[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Risker]

On 28 August 2011 04:47, rupert THURNER <rupert.thurner at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard <notafishz at gmail.com>:
> > On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >> If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the
> >> WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it
> >> requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within
> >> particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws
> >> of their respective jurisdictions.  These are more important than the
> >> FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals.  There is no doubt
> >> that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash
> >> will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better
> >> to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than
> >> to play the role of a distrustful parent.
> >
> > +1
> > I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against
> > what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise
> > locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf,
> > médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these
> > people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason
> > for them doing this the way they do?
>
> +1.
> in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and
> year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users,
> we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that
> means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000
> donation.
>
> any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing
> to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we
> probably do not want to walk.
>
>
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions about
chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last
time around.  In the "real" world, charities determine what their objectives
are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific
dollar objective in mind.  What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with
the equivalent of half a million US dollars?  And was that "target"
established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out on
the back of an envelope?  It's certainly not the way that any other charity
I know of develops its targets.  Now, last year was the first time this
process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things;
however, with the 2010 fundraiser under our belts, not much has happened at
the chapter end to examine the models being used. Indeed, many chapters
still haven't worked out what to do with last year's windfall, let alone
done any advance planning for next year.

It's my contention that a very significant percentage of last year's donors
in particular believed that they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's
local office, not to local independent groups, many of which are quite
adamant that they are *not* the WMF.  Did anyone run a fundraising campaign
last year where donors had the choice of whether to donate to a local
organization versus the global one?  ("Donate here to support Wikimedia
Chapter activities in XXX country - tax receipt issued" vs "Donate here to
support Wikimedia activities around the world - no tax receipt available")
Did local messages clearly delineate how the funds would be distributed, or
what the chapter's objectives and activities were?  In other words, were
donors fully informed about what their donation would be used for?

I see last year's fundraiser as an experiment. In some ways, it was
amazingly successful - more funds were raised, in total, than ever before.
But in other ways it was not - most of the chapters raised far more money
than they were in a position to deal with, and the lack of advance planning
in this area has raised a lot of questions within the Wikimedia community,
and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals as
well.  The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many
countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false -
because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were
still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the
basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain
the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.

This isn't a swipe at chapters at all - without exception, the chapters are
enthusiastic local drivers of the Wikimedia vision, regardless of their size
or location.  I have the sense that several chapters have found themselves
overwhelmed by the volume of donations they've received, and are genuinely
trying to be good stewards of those funds, but the structures simply aren't
in place for them to do so. I'd like to see some very serious effort on the
part of the WMF to help chapters develop these structures, both for existing
chapters, and for the Global South chapters that are currently in early
development.


Risker/Anne