Wikimedia Foundation elections/2025
In 2025, the term of 2 (two) Community- and Affiliate-selected Trustees on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees will come to an end. The Board invites the Wikimedia movement to participate in this year’s selection process and vote to fill those seats.
The Elections Committee will oversee this process with support from Foundation staff.
Voting method and platform
[edit]Single Transferable Vote on SecurePoll will be used in this year's election.
For candidates
[edit]Apply to be a candidate
[edit]Shortlisting process
[edit]In the 2025 election, there will be 2 (two) open seats. In a previous cycle when there were four open seats, there was an overwhelming number of candidates for voters to review. The Elections Committee and Board of Trustees determined 10 candidates would be a reasonable number for voters to review. If there are more than 10 eligible candidates as determined by the Elections Committee, a shortlisting process will occur. The process will aim to shortlist 6 candidates, and these 6 candidates will be running in the community voting phase. If there are 10 or fewer candidates, there will be no shortlisting process. The process would be a lot of work for Affiliates only to eliminate three or fewer candidates for community voting round.
Community questions for candidates
[edit]In each selection process, the community has the opportunity to submit questions for the Board of Trustees candidates to answer. The Election Committee selects questions from the list developed by the community for the candidates to answer. Candidates are only required to answer these selected questions. Candidates must answer all the required questions in the application in order to be eligible; otherwise, their application will be disqualified.
This year, the call for questions from the community will be merged with the kickoff announcement, so we can collect questions earlier in the process. Then, the Election Committee will select five (5) questions for the candidates to answer. The selected questions may be a combination of what’s been submitted from the community, if they’re alike or related. The selected questions will be incorporated into the candidate application, so candidates only have to answer questions once. This is meant to improve and ease the burden on the candidates, and make it easier for voters to view all the responses in one place.
Conversation with the Candidates
[edit]- A panel interview will be hosted with all shortlisted candidates. This panel will be available virtually with interpretation; and recorded for those who can’t attend live.
- To ensure equity, the questions will be shared with candidates ahead of time so they can prepare. Support staff will facilitate to make sure there is equal airtime for every candidate.
Campaign rules
[edit]For voters
[edit]Voter eligibility guidelines
[edit]Timeline
[edit]The timeline below is subject to change, in response to improvements to the process.
| Date | Activity | Status |
|---|---|---|
| May 1, 2025―May 15, 2025 | Community review of the selection rules |  Completed
|
| May 22, 2025 | Launch announcement with finalized selection rules and call for questions from the community |  Doing...
|
| Second half of June 2025 | Call for candidates (open for 2 weeks) | |
| First half of July 2025 | Candidate verification | |
| Second half of July 2025 | Shortlisting candidates, if necessary | |
| End of July 2025 | Final list of candidates | |
| Month of July 2025 | Candidate pre-onboarding | |
| Month of August 2025 | Campaigning period for candidates | |
| End of Aug - mid-Sept | Voting period (open for 2 weeks) | |
| October 2025 | Preliminary results, after votes are scrutinized | |
| October - November 2025 | Background checks on the selected candidates | |
| December 2025 | Board confirms and seats the selected candidates at the Board meeting |
Frequently asked questions
[edit]- Main article: Wikimedia Foundation elections/2025/FAQ