[Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

[Erik Moeller]

Hello Danny,

earmarking is something I generally support, with some caveats. My main 
concern is that not everything we *should* do will necessarily be 
directly funded by the community. This is especially true for 
bootstrapping investments that benefit projects that currently don't 
have a large supporting community yet. So I suggest that beyond overhead 
costs, a substantial amount of money of every donation is also allocated 
to a general bootstrapping fund to be used at the Foundation's discretion.

It could be split into different (broad) areas, e.g.:
Bootstrap - Documentation: $5K
Bootstrap - Development: $5K

I think that operational costs should take top priority. There's not 
much point in asking people to fund development if we can't afford to 
keep the servers running. So during a fundraising drive, only after our 
goal is met, the "slots" for targeted donations should be opened. This 
might also add some excitement to the drive.

My other concerns are usability-related. I think if we do this, we need 
to plan the implementation properly. I'd be glad to assist with that, 
though not immediately (perhaps after Wikimania there will be some 
time). In fact, I can envision this to eventually become a project of 
its own and extend beyond Wikimedia's own needs, to fund open source 
development and free content. But that's very long term thinking (years).

Best,

Erik