George Herbert wrote:
If it really were Bill Gates and he really did demand a
board seat, there
are certainly a lot of people who would worry about his motives: though they
could be benign, it would certainly be controversial.
What if it was (purely random example) Elon Musk, though, and he just said
that he wanted to make sure that the organization was being run well after
he donated that much money? What if it was Mitch Kapor, also saying that he
just wanted to make sure it was spent well? Or Sergei or Larry from Google?
I don't think that this speculation about various individuals gets us
anywhere.
Part of the reason for large donators to want
involvement is to get
assurance as to the continuing management of the organization. Which is
legitimately a concern, not in particular to Wikimedia, but generally
regarding nonprofits. Some donations are structured as a committment over
time, with the ability to back out of future donations if the organization
fails to continue to perform well.
That's fair enough, but it doesn't require a Board seat.
With others, the donator just prefers to
have a board seat level of involvement.
To glorify his ego?
Is it in the best interests of the Wikimedia foundation
and the various
subprojects that the policy now be that the board has to stay completely
independent?
Some benefactors have helped the management and productivity of nonprofits
significantly, when they engaged and spent a lot of time helping with
management and planning and such. There is value beyond money (management
skills, contacts and additional in-kind resource donations that they can
generate, etc) in some of these people who might conceivably be interested.
There is some comfort to being in a position where we can say "no" to
these offers when they have strings attached.
I think it's worth thinking about and talking
about. It's hypothetical now,
but if it stopped being hypothetical some day, making those decisions on the
fly would probably be bad decisionmaking process.
Absolutely.
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