a good idea?

Aude, you said that volunteers should be positioned high in the org chart, and paid staff should fill in and supplement where volunteers are weak. As Eloquence noted, this is the case right now. Do you disagree? If so, could you elaborate?

[Argh... just lost what I wrote, with a external link being caught by the spam filter and what I wrote gone :(]

Fair point about the Board drawing from the community.

One area that I think should be especially community/locally/chapter-driven is GLAM outreach. An example where that was not the case was the NIH Wikipedia Academy last summer. Only at the last minute (five days before) were bot notices sent out to DC area Wikipedians, inviting them to be involved. [1]

Instead, by involving local DC Wikipedians early in the planning process, you would find active volunteers who also have experience with how the government bureaucracy works and also volunteers who have local contacts/networks (e.g. know people at NIH). Although not subject matter experts, they would be valuable in the planning process. I happened to be stalking MetaWiki recent changes and found out about the academy, but otherwise might have been in the dark and not informed until too late. (e.g. I already had travel plans, couldn't get out of work, etc.)

Fortunately, I see things are happening at the local/community level for outreach to the Smithsonian. I would like to see this continue, with decisions/direction at this level, things remain grassroots and bottom-up, and draw upon the Foundation as a resource when-needed. I would be disappointed if a staff member replaced the local/community in this effort, except perhaps if the local/community person was at some point hired or funded (via grant).