2025 brought a lot of reflection, learning, and planning that will guide Wikimedia Brasil’s actions in the next three years. In this post, we will show how WMB mobilized intense participation from the Brazilian Wikimedia community to evaluate the cycle that is now ending and to develop its strategy for 2026-2028, which has as its main objective to contribute to the mission of being a Brazilian agent of activation, coordination, and social transformation in favor of free knowledge.

Wikimedia Brasil’s new Strategic Process was developed under the coordination of the Strategy Committee and with the support of Strategic Subcommittees formed by associate members and the WMB team. Throughout the process, we analyzed what was accomplished in the previous cycle, from 2023 to 2025 – which focused on building a framework for a free, equitable, secure, and reliable internet – and jointly defined the organization’s future paths.

This governance structure had already been formulated for the implementation of the 2023-2025 strategic cycle, and aligned with the participatory management model of Wikimedia Brasil (then known as Wiki Movimento Brasil). This year, we sought to broaden the diversification of approaches and solutions adopted in order to reflect a deeper engagement and a greater capacity to respond to the new scenario, considering changes both internal and external to the movement.

The first major change was the expansion of WMB’s associate members, from 29 to 55. The number of institutional partners also grew significantly, reaching 68 GLAM partners distributed across 10 Brazilian states, in addition to partners in Education and Scientific Dissemination, Community, among others. In recent years, we have experienced an expansion of connections in the Global South and learned from collaborative projects such as CALILU and Capacity Exchange, which align with the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy. Following recognition as a chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, expectations for a broader international reach from the organization have also increased.

Assembleia Geral em Salvador (BA), julho 2025.

Externally, the perception of the associate members is of a scenario marked by the possibility of democratic setbacks, an increase in extremist discourse, systematic disinformation campaigns, a growing concentration of power by large digital platforms, and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence models that present significant challenges to the free knowledge ecosystem. Furthermore, Brazil continues to have high rates of functional illiteracy, a lack of media literacy, and unequal access to quality information. The Brazilian regulatory environment is dynamic, with some progress but many unique challenges. The adoption of free licensing practices is unstable and uneven across different locations, and the country still needs to make concrete progress in the local implementation of the Global Digital Compact.

Thus, there is a growing importance of strengthening networks committed to digital rights, information integrity, freedom of expression, open internet governance, and equitable access to knowledge. Wikimedia Brasil is at the forefront of promoting a culture of qualified, accessible, and participatory information. In the face of local and global transformations, there is a demand for a more complex, federative and assertive strategy for 2026-2028.

THE THREE STRATEGIC AXES AND THE METHODOLOGY

Wikimedia Brasil’s Strategic Process followed a rigorous development path that involved broad participation from the local community. The methodology included critical reviews of documents and quantitative and qualitative reports, interviews with editors and partners of different profiles, focus groups with the Brazilian community and Portuguese speakers, meetings with five strategic subcommittees, and a survey about the profile of those who contribute to the Wikimedia projects in Portuguese.

At least three in-person meetings (in November 2024, July 2025, and October 2025) brought together community representatives for collaborative construction phases using different participatory methodologies, including WikiCon Brasil 2025 itself. This conference, organized by and for the Brazilian Wikimedia community, had over 160 participants and focused on sharing content, perspectives, and resources on digital public goods, a concept that became part of the new strategy.

For the president of Wikimedia Brasil, Érica Azzellini, the participatory methodology of this planning reflects Wikimedia’s own process: “the future needs to be imagined collectively, it needs to be made by many hands. And that is why our methodology requires diverse and plural participation in all aspects.”

Based on a robust analysis of the previous cycle (see below), guided by a new Theory of Change (see below), and an analysis of the internal and external contexts of the movement, the organization’s new strategy for the 2026-2028 triennium was developed. In it, the community defined the three axes that will guide the action and intentions of Wikimedia Brasil. They are:

• Support collaborative practices in favor of free knowledge: the actions here are aimed at governance practices and strengthening and supporting the community that acts for free knowledge.
• Articulate strategic alliances in defense of digital public goods: it aims at identifying, establishing, mediating, and promoting partnerships, alliances, and campaigns between institutions and social movements to promote the integrity of information and digital public goods.
• Promote the wiki methodology on the internet in Portuguese: guidelines to map, foster, promote and extrapolate the Wikimedia methodology to other contexts of knowledge production and circulation, through the identification of good digital practices and advocacy for the adoption of protocols and policies that help democratize free access to knowledge, encouraging digital literacy and the adoption of transparency measures on the internet.

Supporting, articulating, and promoting are therefore inseparable dimensions of the strategic response to this new digital, plural, and contested world.

IT ALL BEGINS WITH THE THEORY OF CHANGE

In 2024, Wikimedia Brasil developed its second Theory of Change (ToC) to guide the expected impact of the institution’s actions and consolidate the Wikimedia Movement in Brazil. It was the starting point for the development of the new Strategic Process.

With the central motto action generates action, this document emphasizes the importance of intentional organizational activity to promote the sustainability of local communities spread across Brazil. Considering the diversity and inequality of the vast Brazilian territory, ToC guides strategies to empower these communities so that they act according to the specificities of their regions, while maintaining a shared experience regarding Wikimedia in the country.

With this goal in mind, five interdependent principles were outlined for Wikimedia Brasil’s actions: Network of networks; National cooperation; South-South articulation; Programmatic sustainability; and Contextual technological development. We also defined five learning areas that will allow us to evaluate, throughout the next cycle, the extent to which the efforts undertaken will have contributed to the intended impact.

Based on a risk analysis for the implementation of the ToC 2024, the document suggests the organization to adopt a federated governance model, promote actions to engage new editors, and occupy more spaces of advocacy within public management, in favor of broad and democratic digital rights. Thus, the WMB’s position is marked by an intentionality in defending collaborative and free projects of public interest.

EVALUATION OF THE PREVIOUS CYCLE

****At the end of the 2023-2025 Strategy, three analyses were conducted that identified progress, challenges, opportunities for improvement, and recommendations for the 2026-2028 cycle of Wikimedia Brasil. These analyses were presented in three documents:

• Activity Report 2023-2025: this report shows the actions, results, and partnerships carried out over the three-year period, offering a comprehensive view of the actions performed by each of the professional team’s areas. Up to the first half of 2025, 865 activities took place, ranging from community sessions, training, and governance actions to campaigns, institutional partnerships, research, and technical developments. These resulted in nearly 200,000 files uploaded to Commons; 136,000 items created or edited in Wikidata; 14,700 articles created or edited in Wikipedia; 391 pages created or edited in Wikiversity; 4,400 active editors; 3,700 new social media followers; and 187 mentions of Wikimedia Brasil in news outlets.
• Strategic Process Report 2023-2025: this document analyzes the process of developing and implementing the five axes of the 2023-2025 Strategic Process. The evolution of the reports recorded for each one over the years was observed through the Learning and Results Assessment System (SARA) – a tool created by WMB in 2023 specifically to facilitate the storage and visualization of activity reports. The set of 1,002 reports produced between 2023 and June 2025 offers a comprehensive view of the strategic process, highlighting the scope and diversity of actions taken, unfilled gaps, tensions throughout the cycle, engagement patterns, sustainability challenges, and articulation dynamics that need to be reconfigured.
• Learning Report 2023-2025: focusing on the six learning areas outlined in the 2021 Theory of Change, the analysis presents what Wikimedia Brasil learned from the intersection of data collected in SARA and qualitative reports. During this period, the institution consolidated practices for community strengthening, governance processes and organizational culture, the establishment of partnerships, innovation in processes and products for the construction of socio-technical infrastructure, and the expansion of institutional notoriety and recognition. On the other hand, WMB also faced structural and conjunctural obstacles, such as lack of accessibility, lack of basic digital infrastructure, and the non-optimization of tools for mobile devices, which limited the full realization of its potential.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A STRATEGIC PLANNING

With a process comprised of several stages and the contribution of various voices, both from associate members and the wider community, even from outside the country, a strategic plan like the one developed by WMB brings a plurality of experiences, opinions, and perspectives, reflecting what is thought and done in different local contexts.

According to Azzellini, when thinking about the future and what one intends to do, it is fundamental to look back and see what has changed inside and outside of the institution. “Identifying risks and potential is also essential for an organization to succeed in achieving its objectives. With this, it is possible to consider the capacity for action and the challenges faced by the movement, which will help guide the implementation of the new strategy.”

The Strategic Process is, therefore, a set of fundamental collaborative decisions to establish the paths we will follow in the coming years. Starting from a more abstract and theoretical conceptualization, we establish definitions until we reach the more tangible actions experienced by our community. Guided by a consultative and transparent practice, we ensure that all stages of strategy development promote acceptance and security for the people involved, ensuring that our actions are developed intentionally and in deep connection with our principles. And that is how we want to continue for the next few years.

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