Hoi, A much more fundamental question is do we actually want to do less or do we want to do more. I am not of the opinion that the WMF is bloated and ineffective. Yes it could do better in places but there is so much that we could do and fail to do because of lack of funding.
No we should not go bare bones. Arguably the whole notion of an endowment fund is a bad idea because it gets people to think in terms of spending less not more. Thanks, GerardM
On 2 December 2015 at 00:25, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Heh. $100 million USD is just a little more than is raised (and spent) on an annual basis throughout all the Wiki-chapters and WMF, including grants that are separate from direct fundraising. It *might* last 5-7 years of bare-bones "keeping the lights on only" functions, but that would mean no software upgrades (except what volunteers do in accord with their own desire as opposed to actual need), no community support, no funds to chapters, no Wikimania or hackathons or other conferences, no support for free-as-in-libre work, and very little assurance that if there were major changes in the most commonly used platforms, the WMF would be able to keep up-to-date with this.
This is going to take a fair amount of thinking through, and needs to include our thinking about what we would consider the minimal operating functions of the project, and how long it would need to be able to proceed.
Risker/Anne
On 1 December 2015 at 18:09, Mardetanha mardetanha.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
do we have any definite number that if reach then we would not any fundraiser again in the future (I really would like to to see WMF in the position in which, it would not need yearly fundraiser to stand up and
keep
running ) , like 100 M mentioned in the meta page ?
Mardetanha
On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:22 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hi all-
For several years, the Wikimedia movement has been having discussions https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment about whether and when
to
begin
building an endowment. I put an essay up on meta recently in an
attempt
to
rekindle this conversation with the community. We included launching
an
endowment in the FY 2015-16 annual plan.
Fantastic, this is exciting news. I am very happy to see this moving forward, and will comment on the talk page of the endowment essay.
On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thinking about our social responsibility as an investor is probably worthwhile.
I agree, and this is a good point to bring up.
The endowment, if it's of a scale that will be effective, will have an investment manager and perhaps even an investment committee. I think directing that group to look at investment vehicles (i.e. mutual funds) with certain value guidelines in mind would be appropriate, much as we would direct them to have certain financial goals and levels of risk in mind. Figuring out what those values should be might not be so easy, but we could look at the investment policies of other large socially-minded organizations for ideas.
best, Phoebe
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