On 5/18/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/18/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org>
wrote:
On 5/18/07, George Herbert
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 5/18/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org>
wrote:
The WMF is not a business. It's a publicly
supported charity. As
such, I think the proper solution is to limit business activities as
much as possible.
This is insane and irresponsible; any organization with this much
activity and financial throughput not run as a business (in terms of
professionalism), specifically INCLUDING real charities, is insane.
The charities and nonprofits I know of all enthusiastically hire
professional business people to do business stuff... because it's how
you get things done at that level.
This is really a matter of terminology, which I'm not interested in
getting into. However, the job description of the business developer
makes it clear that this position goes beyond the necessities of
running a charity.
Obviously the WMF needs to be responsible and professional. Obviously
they need to hire experienced professionals to do things which can
casually be referred to as "business stuff" (collecting donations,
applying for grants, producing financial statements, writing to
donors, reviewing contracts, etc.) If the announcement was the hire
of a new grants coordinator, or a controller, or a new legal
coordinator, my reaction would have been completely different. I'm
not objecting to the job title, I'm objecting to the job description.
Anthony
You don't wish Wikipedia to be involved in business income ventures
other than pure donations type relationships?
I'm not sure the foundation should actively avoid it, but I don't
think they should be hiring someone to focus on it, especially not at
this time, when so many more important areas need to be taken care of.
Most big charities engage in "real business"
relationships (selling
services, intellectual property or content, training, consulting
relative to the charities' activities interactions with the world,
etc) as well as asking for donations.
Not to a significant degree they don't. Shall we choose 10 US-based
501(c)(3) public charities and look at their financial statements, to
see what percent of their revenues come from donations, and what
percent comes from business activities?
Anthony