On Sat, Jan 30, 2016 at 11:43 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
One part of this arrangement still confuses me. In the linked post, you write, "With this grant we brought the idea to the funder and they supported our work with this grant."
Why ask for and take the money? The Wikimedia Foundation can raise $250,000 in a few days (maybe hours) by placing ads on a few large Wikipedias soliciting donations. Why take on a restricted grant, with its necessary reporting overhead and other administrative costs?
Responding just to this small portion of MZMcBride's email:
When I interviewed at the WMF, back in Sue's tenure, I asked pointed questions about the funding model since I was coming from a non-profit which perennially struggled with funding.
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50% grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources. There is/was the continuing concern that folks accessing wikimedia content through non-traditional sources (google snippets, mobile apps, etc) will not see or respond to a banner campaign, so that sooner or later one of our banner campaigns will come up very short. Further, a reliance on banners for funding creates perverse incentives that discourage us from fully embracing potential users of our content who may bypass the "official" clients and their banner ads.
Similarly, from my time at OLPC I saw first hand that economic recession can cause grant sources of funding to dry up seemingly overnight. So to me it seemed very wise not to put all the eggs in a single basket. If grants or banner campaigns came up short, the other side of the funding equation could carry the load while the WMF retooled.
This was Sue's explanation. I don't know if this is still the explicit thinking of the current board/ED, but IMO it's still an entirely reasonable rationale for pursuing grant funding, even if the grants come with more "strings attached" than a banner campaign. --scott
ps. I'm deliberately not addressing the specifics of the Knight foundation grant here, we can continue that discussion on the original thread. I'm just talking about grant funding in general.
Hi Scot,
You wrote:
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50%
grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources.
[...]
This was Sue's explanation. I don't know if this is still the explicit thinking of the current board/ED, but IMO it's still an entirely reasonable rationale for pursuing grant funding, even if the grants come with more "strings attached" than a banner campaign.
You raise a valid question: how many sources of funding does the Wikimedia Foundation need? The Bridgespan Group is a consultancy firm specialized in non-profits. They have been hired in the past by the Wikimedia Foundtion, for example in the period of strategy formation that led to the 2012-2015 Wikimedia strategy.
The Bridgespan Group has done extensive research in funding models. One of their researches in this area has lead to a publication in Spring 2007 "How Nonprofits Get Really Big." [1] You might spell that publication word by word. At the bottom you find a link.
One of the parts in that report is titled "The Myth of Diversification." That title speaks for itself. The finding of the Bridgespan Group is that ''most of the organizations that have gotten really big [...] did so by concentrating on one type of funding source."
The banner fundraising campaigns by the Wikimedia Foundation are a perfectly mission aligned funding model for a non-profit. Somebody else might view the Wikimedia Foundation funding model as pay-as-you-want. [2] Some readers do and most readers do not donate a couple of bucks. However, that "Some readers" amounts to several million people who just love Wikipedia.
Please note that the Wikimedia Foundation was a "small" foundation back in 2007 when the Bridgespan Group conducted their research. The Wikimedia Foundation was not included in the list of 144 nonprofits, all founded after 1969, who were earning at least $50 million per year by 2003. Would the research be repeated today, the Wikimedia Foundation would end up in the top half of that list, and be a prime example of getting big as a non profit by concentrating on a single mission aligned funding source.
Regards,
Ad
[1] http://ssir.org/images/articles/2007SP_feature_fosterfine.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want
Hi Ad,
That is of course one side of the medal. And yes, lets be grateful for the donations we receive day in, day out from our donors.
But 'getting big' is maybe not the most important thing in the world. Working on our mission, is. And part of that, is security. The WMF is not in this world to play the odds, but rather to ensure that knowledge is freed, and stays free - most specifically by securing Wikipedia's continued availability (at least, that is what our deck of cards looks like now).
Fully focussing on one sigle stream of money may indeed allow you to get more out of it. But the question here is rather, how to you tackle the situation when that stream dries up? And for that question, diversification is actually key.
There is something called the 'law of the diminishing returns' - which I also believe to hold true for Wikimedia. It's not like every increase in our budgets equally increases our mission value. When I'd have to guess, I'd say that we're beyond our 'optimal size' (budget wise) already.
Especially the 'small donor' stream is rather sensitive towards tides. As long as Wikipedia is very popular and visible, we'll be doing well. But when we have a few more screwups at the WMF (sorry, but I can't really find a better phrase for the past few months, communication wise at least), being a credible organisation towards donors might proove harder than was the case so far.
Thát is why we should diversify. Not to grow bigger, but to be somewhat safe.
Best, Lodewijk
On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 9:05 PM, Ad Huikeshoven ad@wikimedia.nl wrote:
Hi Scot,
You wrote:
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50%
grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources.
[...]
This was Sue's explanation. I don't know if this is still the explicit thinking of the current board/ED, but IMO it's still an entirely
reasonable
rationale for pursuing grant funding, even if the grants come with more "strings attached" than a banner campaign.
You raise a valid question: how many sources of funding does the Wikimedia Foundation need? The Bridgespan Group is a consultancy firm specialized in non-profits. They have been hired in the past by the Wikimedia Foundtion, for example in the period of strategy formation that led to the 2012-2015 Wikimedia strategy.
The Bridgespan Group has done extensive research in funding models. One of their researches in this area has lead to a publication in Spring 2007 "How Nonprofits Get Really Big." [1] You might spell that publication word by word. At the bottom you find a link.
One of the parts in that report is titled "The Myth of Diversification." That title speaks for itself. The finding of the Bridgespan Group is that ''most of the organizations that have gotten really big [...] did so by concentrating on one type of funding source."
The banner fundraising campaigns by the Wikimedia Foundation are a perfectly mission aligned funding model for a non-profit. Somebody else might view the Wikimedia Foundation funding model as pay-as-you-want. [2] Some readers do and most readers do not donate a couple of bucks. However, that "Some readers" amounts to several million people who just love Wikipedia.
Please note that the Wikimedia Foundation was a "small" foundation back in 2007 when the Bridgespan Group conducted their research. The Wikimedia Foundation was not included in the list of 144 nonprofits, all founded after 1969, who were earning at least $50 million per year by 2003. Would the research be repeated today, the Wikimedia Foundation would end up in the top half of that list, and be a prime example of getting big as a non profit by concentrating on a single mission aligned funding source.
Regards,
Ad
[1] http://ssir.org/images/articles/2007SP_feature_fosterfine.pdf [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Lodewijk wrote:
When I'd have to guess, I'd say that we're beyond our 'optimal size' (budget wise) already.
Especially the 'small donor' stream is rather sensitive towards tides. As long as Wikipedia is very popular and visible, we'll be doing well. But when we have a few more screwups at the WMF (sorry, but I can't really find a better phrase for the past few months, communication wise at least), being a credible organisation towards donors might proove harder than was the case so far.
You mean that small donations provide accountability? :-) I agree. I think this is a feature, not a bug. I'd be happy for the Wikimedia Foundation to be about a tenth of the size it is currently: around 30 full-time employees, with additional money allocated for contractors as needed. When people tell me that they want to donate to Wikipedia, I tell them to make an edit. I'd much rather have people truly contributing to free knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation made a series of choices such headquartering in San Francisco and hiring over 200 full-time employees that make it very unsympathetic to me. It certainly doesn't cost anywhere near $80 million a year to keep the sites online and running.
Sam Klein wrote:
It also makes for a very inward-focused and narrow sort of strategy: "How can we make our few banner projects work better / attract more people" rather than "how can we make knowledge more accessible to everyone in the world, including by supporting and enhancing other excellent projects".
If you start with funders and organizations whose missions are similar to Wikimedia's, working with them on a grant is a way of making them part of the community: a successful engagement results in them learning more about the impact and value of our mission, and supporting or encouraging more work along those lines with their other grantees. It also builds a relationship and trust within the circle of similarly-minded organizations (in this example, grantors; but this applies equally well to other sorts of partners), which can be drawn on in the future if there were a real crisis or urgent need.
The counter-argument here is that having a large and secure budget gives organizations more opportunities to spend on non-necessities. Does the Wikimedia Foundation need six legal counsels (not including the general counsel and two legal directors), eight community liaisons, or a mobile apps team? I'm sure these are all great people doing excellent work, but when I see how much the Wikimedia Foundation staff has ballooned (and frankly bloated), it makes me sad.
If you want diversification, build up the other Wikimedia chapters instead.
MZMcBride
Hoi, Thank you for your opinion. When you ask me, I will not do a WIkipedia article. I find it highly stressful. I find that doing the edit is not so bad, it is the lengthy stuff around it that amount to little. I rather do a thousand Wikidata edits. That brings me to the other point. I do not support Wikipedia, I support Wikimedia and where you stress over the large number of staff, I stress over the lack of attention that other projects get.
Wikisource is a prime example of an easy target to make it really relevant. Nothing is done, we are stuck in a Wikipedia rut. When you consider quality, it can improve using Wikidata, it does not happen. It is not even discussed.
The point is very much that we could do more if we do not spend so much effort on Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 15:59, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Lodewijk wrote:
When I'd have to guess, I'd say that we're beyond our 'optimal size' (budget wise) already.
Especially the 'small donor' stream is rather sensitive towards tides. As long as Wikipedia is very popular and visible, we'll be doing well. But when we have a few more screwups at the WMF (sorry, but I can't really find a better phrase for the past few months, communication wise at least), being a credible organisation towards donors might proove harder than was the case so far.
You mean that small donations provide accountability? :-) I agree. I think this is a feature, not a bug. I'd be happy for the Wikimedia Foundation to be about a tenth of the size it is currently: around 30 full-time employees, with additional money allocated for contractors as needed. When people tell me that they want to donate to Wikipedia, I tell them to make an edit. I'd much rather have people truly contributing to free knowledge. The Wikimedia Foundation made a series of choices such headquartering in San Francisco and hiring over 200 full-time employees that make it very unsympathetic to me. It certainly doesn't cost anywhere near $80 million a year to keep the sites online and running.
Sam Klein wrote:
It also makes for a very inward-focused and narrow sort of strategy: "How can we make our few banner projects work better / attract more people" rather than "how can we make knowledge more accessible to everyone in the world, including by supporting and enhancing other excellent projects".
If you start with funders and organizations whose missions are similar to Wikimedia's, working with them on a grant is a way of making them part of the community: a successful engagement results in them learning more about the impact and value of our mission, and supporting or encouraging more work along those lines with their other grantees. It also builds a relationship and trust within the circle of similarly-minded organizations (in this example, grantors; but this applies equally well to other sorts of partners), which can be drawn on in the future if there were a real crisis or urgent need.
The counter-argument here is that having a large and secure budget gives organizations more opportunities to spend on non-necessities. Does the Wikimedia Foundation need six legal counsels (not including the general counsel and two legal directors), eight community liaisons, or a mobile apps team? I'm sure these are all great people doing excellent work, but when I see how much the Wikimedia Foundation staff has ballooned (and frankly bloated), it makes me sad.
If you want diversification, build up the other Wikimedia chapters instead.
MZMcBride
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(anonymous) wrote:
[…]
But 'getting big' is maybe not the most important thing in the world. Working on our mission, is. And part of that, is security. The WMF is not in this world to play the odds, but rather to ensure that knowledge is freed, and stays free - most specifically by securing Wikipedia's continued availability (at least, that is what our deck of cards looks like now).
Fully focussing on one sigle stream of money may indeed allow you to get more out of it. But the question here is rather, how to you tackle the situation when that stream dries up? And for that question, diversification is actually key.
[…]
I don't agree with that. From the Library of Alexandria to the Duchess Anna Amalia Library it has always been a mistake to keep knowledge in one place and try really hard to keep it from falling apart. The biggest advancement in that field probably came from Gutenberg's press which allowed knowledge to be spread around and resist attempts of censor- ship.
When cinema and television came along, the ancient pattern repeated: Cultural goods are lost today because the broad- casters put them in one vault and then did not maintain the fire alarm properly.
We have the same issue now with streaming services: During dictatorships, you could hide books and jazz records. Net- flix or YouTube just stops serving videos some entity does not like, and Amazon can wipe your Kindle clean of anything.
So the diversification for the purpose of the advancement of knowledge should not lie in making WMF immortal, but ensur- ing that it survives WMF's death.
Tim
Hoi, Remember Professor Tannenbaum of Minix fame. He also worked on distributed Wikis. http://fed.wiki.org/view/welcome-visitors/view/smallest-federated-wiki Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 17:00, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
(anonymous) wrote:
[…]
But 'getting big' is maybe not the most important thing in the world. Working on our mission, is. And part of that, is security. The WMF is not in this world to play the odds, but rather to ensure that knowledge is freed, and stays free - most specifically by securing Wikipedia's
continued
availability (at least, that is what our deck of cards looks like now).
Fully focussing on one sigle stream of money may indeed allow you to get more out of it. But the question here is rather, how to you tackle the situation when that stream dries up? And for that question,
diversification
is actually key.
[…]
I don't agree with that. From the Library of Alexandria to the Duchess Anna Amalia Library it has always been a mistake to keep knowledge in one place and try really hard to keep it from falling apart. The biggest advancement in that field probably came from Gutenberg's press which allowed knowledge to be spread around and resist attempts of censor- ship.
When cinema and television came along, the ancient pattern repeated: Cultural goods are lost today because the broad- casters put them in one vault and then did not maintain the fire alarm properly.
We have the same issue now with streaming services: During dictatorships, you could hide books and jazz records. Net- flix or YouTube just stops serving videos some entity does not like, and Amazon can wipe your Kindle clean of anything.
So the diversification for the purpose of the advancement of knowledge should not lie in making WMF immortal, but ensur- ing that it survives WMF's death.
Tim
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Potato potato - availability can be interpreted in many different ways. Thanks to the free license, we've covered a big part of that by design.
What activities the WMF should be doing wasn't quite the core of the discussion though, but rather how big the WMF should be.
Lodewijk
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 5:00 PM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
(anonymous) wrote:
[…]
But 'getting big' is maybe not the most important thing in the world. Working on our mission, is. And part of that, is security. The WMF is not in this world to play the odds, but rather to ensure that knowledge is freed, and stays free - most specifically by securing Wikipedia's
continued
availability (at least, that is what our deck of cards looks like now).
Fully focussing on one sigle stream of money may indeed allow you to get more out of it. But the question here is rather, how to you tackle the situation when that stream dries up? And for that question,
diversification
is actually key.
[…]
I don't agree with that. From the Library of Alexandria to the Duchess Anna Amalia Library it has always been a mistake to keep knowledge in one place and try really hard to keep it from falling apart. The biggest advancement in that field probably came from Gutenberg's press which allowed knowledge to be spread around and resist attempts of censor- ship.
When cinema and television came along, the ancient pattern repeated: Cultural goods are lost today because the broad- casters put them in one vault and then did not maintain the fire alarm properly.
We have the same issue now with streaming services: During dictatorships, you could hide books and jazz records. Net- flix or YouTube just stops serving videos some entity does not like, and Amazon can wipe your Kindle clean of anything.
So the diversification for the purpose of the advancement of knowledge should not lie in making WMF immortal, but ensur- ing that it survives WMF's death.
Tim
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On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:00 AM, Tim Landscheidt tim@tim-landscheidt.de wrote:
So the diversification for the purpose of the advancement of knowledge should not lie in making WMF immortal, but ensur- ing that it survives WMF's death.
Perhaps it will seem counterintuitive to you, but your reasoning is exactly why I feel that pursuing grants and non-banner sorts of funding is a good idea for the foundation. We should *encourage* mirrors and forks and distributed storage and lots of other interesting ways of spreading our bits around and putting new clothes and user experiences on them.
Being totally dependent on banner fundraising on a small number of "official" web sites works contrary to all of that. It encourages centralization, and starves other approaches of resources. "Good citizens" don't make Wikipedia forks, because it would be taking money from the WMF by interfering with the banner campaigns. That's a perverse incentive. --scott
You raise a valid question: how many sources of funding does the Wikimedia Foundation need? The Bridgespan Group is a consultancy firm specialized in non-profits. They have been hired in the past by the Wikimedia Foundtion, for example in the period of strategy formation that led to the 2012-2015 Wikimedia strategy.
I do recall the Bridgespan Group analysis being shared on this list before when we've discussed fundraising and funding models (as evidence for why heavy reliance on the annual fundraiser was a good thing)
I am really really unsure about the conclusions of that report, for several reasons. Some of those reasons are quite dull and methodological (e.g. it is an ex post sample of post-1970 foundations that are now very successful, rather than an ex ante sample of charities employing different means and then examining what growth they end up with; or the arbitrary exclusion of universities and hospitals; or the fact the analysis only encompasses the USA; or the fact that the many "unknown"s and "none"s in the sample seem to get ignored in the analysis entirely.).
However my most important concern is that 73% of the "high growth" charities in the sample have a dominant income source of "government" or "service fees" (typically, from the government). That is to say, 73% of these high-growth charities achieved their high growth by delivering services the government wanted them to.
If you are a charity that finds its mission is completely aligned with delivering government programmes - great! Go for it. Get better and better at it and your organisation will grow, possibly really quickly.
If you are not in that position, then I really fail to see how this research applies to you. The Wikimedia movement definitely doesn't benefit from it.
Chris
Thanks Scott, this is important context. I think Wikimedia gets rather too little of its funding from other foundations, through cooperations with like-minded organizations, and from national/international initiatives to educate and to preserve culture & knowledge.
Scott writes:
MZMcBride wrote:
Why ask for and take the money? The Wikimedia Foundation can raise $250,000 in a few days (maybe hours) by placing ads on a few large Wikipedias soliciting donations. Why take on a restricted grant, with its necessary reporting overhead and other administrative costs?
Responding just to this small portion of MZMcBride's email:
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50% grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources. There is/was the continuing concern that folks accessing wikimedia content through non-traditional sources (google snippets, mobile apps, etc) will not see or respond to a banner campaign, so that sooner or later one of our banner campaigns will come up very short. Further, a reliance on banners for funding creates perverse incentives that discourage us from fully embracing potential users of our content who may bypass the "official" clients and their banner ads.
It also makes for a very inward-focused and narrow sort of strategy: "How can we make our few banner projects work better / attract more people" rather than "how can we make knowledge more accessible to everyone in the world, including by supporting and enhancing other excellent projects".
If you start with funders and organizations whose missions are similar to Wikimedia's, working with them on a grant is a way of making them part of the community: a successful engagement results in them learning more about the impact and value of our mission, and supporting or encouraging more work along those lines with their other grantees. It also builds a relationship and trust within the circle of similarly-minded organizations (in this example, grantors; but this applies equally well to other sorts of partners), which can be drawn on in the future if there were a real crisis or urgent need.
Mission-aligned donors & grantors & infrastructure-providers & archivists are all part of our community, in addition to having collections or money or services to contribute. Which is an extra reason to let them contribute that is easiest for them, as long as the overhead required to accept that contribution is not too large.
I'm sure small donors will continue to be the dominant source of funding for a long time, perhaps for as long as it exists. But a bit more diversity in funding sources can improve consistency, predictability, and security of support.
SJ
sam, i am not so convinced that what you write is true in too many countries, namely that you think wikimedia gets too little of its funding from other foundations. but i think it is fair enough that WMF tries to get foundations funding on its home turf which it knows best. there are many US based foundations like the knight foundation with principles like "Knight primarily funds U.S.-based organizations." what i personally do not appreciate is that WMF tries to get others into such a model as well, which turns out to be a spiral of death. WMF e.g. tries to make chapters look for other financial sources. i am aware of three effects:
first, it generates pressure within WMCH for getting other income. this pressure leads to generating income on the shoulders of volunteers. on one hand they are charged. when i edit i should join WMCH and pay membership fee. i should visit conferences and pay for it. on the other hand persons should then acquire money from foundations, or the government. often in europe getting money from sources close to the government is attached with "you get 50% of the money, 50% you pay yourself" disturbing the budget of a small organisation completely. a very "un-wikipedia" task, at the end of the day not very funny for a typical wikipedia person. wikipedia typically deals with crowd-sourcing people and money. the result is: less volunteers.
second, wikipedia is perceived as competition. in switzerland, and in europe in general, NGOs, clubs, foundations depend much more on individual donors money and government. wikipedia has the most prominent website amongst all of them. if somebody from wikipedia asks the government or asks foundations for money it for sure triggers a "competion feeling". like-minded organisations want to have money as well. and like-minded organisations usually have people behind. and them feeling competition is causing a no-partnership, a rivalry. the result is: less volunteers.
third, there is no connection between money spent in switzerland and money given in switzerland. there is no direct "i gave it to you and you are thankful" feeling. in many countries it i do not even known how much money was given for the wikimedia cause. the result is: less people talking about it, means less persons being close to the cause, and less money given. i calculate it simple: an average person knows 400 persons. if we have 1000 volunteers, a maximum of 400'000 persons would, in an ideal world, know about the money flow.
to sum it up - i do think that maintaining the volunteer base is the most difficult task. it is much more difficult then getting money. this discussion shows to me only that many persons in our movement still believe otherwise, that scratching out additional cents from every resource we can find is task number one. unfortunately without considering collateral damage, and motivation of volunteers: as a volunteer i want to have fun, and i do not want to pay (too much) for my hobby.
best, rupert
On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 9:18 PM, Sam Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu wrote:
Thanks Scott, this is important context. I think Wikimedia gets rather too little of its funding from other foundations, through cooperations with like-minded organizations, and from national/international initiatives to educate and to preserve culture & knowledge.
Scott writes:
MZMcBride wrote:
Why ask for and take the money? The Wikimedia Foundation can raise $250,000 in a few days (maybe hours) by placing ads on a few large Wikipedias soliciting donations. Why take on a restricted grant, with
its
necessary reporting overhead and other administrative costs?
Responding just to this small portion of MZMcBride's email:
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50% grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources. There is/was the continuing
concern
that folks accessing wikimedia content through non-traditional sources (google snippets, mobile apps, etc) will not see or respond to a banner campaign, so that sooner or later one of our banner campaigns will come
up
very short. Further, a reliance on banners for funding creates perverse incentives that discourage us from fully embracing potential users of our content who may bypass the "official" clients and their banner ads.
It also makes for a very inward-focused and narrow sort of strategy: "How can we make our few banner projects work better / attract more people" rather than "how can we make knowledge more accessible to everyone in the world, including by supporting and enhancing other excellent projects".
If you start with funders and organizations whose missions are similar to Wikimedia's, working with them on a grant is a way of making them part of the community: a successful engagement results in them learning more about the impact and value of our mission, and supporting or encouraging more work along those lines with their other grantees. It also builds a relationship and trust within the circle of similarly-minded organizations (in this example, grantors; but this applies equally well to other sorts of partners), which can be drawn on in the future if there were a real crisis or urgent need.
Mission-aligned donors & grantors & infrastructure-providers & archivists are all part of our community, in addition to having collections or money or services to contribute. Which is an extra reason to let them contribute that is easiest for them, as long as the overhead required to accept that contribution is not too large.
I'm sure small donors will continue to be the dominant source of funding for a long time, perhaps for as long as it exists. But a bit more diversity in funding sources can improve consistency, predictability, and security of support.
SJ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 3:19 PM, C. Scott Ananian cananian@wikimedia.org wrote:
Sue explained to me that the goal was to have WMF's budget be roughly 50% grants and 50% user contributions to guard against unexpected fragility with either of these funding sources.
If that was the goal, it does not seem to have been reached. Even in the 2008-2009 financial year, when the budget was $6 million and the foundation received a million-dollar grant from the Stanton Foundation, restricted grants did not reach 20% of the budget. Since then, fundraising has grown enormously, so that the Knight Foundation grant comes to less than 1% of what fundraising produces. Are we sure that it won't consume more than 1% of our organizational attention?
In any event, isn't this the whole point of having an endowment?
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