On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 11:13 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
On 10/11/2008, geni <geniice(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2008/11/10 Ian Woollard
<ian.woollard(a)gmail.com>om>:
I just think that the wikipedia needs to get
itself to the point where
the interest on the money it has is enough to run the servers forever,
and any excess per year can be given to charity.
At 5% interest you would still be needing $40-80 million +. There is
at this time no way to do this.
But I think that needs to be the goal. And the fund-raising would go
differently if that is the goal.
It's basically not possible for a US-based 501(c)(3) organization to
risklessly pre-fund itself in perpetuity. Google "private foundation payout
requirement".
It's a bit like how many universities
work, and it wouldn't take that many people dying and leaving their
money to the wikipedia to reach that level. It might take a few years
to raise the money, but it should reach it eventually.
It's not at all like how universities work. For one thing, universities are
given special treatment under 509(a)(1) of the IRC. They're essentially
exempt from the public support test. But that's because universities rely
on tuition payments to keep themselves going. Unless the WMF wants to start
charging tuition fees, the university funding model is unavailable to it.
The purpose of the WMF is to serve the public. Pre-funding it for
perpetuity is pretty much guaranteed to destroy its incentives for
continuing to serve the public. That's fine for something like the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, created by a small number of people to further
their legacy, but that's not what the WMF is about.