Any long term goals require a steady source of funds.
People are fickle with
donation
money, and relying on individual donors for the duration is not sound
policy. If we
want the Foundation to exist and be relevant in 20 or 40 years, then it
needs a way
to meet its spending needs without relying on the charitable giving climate.
Other charities seem to manage. We're not just relying on individuals,
anyway, the WMF has recently secured grants from several foundations
and there's every reason to believe such grants will keep coming in (I
believe someone was recently hired specifically to work on such
things).