In a message dated 6/18/2005 9:30:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time, beesley@gmail.com writes:

On 19/06/05, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:

I therefore suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their donation. That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they

want

their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for

servers,

while another donor may give specifically to promote a language, print a particular wikibook, or whatever.

Isn't there a danger of this leading to huge resources for the English Wikipedia and not enough for the rest of the projects and languages simply because more people visit that and therefore decide to put all their donations towards that project rather than the Foundation's wider goals?

Actually, this will help smaller projects. By projects, I do not mean a specific wikilanguage. Rather, I mean projects like "Buying new servers," "Developing Wiktionary," "Helping Ossetian," the "Africa Project", etc. It does not mean earmarking money for a specific Wiki. In fact, this will help people keep abreast of new charitable projects as they emerge. This has nothing to do with English or any other language

It might make more sense to say we will spend grant money on certain projects, but I'm not yet convinced it makes sense for all donations to have to go towards specific tasks in this way. No, not all donations. But this allows people to have some say in how they want the money they donate spent. There will certainly be an option to give to the general running of Wikimedia, and all smaller grants will donate 10 percent to that cause as well.

Larger grants, in general, will require us to report on how we are spending their money. I am suggesting that this serve as an outline for that. For instance, we received a grant to push ahead with Wikijunior. We then have to report to the donors how taht money was used to further that specific end.

Finally, of course the Board will have final say in which projects are legitimate and which are not.

3.  People involved in specific  projects will  naturally assume the

responsibility of "Project Heads" and naturally grow to fill leadership

positions

I'm not sure how the topic of donations is related to this, nor whether having "Project Heads" is needed. It is already occurring. The address for Ultimate Wiktionary is Gerard. The address for Ossetian is Amikeco. I think that this is a good thing, because it helps build grassroots leadership.

On 19/06/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:

This proposal helps the board to take decisions according to the community wishes and at the same time, it allows editors to support certain projects rather than others.

Would community wishes be reflected by this though? Many donors are not members of the community, or not the editing community anyway, and vice versa. What if a large donor puts all their money towards a project that is not supported by the community? How could that be dealt with?

Sure, and we want donors to have options about where to donate. From non-Wiki experience, I can tell you that donors do not like the idea of just giving, without knowing where their money is going. They want to get the best bang for their buck, if you will pardon the Americanism. At the same time, they also want to find a project that best suits their personal interests and objectives. We are offering them a pallette from which they can choose.