IMHO it would be absolutely OK to support such organizations/groups with works related to Wikimedia project, which could also benefit general public.
2014-04-15 22:27 GMT+02:00 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 15 April 2014 20:50, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd be interested in hearing broader community opinions about the extent to which WMF should sponsor non-profits purely to support work that Wikimedia benefits from, even if it's not directed towards a specific goal established in a grant agreement.
Creative Commons, OpenStreetMap spring to mind. What are their budgets like? I expect ours dwarfs theirs. We should throw money at Freenode on a regular basis.
OSM Foundation budget is roughly 100 000 GBP per year.
http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances/Income_2012
http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances/Balance_Sheet_2012
and they are not charity, however I can imagine supporting them via WMF Grant Program for specific projects (for example buying and maintaining separate server for tiles for Wikimedia Projects, which could speed up MiniWikiAtlas, :-) ).
For Document Foundation (LibreOffice) - I can imagine supporting them with grant to improve their MediaWiki extension, etc... They are charitable in Germany, their income is about 120 000 EUR per year: