On Nov 18, 2007 5:27 AM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Nov 18, 2007 1:34 AM, Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com wrote:
On Nov 17, 2007 7:54 PM, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
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Soliciting donations with a budget you know is misleading constitutes fraud.
A budget is by definition a forward-looking statement. Obviously it is dependent, among other things, on actually receiving the money requested. Proving fraud would be impossible. Besides, the $4.6 million dollars doesn't even call itself a "budget".
If the percentages are known to be misleading, that might constitute fraud, although proving it would still be impossible. But asking for way more than you need and more than you ultimately get is not fraudulent even if it could be proven.
<snip>
"Proving" fraud is essentially a legal problem, and not one I am very interested in. Personally, I care more about whether these planned spending guides are misleading for ethical reasons. I don't want the WMF to be the kind of organization that would mislead the public about their fiscal needs and how donations would be spent. If these statements have been intentionally grossly inflated, that would be very frustrating to me, in a "Don't be evil" sort of way. I'd prefer to believe that the WMF really does have needs and plans for how to use $4M that consist of more than a gimmick to increase donations. And hence, I'd prefer to believe that having only $1.5M in fund drive income would be a bad thing and not what everyone was secretly really expecting.
-Robert Rohde