[Wikimediaindia-l] Re: Upcoming WMF fundraising campaign in India 2023

Dear Jayantilal and all, I regularly report on Wikimedia Foundation spending and fundraising for the Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper.[1] In my view, the best and most reliable way to see how much money the Wikimedia Foundation is spending in India is the Form 990.[2] This is a form that U.S. non-profit organisations like the Wikimedia Foundation are required by law to submit to the U.S. Inland Revenue Service. The Form 990 is also required by law to be publicly accessible. You can find all the Wikimedia Foundation's Forms 990 here: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/ The Form 990 includes fairly detailed information on international spending. In June 2022 I analysed this spending per the WMF's most recent Form 990 for The Signpost. The results are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/News_… As detailed in that Signpost report, I found that the amounts spent in South Asia (program services + grantmaking) were absolutely tiny – 0.4% of Wikimedia Foundation revenue. (The Form 990 does not say how much of that was in India.) Grantmaking in South Asia was even less: 0.05% of revenue according to my calculation. Of course spending in South Asia may have increased since then. The Wikimedia Foundation typically publishes its Form 990 in May, so in a few weeks' time a new Form 990 should appear on the WMF Financial Reports page linked above. It should be possible to provide an update at that time. As for Raju Narisetti's interview in the Indian Express, I did find parts of it misleading, especially a statement attributed to him that originally read as follows (my emphasis): "Although a lot of the money is raised in the more developed Western markets, *most of it is actually flowing into the global south*, where the growth will come in languages and users." This was discussed at the time on the Wikimedia-l mailing list and on Meta-Wiki, and reported on in The Signpost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-06-26/In_th… The mailing list discussion is here: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… The discussion on Meta-Wiki is here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising/Archive_7#Raju_Narisetti_i… As a result of these discussions, the Indian Express article was edited about a week after publication, and this statement was changed. (There is a note at the bottom of the article today, drawing attention to this fact.) The Wikimedia Foundation said Raju Narisetti had been misquoted: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AFundraising&diff=pr… Personally, I felt the revised wording in the Indian Express is still misleading. According to my calculations, as reported in The Signpost, WMF spending in the entire global south amounted to 2.4% of revenue in the most recent year for which the Wikimedia Foundation has filed a Form 990. In my view, 2.4% is not "a lot", and it is not what a reader of the Indian Express would imagine when they read that "a lot" of the money raised flows into the global south (especially as the part going to India was much smaller still). According to the Form 990, the vast majority of WMF money is actually spent in the US, most of it on salaries. As for the Wikimedia Foundation never publishing misleading fundraising statements, the English Wikipedia community came to a different conclusion last November.[3] People felt that statements on the fundraising banners were indeed misleading. As a result the fundraising messages were changed, and new wordings found in collaboration with the volunteer community. This was reported on in the U.S. media: https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.… I hope this helps. Best, Andreas [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Author/Andreas_K… [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_990 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposal… On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 8:14 AM Julia Brungs <jbrungs(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: