[Foundation-l] the easy way or the less easy way

[Jimmy Wales]

Kelly Martin wrote:
> Does Florida law require that member of nonprofits be actual persons?
> A nonprofit I used to work for (a national organization) had as its
> members the 50 state organizations of which it was comprised.  Perhaps
> the members of Wikimedia should be the various national organizations
> which already exist, as corporate entities.

"Members" is a technical legal concept which should not straightjacket
us too much.  We can be a fully hardcore community organization without
being a "membership organization" in the technical sense... as I
understand it, a "membership organization" is one very special type of
community-based organization, and one which for many reasons does not
fit how we think of ourselves.

But as to your substantive point, I agree completely that we need a
place at the board level (in the long term) for the interest of the
chapters.  I can really envision a case where, in the future, the
chapter boards elect from among themselves a representative to the
board, a fully voting representative.

I do not expect that to be an approach we take in the current
contemplated board expansion, but for a future board expansion I think
it would make very good sense.  (In the past, we have had a very uneven
distribution of chapters... but as chapters are being formed worldwide,
in another year or two we will be able to think of the chapters as a
whole as representing the segment of the community which is more
interested in "organizational" work as well as "editing" work.)

I hope people are beginning to see the outlines of my thinking about
what I mean when I say that I think we should be a community
organization with a diversity of routes to board membership, because I
think this better reflects who we are and what we do as a community than
global voting for all board members would.

--Jimbo



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