Hey Pine,
The Wikimedia Endowment is specifically set up to
*"act as a permanent safekeeping fund to generate income to support the
operations and activities of the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity". [1]*
The Endowment acts as the online projects safety net. It will be
independent of the Wikimedia Foundation board and importantly It's not
there to support the WMF in perpetuity, it's the Wikimedia projects. Even
if the WMF is likely to be the main benefactor from the fund; should, in
the eyes of the Endowment Advisory Board, the WMF be no longer a fit and
appropriate body to support the Wikimedia projects (as a result of legal,
fiduciary or other issues), it has the ability to provide fund to an
alternative organisation to fulfill that work.
Regards
Seddon
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Establishment_of_Endowment
* WMF remains a single point of failure in the
Wikimedia network of
affiliates. I am hoping that mitigating the community and affiliate
dependencies on WMF will be addressed in the strategic plan, so that if we
have another mess like we had prior to Katherine, the affiliates and
community will have a plan that can be executed that ensures the viability
of the Wikimedia sites and affiliates without WMF. WMF can fail in many
ways; besides governance meltdowns, lawsuits and hostile political
environments are also risks. The sites and affiliates need to endure even
if WMF weakens, loses its way, or dissolves. I hope that we never again
have a repeat of last year and that WMF is healthy in the future, but it
would be prudent to have a strategty for the affiliates and community to
continue whether or not WMF is with us.
Thanks again for your post.
Regards,
Pine
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--
Seddon
*Advancement Associate (Community Engagement)*
*Wikimedia Foundation*