On Saturday, January 21, 2006, at 02:49 am, Angela wrote:
On 1/20/06, Andrew Walker keggers@gmail.com wrote:
One thing I am not clear about is exactly what a chapter is. Is it just a group of people who edit wikipedia and who live in close(ish) proximity to each other, or is it a legal entity of some kind?
I think it can be either, but http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Local_chapter_FAQ has more info on this.
This implies that the chapters are a fairly flexible structure for linking with Wikimedia Foundation. Have we been in touch with Delphine (chapter coordinator) about this?
If it is the Foundation's wish to have direct control of the UK chapter, then we would need to look at an alternative route. Though I'm not certain one is available. I'm not sure if a "Foreign Branch" (another form of company structure) can be registered with the Charity Commission as a charity, for example. I have a sneaky suspicion that we cannot just covenant (promise) all our income to the Foundation.
The nearest equivalent model that I know of is ActionAid, the development/anti-poverty charity. ActionAid UK (AAUK - www.actionaid.org.uk) is registered as a charity in the UK and based in the UK. It is a member of Actionaid International (AAI - www.actionaid.org), registered in the Netherlands, based in South Africa. AAUK undertakes its own charitable work (events, grants to organisations that furthers its mission etc), and also has "Committed giving" and "Other donations" to AAI (see the Trustees' report at http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100045/faqs.html ). As far as I can tell from reading the Trustees' reports of both organisations, "Committed giving" is a contracted programme of financial support provided by AAUK to AAI, in return for AAI delivering some specific projects that are in keeping with the aims of AAUK. "Other donations" are specific requests by AII for financial support from AAUK. AAUK is legally independent of AAI (though they share some directors and probably talk by email a lot). AAUK makes grants and runs programmes that are independent of AAl. Both AAi and AAUK have the same ethos.
So, how do I see this working with Wiki UK and Wikimedia Foundation? 1) the aims of UK and Foundation should be as closely aligned as possible. (I think we've achieved this.)
2) UK will enter into some grant contracts with the Foundation to deliver some specified work - eg the provision of 100,000 pages of an online encyclopaedia free of charge to persons in the UK, in English, for the calendar year 2007.
3) UK will consider requests for funding from organisations like the Foundation for financial support for activities that further UK's aims. This could include general financial support for the Foundation. But it could also fund other groups and other activities (eg it could make a grant to someone in Glasgow to run a "Wikis are great - contribute today" event. )
4) UK will undertake its own activities, which will be in line with the ethos of the Foundation, but will be independent (ie without a formal contract between the two). So for example, UK could undertake, provide grants to or commission: a) events or teacher resources in the UK demonstrating/promoting the use and development of online free resources (such as, say, Wikipedia and WikiBooks) b) the digitising of public domain content such as books, images etc to enable wider public access to them via electronic dissemination (such as, say, WikiBooks); c) the translation of existing public domain resources (such as, say, bits of Wikipedia) into other languages that would be of benefit to the UK public (eg Urdu).
I think that would be how it would work in practice, and it would work well.
Best wishes
Scott
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