[Foundation-l] Fundraising season launch

[daniwo59 at aol.com]

Slow down a bit. Let's start with the basics. For various technical  reasons, 
a fundraiser should not start at the beginning of the month. 
 
Befpre deciding that the fopcus shoudl not be servers, decide what the real  
needs are. If servers happen to be the primary cost, then that should be the  
focus. 
 
I am wary of turning this into an OLPC/Wikimedia fundraiser, even if just  by 
tying the two organizations together. It may also run counter to our 501 c 3  
status, but of this I am not sure.
 
Will the money go to chapters or to the Foundation? Can the chapters  
transfer money to the foundation if needed? 
 
How will funds donated be processed? Who will process them? How will we  
recognize donors, both by what is required by law and by what is simply a nice  
way to recognize them? This is an enormous amount of work. 
 
Just some thoughts. 
 
Danny
 
In a message dated 10/10/2006 3:27:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
erik at wikimedia.org writes:

On  10/9/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> As an individual  (not board member), I would like to ask if it were
> possible that the  spin around the fundraising, focuses a bit on the
> other projects,  perhaps the notion of virtual library, with the
> wikicommons and  wikisource. We have the recent report of the german
> digitization to  show up as an example as how we could push things
> forward in realm of  digital libraries.

Yes, it seems absolutely essential to me that the  communication
strategy is carefully planned _before_ we ask for  money.

What have the Foundation and the Chapters accomplished so far?  What is
the status of our work to bring Wikimedia to developing  countries?
What have our expenses been? (Get audited financial reports  out.) What
expenses do we foresee? What strategic projects are around the  corner?
What is the state of the projects besides Wikipedia, the  small
languages?

The last thing I want is another "WE NEED MORE  SERVERS" fundraiser.

So, in order to do this properly:

Brad -  can we assume that the financial statements will be published
before Nov 1?  Can you work on outlining some expenses over the next 6
months you see as  critical, in broad terms (staff, hardware, etc.)?

Tim - when are the  static dumps going to be ready?

Samuel - can you pass on some  promotional materials re: the OLPC
partnership to the Fundraising  Committee?

Delphine - can you compile a report on chapter activity (max  10K,
pictures would be nice)? What projects were completed, what  chapters
were set up?

Jimmy, Florence - shall we prepare a detailed  vision statement on
Board Wiki? I volunteer to take a first stab at the  structure.

Sabine - could you write a little report regarding  translation
projects, and future activities you can envision in this  area?

I would suggest early November as a launch of the fundraising  drive. I
would like to see some new functionality implemented for  this
fundraising drive as well, e.g. the ability to donate directly  from
any Wikimedia project page, as well as a more prominent display  of
donor comments above a certain amount.

Most importantly, however,  I want us to start working very soon on a
decent appeal for support and  report of activity so far. I understand
that donor attention is limited, so  we need to have a very short
general appeal, but those who care should be  able to find detailed
information about what we are doing and why we need  support.

Ideally, the information we compile here should be useful to  approach
organizations and wealthy individuals, beyond just a general  appeal to
the masses.

Does that sound reasonable? :-)
--  
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of  Trustees

DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, all views or opinions  expressed
in this message are solely my own and do not represent an  official
position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of  Trustees.
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