[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Florence Devouard]

On 8/9/11 4:46 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
> 2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard<notafishz at gmail.com>
>
>> On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Kirill Lokshin<kirill.lokshin at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating"
>> in
>>> the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries?  The
>> underlying
>>> fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words
>> --
>>> is performed by WMF staff directly.  The chapters do provide some level
>> of
>>> administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as
>>> easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.
>>
>> Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
>>
>> While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the
>> fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success
>> hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter
>> board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of
>> localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing
>> pages, answering donors questions etc.
>>
>> You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level
>> of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and
>> even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities
>> have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for
>> example).
>
>
> I'm not suggesting that the success of the fundraiser isn't due in large
> part to broad community involvement; my assertion is that this community
> involvement would take place whether or not a formal chapter was involved.


I think that on this very point, even the WMF would disagree with you.
Actually, the very fact that WMF explicitely put in the fundraising 
agreement that the Chapter *has to* provide translations of the 
fundraising messages (which include as well stuff such as Jimbo's 
letter) suggests that translations may not as magically appear as we 
would hope. It rather suggests that chapters actually do have an 
invaluable role in making sure that the fundraiser is not 100% in 
English langage (even though members of the community who are not 
members of the chapter clearly help in translation). In short, 
community, both within and not within chapter realm, support the entire 
system.

Aside from this, I am quite shocked when I read

<quote>in what sense are the chapters "participating" in
the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries?  The underlying
fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words --
is performed by WMF staff directly.  The chapters do provide some level of
administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as
easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.  The only real
advantage a chapter's involvement can provide over a fully WMF-operated
fundraiser is the availability of tax benefits in a particular jurisdiction;
and, given the small size of the average donation, it's unclear to what
extent such tax benefits are a significant consideration for the average
donor.
</quote>

But I'll forgive you because you obviously are not totally aware of 
what's going in the various chapters. Having been involved in 
fundraising for Wikimedia France, I can certainly assure you that the 
chapter is not merely being a "beneficiary".

The actual sollicitation of donations is not only performed by WMF staff 
(are you aware that chapters also provide a specific landing page for 
sollicitation ? specific messages ? Localized press release ? payments 
methods are adapted to local situation ? ). The one thing that chapters 
can provide to donors in their geographical area that WMF will never 
been able to provide (at least, not at any reasonable cost) is to talk 
to them as citizens of the same country. Same langage. Same culture. 
Local events happening HERE rather than on the other side of earth. 
Local partnership with institutions they know about. It tells them about 
THEM. It is about THEM. This proximity can only be provided by chapters.

Claiming that WMF would provide the same job for a lower cost is 
actually quite laughable given that WMF is actually PAYING staff to do 
this (it costs money) whilst the majority of that work is being done for 
free by chapter members (it costs less money to work for free...).
And people have staff, in many (not all) countries, staff costs is 
actually lower than in the USA.
So the "likely at lower cost" comes from nowhere and is unlikely to be 
true.

There is only one point which I will grant you. Some chapters offer tax 
deduction to their donors. This indeed require work to provide hence 
expenses. If WMF was receiving those donations with no tax receipt to 
provide, it would indeed require less work. Hence cost less.

This said, in France, over 90% of our donors ask for this receipt. I 
expect that many would not give money to an US organization with no tax 
receipt at all. I have no figure to support this, but I am willing to 
give it a go for a few weeks. Get the money from French people and tell 
them afterwards, SORRY GUYS, NO RECEIPT. And then ask them if they will 
give again next year. Of course, all the complaints will have to be 
dealt by WMF staff.

Seriously, when it comes to fundraising, the first important thing to 
keep in mind is that trying to maximize the money collected in a given 
year is thinking short term. Trying to create a good relationship with 
happy donors is the way to think long term. An upset or disappointed 
donor will only give once. And you will only know one year later.

Anthere


>   I would assume that the volunteers who contributed to the effort presumably
> did so because they believed in the goals of the project and the need to
> raise funds to support them, not because their particular chapter stood to
> collect a large sum of money in the process?
>
> Kirill
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