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Thomas Dalton wrote:
That's not quite how it works. The donations that are coming in aren't going to be changing, so WMF will still be getting most donations in USD. Except, because of the poor exchange rate, it is much more expensive to do just about everything in the UK, including renting flats, renting office space, buying food, buying bandwidth, etc. The donations wouldn't go nearly as far.
If hosting is staying in the US, that's quite a lot of the expenses that will still be being paid in USD. And it's not that the pound is strong, it's the dollar that's weak, so any non-USD donations can be spent in the UK without problems.
The point is, the non-USD donations are already being spent in the US at very favorable exchange rates. Go to the UK and that utterly evaporates, and you suddenly need a much larger income stream to achieve the same level of spending power.
And I forgot to mention the single largest expenditure WMF has (or maybe second behind server costs): salaries. The Foundation would have to pay significantly more money in the UK
I haven't looked at the budgets and donation distributions to see how well it would work, but it shouldn't be too big a problem. Remember, WMF is non-profit - one of the biggest problems for profit making businesses is that they have to report profits in one currency, so even if the actual money isn't being converted, they still have to convert it on paper - the WMF doesn't have to worry about that.
Non sequitur? Assuming it's even true?