Note also that there is an on-going discussion with the WMF Board on fundraising ethics here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Discu...
Every year, readers are told that money is required to "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free another year" (a hangover from ten years ago, when bandwidth was indeed the main cost). At the end of the December 2014 fundraiser, donors were told in the thank-you email that "each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone".
Every year, members of the community point out here on this list that given the Foundation's present-day wealth, these phrasings are misleading and manipulative. They report feeling ashamed when friends and family ask them about the Foundation's apparent money problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-03-18/Op-ed
We all know that the Foundation asks for and receives more money every year:
2006-2007: $3 million 2007-2008: $5 million 2008-2009: $9 million 2009-2010: $18 million 2010-2011: $25 million 2011-2012: $38 million 2012-2013: $49 million 2013-2014: $53 million 2014-2015: $75 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial_summary
By no stretch of the imagination is it accurate to say that "each year, just enough people donate to keep the sum of human knowledge available for everyone". (This is quite apart from the fact that Facebook and many others host complete mirrors of Wikipedia, and mirrors like Wikiwand for example would JUMP at the chance of getting Wikipedia's top spot in Google. If the Foundation disappeared tomorrow, others – not least Wikipedia's volunteers – would stand in line to replace them in "keeping the sum of human knowledge available for everyone".)
What donors really have been financing is a huge organisational expansion at the Wikimedia Foundation.
WMF staff levels have skyrocketed, from a dozen in 2007 to 278 today (not counting another 100 or so paid chapter staff).
From Megan's responses on the page Liam posted a link to a few days ago:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2015-16_Fundraising_ideas
and Patricio's responses at the Wikimedia Foundation board noticeboard:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Discu...
it is abundantly clear that the Foundation intends to use the same approach in this year's December fundraiser. Banners observed in testing earlier this month still used the same wording, despite last year's controversy.
So, as things stand, fundraising banners and emails in December will once again tell readers that they must donate money to "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free", "keep Wikipedia online and ad-free another year", "keep the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone" etc., rather than telling them where the lion's share of the money actually goes. In this method of fundraising, there is no accountability to the donor.
Does the unpaid volunteer community really agree with this? Has there ever been a Request for Comment to find out?
According to the annual plan, the Foundation's revenue target for the 2015-2016 financial year is $73 million. (Note that the Foundation took several million more last year than the publicised target.)
We are now at the end of August. If we don't want to have the same fruitless conversation in December in 2015 that we had in December 2014, and the Decembers before, I suggest now is the time to do something about it.
Let's do our best to ensure that this year's main fundraiser will be an honest one, consistent with the letter and spirit of the fundraising principles: open, honest and transparent about the Foundation's finances, and what it has done and will do with donors' money.
This is what ethical charities do.
I would suggest that Lila's introduction to the 2015/2016 plan would be a good place to begin:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Lila.27s_Foreword
The tens of millions of dollars the Foundation aims to collect this financial year can potentially do a lot of good. But shouldn't we try to make sure they're not collected under false pretences? You can't build anything of lasting value on a rotten foundation.
Andreas
On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 8:35 PM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
dear board,
allow me to directly ask you to stop these fundraising persons to spoil wiki loves monuments because of less than intelligent KPIs. WMF cannot and should not behave like an elephant in the porcelain shop. there is a simple technical solution to the problem below, to have a combined banner for WLM and donation. it is impossible that more money at stake as is covered by the reserves, isn't it? i am really lacking words here ... the only ones i could find would not be compliant with the friendly space policy. if we as movement do not follow through the "volunteer first" rule than it is better to dissolve WMF, or split it in two parts, one holding the rights to the web URLs, i.e. right to banner, the other one employing all the people doing some work.
best, rupert
On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 3:49 PM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Hello everyone. Sorry for the long mail but we wanted to explain the situation for Wikimedia Italia. The conversation is going on and it's better to clear some important points.
In the second week of August Wikimedia Italia has been contacted by Kalliope Tsouroupidou and later by Jessica Robell, who explained that the Wikimedia Foundation was planning to have a fundraising campaign in Italy in September. We have been surprised by that, since Wiki Loves Monuments is well-known
to
run in September, and it has been like that for years. Moreover, there has been a similar clash in 2014: we discussed for
several
days, and in the end we reached a compromise, and the FR banners went
live
just for the last days. It was not perfect, but we had WLM banners for almost all September. This year the clash is on the whole month of September. Given the
history,
and the very fact that Wikimedia Italia has planned WLM and written so in the FDC application, we feel that WMIT has not been negligible in matters of communication. We are not *happy* with the situation, the very existence of the clash, the fact that all this appeared in the middle of August, while we were all on holiday and just few weeks before the beginning of WLM. We just decided not to pick up a fight, as we believe in constructive conversation and negotiation. The agreement we reached is very painful for WMIT and WLM: it's just
better
than not having the banners at all, or to have them for just a few days
in
the middle of September. Conversations with the FR team has been firm, but polite: this does not mean that we are happy about what is happening. Moreover, we will have to discuss with FDC to renegotiate expected
results
for WLM in 2015.
Having the fundraising campaign in September in Italy has a clear
negative
impact on Wiki Loves Monuments, the largest project of Wikimedia Italia. This will not only likely reduce the number of participants and uploaded pictures, but will also put us in a difficult position in front of our sponsors and partners, including 200+ municipalities, 100+ cultural institutions, and some major partners, like FIAF (the Federation of
Italian
photographers' associations), ICOM (the International Council of
Museums),
the Toscana Foto Festival (a major photo festival), Touring Club Italiano (the largest Italian touristic association), and others. WMIT spends thousands of euros in WLM each year - not because we waste money, but because we have higher stakes.
This year, we will have in the Italian Jury international renowned photographers like (prabably: yet to be confirmed) Steve McCurry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McCurry) and Franco Fontana ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco_Fontana). This year, in June, we were received by several politicians from the Italian Parliament for an official meeting regarding the law we are fighting as WMIT.
Because of the specific challenges we face, WLM in Italy goes beyond
being
a photographic competition and is also an opportunity to create relationships and advocate for the freedom of taking pictures of
monuments.
Italy does not have "freedom of panorama". Worst, Italy does not have freedom of panorama for any kind of monuments, even if copyright has expired. We need to ask for permission to make pictures of monuments. For. Every. Monument. We have to create lists of monuments to be photographed. There is no official list of monuments in Italy.
There is *extensive* documentation here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Italian_cultural_heritage_on_the_Wikimedia_p...
This is very important to know to put in perspective WLM Italy stats: http://stats.wikilovesmonuments.cl/italy. As an example, it is the
reason
why we have so many participants who contribute for few pics each. In
2014
alone, we had 1038 uploaders, but we were only 6th in terms of number of photos.
The global fundraising is essential to our movement. It funds Wikipedia operations, software development, the Wikimedia Foundation, many chapters and affiliates, and, of course, also Wiki Loves Monuments (even tough in Italy it is primarily funded from other
sources).
The global fundraising is meant to support the Wikimedia movement: but,
for
this very reason, it is a pity to have it clashing to one of the very activities it is meant to support. Especially since we are not talking about a 2 hours editathon in a small library in the middle of nowhere, but about an international competition who ended up in the Guinnes World Records, bringing thousands of pictures to the Wikimedia projects. We understand that fundraising is not an easy job, especially when it is done on a global level. Yet we feel obliged to use donors money to build and deliver the best projects we can: firstly out of respect for all the people who decided to donate their time, their money or their career to
the
movement; secondly because a badly executed projects could also have a negative impact on the next fundraising campaigns. We are all part of the same movement: the work of the WMF fundraising
team
is strictly linked to that of the community. We would like to be
confident
that what is happening now won't happen for a third time, and that in the future we will be able to communicate more effectively and work more collaboratively. We really are looking forward a more effective cooperation with WMF and
all
other Wikimedia Affiliates: collaboration is the very pillar of all the Wikimedia movement.
We would like to thank all the people who supported us and gave us
opinions
and advices on this mailing list and elsewhere. We are very proud to be part of such a great community, and we would like to see it become wider and bigger.
Andrea Zanni for the board of Wikimedia Italia _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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