[Foundation-l] Cary Bass as "Wikimedia US Affiliates Coordinator"

[Nathan]

I'm curious, and maybe this is the wrong thread, but can someone explain to
me the difficulty in setting up a US organization that is essentially a
Wikimedia membership chapter? I get the issues with trademark ownership
(although it seems you could solve that with a license of some sort) and the
issue of diverting donations, but what are the other impediments if any? I
set up a non-profit corporation in high school, it didn't strike me as that
difficult at the time.

If this has been discussed at length, as I'm sure it has, on meta - could I
get the link as well?

thanks,

Nathan

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:03 PM, Sue Gardner <sgardner at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> effe iets anders wrote:
> > What you seem to mean to me, is a group of enthusiast volunteers who
> > want to do stuff. Yeah, the Volunteer Coordinator (Cary) might be a
> > good point of approach then. And maybe in some cases (conferences,
> > Wikipedia academies) the guy who is handling reachout (Frank). But the
> > same goes for enthusiast volunteers in southern Spain, Zambia, Nepal
> > or New Zealand. They would have to approach the same people for the
> > same things, and I still do not see why US volunteers should take a
> > different position on this. They are not more important, at most
> > higher in number (although that would have to proof itself first).
> >
> > As soon as there are legal entities (or at least groups with
> > formalized structures) in the US, incorporated or not, I guess their
> > point of approach would be the chapters coordinator (Delphine) /
> > chapters committee . As long as you're not, I think that the regular
> > current structures should be sufficient (because you're no "affiliate"
> > anyways)..
> >
> > BR, Lodewijk
> >
> >
> Effe's correct.
>
> Delphine is the point person for chapters, so if volunteers in the
> United States want to formally organize, she would be their contact for
> that. The fact that she's not in the United States doesn't/shouldn't
> matter - she's the chapters' global representative (Hong Kong, Taiwan,
> Argentina, Israel) and is used to working with people who are far from
> her geographically. There's no need for the United States to get any
> special treatment.
>
> People who don't want to organize formally into chapters or chapter-like
> entities can continue to work with Cary, who is the point person for
> individual volunteers. So Pharos working with Cary for Wikipedia Takes
> Manhattan makes perfect sense :-)
>
> --
>
>
> Sue Gardner
> Executive Director
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation
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