1) The existing chapters grants still need to be managed. 2) The launch of individual grants will be delayed. And 3) Our longer-term, big-picture thinking about grantmaking will be slower to evolve, because it won't benefit from having a person whose primary job is thinking about that kind of work.

So --in my example above-- there's an immediate problem, which is who will manage existing grants.  (The answer to that isn't determined, but it will probably be Erik.  He has lots of other work to do, but happily he also has enormous capacity for throughput.)  But the bigger problem is that our overall capacity to get smarter and more thoughtful about grantmaking in general, and to expand the existing program, will happen more slowly than it would have with a CPO in place.

I don't mean to dismiss your question: it's a good one, and the answer is essentially that different people will pick up different bits of work -- essentially, we revert to the world before we had a CPO, in which some combination of me, Erik, Frank, Jay and Cary handle it.  

If anyone needs a particular contact for work they'd been doing with Jennifer, please let me know, offlist or on, and I'll find or create an answer for you.

Thanks,
Sue



------Original Message------
From: Thomas Dalton
Sender: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
ReplyTo: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia
Sent: 17 Sep 2009 8:44 AM

2009/9/17 Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org>:
> However, Jennifer and I have agreed that despite those contributions,
> she ultimately will not be a good fit for the Chief Program Officer
> role.  That doesn't mean her path will never cross ours again, and
> it's not a decision intended to reflect badly on her skills or
> abilities.  Obviously we both wish things had played out differently.

I'm sorry to hear that. I wish Jennifer the best of luck with her
future career and you the best of luck finding a replacement.

It sounds like there will be several months between CPOs - who will
take over Jennifer's duties in the interim?

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