I can see the logic in trying for a different funding source, fundraising banners and their messaging have been a cause of tension between the WMF and the community; and asking our readers for money relies on our readers coming to our desktop sites directly and is at risk in a world where our data becomes ubiquitous, but increasingly repackaged and presented by others.
But there are a couple of alternate strategies which I think would serve us better.
Firstly evolution is better than revolution, and in our case that could mean shifting the emphasis from annual one off donations to signing people up for recurring donations. Here in the UK many people open a bank account in their teens and keep it for life. So if you sign people up for a regular payment by direct debit you have a revenue stream that will persist for decades. Short of financial disaster or death people rarely cancel direct debits to charities. I know WIkimedia UK had a lot of success at signing people up for direct debits back in 2011 when they were part of the fundraiser, there has also been some work done on asking former donors to give again. Shifting from a strategy of asking our readers for donations to one of asking new and past donors to sign up for a regular contribution would give us more financial security, less dependence on people using our sites directly and hopefully open the way for less intrusive messaging that is more mission aligned and doesn't scare people into thinking that Wikipedia is under financial threat. It would also be a much smaller step from our current strategy than one of asking big corporates and grant givers for money. When a donor who gives 0.0001% of the WMF's income threatens to stop donating you can ignore the threat and treat their complaint on its merits. When a donor who gives 0.1% of the WMF's income is upset they are likely to have inside contacts whose job it is to keep such donors donating.
Secondly having CC-BY-SA contributions repackaged and reused as if they were CC0 is a trend that the WMF could resist, first with diplomacy and if necessary with lawyers. Remember in most languages we aren't currently under threat from someone creating a rival to Wikipedia, our threat is from mirrors that present Wikipedia in more attractive ways. Attribution would undermine the business model of those mirrors who aim for the ads they wrap our content in to be less intrusive than WMF fundraising, legalese and editing options. It would keep a proportion of the really interested and the really grateful clicking through to Wikimedia sites where they can be recruited as donors of either time or money. It would also realign the strategy of the WMF with the aspirations of a large part of the community, those whose motivation comes in part from contributing under CC-BY-SA rather than CC0.
Regards
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
Hoi,
Thanks for a thoughtful piece. I will only respond to the first part, the second part is imho out of scope.
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters. The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the funding committee. Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do not because of the additional stress involved.
Yes more funding is an easy option. Donations are a constructive way of securing funding. In the Netherlands they are seen as positive where endowments are not. Endowments could be used to prove a positive point. Invest in green energy worldwide with the argument; "we want to offset the negative impact of sharing the sum of all knowledge and it becomes an argument that works for us AND works as an investment". It is similar to the argument why Greenpeace asked Google, Microsoft, Apple to go green.
When we enable fundraising in a meaningful way, we can still have policies to do better in the world. It is why I am a fan of the Swiss working on Kiwix. I like that from France they are working on Africa. Enabling and financing efforts in other countries is what should be seen as important for cash flush countries. Personally the project I am most proud of is the collaboration with the Tropenmuseum because of its impact on the Indonesian Wikipedia (it did not cost us money though).
Yes, we can have more funding. Yes, when something can be funded by another party it is welcome when it aligns with what we want to do anyway. Yes people chafe at the text messages during the fundraiser (it is tradition) and YES we are a force for good and we can make the endowment fund make that obvious. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 12:06, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
I can see the logic in trying for a different funding source, fundraising banners and their messaging have been a cause of tension between the WMF and the community; and asking our readers for money relies on our readers coming to our desktop sites directly and is at risk in a world where our data becomes ubiquitous, but increasingly repackaged and presented by others.
But there are a couple of alternate strategies which I think would serve us better.
Firstly evolution is better than revolution, and in our case that could mean shifting the emphasis from annual one off donations to signing people up for recurring donations. Here in the UK many people open a bank account in their teens and keep it for life. So if you sign people up for a regular payment by direct debit you have a revenue stream that will persist for decades. Short of financial disaster or death people rarely cancel direct debits to charities. I know WIkimedia UK had a lot of success at signing people up for direct debits back in 2011 when they were part of the fundraiser, there has also been some work done on asking former donors to give again. Shifting from a strategy of asking our readers for donations to one of asking new and past donors to sign up for a regular contribution would give us more financial security, less dependence on people using our sites directly and hopefully open the way for less intrusive messaging that is more mission aligned and doesn't scare people into thinking that Wikipedia is under financial threat. It would also be a much smaller step from our current strategy than one of asking big corporates and grant givers for money. When a donor who gives 0.0001% of the WMF's income threatens to stop donating you can ignore the threat and treat their complaint on its merits. When a donor who gives 0.1% of the WMF's income is upset they are likely to have inside contacts whose job it is to keep such donors donating.
Secondly having CC-BY-SA contributions repackaged and reused as if they were CC0 is a trend that the WMF could resist, first with diplomacy and if necessary with lawyers. Remember in most languages we aren't currently under threat from someone creating a rival to Wikipedia, our threat is from mirrors that present Wikipedia in more attractive ways. Attribution would undermine the business model of those mirrors who aim for the ads they wrap our content in to be less intrusive than WMF fundraising, legalese and editing options. It would keep a proportion of the really interested and the really grateful clicking through to Wikimedia sites where they can be recruited as donors of either time or money. It would also realign the strategy of the WMF with the aspirations of a large part of the community, those whose motivation comes in part from contributing under CC-BY-SA rather than CC0.
Regards
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
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
I wish to respond to this specific statement:
On 3 February 2016 at 13:11, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters. The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the funding committee. Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do not because of the additional stress involved.
To take the sentences in turn:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters.
This, I completely agree with and would like to see more of it. Now that it seems clear that the maximum effectiveness of the centrally-coordinated banner-centric fundraiser has been reached, and making the banner more aggressive is only going to bring diminishing returns. We have reached "peak-banner". Howver, what surprised me about this year's WMF annual plan fundraising-related risk statements (here; https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Fundraising ) was that none of the proposed remedies included the involvement of the Chapters.
It seems daft to me that the current model of fundraising in our movement forces two affiliated organisations to compete for the same donors, in the same jurisdiction, for the same money, at the same time, for the same mission, in the same medium. No wonder donors are confused about who they can get a tax receipt from! Rather than competing, I would LOVE to see the WMF fundraising model invest in improving and coordinating the fundraising capacity and efficiency for all. Rather than two groups fighting over who gets to have a bigger slice of the available cake, the focus should be on increasing the size of the cake in the first place, sharing it effectively to who needs it most, and ensuring that it's a good moist cake that can continue to be "eaten" every year rather than drying up.
The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the funding committee.
As an elected member of that Committee, I should point out in fact that many chapters do not rely on funding via the Annual Plan Grant process. Some don't use it at all because they obtain all of their funds independently (e.g. Indonesia, Poland); some use it as a major, but not sole, source of income (e.g. UK, France); and some access WMF-funding through other grant processes (e.g. by combining a series of "project and event grants" or like Spain, Estonia in this year's newly created 'simple APG' process https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/About ).
Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things
different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do not because of the additional stress involved.
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been quite successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by Wikimedia Sweden: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connected_Open_Heritage
-Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com Peace, love & metadata
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been quite successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by Wikimedia Sweden: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connected_Open_Heritage
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it encouraged organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have had historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively easily get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If we can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should not divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump the loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in engaging chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local supporters (both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
best,
dj
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been
quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it encouraged organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have had historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively easily get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If we can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should not divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump the loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple Annual Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar amount.
Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute "resources". By seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant money, the wikimedia affiliates can build much greater capacity in a particular region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or Healthcare.)
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in engaging chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local supporters (both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify institutional partners (big and small) who can advance the wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing, but it is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about the ways that external partners are benefiting from their relationship with the wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from relationships with external partners.
This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the WMF strategic planning discussions and include their thoughts about developing external resources that can benefit the wikimedia movement. Also, this is a topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedia in Residence at Cochrane WikiWomen's User Group Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group
I have a couple of comments, mostly directed to WMF, about fundraising and governance matters:
As a matter of good governance, I would not encourage WMF to be seeking large external partners who do solid due-diligence about their grantees until WMF demonstrates that it can complete an annual planning process that is aligned with the good practices already being demonstrated by affiliates and aligned with the expectations of the FDC. I feel that an external partner who conducted a thorough evaluation of WMF's current annual plan would find it to be mediocre at best and I question whether a large institutional partner would be willing to invest six-figure or seven-figure sums in WMF given the state of WMF's current annual plan. I am glad to see that WMF is in the process of addressing this shortcoming, and I hope for good outcomes this year.
Another issue that WMF needs to address is the state of its board. The handling of the situation with respect to two board members (the removal of James for opaque reasons, Jimbo's unprofessional comments about the removal of James, the appointment of Arnnon, and the Board's apparent decision not to remove Arnnon even after learning of his role in illegal activities) demonstrates significant problems in the board, and if I had millions of dollars to give in grants I surely would not entrust those funds to the WMF until there is a major overhaul of the board. Also, if I was an affiliate, I would have a lot of questions about the wisdom of fundraising on behalf of WMF given the serious PR liability that WMF has become, and I tend to think that at this time affiliates would be wise to put a considerable distance between ourselves and WMF because of the PR and fundraising collateral damage that we could receive from problems at WMF.
WMF needs to get its house in order.
Speaking in my personal capacity only,
Pine
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and
their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been
quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it encouraged organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have had historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively easily get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If we can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should not divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump the loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple Annual Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar amount.
Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute "resources". By seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant money, the wikimedia affiliates can build much greater capacity in a particular region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or Healthcare.)
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in engaging chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local supporters (both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify institutional partners (big and small) who can advance the wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing, but it is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about the ways that external partners are benefiting from their relationship with the wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from relationships with external partners.
This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the WMF strategic planning discussions and include their thoughts about developing external resources that can benefit the wikimedia movement. Also, this is a topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedia in Residence at Cochrane WikiWomen's User Group Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group _______________________________________________ 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
Hoi, You know, when the WMF is to be judged as an organisation, I would never judge on a few incidents. I would judge it on its intrinsic value. Personally and that is the highest level of commitment, personally I find that we are doing a sterling job. Wikipedia is a top ten website in the world. It runs it on an extremely low budget compared to other top ten websites. This week a new WIkipedia is ready to become the next iteration and as it is a rate occasion, it is a reason to celebrate. It is for the talking heads to update their power points <grin> for me to make a power point </grin>.
When people consider how well how well others do from our work. Do consider that we are in the business of disseminating knowledge. When others make a lot of money and we are still a top 10 website, we are doing extremely well indeed. When others do well by us, and serve oodles of information, we are a clear winner.
Our fundraising is great. It makes us lots of money and there are lots of worthwhile things we can do with it. It is all part of the same relatively low budget. We could do more. We choose to focus on Wikipedia. That is a mistake but ok. We could do better as a result and not spend more money.
When we make more money, when we operate an endowment fund, it makes us an investor. We should not invest in oil, guns ... we could invest in green energy, it would offset the damage the Internet, our work, does through CO2 everywhere. It would show our responsibility now and for the future.
When we think that we have a PR disaster on our hand, do consider the extend it is one of our own making.. Personally speaking I find the continuous sniping a disgrace. So much time and effort is wasted because shit happens. It does, get over it. Do better next time and the next time is always more convoluted and impossible to achieve. Assume good faith, expect that things go wrong, deal with it, clean up the mess and move on. Do not continuously sing the refrain of what went wrong.
It truly makes us miserable. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 18:38, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I have a couple of comments, mostly directed to WMF, about fundraising and governance matters:
As a matter of good governance, I would not encourage WMF to be seeking large external partners who do solid due-diligence about their grantees until WMF demonstrates that it can complete an annual planning process that is aligned with the good practices already being demonstrated by affiliates and aligned with the expectations of the FDC. I feel that an external partner who conducted a thorough evaluation of WMF's current annual plan would find it to be mediocre at best and I question whether a large institutional partner would be willing to invest six-figure or seven-figure sums in WMF given the state of WMF's current annual plan. I am glad to see that WMF is in the process of addressing this shortcoming, and I hope for good outcomes this year.
Another issue that WMF needs to address is the state of its board. The handling of the situation with respect to two board members (the removal of James for opaque reasons, Jimbo's unprofessional comments about the removal of James, the appointment of Arnnon, and the Board's apparent decision not to remove Arnnon even after learning of his role in illegal activities) demonstrates significant problems in the board, and if I had millions of dollars to give in grants I surely would not entrust those funds to the WMF until there is a major overhaul of the board. Also, if I was an affiliate, I would have a lot of questions about the wisdom of fundraising on behalf of WMF given the serious PR liability that WMF has become, and I tend to think that at this time affiliates would be wise to put a considerable distance between ourselves and WMF because of the PR and fundraising collateral damage that we could receive from problems at WMF.
WMF needs to get its house in order.
Speaking in my personal capacity only,
Pine
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations
for
applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and
their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been
quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it
encouraged
organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have had historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively
easily
get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If
we
can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should not divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump the loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple
Annual
Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar amount.
Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute "resources". By seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant money, the wikimedia affiliates can build much greater capacity in a particular region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or Healthcare.)
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in engaging chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local supporters (both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify
institutional
partners (big and small) who can advance the wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing, but
it
is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about the ways that external partners are benefiting from their relationship with
the
wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from relationships with external partners.
This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the WMF strategic planning discussions and include their thoughts about
developing
external resources that can benefit the wikimedia movement. Also, this
is a
topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedia in Residence at Cochrane WikiWomen's User Group Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group _______________________________________________ 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
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
The limiting resource for Wikipedia is not money, but Wikipedians. I could only with great difficulty imagine useful ways to spend the amount of money that we do receive (mostly, increased support for the participation of individual WPedians in the overall movement, and the provision of intellectual resources). That we rely on individual people involves them with us--I have known many people go from being readers to being donor and then to contributors of content.
We need organizations to contribute also, and, similarly, what we need them for is to contribute content, but in this case, we are talking about contributing existing materials, not writing them. It is not asking them for money will see them being more involved; rather, asking them for actual intellectual resources which cost them nothing to donate --and which only they can donate--will lead to continuing involvement, as they see the use that people make of their contributions. Unlike money, there is no other source for this material.
The most important contribution of WP is not the encyclopedia. The most important contribution is the demonstration of the role of ordinary individual involvement in activities that used to be done only by an elite, or by formal organizations--that activity without formal coordination but by cooperation can -- in at least some areas -- lead to results that not only equal but surpass what academic and publishing and other cultural bureaucracies can accomplish. The true benefit will come a people apply this to other aspects of their life. To the extent that this is the true benefit, everything that we need to do centrally detracts from our mission. That we depend only on small individual contributions, and that they come to us even with our minimal efforts, is our strength, not our weakness.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You know, when the WMF is to be judged as an organisation, I would never judge on a few incidents. I would judge it on its intrinsic value. Personally and that is the highest level of commitment, personally I find that we are doing a sterling job. Wikipedia is a top ten website in the world. It runs it on an extremely low budget compared to other top ten websites. This week a new WIkipedia is ready to become the next iteration and as it is a rate occasion, it is a reason to celebrate. It is for the talking heads to update their power points <grin> for me to make a power point </grin>.
When people consider how well how well others do from our work. Do consider that we are in the business of disseminating knowledge. When others make a lot of money and we are still a top 10 website, we are doing extremely well indeed. When others do well by us, and serve oodles of information, we are a clear winner.
Our fundraising is great. It makes us lots of money and there are lots of worthwhile things we can do with it. It is all part of the same relatively low budget. We could do more. We choose to focus on Wikipedia. That is a mistake but ok. We could do better as a result and not spend more money.
When we make more money, when we operate an endowment fund, it makes us an investor. We should not invest in oil, guns ... we could invest in green energy, it would offset the damage the Internet, our work, does through CO2 everywhere. It would show our responsibility now and for the future.
When we think that we have a PR disaster on our hand, do consider the extend it is one of our own making.. Personally speaking I find the continuous sniping a disgrace. So much time and effort is wasted because shit happens. It does, get over it. Do better next time and the next time is always more convoluted and impossible to achieve. Assume good faith, expect that things go wrong, deal with it, clean up the mess and move on. Do not continuously sing the refrain of what went wrong.
It truly makes us miserable. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 18:38, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I have a couple of comments, mostly directed to WMF, about fundraising
and
governance matters:
As a matter of good governance, I would not encourage WMF to be seeking large external partners who do solid due-diligence about their grantees until WMF demonstrates that it can complete an annual planning process
that
is aligned with the good practices already being demonstrated by
affiliates
and aligned with the expectations of the FDC. I feel that an external partner who conducted a thorough evaluation of WMF's current annual plan would find it to be mediocre at best and I question whether a large institutional partner would be willing to invest six-figure or
seven-figure
sums in WMF given the state of WMF's current annual plan. I am glad to
see
that WMF is in the process of addressing this shortcoming, and I hope for good outcomes this year.
Another issue that WMF needs to address is the state of its board. The handling of the situation with respect to two board members (the removal
of
James for opaque reasons, Jimbo's unprofessional comments about the
removal
of James, the appointment of Arnnon, and the Board's apparent decision
not
to remove Arnnon even after learning of his role in illegal activities) demonstrates significant problems in the board, and if I had millions of dollars to give in grants I surely would not entrust those funds to the
WMF
until there is a major overhaul of the board. Also, if I was an
affiliate,
I would have a lot of questions about the wisdom of fundraising on behalf of WMF given the serious PR liability that WMF has become, and I tend to think that at this time affiliates would be wise to put a considerable distance between ourselves and WMF because of the PR and fundraising collateral damage that we could receive from problems at WMF.
WMF needs to get its house in order.
Speaking in my personal capacity only,
Pine
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <darekj@alk.edu.pl
wrote:
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations
for
applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and
their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually
been
quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant
by
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it
encouraged
organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have had historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively
easily
get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite. If
we
can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the areas where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should
not
divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump
the
loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple
Annual
Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar
amount.
Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute "resources". By seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant
money,
the wikimedia affiliates can build much greater capacity in a
particular
region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or Healthcare.)
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I agree that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in
engaging
chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local
supporters
(both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify
institutional
partners (big and small) who can advance the wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing, but
it
is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about
the
ways that external partners are benefiting from their relationship with
the
wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from relationships with external partners.
This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the
WMF
strategic planning discussions and include their thoughts about
developing
external resources that can benefit the wikimedia movement. Also, this
is a
topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedia in Residence at Cochrane WikiWomen's User Group Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group _______________________________________________ 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
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Hoi, I totally agree that more money spend on Wikipedia is where we may be at one end of the law of diminishing returns. However, that is Wikipedia. We ask money for the Wikimedia Foundation and it has neglected a wide area of projects where additional money will make a marked improvement.
As far as I am concerned your whole argument is only relevant when we only consider Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia is overrated in that it gets too much attention, too much money and has too many people repeating the same old old. Thanks, GerardM
On 4 February 2016 at 04:07, David Goodman dggenwp@gmail.com wrote:
The limiting resource for Wikipedia is not money, but Wikipedians. I could only with great difficulty imagine useful ways to spend the amount of money that we do receive (mostly, increased support for the participation of individual WPedians in the overall movement, and the provision of intellectual resources). That we rely on individual people involves them with us--I have known many people go from being readers to being donor and then to contributors of content.
We need organizations to contribute also, and, similarly, what we need them for is to contribute content, but in this case, we are talking about contributing existing materials, not writing them. It is not asking them for money will see them being more involved; rather, asking them for actual intellectual resources which cost them nothing to donate --and which only they can donate--will lead to continuing involvement, as they see the use that people make of their contributions. Unlike money, there is no other source for this material.
The most important contribution of WP is not the encyclopedia. The most important contribution is the demonstration of the role of ordinary individual involvement in activities that used to be done only by an elite, or by formal organizations--that activity without formal coordination but by cooperation can -- in at least some areas -- lead to results that not only equal but surpass what academic and publishing and other cultural bureaucracies can accomplish. The true benefit will come a people apply this to other aspects of their life. To the extent that this is the true benefit, everything that we need to do centrally detracts from our mission. That we depend only on small individual contributions, and that they come to us even with our minimal efforts, is our strength, not our weakness.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 2:17 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, You know, when the WMF is to be judged as an organisation, I would never judge on a few incidents. I would judge it on its intrinsic value. Personally and that is the highest level of commitment, personally I find that we are doing a sterling job. Wikipedia is a top ten website in the world. It runs it on an extremely low budget compared to other top ten websites. This week a new WIkipedia is ready to become the next iteration and as it is a rate occasion, it is a reason to celebrate. It is for the talking heads to update their power points <grin> for me to make a power point </grin>.
When people consider how well how well others do from our work. Do
consider
that we are in the business of disseminating knowledge. When others make
a
lot of money and we are still a top 10 website, we are doing extremely
well
indeed. When others do well by us, and serve oodles of information, we
are
a clear winner.
Our fundraising is great. It makes us lots of money and there are lots of worthwhile things we can do with it. It is all part of the same
relatively
low budget. We could do more. We choose to focus on Wikipedia. That is a mistake but ok. We could do better as a result and not spend more money.
When we make more money, when we operate an endowment fund, it makes us
an
investor. We should not invest in oil, guns ... we could invest in green energy, it would offset the damage the Internet, our work, does through
CO2
everywhere. It would show our responsibility now and for the future.
When we think that we have a PR disaster on our hand, do consider the extend it is one of our own making.. Personally speaking I find the continuous sniping a disgrace. So much time and effort is wasted because shit happens. It does, get over it. Do better next time and the next time is always more convoluted and impossible to achieve. Assume good faith, expect that things go wrong, deal with it, clean up the mess and move on. Do not continuously sing the refrain of what went wrong.
It truly makes us miserable. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 18:38, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I have a couple of comments, mostly directed to WMF, about fundraising
and
governance matters:
As a matter of good governance, I would not encourage WMF to be seeking large external partners who do solid due-diligence about their grantees until WMF demonstrates that it can complete an annual planning process
that
is aligned with the good practices already being demonstrated by
affiliates
and aligned with the expectations of the FDC. I feel that an external partner who conducted a thorough evaluation of WMF's current annual
plan
would find it to be mediocre at best and I question whether a large institutional partner would be willing to invest six-figure or
seven-figure
sums in WMF given the state of WMF's current annual plan. I am glad to
see
that WMF is in the process of addressing this shortcoming, and I hope
for
good outcomes this year.
Another issue that WMF needs to address is the state of its board. The handling of the situation with respect to two board members (the
removal
of
James for opaque reasons, Jimbo's unprofessional comments about the
removal
of James, the appointment of Arnnon, and the Board's apparent decision
not
to remove Arnnon even after learning of his role in illegal activities) demonstrates significant problems in the board, and if I had millions
of
dollars to give in grants I surely would not entrust those funds to the
WMF
until there is a major overhaul of the board. Also, if I was an
affiliate,
I would have a lot of questions about the wisdom of fundraising on
behalf
of WMF given the serious PR liability that WMF has become, and I tend
to
think that at this time affiliates would be wise to put a considerable distance between ourselves and WMF because of the PR and fundraising collateral damage that we could receive from problems at WMF.
WMF needs to get its house in order.
Speaking in my personal capacity only,
Pine
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Sydney Poore sydney.poore@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <
darekj@alk.edu.pl
wrote:
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC
recommendations
for
applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried,
and
their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually
been
quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced
grant
by
I can also add that AFAIK the Foundation has never made the diversification of funds for chapters a hard rule. Rather, it
encouraged
organizations to seek alternative funding, when feasible. We have
had
historically cases of chapters that admitted they could relatively
easily
get external support, but just have preferred not to try to get it.
All in all we should balance two things: (a) resources are finite.
If
we
can easily get additional funding, especially in the Global North countries, that's great! We'll have more to do core work in the
areas
where it is not possible. (b) applying for external funding should
not
divert us from our main mission, and should not make chapters jump
the
loops of insane bureaucracy, irrational strain of effort, etc.
Speaking as a former member of the FDC and current member of Simple
Annual
Plan grant committee, I agree with Dariusz but add that a good use of external resources can add more value than just the funded dollar
amount.
Instead of speaking of "funding" we should substitute "resources".
By
seeking out external resources, which is more than external grant
money,
the wikimedia affiliates can build much greater capacity in a
particular
region or topic area (GLAM or STEM or Healthcare.)
I believe we have been relatively successful so far. However, I
agree
that the Foundation perhaps is not using its full potential in
engaging
chapters in a dialogue how to effectively address the local
supporters
(both individuals and on an institutional level). We should use the extensive network of committed organizations to our advantage.
It is key to the future of the wikimedia movement to identify
institutional
partners (big and small) who can advance the wikimedia mission.
It is happening now with many affiliate organizations, and growing,
but
it
is not well documented or analysed yet. We need better analysis about
the
ways that external partners are benefiting from their relationship
with
the
wikimedia movement and the wikimedia movement is benefiting from relationships with external partners.
This needs to be a joint dialogue between WMF and the affiliated organizations including User Groups. I hope that people will join the
WMF
strategic planning discussions and include their thoughts about
developing
external resources that can benefit the wikimedia movement. Also,
this
is a
topic for Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
Warm regards, Sydney Poore User:FloNight Wikipedia in Residence at Cochrane WikiWomen's User Group Wiki Project Med Foundation User Group _______________________________________________ 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,
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-- David Goodman
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Hoi, Spending and fundraising are two sides of the same coin. I remember that it was strongly suggested that money had to go through the WMF for all kinds of political reasons. At the time it was the Dutch chapter that received money. Long story short, after some animosity the WMF now has the whole field to itself. Given the animosity and lack of trust at the time I would not do any fundraising without an accompanying say so of the money spend.
Liam why did you only react to some of the lines and not others?? Paying for a hole in the ground that will be invested 'wisely' but without any charm, any pointer why but a rainy day seems stupid. PS It rains a lot in the Netherlands. Thanks, GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 16:53, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
I wish to respond to this specific statement:
On 3 February 2016 at 13:11, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters. The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the funding committee. Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or
do
not because of the additional stress involved.
To take the sentences in turn:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters.
This, I completely agree with and would like to see more of it. Now that it seems clear that the maximum effectiveness of the centrally-coordinated banner-centric fundraiser has been reached, and making the banner more aggressive is only going to bring diminishing returns. We have reached "peak-banner". Howver, what surprised me about this year's WMF annual plan fundraising-related risk statements (here; https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Fundraising ) was that none of the proposed remedies included the involvement of the Chapters.
It seems daft to me that the current model of fundraising in our movement forces two affiliated organisations to compete for the same donors, in the same jurisdiction, for the same money, at the same time, for the same mission, in the same medium. No wonder donors are confused about who they can get a tax receipt from! Rather than competing, I would LOVE to see the WMF fundraising model invest in improving and coordinating the fundraising capacity and efficiency for all. Rather than two groups fighting over who gets to have a bigger slice of the available cake, the focus should be on increasing the size of the cake in the first place, sharing it effectively to who needs it most, and ensuring that it's a good moist cake that can continue to be "eaten" every year rather than drying up.
The current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of
the
funding committee.
As an elected member of that Committee, I should point out in fact that many chapters do not rely on funding via the Annual Plan Grant process. Some don't use it at all because they obtain all of their funds independently (e.g. Indonesia, Poland); some use it as a major, but not sole, source of income (e.g. UK, France); and some access WMF-funding through other grant processes (e.g. by combining a series of "project and event grants" or like Spain, Estonia in this year's newly created 'simple APG' process https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/About ).
Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things
different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or do not because of the additional stress involved.
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been quite successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by Wikimedia Sweden: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connected_Open_Heritage
-Liam / Wittylama
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On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 11:16 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Spending and fundraising are two sides of the same coin. I remember that it was strongly suggested that money had to go through the WMF for all kinds of political reasons. At the time it was the Dutch chapter that received money. Long story short, after some animosity the WMF now has the whole field to itself. Given the animosity and lack of trust at the time I would not do any fundraising without an accompanying say so of the money spend.
Liam why did you only react to some of the lines and not others?? Paying for a hole in the ground that will be invested 'wisely' but without any charm, any pointer why but a rainy day seems stupid. PS It rains a lot in the Netherlands. Thanks, GerardM
The Foundation does not and mostly has not discouraged chapters from developing independent sources of money. What was eliminated was the diversion of donations to chapters during the annual fundraising drive. To the extent that people misunderstood the activities of a chapter or the relationship between the websites and chapters, diverting money from the WMF to the chapters during the WMF-managed drive was misleading to those donors.
It was also unnecessarily risky and exposed the WMF to substantial liability, given that only a fraction of the FDC-era scrutiny was applied to payment processors and some of these processors obtained hundreds of thousands of dollars with near-zero institutional development or capacity. The change also helpfully submerged the sense of entitlement endemic to chapters who processed payments or proposed to do so. Again - this does not mean chapters can't fundraise. They simply have to actually go out and raise funds, not rely solely on the WMF to vector resources their way.
On the general topic, the restricted grants received by the WMF have a beneficial effect that we could wish extended throughout its operations: because it is responsible to the grantor for producing the results demanded under the terms of the grant, the outcomes are much more likely to be visible, measurable and significant. The WMF has for over a decade spent tens of millions of dollars with little to show for it, but the sources of restricted grants require that those funds be the exception.
On the general topic, the restricted grants received by the WMF have a beneficial effect that we could wish extended throughout its operations: because it is responsible to the grantor for producing the results demanded under the terms of the grant, the outcomes are much more likely to be visible, measurable and significant. The WMF has for over a decade spent tens of millions of dollars with little to show for it, but the sources of restricted grants require that those funds be the exception.
I'm glad that you brought this up. My understanding is that during Sue's time, the decision was made by Sue and the Board that WMF didn't want to be financially dependent on one or more large donors who could then exert a conflict-of-interest influence on the WMF. That rationale makes sense. On the other hand, as Nathan notes, large granting organizations (such as WMF itself, relative to the affiliates) can demand intrusive oversight of how grant money is spent (compare the demands that WMF makes of affiliates for reporting and transparency, to WMF's reporting and transparency). Given the current situation with WMF's board I think that outside involvement in WMF governance from a mission-aligned and well-governed grantmaker could be a very good thing.
In a way I am glad that the conversation seems to be heading in the direction of speculating that the online fundraiser may be nearing the limits of its effectiveness (I hope that we'll hear more from Fundraising about their analysis of this issue) because diminishing or reduced returns from the online fundraiser would force more fiscal discipline at WMF and/or provide them a significant incentive to improve their governance so that they are more likely to be viewed favorably by large grantmaking organizations.
Pine
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