For the interest of you fine men and women on foundation-l :-)
Cheers, Craig
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Craig Franklin cfranklin@wikimedia.org.au Date: 7 August 2011 20:48 Subject: Draft version of WMAU's strategic plan To: "Local Chapters, board and officers coordination (closed subscription)" internal-l@lists.wikimedia.org, foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Chapters general discussions chapters@wikimedia.ch
Hi All,
As the chair of Wikimedia Australia's strategic planning subcommittee, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have released the draft version of our strategic plan for the next three years for comment and feedback. You can see the plan in full here:
http://www.wikimedia.org.au//wiki/Draft_Strategic_Plan
If you are interested in the processes behind the drafting of this plan, or you're a chapter thinking of starting this process (and if you are thinking of starting, I'd encourage you to actually start!), I have posted a blog entry here that goes over everything at a high level, and where I will be happy to answer any technical questions:
http://lankiveil.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/strategic-planning-the-wikimedia-w...
Obviously, given the events of recent days, some aspects of this plan may need to be revisited, but it's my hope that the funding issue will get sorted out and we can get back to the ambitious but in my mind achievable programme work we have outlined here.
Warmest Regards, Craig Franklin
I have realized that WMF seems to seriously misunderstand the role of chapters. I say this as someone who has always had a somewhat conservative view of chapters to begin with. But underneath the current rift is a serious disconnect between WMF professionals and how this whole program actually works. When I say "program", I mean the actual program work of Wikimedia which is scrolling through hundreds of recent changes in more languages than I could pin on a map. My problem isn't merely that *way* WMF professionals are approaching the Chapters is less than optimal. My problem right now is that reason they are approaching the chapters at all seems greatly lacking in clue.
Decentralization isn't some random choice that somehow was attached to this movement; it is the only way the program functions at all. WMF professionals can't begin to account for the program work being accomplished by the movement. Has there been a recent push to catalog local train stations on the Albanian Wikipedia or is the current trend of work translating articles from a larger Wikipedia? No one knows what is actually going on in all wikis. Only that something goes on. But why does it go on? Because all these people, who could never dream of all being able to speak to one another any more than they could stand to live in one another's cultures, all get a chance to comfortably make their mark on something that seems to matter. And they feel rightfully that this makes them a stakeholder in something that matters and perhaps also feel a little more securely about how much they themselves matter. Recent changes doesn't move because of "the Wikipedia brand", nor because of how "professional" WMF is run, nor because someone that has no understanding of how the program work of Wikimedia is accomplished feels that a description of WMF operations fails his gut check. Recent changes moves because individuals feel empowered by Wikimedia websites. Recent changes moves entirely based of human feelings of worth and power and changing those feelings can make it move faster or slower. And there is one overarching reason people click on the banners to donate $, and that is because they believe donating will keep website live and recent changes moving. Everything WMF does, should be checked against how it either helps or hinders that. And it impossible to both centralize and empower disparate people at the same time.
Luckily most of people chugging along in RC don't really even understand what WMF is. And that was especially lucky a few years back. Sue has made WMF a GREAT deal less embarrassing than it once was. But in some ways the professionals at WMF are so very far out of touch with how the Wikimedia program works that I don't even know how to begin encouraging them to reconsider. Here is a try though. There is a blog called "Good Intentions are Not Enough" [1] written a woman that has done a lot of on-the-ground program work for aid organizations. She talks about the keys to good aid and how the surest way to deliver "bad aid" is to design aid programs around what the donors want. Donors want to build a new school, not fund teacher salaries. They want to build orphanages and they volunteer at them for their vacation, not subsidize poor families who are considering putting their children in an orphanage because they cannot feed them. But good aid is unglamorous and for the most part uninspiring to donors. Good aid makes the targeted recipients feel they are stakeholders in the program rather than charity cases. Good aid is about empowering people much more than funding them. It is not about mapping out and planning an initiative that is easily understood and embraced by donors, it is about supporting those that are already doing things to make their slice of the world better to expand their efforts. Are chapters really these people who are already doing things to their slice of the world better? Not exactly. But they are at least planted in many different slices of the world, which makes them a giant step closer to such people than WMF, and what is more they at least have a decent shot at communicating with such people without disempowering them. I particularly think the post on this blog "Hamburgers for Hindus" does a good job drawing a distinction between "donor-led" programs and "owner-led" programs in a very quick read.[2]
I hope WMF can learn embrace its roots as an "owner-led" organization and not forget what the real program work really is.
BirgitteSB
[1] http://goodintents.org/ [2] http://goodintents.org/aid-recipient-concerns/hamburgers-for-hindus-2
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:39 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Decentralization isn't some random choice that somehow was attached to this movement; it is the only way the program functions at all. WMF professionals can't begin to account for the program work being accomplished by the movement. Has there been a recent push to catalog local train stations on the Albanian Wikipedia or is the current trend of work translating articles from a larger Wikipedia? No one knows what is actually going on in all wikis. Only that something goes on. But why does it go on? Because all these people, who could never dream of all being able to speak to one another any more than they could stand to live in one another's cultures, all get a chance to comfortably make their mark on something that seems to matter. And they feel rightfully that this makes them a stakeholder in something that matters and perhaps also feel a little more securely about how much they themselves matter. Recent changes doesn't move because of "the Wikipedia brand", nor because of how "professional" WMF is run, nor because someone that has no understanding of how the program work of Wikimedia is accomplished feels that a description of WMF operations fails his gut check. Recent changes moves because individuals feel empowered by Wikimedia websites. Recent changes moves entirely based of human feelings of worth and power and changing those feelings can make it move faster or slower. And there is one overarching reason people click on the banners to donate $, and that is because they believe donating will keep website live and recent changes moving. Everything WMF does, should be checked against how it either helps or hinders that. And it impossible to both centralize and empower disparate people at the same time.
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
Just about everything that makes Wikimedia projects what they are can and does take place irrespective of the existence of a formal, legal organization in a particular jurisdiction. Our putative Albanian contributors do not wonder, as they write their train station articles, whether there exists within the borders of Albania a legally instituted non-profit organization acting in support of Wikimedia principles; they see themselves as participants in an online project, not agents of a local charity.
Nor does off-wiki collaboration require that a formal entity be in existence. Off-wiki activities -- whether social meetups or more formal outreach efforts to GLAM institutions and elsewhere -- are no less effective for being organized by loose groups of interested participants. So long as there is no need to handle substantial funds -- and how much of Wikimedia contributors' typical work requires such? -- the lack of a legally constituted organization matters little.
But to take this one step further, let us assume -- for the sake of argument -- that the activities of the contributor community _do_ require the existence of a dedicated legal entity in a particular jurisdiction. One could, potentially, construct a scenario where this is the case; for example, someone wishes to donate a set of copyrighted works, and prefers that an organization subject to local laws be responsible for handling the process. Even in this case, however, there is no requirement that the legal entity be a "chapter" of the Wikimedia Foundation -- or, to be more precise, that the entity have in place a particular sort of trademark usage agreement with the WMF. I can think of no conceivable need that could be filled by a local entity holding rights to (non-commercial!) use of Wikimedia trademarks but could not be filled just as well by a local entity identical in every way save for the lack of such access to said trademarks.
This is not to say that there aren't very good reasons for having these trademark agreements in place, of course; but the reasons have more to do with effective brand marketing than with any _need_ on anyone's part.
Kirill
Nor does off-wiki collaboration require that a formal entity be in existence. Off-wiki activities -- whether social meetups or more formal outreach efforts to GLAM institutions and elsewhere -- are no less effective for being organized by loose groups of interested participants. So long
as
there is no need to handle substantial funds -- and how much of
Wikimedia
contributors' typical work requires such? -- the lack of a legally constituted organization matters little.
But to take this one step further, let us assume -- for the sake of argument -- that the activities of the contributor community _do_ require the existence of a dedicated legal entity in a particular jurisdiction. One could, potentially, construct a scenario where this is the case; for example, someone wishes to donate a set of copyrighted works, and
prefers
that an organization subject to local laws be responsible for handling
the
process. Even in this case, however, there is no requirement that the legal entity be a "chapter" of the Wikimedia Foundation -- or, to be more precise, that the entity have in place a particular sort of trademark usage agreement with the WMF. I can think of no conceivable need that could be filled
by a
local entity holding rights to (non-commercial!) use of Wikimedia trademarks but could not be filled just as well by a local entity identical in
every
way save for the lack of such access to said trademarks.
And just to add to the argument, the projects are divided by language, and not by jurisdiction. Whereas in many cases it may be unimportant (for instance, we can safely assume that most of the activbities of the Swedish chapter are more related to Swedish-language projects, and if there is any chapter which "caters" to Swedisg-language projects it is the Swedish chapter), this is not correct for most of the major languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian ...)
Cheers Yaroslav
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
Having followed the recent discussions from the sidelines (and speaking as a longtime volunteer), I found the various appeals to principles such as decentralization and subsidiarity somewhat abstract.
Of course BirgitteSB is absolutely correct in that there is a strong consensus that content curation on Wikimedia projects should be a decentralized activity. However, the websites where all these global volunteers scroll through these recent changes are hosted by one central entity, which also concentrates the legal responsibilities that this entails. And there seems to be an equally strong consensus that such a centralized solution is best for this particular problem. It would seem that most other movement activities fall somewhat inbetween these two extremes.
Alos, let's not forget that chapters themselves can be perceived as a means to centralize and professionalize certain activities in a country or region.
2011/8/9 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Aug 8, 2011, at 11:13 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 11:39 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Decentralization isn't some random choice that somehow was attached to this movement; it is the only way the program functions at all. WMF professionals can't begin to account for the program work being accomplished by the movement. Has there been a recent push to catalog local train stations on the Albanian Wikipedia or is the current trend of work translating articles from a larger Wikipedia? No one knows what is actually going on in all wikis. Only that something goes on. But why does it go on? Because all these people, who could never dream of all being able to speak to one another any more than they could stand to live in one another's cultures, all get a chance to comfortably make their mark on something that seems to matter. And they feel rightfully that this makes them a stakeholder in something that matters and perhaps also feel a little more securely about how much they themselves matter. Recent changes doesn't move because of "the Wikipedia brand", nor because of how "professional" WMF is run, nor because someone that has no understanding of how the program work of Wikimedia is accomplished feels that a description of WMF operations fails his gut check. Recent changes moves because individuals feel empowered by Wikimedia websites. Recent changes moves entirely based of human feelings of worth and power and changing those feelings can make it move faster or slower. And there is one overarching reason people click on the banners to donate $, and that is because they believe donating will keep website live and recent changes moving. Everything WMF does, should be checked against how it either helps or hinders that. And it impossible to both centralize and empower disparate people at the same time.
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
Just about everything that makes Wikimedia projects what they are can and does take place irrespective of the existence of a formal, legal organization in a particular jurisdiction. Our putative Albanian contributors do not wonder, as they write their train station articles, whether there exists within the borders of Albania a legally instituted non-profit organization acting in support of Wikimedia principles; they see themselves as participants in an online project, not agents of a local charity.
Nor does off-wiki collaboration require that a formal entity be in existence. Off-wiki activities -- whether social meetups or more formal outreach efforts to GLAM institutions and elsewhere -- are no less effective for being organized by loose groups of interested participants. So long as there is no need to handle substantial funds -- and how much of Wikimedia contributors' typical work requires such? -- the lack of a legally constituted organization matters little.
But to take this one step further, let us assume -- for the sake of argument -- that the activities of the contributor community _do_ require the existence of a dedicated legal entity in a particular jurisdiction. One could, potentially, construct a scenario where this is the case; for example, someone wishes to donate a set of copyrighted works, and prefers that an organization subject to local laws be responsible for handling the process. Even in this case, however, there is no requirement that the legal entity be a "chapter" of the Wikimedia Foundation -- or, to be more precise, that the entity have in place a particular sort of trademark usage agreement with the WMF. I can think of no conceivable need that could be filled by a local entity holding rights to (non-commercial!) use of Wikimedia trademarks but could not be filled just as well by a local entity identical in every way save for the lack of such access to said trademarks.
This is not to say that there aren't very good reasons for having these trademark agreements in place, of course; but the reasons have more to do with effective brand marketing than with any _need_ on anyone's part.
You are right that this decentralization doesn't neccessarily have to be anything like "chapters". But chapters happened for whatever reason and no-one is trying to be rid of them. The validity of the argument that chapters aren't aboslutely needed, doesn't make it any better of an idea to keep them around and infantalize and insult them. Imagine how these events will sound as they are be spread through all the people working in RC who might hear of them. By the natural urge to fit it into a story and the unavoidable half-understanding of passing language barriers; it becomes a plank in the narrative of WMF as Imperialism. And that is the sort of story that if built up completely will have a real negative effect on RC.
Funding chapters by grants from WMF so that they all use the money in the same WMF approved way is a systematically bad idea in the same way sending shoes to Africa is a bad idea. Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting. Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable. The obvious solution to the stated concern that is being raised is returning to the split screen fundraiser landing page which has been ruled out for not maximizing donations. The seemingly underlying and unstated concern about wanting to make sure that WMF leads and maintains control of the movement is actually undesirable and should not be pursued.
BirgitteSB
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
You are right that this decentralization doesn't neccessarily have to be anything like "chapters". But chapters happened for whatever reason and no-one is trying to be rid of them. The validity of the argument that chapters aren't aboslutely needed, doesn't make it any better of an idea to keep them around and infantalize and insult them. Imagine how these events will sound as they are be spread through all the people working in RC who might hear of them. By the natural urge to fit it into a story and the unavoidable half-understanding of passing language barriers; it becomes a plank in the narrative of WMF as Imperialism. And that is the sort of story that if built up completely will have a real negative effect on RC.
In other words, this could be harmful to the movement if spun in a particular way? There's nothing new there; just about anything the WMF does _could_ be given a negative spin. I don't think that this possibilityshould in and of itself be a convincing reason to not do something.
Funding chapters by grants from WMF so that they all use the money in the
same WMF approved way is a systematically bad idea in the same way sending shoes to Africa is a bad idea. Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting.
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating" in the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The underlying fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words -- is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level of administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost. The only real advantage a chapter's involvement can provide over a fully WMF-operated fundraiser is the availability of tax benefits in a particular jurisdiction; and, given the small size of the average donation, it's unclear to what extent such tax benefits are a significant consideration for the average donor.
A more typical arrangement would be that the WMF would give a chapter the right to use WMF trademarks, and in return a portion of the funds raised by the chapter would be funneled back to the WMF. But what chapters seem to want is for the WMF to sign over the trademarks they need to do their own fundraising, and then simply hand over a portion of the WMF's own revenue on top of that. It's a convenient arrangement for the chapters involved, to be sure, and apparently one that the WMF was not particularly unwilling to follow; but there's nothing particularly "normal" or "fair" about it.
Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable. The obvious solution to the stated concern that is being raised is returning to the split screen fundraiser landing page which has been ruled out for not maximizing donations. The seemingly underlying and unstated concern about wanting to make sure that WMF leads and maintains control of the movement is actually undesirable and should not be pursued.
I don't see the concern as either unstated or undesirable. Why shouldn't the WMF lead the movement? Or, to put it another way, why should the WMF cede its leadership role to an amorphous collective of chapters, which -- unlike the WMF -- has no clear leadership, may or may not enjoy a suitable level of organizational maturity, and is subject to a hodgepodge of local legal systems which may or may not be friendly to the Wikimedia mission? The chapters -- and, certainly, any _particular_ chapter -- has no inherent right to lead the movement. We may choose to _allow_ it to lead, of course -- but it is up to the chapter to demonstrate that it is worthy of such a role, not for everyone else to prove that it isn't.
Kirill
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Funding chapters by grants from WMF so that they all use the money in the same WMF approved way is a systematically bad idea in the same way sending shoes to Africa is a bad idea. Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting. Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable. The obvious solution to the stated concern that is being raised is returning to the split screen fundraiser landing page which has been ruled out for not maximizing donations. The seemingly underlying and unstated concern about wanting to make sure that WMF leads and maintains control of the movement is actually undesirable and should not be pursued.
The WMF has a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that funding it channels to other organizations is not being wasted or misused. The appropriate way to do that is to affiliate and direct funds only to organizations with acceptable financial controls and public reporting. I think the tax deduction and post-summit timing issues of the recent letter can be debated, and have been, but it's just simple fact that the WMF controls the funding stream and thus shares responsibility for how the funding is used - not to mention any misuse of funds by a chapter using Wikimedia marks would reflect back on the Foundation.
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting.
Just on this particular point. I thought the same, but after a round of explanations, I now understand the term better. "Payment processors" does not apply to _just_ the chapters, it applies to the Foundation as well. The definition behind this is _anyone_ who actually processes donations directly and has the administration to back it up.
Cheers,
Delphine Wikimedia Deutschland
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating" in the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The underlying fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words -- is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level of administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.
Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing pages, answering donors questions etc.
You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for example).
Cheers,
Delphine
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating"
in
the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The
underlying
fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words
--
is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level
of
administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.
Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing pages, answering donors questions etc.
You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for example).
I'm not suggesting that the success of the fundraiser isn't due in large part to broad community involvement; my assertion is that this community involvement would take place whether or not a formal chapter was involved. I would assume that the volunteers who contributed to the effort presumably did so because they believed in the goals of the project and the need to raise funds to support them, not because their particular chapter stood to collect a large sum of money in the process?
Kirill
Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing pages, answering donors questions etc.
You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for example).
Delphine, do you mean the above applies to ALL chapters? I would doubt it. Without giving names, I am not involved with any chapters at all, but what I hear of some of them is indeed a lot of useful activity including fundraising, project proposals etc, whereas I only hear of others when they get involved into some quarrels or controversies. May be this is then not so much of a misinterpretation.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not suggesting that the success of the fundraiser isn't due in large part to broad community involvement; my assertion is that this community involvement would take place whether or not a formal chapter was involved. I would assume that the volunteers who contributed to the effort presumably did so because they believed in the goals of the project and the need to raise funds to support them, not because their particular chapter stood to collect a large sum of money in the process?
I think it differs depending on the chapter, the culture et al. Of course I assume as you do that all people involved in the effort do believe in the goal of the Wikimedia projects.
But having talked about this with many chapter volunteers, they have also done it because as chapter volunteers, they feel even more responsible to make sure the donors were addressed in the right way. Pleasing a thousand donors (or 10 000) is a whole different ball game in terms of incentive as pleasing one big donor.
My observation in how chapters have developped across the board is that you can grossly find two different kind of chapters: * those for whom fundransing and all the administration that goes with it is a hassle they don't want to get up entangled with * those for whom fundraising directly is a way to refine their local messaging (and hence activities that ensue), a motivation to do better (get organized and more professional, in all areas of a chapter's activities), take on responsibility and accountability (handling donors is difficult, but extremely rewarding as they come back the year after).
Having followed closely the development of Wikimedia Germany for the past 5 years, I know for a fact that handling fundraising is a big part of the succesful growth of that chapter.
Whatever path the chapters want to take (fundraising or no fundraising) is fine with me, for the record. I am convinced that doing your own fundraising is an essential part of organisational growth.
Delphine
On Aug 9, 2011, at 12:51 AM, "Yaroslav M. Blanter" putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
Nor does off-wiki collaboration require that a formal entity be in existence. Off-wiki activities -- whether social meetups or more formal outreach efforts to GLAM institutions and elsewhere -- are no less effective for being organized by loose groups of interested participants. So long
as
there is no need to handle substantial funds -- and how much of
Wikimedia
contributors' typical work requires such? -- the lack of a legally constituted organization matters little.
But to take this one step further, let us assume -- for the sake of argument -- that the activities of the contributor community _do_ require the existence of a dedicated legal entity in a particular jurisdiction. One could, potentially, construct a scenario where this is the case; for example, someone wishes to donate a set of copyrighted works, and
prefers
that an organization subject to local laws be responsible for handling
the
process. Even in this case, however, there is no requirement that the legal entity be a "chapter" of the Wikimedia Foundation -- or, to be more precise, that the entity have in place a particular sort of trademark usage agreement with the WMF. I can think of no conceivable need that could be filled
by a
local entity holding rights to (non-commercial!) use of Wikimedia trademarks but could not be filled just as well by a local entity identical in
every
way save for the lack of such access to said trademarks.
And just to add to the argument, the projects are divided by language, and not by jurisdiction. Whereas in many cases it may be unimportant (for instance, we can safely assume that most of the activbities of the Swedish chapter are more related to Swedish-language projects, and if there is any chapter which "caters" to Swedisg-language projects it is the Swedish chapter), this is not correct for most of the major languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian ...)
You are quite right about the limitations of chapters. However, I don't see how these limiting factors are addressed by instead dealing with WMF directly. I think this is an example of "perfect being the enemy of good enough".
BirgitteSB
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 10:11:49 -0500, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
And just to add to the argument, the projects are divided by language, and not by jurisdiction. Whereas in many cases it may be unimportant (for instance, we can safely assume that most of the activbities of the Swedish chapter are more related to Swedish-language projects, and if there is any chapter which "caters" to Swedisg-language projects it is the Swedish chapter), this is not correct for most of the major languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian ...)
You are quite right about the limitations of chapters. However, I don't see how these limiting factors are addressed by instead dealing with WMF directly. I think this is an example of "perfect being the enemy of
good
enough".
BirgitteSB
Well, to give an example, I am perfectly fine with the recent WMF resolution on BLP and I am willing to comply. However, if such a resolution were issued by one of the chapters (for this matter it is irrelevant which chapter would do it) I would not feel myself in any way obliged to comply with such a resolution. No chapter has any jurisdiction over the Russian Wikipedia to which I used to contribute and over English Wikipedia to which I contribute now.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Aug 9, 2011, at 9:27 AM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable. The obvious solution to the stated concern that is being raised is returning to the split screen fundraiser landing page which has been ruled out for not maximizing donations. The seemingly underlying and unstated concern about wanting to make sure that WMF leads and maintains control of the movement is actually undesirable and should not be pursued.
I don't see the concern as either unstated or undesirable. Why shouldn't the WMF lead the movement? Or, to put it another way, why should the WMF cede its leadership role to an amorphous collective of chapters, which -- unlike the WMF -- has no clear leadership, may or may not enjoy a suitable level of organizational maturity, and is subject to a hodgepodge of local legal systems which may or may not be friendly to the Wikimedia mission? The chapters -- and, certainly, any _particular_ chapter -- has no inherent right to lead the movement. We may choose to _allow_ it to lead, of course -- but it is up to the chapter to demonstrate that it is worthy of such a role, not for everyone else to prove that it isn't.
It is undesirable because it will not work. Whoever said chapters had an inherent right to lead the movement? Why must the movement be lead by any organization? Can the work not be simply supported by organizations while those on the ground take the lead in the program work?
I don't think chapters are the greatest thing ever invented. I do think their most useful role is as a check against WMF going in the wrong direction. That people turned off by WMF might have another outlet besides abandoning the movement altogether. Without some real independence from WMF, I don't think chapters are really going to be very worthwhile.
BirgitteSB
Indeed, chapters have no jurisdiction over the content of the projects whatsoever - and they dont want that either. I dont think any chapter would be crazy enough to actually draft such a resolution in any binding tone.
It is true however that many chapters do important work for the local projects, and serve their local needs in the sense of activities, press contacts and fundraising in a more effective way (less culturally challanging, more sensitive to what works locally and better in touch with other activities and situations). Not all chapters do this in the same extent, and not all do it similarly good. But that is the idea of a chapter - it is not a fanclub organizing beer events only to have fun.
Best regards, Lodewijk
2011/8/9 Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru
On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 10:11:49 -0500, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
And just to add to the argument, the projects are divided by language, and not by jurisdiction. Whereas in many cases it may be unimportant (for instance, we can safely assume that most of the activbities of the Swedish chapter are more related to Swedish-language projects, and if there is any chapter which "caters" to Swedisg-language projects it is the Swedish chapter), this is not correct for most of the major languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian ...)
You are quite right about the limitations of chapters. However, I don't see how these limiting factors are addressed by instead dealing with WMF directly. I think this is an example of "perfect being the enemy of
good
enough".
BirgitteSB
Well, to give an example, I am perfectly fine with the recent WMF resolution on BLP and I am willing to comply. However, if such a resolution were issued by one of the chapters (for this matter it is irrelevant which chapter would do it) I would not feel myself in any way obliged to comply with such a resolution. No chapter has any jurisdiction over the Russian Wikipedia to which I used to contribute and over English Wikipedia to which I contribute now.
Cheers Yaroslav
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Funding chapters by grants from WMF so that they all use the money in the
same WMF approved way is a systematically bad idea in the same way
sending
shoes to Africa is a bad idea. Redefining the chapters who participated
in
a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting.
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating" in the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The underlying fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words -- is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level of administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost. The only real advantage a chapter's involvement can provide over a fully WMF-operated fundraiser is the availability of tax benefits in a particular jurisdiction; and, given the small size of the average donation, it's unclear to what extent such tax benefits are a significant consideration for the average donor.
The other benefits are; * chapters can take advantage of local payment systems, which donors may be more accustomed to - not just credit cards * the chapter can probably make better subsequent use of the data on donors * if the chapter has a greater stake in the fundraiser, they are more likely to care about providing effective messages that work well
So I simply do not accept that the right thing for the movement is for donations to be received by the Foundation and then passed on to the chapters. Chapters in my view have an important role to play in maximising the fundraising potential of the Wikimedia movement.
Chris
It is true however that many chapters do important work for the local projects, and serve their local needs in the sense of activities, press contacts and fundraising in a more effective way (less culturally challanging, more sensitive to what works locally and better in touch
with
other activities and situations). Not all chapters do this in the same extent, and not all do it similarly good. But that is the idea of a
chapter
- it is not a fanclub organizing beer events only to have fun.
Best regards, Lodewijk
Right, I know that the Chapters are doing some very useful stuff (in fact, I even want to help the Dutch chapter with the project on taking pictures of State Monuments - it would be very helpful if someone mails me offlist or indicates on my Wiki page if there is any information on what is needed), but I believe that to say, as Brigitte does, that the Chapters should lead the movement is to stretch it way over the limits.
Cheers Yaroslav
*in fact, I even want to help the Dutch chapter with the project on taking pictures of State Monuments - it would be very helpful if someone mails me offlist or indicates on my Wiki page if there is any information on what is needed
The Wiki page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011
The Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WikiLovesMonuments
And the Website: http://wikilovesmonuments.eu
But as you can see, is not only the Dutch people. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 9 August 2011 16:48, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
It is true however that many chapters do important work for the local projects, and serve their local needs in the sense of activities, press contacts and fundraising in a more effective way (less culturally challanging, more sensitive to what works locally and better in touch
with
other activities and situations). Not all chapters do this in the same extent, and not all do it similarly good. But that is the idea of a
chapter
- it is not a fanclub organizing beer events only to have fun.
Best regards, Lodewijk
Right, I know that the Chapters are doing some very useful stuff (in fact, I even want to help the Dutch chapter with the project on taking pictures of State Monuments - it would be very helpful if someone mails me offlist or indicates on my Wiki page if there is any information on what is needed), but I believe that to say, as Brigitte does, that the Chapters should lead the movement is to stretch it way over the limits.
Cheers Yaroslav
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
The Wiki page: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2011
The Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/WikiLovesMonuments
And the Website: http://wikilovesmonuments.eu
But as you can see, is not only the Dutch people. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
Thanks for the link, it is useful. I am not really interested in any contests and prizes (although I have several pictures of monuments no other Wikimedian has, but I better just upload them on Commons as soon as I have finished working on the images). I have previously heard that the Dutch Chapter has a map showing which monuments are needed to complete the creation of articles on all state monuments (Rijksmonumenten), but I could not easily locate it. May be your links would help.
Cheers Yaroslav
On 9 August 2011 16:36, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
So I simply do not accept that the right thing for the movement is for donations to be received by the Foundation and then passed on to the chapters. Chapters in my view have an important role to play in maximising the fundraising potential of the Wikimedia movement.
John Vandenberg's numbers (which haven't been contradicted so far) show that pretty conclusively.
- d.
On 9 August 2011 08:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
However it was the WMF that created that particular model of decentralisation in the first place.
On 9 August 2011 18:29, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 08:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do with chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
However it was the WMF that created that particular model of decentralisation in the first place.
This is begging the question: it presumes ownership. It also assumes that destroying that decentralisation is symmetrical with having first allowed and encouraged it, which is not in any way the case.
The real problem with the present approach is - *even if* it's a correct thing for the trustees to do (once we're actually clear on what it is they're doing) - is:
* Number of chapters people who've gone "hey, great idea!": 0. * Number of chapters people who've gone "you're pissing us about so badly we almost can't work with you": quite a lot.
Being on the board of a tiny nonprofit is a thankless and grinding task at the best of times. Finding people who both want to do the job and are any good at all is *not easy*.
This is a potentially catastrophic failure of volunteer liaison.
If the aim were to get rid of chapters altogether, this would have been an excellent method of achieving it.
(I don't think that is the intent - apparently WMF feels like it can mess people around and still get 100% from them. I do consider that the problems really haven't been considered.)
Let me reiterate, this is still a really big problem even if this was a 100% defensible decision by the board.
- d.
----- Original Message -----
From: Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Sent: Tuesday, August 9, 2011 10:48 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters
It is true however that many chapters do important work for the local projects, and serve their local needs in the sense of activities, press contacts and fundraising in a more effective way (less culturally challanging, more sensitive to what works locally and better in touch
with
other activities and situations). Not all chapters do this in the same extent, and not all do it similarly good. But that is the idea of a
chapter
- it is not a fanclub organizing beer events only to have fun.
Best regards, Lodewijk
Right, I know that the Chapters are doing some very useful stuff (in fact, I even want to help the Dutch chapter with the project on taking pictures of State Monuments - it would be very helpful if someone mails me offlist or indicates on my Wiki page if there is any information on what is needed), but I believe that to say, as Brigitte does, that the Chapters should lead the movement is to stretch it way over the limits.
It is not so much that I believe chapters should lead the movement as that I am certain WMF cannot successfully lead the movement.
It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into franchises. Which I find to be exactly backwards. Chapters in my mind should be diverse entities. Embracing whatever is most effective in their little slice of the world. I think they should be ambitious in seeking out what inspires local population to embrace our movement. The way to encourage innovation is to push self-direction and refrain from being too judgmental so long as there is trending improvement. I believe that franchises will not be well received and will by and large fail. Maybe I am wrong about the direction people are pushing, maybe I am right about the direction but wrong about the poor outcome. I certainly can't have much of an effect on things.
I have really tried to share the underlying basis that leads me to think this is a poor idea so people can consider the information and comes to their own conclusions. Although I know some of it is hard for me to articulate clearly. If you think my conclusion is stretches way over the limits I would like to understand which underlying concept I have drawn on is the poorest foundation. I sincerely would like to correct my understanding if I have the wrong idea or placed a disproportionate amount of importance on something. Really I am open to changing my opinion if someone has convincing information.
BirgitteSB
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
It is not so much that I believe chapters should lead the movement as that I am certain WMF cannot successfully lead the movement.
It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into franchises. Which I find to be exactly backwards. Chapters in my mind should be diverse entities. Embracing whatever is most effective in their little slice of the world. I think they should be ambitious in seeking out what inspires local population to embrace our movement. The way to encourage innovation is to push self-direction and refrain from being too judgmental so long as there is trending improvement. I believe that franchises will not be well received and will by and large fail. Maybe I am wrong about the direction people are pushing, maybe I am right about the direction but wrong about the poor outcome. I certainly can't have much of an effect on things.
I have really tried to share the underlying basis that leads me to think this is a poor idea so people can consider the information and comes to their own conclusions. Although I know some of it is hard for me to articulate clearly. If you think my conclusion is stretches way over the limits I would like to understand which underlying concept I have drawn on is the poorest foundation. I sincerely would like to correct my understanding if I have the wrong idea or placed a disproportionate amount of importance on something. Really I am open to changing my opinion if someone has convincing information.
BirgitteSB
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I completely understood your point, BirgitteSB. The title of "chapters" has always brought your ideal to my mind. I don't hold a personal opinion on chapters since I don't participate in that aspect of Wikimedia, but it is best expressed why chapters come to my mind: the American fraternity system for Universities.
<pause to let a few that have met me in person and have had this conversation roll their eyes> </pause>
The idea is that a fraternity is started by a local group. They have friends and equaintances that go to other schools and may want to start their own chapter. If it is successful, now there is collective governance needed by a Grand Chapter. Eventually the Grand Chapter, if the fraternity is successful in expanding, falls into the roll of legal council, broad policy development, copyrights, educational material, etc. The manner of the finance model gets interesting.
Local chapters exist to serve the ideals locally, and also to promote the grand cause. Most all financing comes from member dues, a fraction of which go to the GC, and support operations. They develop local policy, file for relevant incorporation and tax status, and respond with audits and reports to the GC. Statistically, very very few chapters have substantial endowments.
The Grand Chapter lives off of major gifts, endowments, and annual fundraising. Similar to the WMF in the early days (neigh on two years ago), you can name most of the office staff off the top of your head if you're in a leadership position. The power behind the fundraising model is that most of the serious, committed donors, would give to the GC instead of their local chapter. Why? Because they probably know how the local chapter spends its money relative to the principles of spreading the fraternity. They still give to their chapter, but they're not going to toss it $25,000 USD.
Based on the model you desire, Birgitte, my ultimate question is how many chapters can sell me how and why they should operate with, say, 80% of funds raised in retention? It needs to be a central focus for chapters to be able to answer this question if they wish to be the grassroots, autonomous driving force that they have the potential to be.
On 8/9/11 4:46 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménardnotafishz@gmail.com
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Kirill Lokshinkirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters "participating"
in
the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The
underlying
fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words
--
is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level
of
administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.
Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing pages, answering donors questions etc.
You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for example).
I'm not suggesting that the success of the fundraiser isn't due in large part to broad community involvement; my assertion is that this community involvement would take place whether or not a formal chapter was involved.
I think that on this very point, even the WMF would disagree with you. Actually, the very fact that WMF explicitely put in the fundraising agreement that the Chapter *has to* provide translations of the fundraising messages (which include as well stuff such as Jimbo's letter) suggests that translations may not as magically appear as we would hope. It rather suggests that chapters actually do have an invaluable role in making sure that the fundraiser is not 100% in English langage (even though members of the community who are not members of the chapter clearly help in translation). In short, community, both within and not within chapter realm, support the entire system.
Aside from this, I am quite shocked when I read
<quote>in what sense are the chapters "participating" in the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The underlying fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words -- is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level of administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost. The only real advantage a chapter's involvement can provide over a fully WMF-operated fundraiser is the availability of tax benefits in a particular jurisdiction; and, given the small size of the average donation, it's unclear to what extent such tax benefits are a significant consideration for the average donor. </quote>
But I'll forgive you because you obviously are not totally aware of what's going in the various chapters. Having been involved in fundraising for Wikimedia France, I can certainly assure you that the chapter is not merely being a "beneficiary".
The actual sollicitation of donations is not only performed by WMF staff (are you aware that chapters also provide a specific landing page for sollicitation ? specific messages ? Localized press release ? payments methods are adapted to local situation ? ). The one thing that chapters can provide to donors in their geographical area that WMF will never been able to provide (at least, not at any reasonable cost) is to talk to them as citizens of the same country. Same langage. Same culture. Local events happening HERE rather than on the other side of earth. Local partnership with institutions they know about. It tells them about THEM. It is about THEM. This proximity can only be provided by chapters.
Claiming that WMF would provide the same job for a lower cost is actually quite laughable given that WMF is actually PAYING staff to do this (it costs money) whilst the majority of that work is being done for free by chapter members (it costs less money to work for free...). And people have staff, in many (not all) countries, staff costs is actually lower than in the USA. So the "likely at lower cost" comes from nowhere and is unlikely to be true.
There is only one point which I will grant you. Some chapters offer tax deduction to their donors. This indeed require work to provide hence expenses. If WMF was receiving those donations with no tax receipt to provide, it would indeed require less work. Hence cost less.
This said, in France, over 90% of our donors ask for this receipt. I expect that many would not give money to an US organization with no tax receipt at all. I have no figure to support this, but I am willing to give it a go for a few weeks. Get the money from French people and tell them afterwards, SORRY GUYS, NO RECEIPT. And then ask them if they will give again next year. Of course, all the complaints will have to be dealt by WMF staff.
Seriously, when it comes to fundraising, the first important thing to keep in mind is that trying to maximize the money collected in a given year is thinking short term. Trying to create a good relationship with happy donors is the way to think long term. An upset or disappointed donor will only give once. And you will only know one year later.
Anthere
I would assume that the volunteers who contributed to the effort presumably did so because they believed in the goals of the project and the need to raise funds to support them, not because their particular chapter stood to collect a large sum of money in the process?
Kirill _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 8/9/11 3:47 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:
It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into franchises. Which I find to be exactly backwards.
It would be, if that's what it were about. But I can say with confidence that at the board meeting, no one spoke about any ideas even remotely similar to this, and I can't think of a single board member who disagrees one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar.
No one wants that, and these changes should have no impact on that at all.
It is important not to confuse the very narrow (and yet very critically risky if not done well) of "acting as a payment processor" with the much more important and interesting and difficult questions about how much funding chapters should get, under what conditions, etc.
Chapters in my mind should be diverse entities. Embracing whatever is most effective in their little slice of the world. I think they should be ambitious in seeking out what inspires local population to embrace our movement. The way to encourage innovation is to push self-direction and refrain from being too judgmental so long as there is trending improvement. I believe that franchises will not be well received and will by and large fail. Maybe I am wrong about the direction people are pushing, maybe I am right about the direction but wrong about the poor outcome. I certainly can't have much of an effect on things.
I'm happy to report that you are mistaken about the direction in which people are pushing. :-) No one on the board or staff has talked about a "franchise" model to my knowledge, and no one on the board or staff to my knowledge would disagree with your very perceptive remarks that diverse entities acting with local knowledge is the right answer for us.
The key thing to understand here: there is no desire or agenda to take away power and autonomy from chapters. But there is a strong moral duty to note that financial controls, reporting requirements, transparency, and evaluation of effectiveness are always at the top of our agenda.
--Jimbo
--Jimbo
On 8/9/11 1:46 PM, David Gerard wrote:
(I don't think that is the intent - apparently WMF feels like it can mess people around and still get 100% from them. I do consider that the problems really haven't been considered.)
I don't think the WMF thinks that they can "mess people around" at all, actually.
But it is necessary that we take a leadership role - all of us - in doing the right things *globally*. What does that look like?
We should recognize that there is evidence before us that the previous model wasn't working. The chapters - and no blame is being assigned here, as I will explain in a minute - have not lived up to what we should all hope to see in terms of reporting, financial controls, etc. Nothing bad has happened yet - to my knowledge - but there are risks that can be brought under control and must be brought under control.
Let me tell you what I mean about me not blaming anyone. Being on the board of a small nonprofit organization is both incredibly fun and rewarding and also totally not fun and thankless, in different respects. That I was contacted by random accountants who were members of the public during the last fundraiser, who told me that the UK chapter was about to be stricken off the charity rolls for failure to comply with government reporting requirements was incredibly alarming to me - and yet totally understandable.
I strongly support that chapters should be innovative, creative, and independent. I am not in favor of the Foundation attempting to direct the work of chapters in a top-down fashion. One aspect of that is that I think we should have a model in which chapters near-automatically receive funds in a timely fashion.
But not automatically, not without accountability to themselves, to the communities serve directly, and to the broader movement. The WMF has a moral responsibility to be engaged with this.
--Jimbo
Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting.
Whoa, please slow down!
No one has said anything like that, and it isn't how the term is being used. A chapter is a payment processor if it... processes payments. For themselves.
Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable.
It certainly would be laughable, if anyone were doing that.
But let's try to have a productive conversation about the right way forward. A lot of knee jerk assumptions are being made here that just don't fit the facts.
--Jimbo
On 8/9/11 10:27 AM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
A more typical arrangement would be that the WMF would give a chapter the right to use WMF trademarks, and in return a portion of the funds raised by the chapter would be funneled back to the WMF. But what chapters seem to want is for the WMF to sign over the trademarks they need to do their own fundraising, and then simply hand over a portion of the WMF's own revenue on top of that. It's a convenient arrangement for the chapters involved, to be sure, and apparently one that the WMF was not particularly unwilling to follow; but there's nothing particularly "normal" or "fair" about it.
Just to be clear, this is more or less the model that I personally advocate: that the WMF turn over a portion of its revenue to chapters every year, without question, based on a simple and non-controlling framework of accountability and responsibility.
--Jimbo
On 8/9/11 10:27 AM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
A more typical arrangement would be that the WMF would give a chapter the right to use WMF trademarks, and in return a portion of the funds raised by the chapter would be funneled back to the WMF. But what chapters seem to want is for the WMF to sign over the trademarks they need to do their own fundraising, and then simply hand over a portion of the WMF's own revenue on top of that. It's a convenient arrangement for the chapters involved, to be sure, and apparently one that the WMF was not particularly unwilling to follow; but there's nothing particularly "normal" or "fair" about it.
Just to be clear, this is more or less the model that I personally advocate: that the WMF turn over a portion of its revenue to chapters every year, without question, based on a simple and non-controlling framework of accountability and responsibility.
Delphine has wise things to say about this. It is healthy all around if the chapters have incentives to care about the fundraiser. They can and will do a great deal of work as donor liaisons, local message customization, getting positive press coverage in local papers (which surely tends to positively affect donations), etc.
A model in which the Foundation simply makes grants solely based on programmatic needs would be flawed if it completely removes chapters interest in making sure that donors are well taken care of. (And, of course, a model in which chapters are encouraged to care only about maximizing donations would also be not healthy!)
--Jimbo
Just I have to say Amen to you, Anthere. I see your point.
In addition, chapters need some time to make his job, that is, to involve relevant people, to create a local structure that engages people to the real benefits for an enterprise, a council, an academic institution with free knowledge. This is a very big challenge since some goverment or academic institutions, or even relevant people in that institutions are unwilling to adapt themselves to this new way of thinking budgets, programs... There's a lot of thechnophobia overthere...
Fundraising must not be an obsession for chapters in the beggining. We're idealist, we don't need money. Support in reaching academics, outreach, educational are far more important to us.
Medicos Mundi Spain have more or less the same budget as the entire WMF. This is a point to think about.
2011/8/10 Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.com
On 8/9/11 4:46 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
2011/8/9 Delphine Ménardnotafishz@gmail.com
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 4:27 PM, Kirill Lokshin<kirill.lokshin@gmail.com
wrote:
Well, let's be clear here: in what sense are the chapters
"participating"
in
the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The
underlying
fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other
words
--
is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level
of
administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just
as
easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost.
Wow, this is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.
While Foundation staff has provided an invaluable support to make the fundraiser a success, it probably wouldn't have been such a success hadn't there been dozens of volunteers, among which _many_ chapter board members and simple members who spent uncounted hours of localizing and adapting messages, providing stories, refining landing pages, answering donors questions etc.
You may want to look at the fundraising pages on meta to see the level of involvement of the community as a whole in making it a success, and even that does not give a real idea of how much chapters' communities have participated (much happens on their chapters' mailing lists for example).
I'm not suggesting that the success of the fundraiser isn't due in large part to broad community involvement; my assertion is that this community involvement would take place whether or not a formal chapter was
involved.
I think that on this very point, even the WMF would disagree with you. Actually, the very fact that WMF explicitely put in the fundraising agreement that the Chapter *has to* provide translations of the fundraising messages (which include as well stuff such as Jimbo's letter) suggests that translations may not as magically appear as we would hope. It rather suggests that chapters actually do have an invaluable role in making sure that the fundraiser is not 100% in English langage (even though members of the community who are not members of the chapter clearly help in translation). In short, community, both within and not within chapter realm, support the entire system.
Aside from this, I am quite shocked when I read
<quote>in what sense are the chapters "participating" in the fundraiser, rather than merely being its beneficiaries? The underlying fundraising work -- the actual solicitation of donations, in other words -- is performed by WMF staff directly. The chapters do provide some level of administrative and accounting support, obviously; but that could just as easily be done by the WMF as well, and likely at lower cost. The only real advantage a chapter's involvement can provide over a fully WMF-operated fundraiser is the availability of tax benefits in a particular jurisdiction; and, given the small size of the average donation, it's unclear to what extent such tax benefits are a significant consideration for the average donor.
</quote>
But I'll forgive you because you obviously are not totally aware of what's going in the various chapters. Having been involved in fundraising for Wikimedia France, I can certainly assure you that the chapter is not merely being a "beneficiary".
The actual sollicitation of donations is not only performed by WMF staff (are you aware that chapters also provide a specific landing page for sollicitation ? specific messages ? Localized press release ? payments methods are adapted to local situation ? ). The one thing that chapters can provide to donors in their geographical area that WMF will never been able to provide (at least, not at any reasonable cost) is to talk to them as citizens of the same country. Same langage. Same culture. Local events happening HERE rather than on the other side of earth. Local partnership with institutions they know about. It tells them about THEM. It is about THEM. This proximity can only be provided by chapters.
Claiming that WMF would provide the same job for a lower cost is actually quite laughable given that WMF is actually PAYING staff to do this (it costs money) whilst the majority of that work is being done for free by chapter members (it costs less money to work for free...). And people have staff, in many (not all) countries, staff costs is actually lower than in the USA. So the "likely at lower cost" comes from nowhere and is unlikely to be true.
There is only one point which I will grant you. Some chapters offer tax deduction to their donors. This indeed require work to provide hence expenses. If WMF was receiving those donations with no tax receipt to provide, it would indeed require less work. Hence cost less.
This said, in France, over 90% of our donors ask for this receipt. I expect that many would not give money to an US organization with no tax receipt at all. I have no figure to support this, but I am willing to give it a go for a few weeks. Get the money from French people and tell them afterwards, SORRY GUYS, NO RECEIPT. And then ask them if they will give again next year. Of course, all the complaints will have to be dealt by WMF staff.
Seriously, when it comes to fundraising, the first important thing to keep in mind is that trying to maximize the money collected in a given year is thinking short term. Trying to create a good relationship with happy donors is the way to think long term. An upset or disappointed donor will only give once. And you will only know one year later.
Anthere
I would assume that the volunteers who contributed to the effort
presumably
did so because they believed in the goals of the project and the need to raise funds to support them, not because their particular chapter stood
to
collect a large sum of money in the process?
Kirill _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 10 August 2011 21:30, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
On 8/9/11 1:46 PM, David Gerard wrote:
(I don't think that is the intent - apparently WMF feels like it can mess people around and still get 100% from them. I do consider that the problems really haven't been considered.)
I don't think the WMF thinks that they can "mess people around" at all, actually.
I think it's accurate to say they completely failed to predict that people would feel messed around, with much justification being given by said people. Certainly I don't think they actively intended to.
- d.
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
It would be, if that's what it were about. But I can say with confidence that at the board meeting, no one spoke about any ideas even remotely similar to this, and I can't think of a single board member who disagrees one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar.
OK, I've read this sentence five times now, and this is what I read:
"Board members agree that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as franchises"
I think there is a double negative here that is saying the opposite of what you meant to say.
Should not the sentence be: "I can't think of a single board member who *agrees* one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar?
Or has my English played a trick on me?
Thanks,
Delphine
On Aug 10, 2011, at 3:20 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
On 8/9/11 3:47 PM, Birgitte SB wrote:
It seems to me that these changes are about making chapters more into franchises. Which I find to be exactly backwards.
It would be, if that's what it were about. But I can say with confidence that at the board meeting, no one spoke about any ideas even remotely similar to this, and I can't think of a single board member who disagrees one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar.
No one wants that, and these changes should have no impact on that at all.
It is important not to confuse the very narrow (and yet very critically risky if not done well) of "acting as a payment processor" with the much more important and interesting and difficult questions about how much funding chapters should get, under what conditions, etc.
Chapters in my mind should be diverse entities. Embracing whatever is most effective in their little slice of the world. I think they should be ambitious in seeking out what inspires local population to embrace our movement. The way to encourage innovation is to push self-direction and refrain from being too judgmental so long as there is trending improvement. I believe that franchises will not be well received and will by and large fail. Maybe I am wrong about the direction people are pushing, maybe I am right about the direction but wrong about the poor outcome. I certainly can't have much of an effect on things.
I'm happy to report that you are mistaken about the direction in which people are pushing. :-) No one on the board or staff has talked about a "franchise" model to my knowledge, and no one on the board or staff to my knowledge would disagree with your very perceptive remarks that diverse entities acting with local knowledge is the right answer for us.
The key thing to understand here: there is no desire or agenda to take away power and autonomy from chapters. But there is a strong moral duty to note that financial controls, reporting requirements, transparency, and evaluation of effectiveness are always at the top of our agenda.
I don't care what people spoke of, nor of what they desire, nor what their agenda is. I never supposed that people were conspiring to fail. I care what effect the actions people are proposing will result in. I am quite confident that the result of funding chapters though a WMF grant program pushes them towards being franchises. I might be wrong about this, as I said. But please share the underlying concepts that lead you to conclude that "these changes should have no impact on that at all", so that I might be convinced as well. Your good intentions, which I did not question, are irrelevant.
Perhaps I did not clarify a particular point very well in my first email. Donations pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. The WMF has no idea, and is doing nothing to develop a reliable accounting, on how effectively these donations are being used. WMF can only report some numbers as to the quanity of use in different areas, but no one @ WMF could tell me what is going on the Albanian Wikipedia. And if by some chance they could it would be an anomaly. An evaluation of the effectiveness of program work cannot be considered part of the near-term agenda. As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before. You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
BirgitteSB
2011/8/10 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
OK, I've read this sentence five times now, and this is what I read:
"Board members agree that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as franchises"
I think there is a double negative here that is saying the opposite of what you meant to say.
Should not the sentence be: "I can't think of a single board member who *agrees* one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar?
Or has my English played a trick on me?
Thanks,
Delphine
I'm sure he intended it to be "Board members agree that chapters shouldn't be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as franchises"
On Aug 10, 2011, at 3:32 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
Redefining the chapters who participated in a joint fundraiser with WMF as WMF's "payment processors" is straight-up insulting.
Whoa, please slow down!
No one has said anything like that, and it isn't how the term is being used. A chapter is a payment processor if it... processes payments. For themselves.
Writing about ethical concerns while at same time being blind to anything that does not maximize donations is laughable.
It certainly would be laughable, if anyone were doing that.
But let's try to have a productive conversation about the right way forward. A lot of knee jerk assumptions are being made here that just don't fit the facts.
I really can't understand the point snipping the substantive content which gave these lines context and then asking for a productive conversation. Do you really believe these two lines are a fair representation of my participation? If so please let me know so I can place you on my ignore list (and suggest you do the reverse), so we can avoid any further acrimony. If no,t stop unfairly representing me by your edits to my messages.
BirgitteSB
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't care what people spoke of, nor of what they desire, nor what their agenda is. I never supposed that people were conspiring to fail. I care what effect the actions people are proposing will result in. I am quite confident that the result of funding chapters though a WMF grant program pushes them towards being franchises. I might be wrong about this, as I said. But please share the underlying concepts that lead you to conclude that "these changes should have no impact on that at all", so that I might be convinced as well. Your good intentions, which I did not question, are irrelevant.
Perhaps I did not clarify a particular point very well in my first email. Donations pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. The WMF has no idea, and is doing nothing to develop a reliable accounting, on how effectively these donations are being used. WMF can only report some numbers as to the quanity of use in different areas, but no one @ WMF could tell me what is going on the Albanian Wikipedia. And if by some chance they could it would be an anomaly. An evaluation of the effectiveness of program work cannot be considered part of the near-term agenda. As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before. You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
BirgitteSB
Isn't that exactly what they are doing? It would have been better to institute higher expectations for a year from now instead of several months, but setting relatively clear expectations and offering assistance (while not taking the drastic step of cutting off funding completely) is exactly what the Foundation is doing. Your arguments seem predicated on the perception that the Foundation is cutting off chapters completely, or moving in that direction, but I see no evidence for that. Since you don't appear to be against the concepts of accountability or appropriate financial controls, what would you prefer the Foundation do beyond offering aid, bridge funding and a template for organization to chapters who need such assistance?
Nathan
On Aug 10, 2011, at 6:42 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 7:22 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't care what people spoke of, nor of what they desire, nor what their agenda is. I never supposed that people were conspiring to fail. I care what effect the actions people are proposing will result in. I am quite confident that the result of funding chapters though a WMF grant program pushes them towards being franchises. I might be wrong about this, as I said. But please share the underlying concepts that lead you to conclude that "these changes should have no impact on that at all", so that I might be convinced as well. Your good intentions, which I did not question, are irrelevant.
Perhaps I did not clarify a particular point very well in my first email. Donations pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. The WMF has no idea, and is doing nothing to develop a reliable accounting, on how effectively these donations are being used. WMF can only report some numbers as to the quanity of use in different areas, but no one @ WMF could tell me what is going on the Albanian Wikipedia. And if by some chance they could it would be an anomaly. An evaluation of the effectiveness of program work cannot be considered part of the near-term agenda. As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before. You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
BirgitteSB
Isn't that exactly what they are doing? It would have been better to institute higher expectations for a year from now instead of several months, but setting relatively clear expectations and offering assistance (while not taking the drastic step of cutting off funding completely) is exactly what the Foundation is doing. Your arguments seem predicated on the perception that the Foundation is cutting off chapters completely, or moving in that direction, but I see no evidence for that. Since you don't appear to be against the concepts of accountability or appropriate financial controls, what would you prefer the Foundation do beyond offering aid, bridge funding and a template for organization to chapters who need such assistance?
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective. Frankly, I think cutting off their funding would be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program. It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it as owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner campaign.
I would prefer that aid be given to the chapters without drastically changing the structure from being organizations who most naturally feel accountable to their local populations who fund them to organizations who most naturally feel accountable to San Francisco. All other things being equal imagine which of those organizations will be more responsive and careful.
BirgitteSB
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective. Frankly, I think cutting off their funding would be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program. It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it as owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner campaign.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but where has it been suggested that chapters would not remain free to raise funds independently of the WMF? My impression was that the change being discussed here would merely remove participation in the WMF fundraiser as a funding source and replace it with direct WMF grants; presumably chapters could seek funding elsewhere?
Kirill
On Aug 10, 2011, at 7:56 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective. Frankly, I think cutting off their funding would be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program. It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it as owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner campaign.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but where has it been suggested that chapters would not remain free to raise funds independently of the WMF? My impression was that the change being discussed here would merely remove participation in the WMF fundraiser as a funding source and replace it with direct WMF grants; presumably chapters could seek funding elsewhere?
I don't see why such a thing wouldn't be possible, but I don't find it very likely. I am looking mostly at the incentives each structure produces. As the proposal seems to be funding the WMF approved operating budget of a chapter with a WMF grant, I don' t think the general rule will be an organization that is locally funded. Do you find it otherwise?
BirgitteSB
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 9:23 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
On Aug 10, 2011, at 7:56 PM, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective. Frankly, I think cutting off their funding
would
be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program. It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it
as
owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner
campaign.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but where has it been suggested that
chapters
would not remain free to raise funds independently of the WMF? My impression was that the change being discussed here would merely remove participation in the WMF fundraiser as a funding source and replace it
with
direct WMF grants; presumably chapters could seek funding elsewhere?
I don't see why such a thing wouldn't be possible, but I don't find it very likely. I am looking mostly at the incentives each structure produces. As the proposal seems to be funding the WMF approved operating budget of a chapter with a WMF grant, I don' t think the general rule will be an organization that is locally funded. Do you find it otherwise?
I would imagine that would depend on whether a chapter would like to do things that the WMF is not willing to fund. Obviously, if the grants cover everything a chapter desires, there will be little motivation to raise funds elsewhere; but if a chapter asks for something and is refused, I imagine there would be a great deal of interest in seeking additional funding.
Kirill
You are right! TYPO!
On 8/10/11 6:14 PM, Delphine Ménard wrote:
On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Jimmy Walesjwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
It would be, if that's what it were about. But I can say with confidence that at the board meeting, no one spoke about any ideas even remotely similar to this, and I can't think of a single board member who disagrees one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar.
OK, I've read this sentence five times now, and this is what I read:
"Board members agree that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as franchises"
I think there is a double negative here that is saying the opposite of what you meant to say.
Should not the sentence be: "I can't think of a single board member who *agrees* one bit with the idea that chapters should be directed or controlled in a top-down fashion as "franchises" or anything similar?
Or has my English played a trick on me?
Thanks,
Delphine
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 8/10/11 7:22 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before. You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
Of course. My past experiences are what allow me to approach these difficult issues without blaming anyone, and I think that the chapters should not feel blamed.
Growing from a barely functioning chapter - usually just a group of people who made a proposal and did all the hard work to get through the chapter approval process - into a successful, effective nonprofit organization with strong financial controls, transparency, training, oversight is really hard work. Delphine has spoken eloquently about it.
A model which dumps too much money/responsibility onto a chapter before they are ready for it is not a valid service to anyone. A model which allows chapters to go off the rails with little or no recourse other than some kind of disastrous legal battle or something would also not be a valid service to anyone.
When I look at the track record of many chapters to date, I see that we've asked too much, too soon, and it's not causing happiness.
I think the new approach, if thoughtfully pursued with lots of good-faith input and collaboration by all, can really make a huge difference.
--Jimbo
On 8/10/11 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective.
Chapters are not being centralized. I don't know how I can be more clear.
The idea that the only thing that can make chapters really decentralized is the very narrow question of who actually processes the donation is mistaken.
--Jimbo
On 8/10/11 8:56 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but where has it been suggested that chapters would not remain free to raise funds independently of the WMF? My impression was that the change being discussed here would merely remove participation in the WMF fundraiser as a funding source and replace it with direct WMF grants; presumably chapters could seek funding elsewhere?
That's right, but the reality is that using the website wikipedia.org is the single overwhelming source of funds available to chapters, and very little is likely to change about that anytime soon.
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective. Frankly, I think cutting off their funding would be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program. It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it as owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner campaign.
I would prefer that aid be given to the chapters without drastically
changing the structure from being organizations who most naturally feel accountable to their local populations who fund them to organizations who most naturally feel accountable to San Francisco. All other things being equal imagine which of those organizations will be more responsive and careful.
BirgitteSB
The only thing that this attempts to "centralize" (to use your words though it's not right) is financial accounting and reporting so as to have greater transparency and accountability. The chapters are free to do or not do whatever programs they want or don't want. This administrative change will have no effect on anything chapters do or don't do.
Renata
From: Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2011 7:49 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters
On 8/10/11 7:22 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before. You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
Of course. My past experiences are what allow me to approach these difficult issues without blaming anyone, and I think that the chapters should not feel blamed.
Growing from a barely functioning chapter - usually just a group of people who made a proposal and did all the hard work to get through the chapter approval process - into a successful, effective nonprofit organization with strong financial controls, transparency, training, oversight is really hard work. Delphine has spoken eloquently about it.
A model which dumps too much money/responsibility onto a chapter before they are ready for it is not a valid service to anyone. A model which allows chapters to go off the rails with little or no recourse other than some kind of disastrous legal battle or something would also not be a valid service to anyone.
When I look at the track record of many chapters to date, I see that we've asked too much, too soon, and it's not causing happiness.
I think the new approach, if thoughtfully pursued with lots of good-faith input and collaboration by all, can really make a huge difference.
I hope no one makes the mistake of thinking my position is that there should be no change at all in fundraising. I responded early on, I believe to Stu's message, that I found the existing incentives to perverse and think that they have harmed the ability of new chapters to form and become successful. I do believe changes are needed.
However, I have deep doubts about the chances of chapters succeeding under the specific proposal of funding a large majority of the chapter operations with a grant from WMF. I have been hoping that those supporting the proposal might respond to my sharing these doubts with some information about the model that inspired the proposal. That they might know of some organizations funded in a similar way and be able to consider my concerns by re-examining those organizations for any validity to them.
So far the response has simply been to try and reassure me that the proposed changes will have no unintended consequences on the simple basis no one wants anything to change except the accounting ledger. While I don't doubt the accuracy of such statements regarding people's desires, I can't find such assertions convincing. I don't wish to upset people further by my lack of faith that intentions matter very much.
I have raised all of the major considerations I would like people to think about. I really hope for a good outcome, whether anyone chooses to give credit to my concerns and advice or not. There no real need for any of you to convince me and I am as tired of repeating myself as am sure many of you are of hearing my repetitions. So lets just agree to disagree about the issue.
BirgitteSB
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 10:46 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 18:29, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 08:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com
wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do
with
chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
However it was the WMF that created that particular model of decentralisation in the first place.
This is begging the question: it presumes ownership. It also assumes that destroying that decentralisation is symmetrical with having first allowed and encouraged it, which is not in any way the case.
The real problem with the present approach is - *even if* it's a correct thing for the trustees to do (once we're actually clear on what it is they're doing) - is:
- Number of chapters people who've gone "hey, great idea!": 0.
- Number of chapters people who've gone "you're pissing us about so
badly we almost can't work with you": quite a lot.
Hi! It's a little hard to generalize, but this was not actually my
impression of the general tone at Wikimania, which was pretty different from the list discussions. There, I had a few folks tell me that it was good to try to crack down on problems that had occurred as a result of the [past/current] fundraising model, and others said they agreed with the intent [of improving financial controls] but thought our process sucked -- which I personally agree with; as I told several people, we felt a bit stuck between a rock & a hard place in wanting to get this out quickly under the circumstances. Several chapters are unhappy over logistics and timing, which is understandable; a few feel their autonomy is being taken away, but many are just as glad to not bother with fundraising.
Note that there are two questions raised in our letter -- one is the issue of good stewardship of money coming in through WMF-trademarked websites, which is an issue the Foundation Board does feel responsibility and ownership for; and second is the question of chapter funding and budgeting, which is a good deal more controversial and is certainly not a resolved issue -- we have iterated funding models for many years. (NB for those who aren't participating in current chapter fundraising, this year's agreement is different from previous ones -- it requires a chapter budget to be submitted to the WMF, with direct donation receipt up to that amount.)
I'd say the issues of chapter autonomy that Birgitte raised in her eloquent mail, and as raised in other threads, do go well beyond the fairly technical point of "whose bank account does the money enter when donors give through Wikipedia?" As others have noted in this thread, "fundraising" encompasses a great deal more than that, which the WMF certainly recognizes. The question "how should chapters get funded, and how do they or anyone else decide how much money they need?" is more general and important, but questions of autonomy even go beyond that. It is my belief, from conversations with all kinds of Wikimedians, that the fundamental question of "what should a chapter be?" doesn't currently have consensus or agreement among all of the stakeholders, including the various chapters themselves -- and it is this point that will especially need deep and ongoing conversation as we continue to figure out what we're all doing.
Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of other important questions: is decentralization more important than efficiency as a working principle? How do we also implement decentralized dispute resolution when two entities disagree? How do we make sure people who don't consider themselves aligned with any particular body, including readers and donors, are represented in decision making? Who allots funds; who makes sure funds keep coming in? Who is responsible for keeping wikipedia.org up and alive? How do we align the WMF's specific legal responsibilities with those of a decentralized movement? (These and many more questions are also part of the movement roles project discussions, btw; see meta).
One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
The point raised by Anthere and Delphine elsewhere that developing fundraising capabilities helps chapters mature is worth noting and certainly historically true, but is that the best course of affairs, or are there other paths of development that would be better? I do agree wholeheartedly that the WMF should invest in helping everyone get better at fundraising and management (and PR, and other essential skills...)
-- phoebe, speaking for herself not the board or staff
On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 14:53, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com wrote:
On 8/10/11 8:56 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but where has it been suggested that chapters would not remain free to raise funds independently of the WMF? My impression was that the change being discussed here would merely remove participation in the WMF fundraiser as a funding source and replace it with direct WMF grants; presumably chapters could seek funding elsewhere?
That's right, but the reality is that using the website wikipedia.org is the single overwhelming source of funds available to chapters, and very little is likely to change about that anytime soon.
that is true. it is efficient.j the model proved to deliver income for the whole movement. how to spend the money efficient as well, without too much administrative costs, according to the bylaws? all the chapters are quite efficient, very low administrative costs.
wikimedia deutschland, wmde, e.g. showed three efficient ways to spend: 1. direct transfer of 50% to the wmf 2. direct uncomplicated support of other chapters 3. community project budget, 5-10 times more than the wmf invests in grants (percentage of total income that is)
rupert.
On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of other important questions: is decentralization more important than efficiency as a working principle?
I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we think is important like decentralization.
One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a "well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are trying to move away from.
--Michael Snow
On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.comwrote:
On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of other important questions: is decentralization more important than efficiency as a working principle?
I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we think is important like decentralization.
One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a "well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are trying to move away from.
--Michael Snow
Fair point. By "well-developed" I just meant "something that works well." One of the criteria of working well could be low overhead... Again, the idea of supporting grants is not exclusive to the WMF: I am so pleased to see the expansion of the WMDE program, as well.
-- phoebe
rom: phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:13 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters
On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.comwrote:
On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of other important questions: is decentralization more important than efficiency as a working principle?
I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we think is important like decentralization.
One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a "well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are trying to move away from.
--Michael Snow
Fair point. By "well-developed" I just meant "something that works well." One of the criteria of working well could be low overhead... Again, the idea of supporting grants is not exclusive to the WMF: I am so pleased to see the expansion of the WMDE program, as well.
-- phoebe I can't help but point out that is begging the question. [1] It is a logical fallacy to say in answer to concerns that a grants program won't work well that you are supporting well-developed grants program (defined as something that works well). It is just wishful thinking.
BirgitteSB
On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 7:06 AM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
rom: phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:13 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters
On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of other important questions: is decentralization more important than efficiency as a working principle?
I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we think is important like decentralization.
One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a "well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are trying to move away from.
--Michael Snow
Fair point. By "well-developed" I just meant "something that works well." One of the criteria of working well could be low overhead... Again, the
idea
of supporting grants is not exclusive to the WMF: I am so pleased to see
the
expansion of the WMDE program, as well.
-- phoebe I can't help but point out that is begging the question. [1] It is a
logical fallacy to say in answer to concerns that a grants program won't work well that you are supporting well-developed grants program (defined as something that works well). It is just wishful thinking.
BirgitteSB
Sorry, I didn't intend to beg the question. Maybe I misread Michael's comment. I thought he was saying that a high-overhead grants program, such as many granting organizations end up with after a few years, would not be helpful. My response is that we should strive to build a functional low-overhead grants program. Yes, that is "wishful thinking", since it's an aspirational goal, but it's also in response to concern over a hypothetical future... I think it's totally fair to think about what kind of criteria we would like to see in a grants program generally (e.g. low overhead, open to all, etc.), since the program will need to be expanded quite a bit if it covers funding many more chapters and groups. Now if people don't think it's *possible* to build a low-overhead grants program, that's a fair point :)
best, phoebe
Hoi, There is fundraising together and there is fundraising perse. What is at issue is that chapters are and have always been expected to disclose their activities, providing financial statements. They are expected to be accountable and many chapters have largely not been accountable.
The consequence is very much that the decentralisation is not working because chapters are not committed to fulfil their obligations as is clear from their actions. What is at stake is the involvement and the benefits of chapters to the annual fundraiser. When chapters fund themselves in other ways (as well), then my understanding is that they are welcome to that particularly where they raise funds for particular named activities.
Wikimedia and any of the projects is a global affair and we need a global movement that includes the WMF, the chapters, the communities, the associated projects. We will and do benefit from being open transparent and accountable. The people who fund us have to appreciate us as a global movement and not as an organisation with tons of money hoarded by secretive people, in the nooks and crannies of our movement. Thanks, GerardM
On 9 August 2011 09:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do
with
chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Basics:
- WMF is a US charity. Funds collected by, or through its website (even if legally collected by affiliated organizations) will be exposed to US-style scrutiny and need to be able to withstand that for the reputation of the movement as a whole. - Wikimedia is a worldwide charity. People who donate locally want to know their funds are supporting Wikimedia and not vanishing into pockets or being wasted. Chapters not yet able to provide and demonstrate that assurance are a risk if they take funds that become unable to be accounted for or where the accounting is not transparent and independently verified.
- It's easier to set good practices in place early on. It should have been a prequel to the agreement last year on direct payment/allocation, to ensure 6 figure cash from donors worldwide was only passed to chapters that were verified and agrred as being capable of responsibly handling it, criteria in place for that. Not a "catch up" afterwards. But good call to fix it now, at least.
WMF bears actual or perceived responsibility to ensure correct use of collections via *.wikimedia.org wiki fundraisers and WMF efforts. Those monies (as opposed to funds collected by local chapters' own efforts) are donated to support the wider project goals. Because of this, WMF cannot simply shrug it of or say "they are allocated to outside body X so we have no interest or role in checking their appropriate ultimate use."
It doesn't matter the legal relationship, WMF has a perceived responsibility to live up to, that even if the funds are used at chapter discretion, it should be clear they are being reasonably and completely used for the mission.
Alternative ways to approach decentralization might have included a ramp-up over a 2-3 year period, or funds transfer on a requisition basis, allowing each local organization to be gradually established and mature (which takes time). But better late than never. It would have been much harder and more painful to correct a chapter that was "difficult" in those areas, once established a few years down the line.
At least criteria are to be put in place now than never. For chapters in good order they should not be an issue.
FT2
On Sat, Aug 13, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, There is fundraising together and there is fundraising perse. What is at issue is that chapters are and have always been expected to disclose their activities, providing financial statements. They are expected to be accountable and many chapters have largely not been accountable.
The consequence is very much that the decentralisation is not working because chapters are not committed to fulfil their obligations as is clear from their actions. What is at stake is the involvement and the benefits of chapters to the annual fundraiser. When chapters fund themselves in other ways (as well), then my understanding is that they are welcome to that particularly where they raise funds for particular named activities.
Wikimedia and any of the projects is a global affair and we need a global movement that includes the WMF, the chapters, the communities, the associated projects. We will and do benefit from being open transparent and accountable. The people who fund us have to appreciate us as a global movement and not as an organisation with tons of money hoarded by secretive people, in the nooks and crannies of our movement. Thanks, GerardM
On 9 August 2011 09:18, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 9 August 2011 05:13, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
This is all very true, and very insightful; but what does it have to do
with
chapters?
That the message from WMF is about a decentralisation not working from their perspective, so recentralising fundraising.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hi Jimmy,
There are several side effects to the idea of not allowing chapters at all to fundraise (I note that boardmembers and staff members have a different take on this, so I'll keep it general - keeping in mind there are many other aspects to be considered, such as transparancy. However, imho fundraising through chapters should remain the best way).
* Having one organization spreading around money is going to lead, sooner or later, to that organization solely making decisions on what is important and what is not. Centralized decision making, centralized prioritising. * Forcing chapters to abide the WMF cyclus is centralization - an efficient grant system likely includes fixed moments to ask for grants. Many chapters currently still have a lot of flexibility to try out programs. If we would not have had such flexibility, we would not have had Wiki Loves Monuments for example - a lot of the budget part happened late in the execution because 95% happens with volunteers. * Asking grants automatically means language issues. Chapters not having English as a mother tongue, *will* be more hesistant, no matter what help you put in place. It will be a big effort, because more bottle necks (English speakers) are introduced. * Asking for external grants is much harder - many Dutch grant organizations for example have a requirement that maximum x% of your budget can come from grants (For example, Mondriaanstichting has a maximum of 40% grant money). If we are forced to grant request to the foundation, that cuts off that income source too. * Not giving chapters access to donor data has many side effects - because they will no longer be the organization responsible for communicating with them. Sure, they would need to be responsible in that too, but denying them access also means they cannot communicate their activities at the same time, and get more volunteers involved from externally.
Maybe centralization is not your goal, but it is what you are doing. Having a non-grant funding just makes an organization more independent, and makes it more flexible and responsible. That organization is more likely to develop itself professionally.
That does not leave out that there are many problems with the current distribution system (50/50 etc) but that is a whole other discussion.
Lodewijk
2011/8/11 Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia-inc.com
On 8/10/11 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective.
Chapters are not being centralized. I don't know how I can be more clear.
The idea that the only thing that can make chapters really decentralized is the very narrow question of who actually processes the donation is mistaken.
--Jimbo
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
There are several side effects to the idea of not allowing chapters at all to fundraise (I note that boardmembers and staff members have a different take on this, so I'll keep it general - keeping in mind there are many other aspects to be considered, such as transparancy. However, imho fundraising through chapters should remain the best way).
Lodewijk,
I don't think the chapters are barred from all fundraising... At most, they are at risk of not being able to participate in the global WMF fundraiser. They can still raise funds on their own through other methods. Maybe such other methods are more time consuming, difficult and less lucrative... But there are innovative substitutes for the WMF annual fundraiser, I'm sure.
In any case, the barriers to participation relate to the organizational capacity of the chapters and the associated risks. A chapter that has financial controls and active leadership should be able to meet the WMFs requirements (with the exception of tax deduction eligibility, based on jurisdiction); a chapter that does not puts both their funds and their public reputation at risk. As the host of the fundraiser and the mark owner, the WMF shares in that risk - and it is both reasonable and necessary that the Foundation adhere to and require minimum standards of accountability in order to mitigate the risk of fraud, waste and abuse.
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
Nathan
2011/8/11 Jimmy Walesjwales@wikia-inc.com
On 8/10/11 8:51 PM, Birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective.
Chapters are not being centralized. I don't know how I can be more clear.
The idea that the only thing that can make chapters really decentralized is the very narrow question of who actually processes the donation is mistaken.
--Jimbo
Decentralization would be possibly maintained if grants were unrestricted ones.
But this is not what is being done. Grants are restricted.
When chapters used to fundraise themselves, they had the power to decide their programs, as fit an organization that is independant.
Chapters are losing that power. From the moment Wikimedia Foundation gives grants according to specific projects they approve or do not approve, they actually decide what the chapter does or does not.
Chapters are being centralized. I don't know how we can be more clear on that.
Florence
On 08/26/11 2:26 PM, Nathan wrote:
On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Lodewijklodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
There are several side effects to the idea of not allowing chapters at all to fundraise (I note that boardmembers and staff members have a different take on this, so I'll keep it general - keeping in mind there are many other aspects to be considered, such as transparancy. However, imho fundraising through chapters should remain the best way).
Lodewijk,
I don't think the chapters are barred from all fundraising... At most, they are at risk of not being able to participate in the global WMF fundraiser. They can still raise funds on their own through other methods. Maybe such other methods are more time consuming, difficult and less lucrative... But there are innovative substitutes for the WMF annual fundraiser, I'm sure.
I agree with that much. Chapters should be warned not to become dependent on the WMF fundraiser. Information about such innovative substitutes may need to be more freely shared. The result may indeed be decreased revenues, but if one of the complaints is that some chapters are sitting on piles of money that they don't use there may not be much harm to that.
In any case, the barriers to participation relate to the organizational capacity of the chapters and the associated risks. A chapter that has financial controls and active leadership should be able to meet the WMFs requirements (with the exception of tax deduction eligibility, based on jurisdiction); a chapter that does not puts both their funds and their public reputation at risk. As the host of the fundraiser and the mark owner, the WMF shares in that risk
- and it is both reasonable and necessary that the Foundation adhere
to and require minimum standards of accountability in order to mitigate the risk of fraud, waste and abuse.
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
There's a difference between organizational support and organizational takeover. One possible solution might be to not allow chapters to participate in the global fundraiser unless they already have a suitable organization in place, but that could make it more difficult for the WMF to take a piece of the chapter's action.
Ray
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
+1 I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf, médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason for them doing this the way they do?
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
There's a difference between organizational support and organizational takeover. One possible solution might be to not allow chapters to participate in the global fundraiser unless they already have a suitable organization in place, but that could make it more difficult for the WMF to take a piece of the chapter's action.
Which brings up the question: how do chapters ever get to the point of being organisationally ready if they never take a crack at doing fundraising on their own? Pleasing donors near you brings on an incomparable motivation to do great things and adapt our mission to what is expected and needed in a given region. Pleasing the Wikimedia Foundation somehow does not, seem to me to have the same potential. You know, the very old parable of giving a fish and teaching to fish...
Best,
Delphine
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally.
Is that what the WMF wants? I know it's what Sue said the plan was, but then Ting clarified that no such decision had been made. I haven't seen anything since then about what the long-term system will be. I suspect everyone is concentrating on the next fundraiser rather that subsequent ones, and that's understandable. We do need to work out what we're going to do after this one sooner rather than later, though.
On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Hi Jimmy,
There are several side effects to the idea of not allowing chapters at all to fundraise (I note that boardmembers and staff members have a different take on this, so I'll keep it general - keeping in mind there are many other aspects to be considered, such as transparancy. However, imho fundraising through chapters should remain the best way).
Lodewijk,
I don't think the chapters are barred from all fundraising... At most, they are at risk of not being able to participate in the global WMF fundraiser. They can still raise funds on their own through other methods. Maybe such other methods are more time consuming, difficult and less lucrative... But there are innovative substitutes for the WMF annual fundraiser, I'm sure.
Yes, there are. But no, there aren't. For anyone who's been involved in grants proposals, the Wikimedia Foundation included, it is clear that grants are often restricted, or come with strings attached, and that you end up building an ugly statue in front of your local swimming pool to please a very generous but extremely demanding big donor. Not that these ways shouldn't be explored, but I find the idea that "community" donations (or to put it more broadly: individual donations) are much more powerful to bring forward what we're doing than mega grants that will ever only tackle one side of the mission. Grants monitored by the Wikimedia Foundation will, yes, go towards the mission as a whole, but what about local specificities? Will they be considered "part of the mission"? Wait and see...
In any case, the barriers to participation relate to the organizational capacity of the chapters and the associated risks. A chapter that has financial controls and active leadership should be able to meet the WMFs requirements (with the exception of tax deduction eligibility, based on jurisdiction); a chapter that does not puts both their funds and their public reputation at risk. As the host of the fundraiser and the mark owner, the WMF shares in that risk
- and it is both reasonable and necessary that the Foundation adhere
to and require minimum standards of accountability in order to mitigate the risk of fraud, waste and abuse.
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
Seriously, one does not go without the other. You can't really organize to do something if you don't ever do it. Learning by doing is the best school, and while we can't let people fail, surely we can help chapters succeed, and not by assuming that they're unable to start with, on the contrary.
Cheers,
Delphine
On 08/27/11 4:42 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménardnotafishz@gmail.com:
I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally.
Is that what the WMF wants? I know it's what Sue said the plan was, but then Ting clarified that no such decision had been made. I haven't seen anything since then about what the long-term system will be. I suspect everyone is concentrating on the next fundraiser rather that subsequent ones, and that's understandable. We do need to work out what we're going to do after this one sooner rather than later, though.
If Sue and Ting are so much at odds, maybe the rest of us should duck.
Long term funding is a matter of great interest to all of us, and it's discussion should be ongoing without regard to the current campaign.
Ray
On 08/27/11 4:34 PM, Delphine Ménard wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
There's a difference between organizational support and organizational takeover. One possible solution might be to not allow chapters to participate in the global fundraiser unless they already have a suitable organization in place, but that could make it more difficult for the WMF to take a piece of the chapter's action.
Which brings up the question: how do chapters ever get to the point of being organisationally ready if they never take a crack at doing fundraising on their own? Pleasing donors near you brings on an incomparable motivation to do great things and adapt our mission to what is expected and needed in a given region. Pleasing the Wikimedia Foundation somehow does not, seem to me to have the same potential. You know, the very old parable of giving a fish and teaching to fish...
Legal and financial arguments aside, if the perception grows that the WMF is trying to concentrate decision-making in San Francisco it is bound to inspire nationalist sentiments in many countries. I really don't think it's prepared to handle that.
Ray
On 28 August 2011 01:19, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If Sue and Ting are so much at odds, maybe the rest of us should duck.
I think it was a misunderstanding on Sue's part, rather than any actual disagreement.
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
+1 I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf, médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason for them doing this the way they do?
+1. in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users, we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000 donation.
any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we probably do not want to walk.
If it were only the chapters themselves at stake (as is the case when they raise funds independently), then they could get money first and organization second. But the WMF shares in the risk, and is offering organizational support to chapters, so cart before horse does not make sense.
There's a difference between organizational support and organizational takeover. One possible solution might be to not allow chapters to participate in the global fundraiser unless they already have a suitable organization in place, but that could make it more difficult for the WMF to take a piece of the chapter's action.
Which brings up the question: how do chapters ever get to the point of being organisationally ready if they never take a crack at doing fundraising on their own? Pleasing donors near you brings on an incomparable motivation to do great things and adapt our mission to what is expected and needed in a given region. Pleasing the Wikimedia Foundation somehow does not, seem to me to have the same potential. You know, the very old parable of giving a fish and teaching to fish...
i like that :)
additionally we should not forget the entry point to reach a person. building up additional fundraising procedures means additional ways to contact people. do people really want to get spam mail from wikimedia affiliated organizations, plus see people on the street asking to sign long term donation contracts, plus experience other means common with other NGO's? currently i did not hear the foundation is unhappy about the income. so why bother so much tinkering with the status quo?
but i heard that wmf is, at least in some cases, unhappy with spending. there should be more intelligent ways to improve spending than micro managing the chapters spending via grant requests, also at a timeline more appropriate to wikipedia ... which is made to stay around at least for a couple of years.
imo, it would be wise to take our assets into account when designing the next steps, no matter if it is on the donation side, or on the spending side: 1. a globally visible web page, where a banner is sufficient to reach everybody 2. a culture of byte sized volunteering, everybody doing a little bit but it fits at the end 3. "wiki", i.e. make quick, small, non interruptive improvements to finally become the best
rupert
Has it been worked out how many chapters will be affected by this change? Of those that will be excluded this year (if any decisions on that have been made or are anticipated), how many can expect to meet the requirements for participation next year? Figuring this out may have been part of the Board's research before announcing this change, if so perhaps its been discussed elsewhere. If anyone has the details, I'd be interested to see them.
Nathan
On 28 August 2011 04:47, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
wrote:
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
+1 I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf, médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason for them doing this the way they do?
+1. in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users, we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000 donation.
any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we probably do not want to walk.
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions about chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last time around. In the "real" world, charities determine what their objectives are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific dollar objective in mind. What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with the equivalent of half a million US dollars? And was that "target" established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out on the back of an envelope? It's certainly not the way that any other charity I know of develops its targets. Now, last year was the first time this process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things; however, with the 2010 fundraiser under our belts, not much has happened at the chapter end to examine the models being used. Indeed, many chapters still haven't worked out what to do with last year's windfall, let alone done any advance planning for next year.
It's my contention that a very significant percentage of last year's donors in particular believed that they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's local office, not to local independent groups, many of which are quite adamant that they are *not* the WMF. Did anyone run a fundraising campaign last year where donors had the choice of whether to donate to a local organization versus the global one? ("Donate here to support Wikimedia Chapter activities in XXX country - tax receipt issued" vs "Donate here to support Wikimedia activities around the world - no tax receipt available") Did local messages clearly delineate how the funds would be distributed, or what the chapter's objectives and activities were? In other words, were donors fully informed about what their donation would be used for?
I see last year's fundraiser as an experiment. In some ways, it was amazingly successful - more funds were raised, in total, than ever before. But in other ways it was not - most of the chapters raised far more money than they were in a position to deal with, and the lack of advance planning in this area has raised a lot of questions within the Wikimedia community, and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals as well. The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false - because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.
This isn't a swipe at chapters at all - without exception, the chapters are enthusiastic local drivers of the Wikimedia vision, regardless of their size or location. I have the sense that several chapters have found themselves overwhelmed by the volume of donations they've received, and are genuinely trying to be good stewards of those funds, but the structures simply aren't in place for them to do so. I'd like to see some very serious effort on the part of the WMF to help chapters develop these structures, both for existing chapters, and for the Global South chapters that are currently in early development.
Risker/Anne
On 28.08.2011 16:46, Risker wrote:
On 28 August 2011 04:47, rupert THURNERrupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménardnotafishz@gmail.com:
+1. in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users, we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000 donation.
any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we probably do not want to walk.
and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals as well. The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false - because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.
This is incorrect because to receive tax exemption a person doesn't need to have a receipt.
At least for Switzerland the donor can only indicate to have donate an amount to one national charitable association. A receipt is not requested if the donation is lower than a fixed amount (200 CHF ~300 USD).
http://www.wikimedia.ch/index.php?title=Donate/en&setlang=en
In general this is valid also for other countries (and in some of them it's sufficient to have a receipt of the transaction).
I don't know who has said that the tax receipts have not been issued and the persons were not able to receive the tax exemption, but this is incorrect.
In WM CH some receipts have not been issued *automatically* because we have received donations with incomplete data (the address for example), but these persons have never requested one. In general some of them prefer to donate locally because they would be sure that the money is spent for local projects and not for tax exemption.
Ilario
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 16:46, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 August 2011 04:47, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
wrote:
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated within particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting laws of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of cash will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do better to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
+1 I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf, médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason for them doing this the way they do?
+1. in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users, we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000 donation.
any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we probably do not want to walk.
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions about chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last time around. In the "real" world, charities determine what their objectives are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific dollar objective in mind. What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with the equivalent of half a million US dollars? And was that "target" established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out on the back of an envelope? It's certainly not the way that any other charity I know of develops its targets. Now, last year was the first time this process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things;
what theoretical brainwash is this? we are working since 2005 towards local landing pages, every year little bit more, and we finally got there 2010, including the option to donate to the chapter or the foundation. which proved to be successful. the targets were of course not done via scientific research, but on the back of an envelope. we tried asking the people passing by to give to wikipedia. and they were prepared to give one CHF without thinking, but not 10. so we know quite sure that the donation potential for switzerland might max out at 2 mio CHF / year - if we reach a penetration of 50% of the working population. and of course, have good progress.
what we do with the money? have more money than we can deal with? you are joking! did you at any time in your whole life have difficulties to spend money, or did somebody closed your bank account because it is too full? we wire a big chunk of the money to the foundation where it is 0.X % of their income. we wire it despite it feels like spitting into the ocean.
the main challenge is then to _not_ spend it, or in other words, not waste it to not go in prison. the board decides on the details and proposes the way to go, the general assembly (all members) decide on the strategy, and the bylaws state the goals. our board is legally responsible towards the swiss law and its easy to just walk to the other side of the street and sue in case of money waste or spending not within the bylaws. to see an example how the spending is scrutinized, subscribe to the german mailing list. this by far superiour cost control than what is existing at the wikimedia foundation and, i would say 99.9 % of the other "standard ngo's".
we are slow in spending, true. but the donors, at least in switzerland, prefer slow spending to waste. do you know how many employees wikimedia switzerland has? ZERO. we cannot tell if it will make sense that it stays like this, but we are proud that we are better and have less waste than other charities :) we do not need to stand under bridges and in train stations, paying contractors 100% of the first year, 75% of the second years donation and so on so they hunt donators which then make a long year contract to pay us regularly. we do not need to write spam mails to get donators. we do not need to do all this "usual ngo" thing. we "only" need good work, and spend wisely. and i guess many people have fun with it, and are proud of it. at least i am. btw, how many new articles did you create on wikipedia the last couple of months? none? i created 4, at least! did you visit a museum to negotiate some glam projects? no? i visited at least two. did you work on the internationalization project (aka global south)? no? i helped organizing at least one meeting and one project. did i get money? no!
over and out,
rupert. ----------------------- http://wikimedia.ch/Donate - just so you may look the foundation is there, _without_ an additional click.k
Hi Risker
I would like to ask your opinion on WMF's stewardship of the money. The Foundation has fulfilled its legal obligation as a non-profit but as a community member from english wikipedia, do you feel it has been accountable to you or spent it on worthwhile activities for the community? the reality is WMF raised several times more money than all chapters combined, this year's target is 30% or so more than previous year's. Do you think concentration of all that money with one organization and one entity is a smart idea with a global movement like ours?
You are taking broad strokes here with chapters, It was a handful of chapters that were allowed to fundraise last year (maybe 8 or 10 at most). Not all of them were rolling in money instantly. it was going to be rolled out to several more chapters this year or so was the plan, until the fundraising summit this year, which everyone from the staff and most of the interested chapters attended.
As for generalizations about chapters use of donor money, off the top of my head, I can think of several projects that were possible because of the last fundraiser, Wiki loves Monument, which was eventually rolled out to several other chapters, there were multiple GLAM related activities- Wikipedian in residence programs in Germany and France supported by the chapters this past year. We can't forget the annual cost of Toolserver which was made possible by WMDE's independent fundraising. There were probably more local projects that were planned that we never heard about. I know there were discussions about expanding several projects but now those chapters have all held themselves in light of an uncertain future.
Its going to be the end of activities and projects like those, if chapter independence to raise funds is taken away. I completely agreed with Birgitte SB's take on the matter earlier.
Do you want WMF to be the sole and only authority for what the entire movement does? Every project, every little activity in their slice of the world or their online community has to be individually approved and sanctioned by WMF. It's taking away independence of these small groups in deciding what's best for their own part of the world or community, somewhere along the line this is getting conflated into issues of accountability that no one really disagrees with, not the chapters themselves. the only solution because of certain chapters mismanagement, is to make every chapter more or less a branch office of WMF.
Theo
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 August 2011 04:47, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:53 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
wrote:
If the question is one of "minimum standards of accountability" the WMF's first obligation would be to publish the standards which it requires, presumably consistent with IFRS. Chapters incorporated
within
particular jurisdictions will be subject to the financial reporting
laws
of their respective jurisdictions. These are more important than the FUD and distrust at the heart of recent proposals. There is no doubt that a small band of individuals unaccustomed to large infusions of
cash
will have challenges to face, but in these cases the WMF would do
better
to help these chapters find competent help in their own countries than to play the role of a distrustful parent.
+1 I'm still baffled at the Wikimedia Foundation wanting to go against what other international organisations are doing, ie. they fundraise locally. (Take a look at the international pages of oxfam, wwf, médecins sans frontières, etc.). Who are we to know better than these people who've been around for like... ever? Surely there is a reason for them doing this the way they do?
+1. in switzerland we feel that a good target is to get 1 CHF per user and year as donation. not having a better means of calculating the users, we took 10% of the working population as guess. for switzerland that means, 8 mio inhabitants, 4 mio working, 400'000 users, i.e. 400'000 donation.
any measure that brings down the donations means that we are failing to make the people happy about wikimedia projects, and thats a path we probably do not want to walk.
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions about chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last time around. In the "real" world, charities determine what their objectives are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific dollar objective in mind. What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with the equivalent of half a million US dollars? And was that "target" established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out on the back of an envelope? It's certainly not the way that any other charity I know of develops its targets. Now, last year was the first time this process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things; however, with the 2010 fundraiser under our belts, not much has happened at the chapter end to examine the models being used. Indeed, many chapters still haven't worked out what to do with last year's windfall, let alone done any advance planning for next year.
It's my contention that a very significant percentage of last year's donors in particular believed that they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's local office, not to local independent groups, many of which are quite adamant that they are *not* the WMF. Did anyone run a fundraising campaign last year where donors had the choice of whether to donate to a local organization versus the global one? ("Donate here to support Wikimedia Chapter activities in XXX country - tax receipt issued" vs "Donate here to support Wikimedia activities around the world - no tax receipt available") Did local messages clearly delineate how the funds would be distributed, or what the chapter's objectives and activities were? In other words, were donors fully informed about what their donation would be used for?
I see last year's fundraiser as an experiment. In some ways, it was amazingly successful - more funds were raised, in total, than ever before. But in other ways it was not - most of the chapters raised far more money than they were in a position to deal with, and the lack of advance planning in this area has raised a lot of questions within the Wikimedia community, and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals as well. The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false - because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.
This isn't a swipe at chapters at all - without exception, the chapters are enthusiastic local drivers of the Wikimedia vision, regardless of their size or location. I have the sense that several chapters have found themselves overwhelmed by the volume of donations they've received, and are genuinely trying to be good stewards of those funds, but the structures simply aren't in place for them to do so. I'd like to see some very serious effort on the part of the WMF to help chapters develop these structures, both for existing chapters, and for the Global South chapters that are currently in early development.
Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 28 August 2011 14:40, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Has it been worked out how many chapters will be affected by this change?
All except WMDE.
- d.
On 28 August 2011 18:07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 August 2011 14:40, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Has it been worked out how many chapters will be affected by this change?
All except WMDE.
That depends on what you mean by "affected", really. I don't think it will be just WMDE participating in the fundraiser. The WMF has said that it intends to abide by existing agreements, which several chapters had signed before Wikimania.
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions about chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last time around. In the "real" world, charities determine what their objectives are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific dollar objective in mind.
In the real world, charities also make sure that their target is not completely out of proportion with the fundraising potential they have in a given geography. What's the point of thinking up fantastic programmes for a budget of a million dollars if you know that the maximum your country will ever give to your cause is 20 000 dollars. So I find the exercise to be interesting.
What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with the equivalent of half a million US dollars? And was that "target" established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out on the back of an envelope? It's certainly not the way that any other charity I know of develops its targets. Now, last year was the first time this process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things; however, with the 2010 fundraiser under our belts, not much has happened at the chapter end to examine the models being used. Indeed, many chapters still haven't worked out what to do with last year's windfall, let alone done any advance planning for next year.
It's my contention that a very significant percentage of last year's donors in particular believed that they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's local office, not to local independent groups, many of which are quite adamant that they are *not* the WMF. Did anyone run a fundraising campaign last year where donors had the choice of whether to donate to a local organization versus the global one? ("Donate here to support Wikimedia Chapter activities in XXX country - tax receipt issued" vs "Donate here to support Wikimedia activities around the world - no tax receipt available") Did local messages clearly delineate how the funds would be distributed, or what the chapter's objectives and activities were? In other words, were donors fully informed about what their donation would be used for?
I suppose your statement is backed up by some research? As in, you have data to support the fact that "a significant percentage" of last year's donor believed they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's local office? As a matter of fact, I suppose you can also back up the fact that donors even understand what the Foundation (or the chapters for that matter) are and what they do? I'd be happy to see this data, it's cruelly missing.
I see last year's fundraiser as an experiment. In some ways, it was amazingly successful - more funds were raised, in total, than ever before. But in other ways it was not - most of the chapters raised far more money than they were in a position to deal with, and the lack of advance planning in this area has raised a lot of questions within the Wikimedia community, and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals as well. The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false - because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.
Did it ever come to you that the reason why chapters raised "far more money" than they were in a position to deal with, might be: 1) the fact that more and more people want to support the projects altogether (this is gonna stop at some point, the world is finite) 2) the fact that having a local chapter may have had something to do with the "far more"? I don't have data to back up my statement, so it's just a hypothesis, please take it as such.
This isn't a swipe at chapters at all - without exception, the chapters are enthusiastic local drivers of the Wikimedia vision, regardless of their size or location. I have the sense that several chapters have found themselves overwhelmed by the volume of donations they've received, and are genuinely trying to be good stewards of those funds, but the structures simply aren't in place for them to do so. I'd like to see some very serious effort on the part of the WMF to help chapters develop these structures, both for existing chapters, and for the Global South chapters that are currently in early development.
And there, I can only agree. Only, this is not exactly the direction we seem to be taking :)
Delphine
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
This is incorrect because to receive tax exemption a person doesn't need to have a receipt.
At least for Switzerland the donor can only indicate to have donate an amount to one national charitable association. A receipt is not requested if the donation is lower than a fixed amount (200 CHF ~300 USD).
Ilario
What you mean is that this is false for Switzerland. I don't think Risker specified Switzerland in that part of her post.
~Nathan
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Risker
I would like to ask your opinion on WMF's stewardship of the money. The Foundation has fulfilled its legal obligation as a non-profit but as a community member from english wikipedia, do you feel it has been accountable to you or spent it on worthwhile activities for the community? the reality is WMF raised several times more money than all chapters combined, this year's target is 30% or so more than previous year's. Do you think concentration of all that money with one organization and one entity is a smart idea with a global movement like ours?
In what way is devolving money to many organizations in many countries an *improvement* for accountability, particularly when the standards for transparency and fiscal responsibility are minimal or non-existent? I don't know about Risker, but I don't personally believe the Foundation's money is being misspent. It helps that I know the Foundation is a professional operation, and that it's spending and priorities are disclosed.
More to the point, according to [1] nearly 80% of the total fundraising take was from North America. Participation by chapters in the fundraiser is not, in anyway, an alternative to concentrating money in the WMF.
[1]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av5TeXEyGuvpdGRyNDJHS19RZmRqbWl...
Its going to be the end of activities and projects like those, if chapter independence to raise funds is taken away. I completely agreed with Birgitte SB's take on the matter earlier.
Do you want WMF to be the sole and only authority for what the entire movement does? Every project, every little activity in their slice of the world or their online community has to be individually approved and sanctioned by WMF. It's taking away independence of these small groups in deciding what's best for their own part of the world or community, somewhere along the line this is getting conflated into issues of accountability that no one really disagrees with, not the chapters themselves. the only solution because of certain chapters mismanagement, is to make every chapter more or less a branch office of WMF.
Theo
First of all, the chapters can continue to fundraise how they like. There are other methods of fundraising, and many thousands of other non-profit groups that manage to fund themselves without the WMF drive. If your goal is chapter independence, then you should be encouraging chapters to engage in their own fundraising efforts. If they have no source of funding other than the Wikimedia Foundation annual fundraiser, then they are fully yoked to its continuing goodwill and approval.
Second, there is no reason to expect that every little expenditure will have to be approved by the WMF in advance. I haven't seen outlines for requesting grants from the Foundation... have you seen documents that suggest the requirements for receiving a grant will be particularly onerous? Perhaps a chapter will establish a budget, submit the budget to the WMF, and have the whole budget funded. That's more along the lines of what I remember Phoebe and others suggesting.
Nathan
On 28.08.2011 21:00, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Ilario Valdellivaldelli@gmail.com wrote:
This is incorrect because to receive tax exemption a person doesn't need to have a receipt.
At least for Switzerland the donor can only indicate to have donate an amount to one national charitable association. A receipt is not requested if the donation is lower than a fixed amount (200 CHF ~300 USD).
Ilario
What you mean is that this is false for Switzerland. I don't think Risker specified Switzerland in that part of her post.
~Nathan
I mean in general. I have listed the situation in Switzerland because this is well known by me, but in the other countries it doesn't change a lot.
Ilario
On 28.08.2011 21:00, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Ilario Valdellivaldelli@gmail.com wrote:
This is incorrect because to receive tax exemption a person doesn't need to have a receipt.
At least for Switzerland the donor can only indicate to have donate an amount to one national charitable association. A receipt is not requested if the donation is lower than a fixed amount (200 CHF ~300 USD).
Ilario
What you mean is that this is false for Switzerland. I don't think Risker specified Switzerland in that part of her post.
~Nathan
Sorry, I would explain in a better way.
What Risker says is not documented, it seems to be an opinion.
What I have tried to do is to give a "real" example of fundraising made by a chapter with tax exemption.
So it means that I have documented my words.
It could be better if someone can document what he says.
Ilario
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 12:47 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Risker
I would like to ask your opinion on WMF's stewardship of the money. The Foundation has fulfilled its legal obligation as a non-profit but as a community member from english wikipedia, do you feel it has been
accountable
to you or spent it on worthwhile activities for the community? the
reality
is WMF raised several times more money than all chapters combined, this year's target is 30% or so more than previous year's. Do you think concentration of all that money with one organization and one entity is a smart idea with a global movement like ours?
In what way is devolving money to many organizations in many countries an *improvement* for accountability, particularly when the standards for transparency and fiscal responsibility are minimal or non-existent? I don't know about Risker, but I don't personally believe the Foundation's money is being misspent. It helps that I know the Foundation is a professional operation, and that it's spending and priorities are disclosed.
I never said it was an improvement for accountability, accountability has no relation to what I was asking. Devolving of money into many organizations in many countries is happening and will continue to happen with the fundraising or the grants system. Chapters will still receive the funding from a San Francisco based non-profit in the grants system, rest assured that will not change. What the current model changes is giving to the organization from the same country and leaving it in charge of local activities, some may offer tax-deductibility benefit, some may not. The idea is, since local organizations know local needs better than a global one, they might be in a better position to act. There are too numerous laws and restrictive tax codes to point out why certain countries might have problems when the money for all activities of an organization comes solely from a San Francisco based Non-profit. The movement of money itself, back and forth confounds this problem further.
Second, it might be some form of elitist outlook if you think accountability standards for US Non-profits are more transparent and fiscally responsible than say somewhere in EU like Germany, France or the Switzerland. I assure you, they are existent, not-minimal and more restrictive than the US.
Then, the current strategic plan for the foundation, calls for an increased focus on 'Global South'. As a 'Global South' resident I can assure you there are restrictive laws about the movement of money from one country to a more affluent one. Since the plan itself calls for attention and focus on these areas, it might make sense to collect and spend money locally(?).
Lastly, I think what I am trying to argue for, is having multiple smaller groups doing things independently and locally than one giant head organization that pays the bills. You might think Foundation's money is not being misspent, others might not. I am arguing for decentralization, more independence for local groups. We can have more local GLAM activities and more things like Wiki loves monument or even a better Toolserver. WMF is not built to take on activities like those, or has tried to in my knowledge, in the past.
More to the point, according to [1] nearly 80% of the total fundraising take was from North America. Participation by chapters in the fundraiser is not, in anyway, an alternative to concentrating money in the WMF.
That is what I meant when I said WMF collects several times more than all chapters combined, let me add 'locally' if it helps. I also said, only a handful of chapters were allowed to fundraise, an option which was being planned to be offered to other chapters before it was taken away. You also might want to look at the board letter and read the point about why global south shouldn't get more of the proceeds than global north, since 80% is from North America as you pointed out.
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av5TeXEyGuvpdGRyNDJHS19RZmRqbWl...
Its going to be the end of activities and projects like those, if chapter independence to raise funds is taken away. I completely agreed with
Birgitte
SB's take on the matter earlier.
Do you want WMF to be the sole and only authority for what the entire movement does? Every project, every little activity in their slice of the world or their online community has to be individually approved and sanctioned by WMF. It's taking away independence of these small groups in deciding what's best for their own part of the world or community,
somewhere
along the line this is getting conflated into issues of accountability
that
no one really disagrees with, not the chapters themselves. the only
solution
because of certain chapters mismanagement, is to make every chapter more
or
less a branch office of WMF.
Theo
First of all, the chapters can continue to fundraise how they like. There are other methods of fundraising, and many thousands of other non-profit groups that manage to fund themselves without the WMF drive. If your goal is chapter independence, then you should be encouraging chapters to engage in their own fundraising efforts. If they have no source of funding other than the Wikimedia Foundation annual fundraiser, then they are fully yoked to its continuing goodwill and approval.
Actually, most non-profits have local operations in a lot of country where they fundraise locally, I believe Delphine pointed out oxfam, wwf,médecins sans frontières on this thread earlier who have similar models. You might be arguing against the nature of Non-profits here.
Second, there is no reason to expect that every little expenditure will have to be approved by the WMF in advance. I haven't seen outlines for requesting grants from the Foundation... have you seen documents that suggest the requirements for receiving a grant will be particularly onerous? Perhaps a chapter will establish a budget, submit the budget to the WMF, and have the whole budget funded. That's more along the lines of what I remember Phoebe and others suggesting.
Actually, it does. Grants, by definition are amounts given to grantee after approval from the grantor. Let me point you to the already existing grant system, here are the outlines[1], please do look at the "Guidelines and Criteria" along with "Evaluation and Approval" and "Reporting" sections. Yes, chapters will establish a budget, submit it and then discuss every aspect in length, for example here [2] and be at the discretion of WMF staff in the end.
Let me point you to some rejected grants as well, in the past year.[3]
Theo
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants#Key_guidelines_and_criteria [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:WM_AR/Professionalization [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants#Grant_applications_not_funded
Nathan
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
*That depends on what you mean by "affected", really. I don't think it will be just WMDE participating in the fundraiser. The WMF has said that it intends to abide by existing agreements, which several chapters had signed before Wikimania.
AFAIK, yes. Only WMDE will run fundraising. All chapters who signed the agreement before wikimania received a "Grant Agreement" to replace the fundraising one, and all chapters who should had signed the agreement in Wikimania were "adviced" to do a normal grant. _____ *Béria Lima* http://wikimedia.pt/(351) 925 171 484
*Imagine um mundo onde é dada a qualquer pessoa a possibilidade de ter livre acesso ao somatório de todo o conhecimento humano. É isso o que estamos a fazer http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Nossos_projetos.*
On 28 August 2011 18:10, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 August 2011 18:07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 28 August 2011 14:40, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Has it been worked out how many chapters will be affected by this change?
All except WMDE.
That depends on what you mean by "affected", really. I don't think it will be just WMDE participating in the fundraiser. The WMF has said that it intends to abide by existing agreements, which several chapters had signed before Wikimania.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2011/8/28 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:46 PM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
See now, this is the kind of thinking that raises a lot of questions
about
chapters receiving the very large amounts of money that many got the last time around. In the "real" world, charities determine what their
objectives
are for the year, cost them out, and then fundraise with that specific dollar objective in mind.
In the real world, charities also make sure that their target is not completely out of proportion with the fundraising potential they have in a given geography. What's the point of thinking up fantastic programmes for a budget of a million dollars if you know that the maximum your country will ever give to your cause is 20 000 dollars. So I find the exercise to be interesting.
I think we are saying the same thing, in different ways. Charities/chapters should not be fundraising for targets they cannot realistically meet, either by developing program plans that will cost considerably more than they are likely to be able to support financially, or by raising more money than they can justify by their ability to provide programs. It is two faces of the same coin.
What, pray tell, will the Swiss chapter do with the equivalent of half a million US dollars? And was that "target" established by any particular research, or was it some figures worked out
on
the back of an envelope? It's certainly not the way that any other
charity
I know of develops its targets. Now, last year was the first time this process was tried, so nobody was really quite sure how to manage things; however, with the 2010 fundraiser under our belts, not much has happened
at
the chapter end to examine the models being used. Indeed, many chapters still haven't worked out what to do with last year's windfall, let alone done any advance planning for next year.
It's my contention that a very significant percentage of last year's
donors
in particular believed that they were donating to the Wikimedia
Foundation's
local office, not to local independent groups, many of which are quite adamant that they are *not* the WMF. Did anyone run a fundraising
campaign
last year where donors had the choice of whether to donate to a local organization versus the global one? ("Donate here to support Wikimedia Chapter activities in XXX country - tax receipt issued" vs "Donate here
to
support Wikimedia activities around the world - no tax receipt
available")
Did local messages clearly delineate how the funds would be distributed,
or
what the chapter's objectives and activities were? In other words, were donors fully informed about what their donation would be used for?
I suppose your statement is backed up by some research? As in, you have data to support the fact that "a significant percentage" of last year's donor believed they were donating to the Wikimedia Foundation's local office? As a matter of fact, I suppose you can also back up the fact that donors even understand what the Foundation (or the chapters for that matter) are and what they do? I'd be happy to see this data, it's cruelly missing.
It's been 10 months since last I saw the landing pages for various chapters (and would have no idea where to find them now), and I saw them before the fundraiser went "live" so some changes may have been made after I saw them. Bearing that in mind, one of the concerns that came to my mind even then was that many of them did not make it explicitly clear that XX percent of the donation was going to and independent local chapter. There was also a significant lack of fiduciary information about the chapter entities to which their donation was going - such as links to audited financial statements, operational or strategic plans, current programs, expansion plans, budgets, identities of the chapter board members, and so on. All of this information was available in some form or other from the "non-chapter" landing pages. Indeed, I never could figure out from any of the chapter landing pages what percentage of the donation stayed local and what percentage would be submitted to the WMF.
In other words, I *knew* that these were chapter landing pages, I knew the money was going to chapters, and even still it wasn't immediately obvious to me that the money was going to a separate entity (the chapter) and not just a local branch directly controlled by the WMF - or to the global WMF fundraising pool.
I see last year's fundraiser as an experiment. In some ways, it was amazingly successful - more funds were raised, in total, than ever
before.
But in other ways it was not - most of the chapters raised far more money than they were in a position to deal with, and the lack of advance
planning
in this area has raised a lot of questions within the Wikimedia
community,
and could easily lead to concerns from outside agencies and individuals
as
well. The hypothetical that we were "losing" donors because in many countries tax receipts could not be issued has turned out to be false - because many chapters that received a percentage of local donations were still not able to issue tax receipts last year. Realistically, given the basic chapter agreement, there are many that will never be able to obtain the local equivalent of "charitable organization" status.
Did it ever come to you that the reason why chapters raised "far more money" than they were in a position to deal with, might be:
- the fact that more and more people want to support the projects
altogether (this is gonna stop at some point, the world is finite) 2) the fact that having a local chapter may have had something to do with the "far more"? I don't have data to back up my statement, so it's just a hypothesis, please take it as such.
Oh I agree with you that, as the WMF projects have increasingly penetrated the global mindset, there are more and more people willing to support the movement with financial donations. I'm just not persuaded that local chapters have anything to do with that, particularly as it wasn't all that clear in a lot of the landing pages that funds were going to a separate local chapter and not just a local branch of the WMF (or for that matter that a percentage of funds would remain for local programming). I do think that at least in some countries the prospect of getting a tax deduction/tax receipt was a motivating factor, either to make a donation, or to make a larger donation.
(Aside to Ilario Valdelli - the point is that there is a mechanism by which a donor may receive some form of tax relief for donating. The process will differ from country to country, but in just about every country a person must be able to "demonstrate" in some form that they have in fact made the donation, should the tax auditor show up at their door.)
Risker/Anne
On 08/28/11 12:17 PM, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Theo10011de10011@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Risker
I would like to ask your opinion on WMF's stewardship of the money. The Foundation has fulfilled its legal obligation as a non-profit but as a community member from english wikipedia, do you feel it has been accountable to you or spent it on worthwhile activities for the community? the reality is WMF raised several times more money than all chapters combined, this year's target is 30% or so more than previous year's. Do you think concentration of all that money with one organization and one entity is a smart idea with a global movement like ours?
In what way is devolving money to many organizations in many countries an *improvement* for accountability, particularly when the standards for transparency and fiscal responsibility are minimal or non-existent? I don't know about Risker, but I don't personally believe the Foundation's money is being misspent. It helps that I know the Foundation is a professional operation, and that it's spending and priorities are disclosed.
If we are talking about the money raised in the country itself how is that "devolving". That seems too much like the financial model used by the business agents for ladies of the night. The issue has nothing to do with whether Foundation funds are being misspent. Having the Foundation as "a professional operation" is of absolutely no interest to me.. Professional operations tend to develop different priorities from amateur ones.
More to the point, according to [1] nearly 80% of the total fundraising take was from North America. Participation by chapters in the fundraiser is not, in anyway, an alternative to concentrating money in the WMF.
[1]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av5TeXEyGuvpdGRyNDJHS19RZmRqbWl...
That link shows 67.75% as being from the USA.
Its going to be the end of activities and projects like those, if chapter independence to raise funds is taken away. I completely agreed with Birgitte SB's take on the matter earlier.
Do you want WMF to be the sole and only authority for what the entire movement does? Every project, every little activity in their slice of the world or their online community has to be individually approved and sanctioned by WMF. It's taking away independence of these small groups in deciding what's best for their own part of the world or community, somewhere along the line this is getting conflated into issues of accountability that no one really disagrees with, not the chapters themselves. the only solution because of certain chapters mismanagement, is to make every chapter more or less a branch office of WMF.
Theo
First of all, the chapters can continue to fundraise how they like. There are other methods of fundraising, and many thousands of other non-profit groups that manage to fund themselves without the WMF drive. If your goal is chapter independence, then you should be encouraging chapters to engage in their own fundraising efforts. If they have no source of funding other than the Wikimedia Foundation annual fundraiser, then they are fully yoked to its continuing goodwill and approval.
I have no problem with this. Chapters should be made to understand the consequences of swallowing poison pills.
Second, there is no reason to expect that every little expenditure will have to be approved by the WMF in advance. I haven't seen outlines for requesting grants from the Foundation... have you seen documents that suggest the requirements for receiving a grant will be particularly onerous? Perhaps a chapter will establish a budget, submit the budget to the WMF, and have the whole budget funded. That's more along the lines of what I remember Phoebe and others suggesting.
Due diligence requires management to be wary of what they "have no reason to expect". For a person who hasn't seen grant request outlines you do a lot of speculation about what they don't contain. To the extent that chapters require grants, it is wholly reasonable that they establish the need for those grants, and be accountable for them when they receive them. Beyond the startup stage chapters should strive to have independent core funding. so as not to require WMF grants to fund core operations. That's an important part of being responsible and accountable; national laws too play a big role in establishing accountability and transparency. It would be irresponsible for a chapter board member to base his policy stands on the suggested interpretation of one WMF board member.
Ray
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Bearing that in mind, one of the concerns that came to my mind even then was that many of them did not make it explicitly clear that XX percent of the donation was going to and independent local chapter. There was also a significant lack of fiduciary information about the chapter entities to which their donation was going - such as links to audited financial statements, operational or strategic plans, current programs, expansion plans, budgets, identities of the chapter board members, and so on. All of this information was available in some form or other from the "non-chapter" landing pages. Indeed, I never could figure out from any of the chapter landing pages what percentage of the donation stayed local and what percentage would be submitted to the WMF.
Oh, WMF landing page contains so many links to all the things you mention (especially comparing to WMDE's or WMFR's landing page).
In other words, I *knew* that these were chapter landing pages, I knew the money was going to chapters, and even still it wasn't immediately obvious to me that the money was going to a separate entity (the chapter) and not just a local branch directly controlled by the WMF - or to the global WMF fundraising pool.
And you assume most people even know what WMF is and what is the difference between WMF and chapters? Come on, go to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate and count how many times Wikimedia is mentioned (answer: 3, 2 times in the footer). Then count how many times Wikipedia is mentioned (11 times in the main text). People are donating to Wikipedia, not WMF, and WMF knows that and hence designs the fundraising messages in that way (remember the "Wikipedia CEO" incident?). Chapters are much more honest in this respect.
-vvv
On 28 August 2011 21:56, Béria Lima berialima@gmail.com wrote:
*That depends on what you mean by "affected", really. I don't think it will be just WMDE participating in the fundraiser. The WMF has said that it intends to abide by existing agreements, which several chapters had signed before Wikimania.
AFAIK, yes. Only WMDE will run fundraising. All chapters who signed the agreement before wikimania received a "Grant Agreement" to replace the fundraising one, and all chapters who should had signed the agreement in Wikimania were "adviced" to do a normal grant.
That's what the WMF wanted to do, but it depends on the chapters agreeing to waive the existing agreements. Has that happened? I don't think it has.
Several points in reply to Theo:
1) You don't need to argue the value of having chapters around the world. No one debating that. It's accepted that effective global outreach requires effective local partners, and that local chapters are the way to achieve the best results. I think its generally well known that there are countries where it is problematic to receive large amounts of money from foreign organizations, or to send money overseas. But...
2) Organizations that receive money under the aegis of the WMF need to understand that the WMF has a legal and ethical duty to ensure that the funds are well spent. This isn't a "US vs. other places" argument - its a "the WMF has to meet its obligations to the community" argument. As an organization that strives to be far more accountable and transparent to the public than a normal non-profit, these obligations greatly exceed the minimum requirements of law. I'm sure many nations have strict laws governing the operations of non-profits, and we all hope and expect that all chapters meet and exceed these minimum requirements... but the chapters must meet the Foundation's expectations for transparency and fiscal responsibility, not just the what is required by law.
3) Your point about the nature of non-profit organizations doesn't make sense as a response to what I said. Perhaps you can re-read what I wrote and reconsider your response. Regardless, I'm not sure I understand exactly why people opposed to the new requirements of the WMF are ignoring the obvious fact that chapters can continue to raise funds on their own. Grants, some sorts of partnerships, direct contributions, etc. The Board letter is not "You can't raise any funds at all" its "You have to do X, Y and Z in order to join the WMF fundraiser."
Let's just reiterate the requirements described by the Board letter:
*"* An organization can directly receive donor funds as a payment processor if the following criteria are met: ** There is sufficient money raised in the geography to merit the logistical effort. ** The organization offers tax deductibility or other incentives to local donors. ** Regulatory issues about any international funds flows are fully resolved. ** The organization's current financial resources are not enough to fund proposed program work. ** The Foundation can confidently assure donors to the chapter that their donations will be safeguarded, that our movement's transparency principles will be met, and that spending will be in line with our mission and with the messages used to attract donors. * The donation process should clearly disclose basic facts about the organization receiving the donation."*
Tax deductibility may be a major challenge or impossible in some jurisdictions. Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters? Here's how I interpret what the Board has written:
(a) Regulatory issues have to be resolved, which was true (in order to protect local organizations from liability) regardless of this letter.
(b) Having many times more money than planned is a risk obvious to anyone. The WMF is trying to prevent a situation where chapters have huge bank accounts but no organizational capacity or financial controls. That means diligent and clear accounting according to international accounting standards, controls against the risk of theft, fraud or misappropriation, and outside independent audits. Such demands are the basic responsibility of the WMF to donors it refers to chapters.
(c) Chapters who receive money from the WMF should disclose in detail how much money they've received and how it is being spent, to the WMF and the movement community. As above, funds should be "safeguarded" by appropriate financial controls (which may or may not be mandated by law in any jurisdiction). Money received through the WMF should be spent solely on movement goals.
(d) Chapters receiving money should disclose to donors the chapters' nature, history, composition and leadership.
Why anyone should object to these requirements is hard for me to understand. I can see why chapters would be perturbed about needing to meet them on a short timeline, but generally speaking they should all have had these as aims to begin with.
Nathan
On 29 August 2011 00:29, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters?
Because that's its effect: "The entire system of chapters, except WMDE, is hereby recentralised. Thanks for your hard work, everyone!"
Saying nice things about how much you like decentralisation does not change the effect.
- d.
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 5:49 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 08/28/11 12:17 PM, Nathan wrote:
More to the point, according to [1] nearly 80% of the total fundraising take was from North America. Participation by chapters in the fundraiser is not, in anyway, an alternative to concentrating money in the WMF.
[1]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av5TeXEyGuvpdGRyNDJHS19RZmRqbWl...
That link shows 67.75% as being from the USA.
That's why I said North America.
Due diligence requires management to be wary of what they "have no reason to expect". For a person who hasn't seen grant request outlines you do a lot of speculation about what they don't contain. To the extent that chapters require grants, it is wholly reasonable that they establish the need for those grants, and be accountable for them when they receive them. Beyond the startup stage chapters should strive to have independent core funding. so as not to require WMF grants to fund core operations. That's an important part of being responsible and accountable; national laws too play a big role in establishing accountability and transparency. It would be irresponsible for a chapter board member to base his policy stands on the suggested interpretation of one WMF board member.
If the WMF plans for grants to be the interim method of funding for developing chapters (aside from that raised independently by the chapters themselves) then I expect that they will tweak the process to account for the specific issues involved (like not wanting to bury chapters in book-length paperwork requirements). A responsible chapter board member, as you say, should base his or her assumptions on what is likely and on the information currently available, not on fears of a worst-case scenario.
Nathan
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:34 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 August 2011 00:29, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters?
Because that's its effect: "The entire system of chapters, except WMDE, is hereby recentralised. Thanks for your hard work, everyone!"
Saying nice things about how much you like decentralisation does not change the effect.
- d.
Other than saying "You're recentralising the chapters by forcing us to raise / receive money through the WMF!" no one has really adequately described how this is the case. Chapters were only participating in the fundraiser for one year. Even then, they relied on the WMF to attract and refer donors. At worst, chapters are as decentralised as they were prior to the 2010 fundraiser. Accounting to the WMF for how money is managed and spent does not seem like such an extraordinary requirement that people should react as if the chapters were being scrapped. What did they want to do with the money that this is an impossible burden?
On 8/29/11 1:45 AM, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:34 PM, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 August 2011 00:29, Nathannawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters?
Because that's its effect: "The entire system of chapters, except WMDE, is hereby recentralised. Thanks for your hard work, everyone!"
Saying nice things about how much you like decentralisation does not change the effect.
- d.
Other than saying "You're recentralising the chapters by forcing us to raise / receive money through the WMF!" no one has really adequately described how this is the case. Chapters were only participating in the fundraiser for one year.
UH ???
One year ???????
Florence
Even then, they relied on the WMF to attract and refer donors. At
worst, chapters are as decentralised as they were prior to the 2010 fundraiser. Accounting to the WMF for how money is managed and spent does not seem like such an extraordinary requirement that people should react as if the chapters were being scrapped. What did they want to do with the money that this is an impossible burden? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Florence Devouard anthere9@yahoo.comwrote:
On 8/29/11 1:45 AM, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:34 PM, David Gerarddgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29 August 2011 00:29, Nathannawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters?
Because that's its effect: "The entire system of chapters, except WMDE, is hereby recentralised. Thanks for your hard work, everyone!"
Saying nice things about how much you like decentralisation does not change the effect.
- d.
Other than saying "You're recentralising the chapters by forcing us to
raise
/ receive money through the WMF!" no one has really adequately described
how
this is the case. Chapters were only participating in the fundraiser for
one
year.
UH ???
One year ???????
Florence
True, I misspoke. Twelve chapters participated in 2010, 9 in 2009, 6 in 2007. Apologies for the error.
On 08/28/11 4:38 PM, Nathan wrote:
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 5:49 PM, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 08/28/11 12:17 PM, Nathan wrote:
More to the point, according to [1] nearly 80% of the total fundraising take was from North America. Participation by chapters in the fundraiser is not, in anyway, an alternative to concentrating money in the WMF.
[1]
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av5TeXEyGuvpdGRyNDJHS19RZmRqbWl...
That link shows 67.75% as being from the USA.
That's why I said North America.
Notwithstanding the US favorable North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Canada is still an independent country. The amount that the WMF has pulled out of Canada is significant, and it has not had to share those funds.
Due diligence requires management to be wary of what they "have no reason to expect". For a person who hasn't seen grant request outlines you do a lot of speculation about what they don't contain. To the extent that chapters require grants, it is wholly reasonable that they establish the need for those grants, and be accountable for them when they receive them. Beyond the startup stage chapters should strive to have independent core funding. so as not to require WMF grants to fund core operations. That's an important part of being responsible and accountable; national laws too play a big role in establishing accountability and transparency. It would be irresponsible for a chapter board member to base his policy stands on the suggested interpretation of one WMF board member.
If the WMF plans for grants to be the interim method of funding for developing chapters (aside from that raised independently by the chapters themselves) then I expect that they will tweak the process to account for the specific issues involved (like not wanting to bury chapters in book-length paperwork requirements). A responsible chapter board member, as you say, should base his or her assumptions on what is likely and on the information currently available, not on fears of a worst-case scenario.
Sure, but isn't the Foundation's new policy rooted in worst-case-scenario thinking.
One way that the WMF could be transparent is by making clear on the fundraising pages just how much of the funds raised are going to the chapter, and how much are staying with the WMF.
Ray
On 08/28/11 4:34 PM, David Gerard wrote:
On 29 August 2011 00:29, Nathannawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters?
Because that's its effect: "The entire system of chapters, except WMDE, is hereby recentralised. Thanks for your hard work, everyone!"
Saying nice things about how much you like decentralisation does not change the effect.
One very effective way of gaining support for centralization is by calling it decentralization.:-)
Ray
In line replies to Nathan.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:59 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Several points in reply to Theo:
- You don't need to argue the value of having chapters around the world.
No one debating that. It's accepted that effective global outreach requires effective local partners, and that local chapters are the way to achieve the best results. I think its generally well known that there are countries where it is problematic to receive large amounts of money from foreign organizations, or to send money overseas. But...
We agree.
- Organizations that receive money under the aegis of the WMF need to
understand that the WMF has a legal and ethical duty to ensure that the funds are well spent. This isn't a "US vs. other places" argument - its a "the WMF has to meet its obligations to the community" argument. As an organization that strives to be far more accountable and transparent to the public than a normal non-profit, these obligations greatly exceed the minimum requirements of law. I'm sure many nations have strict laws governing the operations of non-profits, and we all hope and expect that all chapters meet and exceed these minimum requirements... but the chapters must meet the Foundation's expectations for transparency and fiscal responsibility, not just the what is required by law.
Actually its under the aegis of Wikipedia, someone here pointed out a recent landing page where Wikipedia is mentioned at least a dozen times and Wikimedia 3-4. You might recall the last fundraiser and Director of Wikipedia incident with one of the banners, those are 2 distinct things. The entire notion that WMF has to meet its obligation to the community is a far-reaching statement, if you've been on Foundation-l long enough, you know most people here might dispute that, regardless of your opinion. There are couple of threads on Foundation-l already, that disputes if WMF meets its own obligations to the community. And then there is the problem that the foundation never laid out those expectation of transparency and responsibility and said X chapter fails and Y doesn't. It did, however remove all chapters (except WMDE) from fundraising all together.
- Your point about the nature of non-profit organizations doesn't make
sense as a response to what I said. Perhaps you can re-read what I wrote and reconsider your response. Regardless, I'm not sure I understand exactly why people opposed to the new requirements of the WMF are ignoring the obvious fact that chapters can continue to raise funds on their own. Grants, some sorts of partnerships, direct contributions, etc. The Board letter is not "You can't raise any funds at all" its "You have to do X, Y and Z in order to join the WMF fundraiser."
Let me reiterate, Non-profits such as Oxfam have local organizations that they direct funds to. When an individual gives to Oxfam he's probably giving to his local organization. When you visit Oxfam.com you will see a box with the nearest local organization, you can donate to, on your right- that is a model followed by several large Non-profits. Now, how that fits into the nature of Wikipedia and the nature of fundraising - WMF tried several other methods of fundraising as did chapters, but they all paled in comparison to a banner on Wikipedia. WMF has been relying on that method primarily, but since it's only US based, it can't offer the same tax-deductibility in all those countries, that's where chapters might come in (See your point 1) where they might be able to raise funds WMF simply can not and do outreach better than a global organization (as in the case of Oxfam), then there is the issue of entitlement, should WMF be the sole beneficiary of all proceeds raised in the name of Wikipedia?
Let's just reiterate the requirements described by the Board letter:
*"* An organization can directly receive donor funds as a payment processor if the following criteria are met: ** There is sufficient money raised in the geography to merit the logistical effort. ** The organization offers tax deductibility or other incentives to local donors. ** Regulatory issues about any international funds flows are fully resolved. ** The organization's current financial resources are not enough to fund proposed program work. ** The Foundation can confidently assure donors to the chapter that their donations will be safeguarded, that our movement's transparency principles will be met, and that spending will be in line with our mission and with the messages used to attract donors.
- The donation process should clearly disclose basic facts about the
organization receiving the donation."*
Someone made this distinction a while ago, do remember that it is WMF's board. Not the movement's, the chapter's or the community's. Its responsible for WMF governance not the movement's.
Tax deductibility may be a major challenge or impossible in some jurisdictions. Which other criteria are so onerous that folks are reacting like the letter indicts the entire system of chapters? Here's how I interpret what the Board has written:
(a) Regulatory issues have to be resolved, which was true (in order to protect local organizations from liability) regardless of this letter.
No one disputed that. But no one addressed the issue or communicated it with the chapters, they were just removed from fundraising.
(b) Having many times more money than planned is a risk obvious to anyone. The WMF is trying to prevent a situation where chapters have huge bank accounts but no organizational capacity or financial controls. That means diligent and clear accounting according to international accounting standards, controls against the risk of theft, fraud or misappropriation, and outside independent audits. Such demands are the basic responsibility of the WMF to donors it refers to chapters.
There are 2 issues here, one, is the notion of sitting on huge piles of cash, which I would argue would not be the case for all chapters who raised their own funds, even if they are, that alone does not qualify any suspicion (Assuming Good faith) at the same time, WMF might chose to sit on an even larger amount of reserve (since its dealing with several times more money) and still not have the same scrutiny. It is permitted and legal in both the cases. Second, there aren't any laid out international accounting standards, just the local ones for local organizations which for some reason are inherently not enough but the US one's for WMF are.
(c) Chapters who receive money from the WMF should disclose in detail how much money they've received and how it is being spent, to the WMF and the movement community. As above, funds should be "safeguarded" by appropriate financial controls (which may or may not be mandated by law in any jurisdiction). Money received through the WMF should be spent solely on movement goals.
(d) Chapters receiving money should disclose to donors the chapters' nature, history, composition and leadership.
Why anyone should object to these requirements is hard for me to understand. I can see why chapters would be perturbed about needing to meet them on a short timeline, but generally speaking they should all have had these as aims to begin with.
Again, no one has argued, not even the chapters themselves that their should not be some internal standards for accountability. Almost every chapter agreed about the issues, but instead of addressing them and establishing standards or a system, the ability to fundraise or join in fundraising has been denied altogether. That is the reason for contention.
Theo
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 3:38 AM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
If the WMF plans for grants to be the interim method of funding for developing chapters (aside from that raised independently by the chapters themselves) then I expect that they will tweak the process to account for the specific issues involved (like not wanting to bury chapters in book-length paperwork requirements).
Oh, really? Do you really believe that current Foundation staff is capable of handling at least 30 different organization around the world? I doubt it. Even now, the situation is fairly ridiculous: they sign the same (am I correct?) agreement with all chapters, regardless of how much would this chapter get, what is its budget, how difficult is it to transfer money to and fro.
The problem with "over-budget money" may be solved fairly easily: just make an independent, per-chapter-tailored fundraiser. If UK chapter collects its budget faster than WMF, just change their landing page to WMF, and they will not get unused money! Neither will they have to transfer anything to WMF. If some other chapter does not collect its budget, make its fundraiser longer. Some chapters are doomed to be locally underfunded; they can apply for WMF grants. Besides, some chapters are located in countries where December fundraising is legally problematic.
But please, get rid of the idea that WMF can act in a similar way to all chapters and sign the same agreement. Instead of forcing one-way funding model, Foundation should *really* work on the way it communicates with chapters. Either by loosening the control or by increasing the amount of time spent on them. Honestly, I believe that right now it would extremely irresponsible from their side to take obligations of approving and controlling the budget of 30 chapters, as am almost certain they would not be able to fulfill them adequately.
--vvv
Few last points before I duck out of this conversation for awhile...
There are international accounting standards (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Accounting_Standards_Board). It's not necessary that all organizations follow them to the letter, obviously, because not all nations (including the United States) accept them. The point is, I'm sure, that in order for the WMF to achieve the points laid out in the Board letter, they will need to see certain types of information from the chapters. To have confidence in that information, some common understanding of how reports are developed will have to be agreed upon.
I don't have the background on the Board's decision necessary to understand why they chose the particular timing they did. If it were me, knowing only what I know, I would have deferred the effect of the change until the next fundraiser. But, that carries risks - if they were informed of a material problem and chose to defer for a year, they could incur some serious liability. I believe they see the Wikimedia movement as an international endeavor, and the chapters as an integral part of it, and I remain convinced that the Board members have the best interests of the Foundation and the movement at heart.
Having said that, Assume Good Faith is not how corporations with lots of money protect themselves. It's a good principle when interacting with people, but corporations (for profit or otherwise) need to establish controls based on the potential for bad actors. It's not about distrusting partners, its about fulfilling a fiduciary duty of care for the corporation that will survive changes in personnel and circumstance.
Finally, the WMF certainly does have an obligation to meet the expectations of the community in many areas of concern. That doesn't mean they can or should reveal every detail, nor does it mean it will always successfully meet the expectations of every individual or even the community as a whole. Perhaps Theo's experience with this list is different than mine, but after 4 years of subscribing I can't think of anyone who doesn't believe the Foundation is responsible to the Wikimedia community.
Nathan
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org