One Year Review of the OTW 2023-26 Strategic Plan

The 2023-2026 Strategic Plan is intended to guide the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) over the next several years and is based on the Vision Statement, which was published in July 2022. Since the Strategic Plan's approval by the Board of Directors and publication in July 2023, the Strategic Planning Committee has monitored and reported on the progress of the Strategic Plan. This one year update reports on our progress on the plan as of July 31, 2024. Only goals with current/expected progress during the first year of the Plan have been included in this review. A translation of this post will be available soon.

Diversifying Spaces

Diversity Consultant - Complete

The Board received a recommendation from the Diversity Consultant Research Officer to hire an external organization culture consultant firm. A firm was hired, which completed an audit of the OTW's internal culture, including surveying over 265 volunteers at all levels of the OTW. This firm presented to the Board recommendations for diversifying spaces within the OTW. The Board is responsible for the next steps and updates on the follow-up are covered under "Progress Report."

Progress Report - In progress

The OTW shared the Organizational Culture Consultant’s recommendations for diversifying spaces and improving the volunteer experience within the OTW for all volunteers. Summary highlights of the report were also shared with the public at the July Board meeting. A roadmap of work to be accomplished was written and shared with all OTW volunteers. Volunteers were asked to submit feedback on the Roadmap draft and revisions were made from there. Work began on the first goals in this OTW Organizational Culture Change roadmap.

Recruitment - Complete

Strategic Planning (SP) and Volunteer Committees researched, developed, and internally published a resource for inclusive recruiting practices in January 2024. This resource was shared with all committees including chairs and other volunteers.

Volunteer Coalitions - In progress/Delayed

Volunteer Coalitions were reprioritized as a lower priority than other organizational culture projects, as a result of the work by the external organization culture consultant firm. However, initial research for this goal is underway within Strategic Planning.

Internal Sustainability

Succession Planning - In progress/Delayed

Succession Planning work to reduce the impact of burnout and turnover by improving documentation and consistency across committees is slightly behind schedule, though early results from Organizational Culture Consultant’s work reaffirmed its necessity. Succession planning documentation is in progress.

Paid Staff

Paid Staff Transition Lead - Complete

The Paid Staff Transition Lead accomplished several aspects of the goal ahead of schedule, including selecting new Paid Staff Transition Co-Leads. The new leads will continue research on the paid staff transition to define next steps in this process, including feasibility research and a needs assessment.

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity - In progress

Cybersecurity initial work is completed, with further steps ongoing.

AO3 Development

Note: Goals in this category are ongoing for the continuing health of the Organization.

Continued Maintenance and Support of AO3 - Ongoing

Conduct regular maintenance, upgrades, and support to ensure the AO3 site is stable, secure, and performant. Systems supplemented existing post-mortem practice with externally-facing incident analysis on the Archive and on Cloudflare’s case study collection. Public post-mortems (when appropriate) build stakeholder trust and contribute to the knowledge set of the systems and security industries.

Internationally-Accessible AO3 Interface - In progress

Finalize multi-language email notifications and pursue possible avenues for making additional user-facing text translatable. Progress on AO3's goal of email notifications being translated can be followed on the OTW Jira. As of July 31, 2024, the internationalization standards were largely established and documented, and implementation for emails was progressing well.

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The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.