Daniel Mayer a écrit:
--- daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote:
I therefore suggest that donors have the
possibility of earmarking their
donation. That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they
want their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for
servers, while another donor may give specifically to promote a language,
print a particular wikibook, or whatever.
Hm. This type of thing locks up funds and makes running organizations much more
difficult than necessary, IMO. The board in consultation with its various
officers are the body by which budgeting is done. Feedback from donors can and
should be collected in a systematic and easy to parse way, but should not tie
the hands of the board (grants excepted). That type of information should
*inform* the board's decision - not dictate it.
Most of the annual California state budget, for example, has been dictated by
various voter initiatives. Thus lawmakers have very little to work with while
crafting budgets. This is one reason often cited for California's on-going
financial crisis.
So while this at first sounds like a neat idea, in practice it just makes our
budgeting less flexible and thus less able to adapt to changing conditions,
IMO.
-- mav
I generally agree with what you say Mav. It is true it might be
dangerous to be hand tied due to part of our resources being mandatorily
allocated for a specific issue and not enough left for operating costs.
Maybe this 10% is not satisfying.
However, I'd like to mention that currently if "small" donators are not
able to say how they would prefer their money to be spend, "big"
donators may. Fortunately, most money offered came with no strings
attached, and I guess most editors could prefer to do just as well.
But it is not always the case, and some money we receive is for a
specific goal. Till today, I do not think we ever felt stuck and not
adaptable due to this. Still, these donators somehow "dictate" us how to
use the money.
ant