[Foundation-l] A train without destination?

[Florence Devouard]

Maybe it is worth that I tell you a story at that point :-)

Last fall, I was invited by Cornell University, to go in Zambia for a 
brainstorming session. Cornell had been commissionned (--> got funds 
from) by the B&M Gate Foundation to gather experts to come with a 
collection of grant-supportive ideas to help education-africa-women.

I thought it was really an interesting idea, and I accepted to go there 
for a full week. It was a significant investment of my time. Whilst I 
was naturally not paid, they had agreed to cover travel expenses with 
the Gate grant.

Ultimately, it was a very interesting week, lots of discussions, some 
presentations, a couple of visits around. So, I do not regret I went at 
all. But practically speaking, I feel I was cheated, and this does not 
give me much interest in pursuing anythink with the Gates Foundation.

Two officers of Gate grant program were present during the week. During 
the last day, we separated in small groups, to work on a pre-grant 
requests. After being refined, all pre-grant requests were given to the 
Gate Foundation; after consideration, the Gate Foundation indicated 
which projects seemed really interesting and worth pursuing and finally 
helping. I worked with Cornell Librarian on a proposal for agricultural 
wikibooks (remember that I am an agricultural engineer).


First disappointement: 5 months later, I am still waiting for the 
reimbursement of most of the travel expenses. Last month, my own cash 
reserve was so low, that I asked WMF to cover the main flight, and seek 
reimbursement from Cornell. So, now, Cornell owes money to both WMF and I.
After doing an original reimbursement request as they asked for directly 
in Zambia, I made a new request a month ago, because no one seem to give 
any feedback about the first.
Whilst this is not Gates Foundation fault, it casts doubts in terms of 
respectability. When you make people work for free during a full week 
and promise to reimburse their expenses, then it is best to make sure 
that reimbursement really occur.


A few weeks later, I learned that our proposition of wikibooks attracted 
the interest of the Gate Foundation (which means that they intended to 
commission a more detailed grant request). I thought "greeeeaaaat".
Bad news, it seems that the more detailed grant request is being done 
without WMF as a partner. So, my whole week of volunteer-work will 
benefit others, not us. Hmmmmmm... disappointing, right ?


The last hit happened 2 weeks ago. I was contacted by a small american 
Foundation. They have been commissionned by the Gate Foundation to work 
out the grant details. So, they had questions such as "how does a wiki 
work ?"; "how much does it cost to host a wiki ?"; "how would you 
recommand starting the project" etc... There is a whole list of questions.
They contacted me, per recommandation of the Gate Foundation, so that I 
could give them ALL the answers which would make it possible to populate 
the detailed grant request. They asked me to provide such information in 
a written format, and "please could I do that within the next two days 
because they had a deadline to respect". And if I could not do this, 
"could I give them the name of a WMF staff member who could do that for 
them".


Well, all I could do was to basically answer "the WMF does not provide 
free consulting services".

But what did I really do in Zambia ? I provided free consulting services 
during a full week, because I hoped that WMF would somehow benefit from 
this. If not WMF, myself :-)


This is not the first time it happens to me, but this one was the first 
time I felt so abused. I am not rich. The WMF is not rich. The Gate 
Foundation is rich by millions. They could help us to operate, because 
even though we have some strong disagreements, our final mission 
overlap. Instead, WMF and I are poorer. And mostly, I have this vague 
feeling that we are being treated as "nice children deserving a tap on 
the back for what they do".

So, yeah, the Gate Foundation has the resources and power to further the 
goals of the Foundation. But I would recommand staying away. A good 
relationship is one where the two partners are happy.

Ant





Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
> They are, but it is fairly easy to say that Bill Gates has the resources and power to further the goals of the Foundation. 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 3:46:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A train without destination?
> 
> On 16/03/2008, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I.E. they could transfer it to Bill Gates for one dollar, then donate the dollar back into the Foundation.
> 
> They certainly could. Whether or not they could do so legally is
> another matter. I believe the trustees are legally obliged to work in
> the interests of achieving the foundation's stated goals, in the same
> way the board of a public company are legally obliged to work in the
> interests of making money for the shareholders. I could be wrong, of
> course, but that's my understanding.
> 
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