[Foundation-l] Re: Grants -- a proposal

[Anthere]

Daniel Mayer a écrit:
> --- 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.  
> 
> 
> Hm. This type of thing locks up funds and makes running organizations much more
> difficult than necessary, IMO. The board in consultation with its various
> officers are the body by which budgeting is done. Feedback from donors can and
> should be collected in a systematic and easy to parse way, but should not tie
> the hands of the board (grants excepted). That type of information should
> *inform* the board's decision - not dictate it. 
> 
> Most of the annual California state budget, for example, has been dictated by
> various voter initiatives. Thus lawmakers have very little to work with while
> crafting budgets. This is one reason often cited for California's on-going
> financial crisis. 
> 
> So while this at first sounds like a neat idea, in practice it just makes our
> budgeting less flexible and thus less able to adapt to changing conditions,
> IMO. 
> 
> -- mav

I generally agree with what you say Mav. It is true it might be 
dangerous to be hand tied due to part of our resources being mandatorily 
allocated for a specific issue and not enough left for operating costs. 
Maybe this 10% is not satisfying.

However, I'd like to mention that currently if "small" donators are not 
able to say how they would prefer their money to be spend, "big" 
donators may. Fortunately, most money offered came with no strings 
attached, and I guess most editors could prefer to do just as well.

But it is not always the case, and some money we receive is for a 
specific goal. Till today, I do not think we ever felt stuck and not 
adaptable due to this. Still, these donators somehow "dictate" us how to 
use the money.

ant