Dear friends and colleague,
I would to share with you the post we published on Wikimedia Blog (November
13, 2015) [1]. It describes how WMIL works with few *Wiktionary* volunteers
in a process of revitalization of *Wiktionary* community. I believe it
could be useful case study for those of you who deal with similar issues.
I would be happy to provide more info. to anyone who is interested
Michal
[1]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/13/hebrew-wiktionary-community-revitaliz…
*Regards,*
*Michal Lester,*
*Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*
*http://www.wikimedia.org.il <http://www.wikimedia.org.il/> *
*972-50-8996046 ; 972-77-751-6032 *
Hello,
It is only a few months until someone will need to organise the 2016
Affiliate Selected Board Seats process.
Thinking about the process last time I have set up a discussion here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Affiliate-selected_Board_seats#Request…
Comments are invited from everyone, including the WMF Board, affiliates and
the community at large.
Regards,
Chris
(writing in a personal capacity but informed by my role as one of the 2014
selection facilitators)
In light of this recent conversation I found this quote to be of interest.
"Wikipedia readers tend not to be bothered by the fundraising messages they
see on Wikipedia. Two-thirds (67%) say they don’t mind them, and a majority
(55%) say they are not annoyed by these messages. Roughly equal shares of
readers do (44%) and don’t (41%) pay attention to these messages, according
to their self-reports."
From
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Reader_Survey_November_20…
I'm merely presenting for reference.
Yours,
Chris Koerner
clkoerner.com
Greetings,
I have chatted with a number of folks over the years about ways to help promote the annual fundraising appeal - but in ways that did not feel so serious that it was out of our character to post on social media.
Good news - it appears this year Jimmy has participated in a video that serves this purpose very well. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njHebJTM0nk
Entertaining way to help kick off the fundraising appeal, and one that I am already having fun sharing on Twitter and FB. Given how seriously many of us take and talk about the campaign, this was a bit of levity I appreciated. :)
Enjoy!
-greg (User:Varnent)
A big advantage of having an endowment would be in conversations with our
GLAM partners.
- An organisation funded by an endowment can more credibly make longer-term
commitments than one that is not. This would be particularly attractive to
some of our current and potential GLAM partners; "Entrust us with a copy of
your images and metadata and we have the funding to keep it on the Internet
for the foreseeable future" would be a very attractive commitment for us to
be able to make. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment#Advantages>
We don't need an endowment large enough to keep the organisation going as
is, or even the pedias being still open to edit, before we can commit that
"the media library on Wikimedia Commons has an endowment that should
suffice to keep it on the web or on whatever replaces the internet for the
foreseeable future" . In a world of budget cuts and short term thinking
this would be a very positive thing for us to be able to say to museum
curators and similar custodians of cultural heritage. That doesn't mean we
commit to keeping everything in a particular image release, we might well
delete some images because our policy on copyright risk will be different
to theirs. But if you want to keep things in existence longterm then the
strategy used by the writers of the domesday book still works. Make several
copies and place them with organisations that intend to be around
for millennia to come. An endowment could mean that we become such an
organisation. I would hope that the WMF board aims for an endowment that
allows us to make such a commitment.
An endowment so large that we no longer need an annual fundraiser would be
a very much larger sum and harder in my view to justify. Why should this
generation pay so that people can edit Wikipedia in 2050 without there
being a fundraising banner?
~~~~
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 02:39:59 +0330
> From: Mardetanha <mardetanha.wiki(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Endowment Discussion
> Message-ID:
> <CAN6NyNrimRB0zv8X2qDXt==4v-gn88bt09CE7o=
> f1sVhifu7qA(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> do we have any definite number that if reach then we would not any
> fundraiser again in the future (I really would like to to see WMF in the
> position in which, it would not need yearly fundraiser to stand up and keep
> running ) , like 100 M mentioned in the meta page ?
>
> Mardetanha
>
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:22 PM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > > Hi all-
> > >
> > > For several years, the Wikimedia movement has been having discussions
> > > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment> about whether and when to
> > begin
> > > building an endowment. I put an essay up on meta recently in an attempt
> > to
> > > rekindle this conversation with the community. We included launching
> an
> > > endowment in the FY 2015-16 annual plan.
> >
> > Fantastic, this is exciting news. I am very happy to see this moving
> > forward, and will comment on the talk page of the endowment essay.
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Brion Vibber <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> > > Thinking about our social responsibility as an investor is
> > > probably worthwhile.
> >
> > I agree, and this is a good point to bring up.
> >
> > The endowment, if it's of a scale that will be effective, will have an
> > investment manager and perhaps even an investment committee. I think
> > directing that group to look at investment vehicles (i.e. mutual
> > funds) with certain value guidelines in mind would be appropriate,
> > much as we would direct them to have certain financial goals and
> > levels of risk in mind. Figuring out what those values should be might
> > not be so easy, but we could look at the investment policies of other
> > large socially-minded organizations for ideas.
> >
> > best,
> > Phoebe
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 18:25:20 -0500
> From: Risker <risker.wp(a)gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Endowment Discussion
> Message-ID:
> <CAPXs8yTkw4scDz6D_rDZJ=
> RF+1dvsWN_Q6bUsM+kzrdKk42X7Q(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Heh. $100 million USD is just a little more than is raised (and spent) on
> an annual basis throughout all the Wiki-chapters and WMF, including grants
> that are separate from direct fundraising. It *might* last 5-7 years of
> bare-bones "keeping the lights on only" functions, but that would mean no
> software upgrades (except what volunteers do in accord with their own
> desire as opposed to actual need), no community support, no funds to
> chapters, no Wikimania or hackathons or other conferences, no support for
> free-as-in-libre work, and very little assurance that if there were major
> changes in the most commonly used platforms, the WMF would be able to keep
> up-to-date with this.
>
> This is going to take a fair amount of thinking through, and needs to
> include our thinking about what we would consider the minimal operating
> functions of the project, and how long it would need to be able to
> proceed.
>
> Risker/Anne
>
>
Hi Lila,
There are some governance red flags that need your attention before
signing up to a N * $100,000,000 endowment plan than will last for a
thousand years...
1. The board is not fully elected. It is unlikely in the current
environment for a board for an endowment trust to have a majority of
elected trustees. This means that choices of when and how the
endowment is invested in years to come might be on projects or
organizations that would never be approved of by the volunteer
community of Wikimedians, and volunteer trustees could be outvoted on
every key decision.
2. The WMF struggles to become convincingly transparent or
accountable. As a simple to fix example, long term Wikimedians are
denied access to reports that the WMF (i.e. you) holds about them;
circumstances that would be unlawful in Europe.
3. There is huge potential for a financial scandal. The WMF does not
have policies or procedures in place to ensure that investment on this
scale can be handled well, year after year. These types of fiscal
controls are entirely different from handing and reporting on a $100m
cash flow.
4. With an endowment scheme in place, the WMF would be naturally
*less* accountable to Wikimedians for its actions each year. There
would be less incentive to answer questions, less incentive to
established a community consensus for the annual strategy and less
incentive to put volunteers at the center of decision making.
Similarly there would be less incentive for the WMF to attempt to
repair declining numbers of contributors to its on-line projects, or
ensure that issues such as gender disparity or on-line harassment are
targeted for investment. At the current time I cannot imagine how any
system would ensure this was not an inevitable consequence in a
volunteer based organization. I have no prior examples of
volunteer-centric organizations where this has worked well.
As the CEO, it would be helpful for you to spell out in a public
recommendation to your board the good governance practices and core
competences that would have to be established and tested before
proceeding to put money into a massive long term endowment scheme.
Thanks,
Fae
On 30 November 2015 at 17:27, Lila Tretikov <lila(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Lisa,
>
> Thank you for sharing these exciting news and all the work the team has
> completed so far. I know I have spoken with many of our community members
> in the past about this important milestone in protecting our community's
> work long-term. I am looking forward to hearing more from everyone as we
> make this real.
>
> Lila
--
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Hi all-
For several years, the Wikimedia movement has been having discussions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment> about whether and when to begin
building an endowment. I put an essay up on meta recently in an attempt to
rekindle this conversation with the community. We included launching an
endowment in the FY 2015-16 annual plan. We also plan to have this
conversation as a part of the larger strategic planning process because
building an endowment means prioritizing some future needs over some
current needs.
Before we can begin to support an endowment, there is strategic groundwork
that should be completed to ensure that the effort is both thoughtful and
successful. To help get the conversation moving, I seeded the discussion
page with a few questions that we are hoping you will help us answer.
Please add the questions I didn't think to ask, too. We'd appreciate
hearing your thoughts on this and your help in thinking through some of the
strategic questions.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay
Best regards,
Lisa Gruwell