[Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

[daniwo59 at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/18/2005 9:30:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
beesley at gmail.com writes:

On  19/06/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I therefore  suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their
> donation.  That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they 
want
>  their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for  
servers,
> while another donor may give specifically to promote a  language, print a
> particular wikibook, or whatever.

Isn't there  a danger of this leading to huge resources for the English
Wikipedia and  not enough for the rest of the projects and languages
simply because more  people visit that and therefore decide to put all
their donations towards  that project rather than the Foundation's
wider  goals?

Actually, this will help smaller projects. By projects, I do not mean a  
specific wikilanguage. Rather, I mean projects like "Buying new servers,"  
"Developing Wiktionary," "Helping Ossetian," the "Africa Project", etc. It does  not 
mean earmarking money for a specific Wiki. In fact, this will help people  
keep abreast of new charitable projects as they emerge. This has nothing to do  
with English or any other language


It  might make more sense to say we will spend grant money on certain
projects,  but I'm not yet convinced it makes sense for all donations
to have to go  towards specific tasks in this way.
No, not all donations. But this allows people to have some say in how they  
want the money they donate spent. There will certainly be an option to give to  
the general running of Wikimedia, and all smaller grants will donate 10 
percent  to  that cause as well. 
 
Larger grants, in general, will require us to report on how we are spending  
their money. I am suggesting that this serve as an outline for that. For  
instance, we received a grant to push ahead with Wikijunior. We then have to  
report to the donors how taht money was used to further that specific end. 
 
Finally, of course the Board will have final say in which projects are  
legitimate and which are not.
 



>     3.  People involved in specific  projects will  naturally assume the
> responsibility of "Project  Heads" and naturally grow to  fill leadership 
positions

I'm not  sure how the topic of donations is related to this, nor
whether having  "Project Heads" is needed.
It is already occurring. The address for Ultimate Wiktionary is Gerard. The  
address for Ossetian is Amikeco. I think that this is a good thing, because it 
 helps build grassroots leadership.



On 19/06/05, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>  This proposal helps the board to take decisions according to the
>  community wishes and at the same time, it allows editors to support
>  certain projects rather than others. 

Would community wishes be  reflected by this though? Many donors are
not members of the community, or  not the editing community anyway, and
vice versa. What if a large donor  puts all their money towards a
project that is not supported by the  community? How could that be
dealt with?



Sure, and we want donors to have options about where to donate. From  
non-Wiki experience, I can tell you that donors do not like the idea of just  giving, 
without knowing where their money is going. They want to get the best  bang 
for their buck, if you will pardon the Americanism. At the same time, they  
also want to find a project that best suits their personal interests and  
objectives. We are offering them a pallette from which they can  choose.