[Foundation-l] Thinking for the Future

[Ray Saintonge]

Andrew Gray wrote:
> On 27/03/2008, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> Well, what if another Foundation was set up. The WMF would focus on the wiki
>> project and the second foundation would build an endowment and fulfill the
>> mission from a physical perspective.
>>     
> We're building an awful lot of complexity here to ensure that our
> handling of money that doesn't exist would be ideologically sound. I
> can't help but feel this is all a little... well, silly.
>
>   
Very much so, and not having the seeds of an endowment fund puts a big 
distance between the idea and reality.  It's good to have a contingency 
plan for the possibility of inheriting a windfall, but having 
level-headed people as arms-length trustees would be more important than 
slick financial advisers. If we're not competent at managing our own 
investments, will we be any more competent at choosing financial 
advisors? Advisors advise, but it is still the client who makes the 
decisions, and the advisors will not be there to pick up the pieces if 
their advice goes south with the latest incarnation of a Enron shares.  
High returns on investments go hand-in-hand with high risk.

The Microsoft shares are not a big worry unless its the only thing 
available for us to invest in.  Otherwise there's enough diversity in 
the market to choose other candidates.  We can also look at the 
experience of ethical investment funds to guide our choices.  Their 
portfolio contents are usually a matter of public record.


Ec