Hello dear community,
the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation passed the following
resolution with seven approves and three abstains:
Following consultation with the Wikimedia community on meta, the
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is now releasing the guiding
principles below, which are intended to govern Wikimedia fundraising and
funds dissemination practices.
We now ask the Executive Director to develop for the Board a
recommendation for fundraising and funds dissemination practices that
will align as well as possible with the guiding principles while
consulting appropriately with stakeholders and interested parties. The
Board asks that the recommendation be ready to be shared with the Board
for discussion at the February 2012 Board meeting.
==== Guidelines for Fundraising Scenarios ====
* Consistency with mission, vision and values. All Wikimedia fundraising
activities must be conducted in a manner that's consistent with our
overall mission, vision and values. They must not create unnecessary
legal exposure for the projects, or otherwise unduly interfere with our
ability to achieve our mission.
* Minimal cost and minimal disruption. All Wikimedia fundraising
activities must aim to raise the maximum possible amount of money from
donors while minimizing administrative costs as much as possible (in
order to reserve the largest amount of money possible for programmatic
activity), while causing minimal disruption and annoyance for users of
the projects.
* Transparency: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful
with prospective donors. We need to tell people what we intend to use
their money for, before they donate. And we need to report in a timely
fashion on how it was actually spent.
* Responsibility: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must ensure funds
received are safe from fraud or misuse as determined by existing
third-party standards for appropriate financial controls, and must
adhere to relevant laws and regulations.
* Internationalism: Our movement is international in scope, and our
fundraising practices must support the easiest possible transfer of
money internationally in support of the movement's priorities.
* Independence: We prefer a fundraising model in which we are supported
primarily via the many-small-donors model, because this is the model
that best supports our independence.
* Flexibility: We do not need to adhere to a single monolithic model for
fundraising: multiple donation streams are fine.
* Sustainable donor relations: We must safeguard donor privacy and avoid
slowing the "donate now" flow.
* Good faith: The Wikimedia movement assumes that all movement
participants are acting in good faith, with regards to each other's
actions and intentions.
==== Guidelines for Funds Distribution Scenarios ====
* Protect the core: Core activities that ensure the continuity of the
projects need to be funded first.
* Impact: Funds should be distributed in ways that support mission work,
agnostic with regard to where the money was raised.
* Transparency and stability: Decisions about funds distribution must be
made transparently, in accordance with published guidelines and
processes. The model must enable each entity to carry out financial
planning to support efforts to be sustainable.
* Decentralization: Funds must be distributed in ways that support
decentralized programmatic activities for furthering our mission.
* Responsibility and accountability: Funds must be distributed in ways
that enable the Wikimedia movement to confidently assure donors that
their donations will be safeguarded appropriately, and that spending
will be in line with our mission and with the messages used to attract
donors.
* Collaboration and openness: Funds must be distributed in ways that are
collaborative and open, and which respect the diverse and international
nature of the Wikimedia movement.
== Reference Links ==
*
http://board.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_fundraising/Guiding_Principles
* [[m:Draft Guiding principles with regards to funds distribution|Draft
Guiding principles with regards to funds distribution]]
* [[m:Draft Guiding principles with regards to fundraising|Draft Guiding
principles with regards to fundraising]]
Greetings
--
Ting Chen
Member of the Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
E-Mail: tchen(a)wikimedia.org