[Foundation-l] UK Foundation (was Day 1 Fund Drive Report)

[Scott Keir]

Given the UK support is about 10% of the total support, has there been 
consideration given to setting up a UK Foundation, to promote Wikimedia 
and raise funds in the UK?

UK law means that for donations to UK charities, either the donor can 
reclaim the tax they've paid on the donation, or the charity can (so if 
a donor gives GBP10, the charity can receive a total of GBP12.80). This 
is obviously more attractive to both donor and charity.

There would be practical issues to consider - of administration, legal 
matters for setting it up, how trustees etc would be decided, and how 
the donations received from this charity could be put to use for 
Wikimedia, but I thought it was worth raising, as I haven't seen it yet 
on this list.

(On a related note, has consideration been given to providing a 
"proper" facility for people to donate via credit or debit card (Visa, 
Mastercard, Diners etc)? Not everyone has Paypal, and their fees are 
quite high. If there's going to be this quantity of donations received 
on a regular basis, the investment in a WorldPay type system might pay 
off. [I've investigated this for a small UK charity I'm a trustee of, 
so the issue is fresh in my mind - apologies if this has been discussed 
before])

> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 01:43:46 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer, Wikimedia CFO 
> wrote:
>
> On Day 1 (Friday eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not 
> available in
> UTC) we made $9,939.47 (USD equivalent) through a combination of 
> PayPal and
> MoneyBookers.
>
> PayPal breakdown:
> AUD   314.03 (247.27 USD)
> CAD   334.40 (271.58 USD)
> EUR  3413.75 (4464.75 USD)
> GBP   475.17 (899.77 USD)
> JPY  28340   (269 USD)
> USD   3424.63
> Total 9576.78 (USD equivalent)

Scott Keir
scottkeir at yahoo.co.uk