[Foundation-l] A new proposal regarding US chapters

[Lars Aronsson]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I can see an argument for US chapters not need a legal 
> organization at all (just use the Foundation for this), and I 
> can see an argument for each of them having their own legal 
> organization (this seems better to me), but I can't see having 
> one non-Foundation organization for multiple chapters.

The Internet Society (www.isoc.org) has 19 chapters in Africa, 28 
chapters in Europe (one in Germany, one in France, one in Sweden, 
... two in Belgium, and six in Spain), and 10 chapters in North 
America (one for Canada, one for Quebec, and one each for Chicago, 
Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, 
Texas, and Colorado).  I think such a flexible model could serve 
the Wikimedia Foundation as well.  The odd fact that Belgium has 
two chapters (one is for Wallonia) doesn't force every state of 
Germany to have its own.  It's not like every little county or 
township will set up its own chapter.  The ISOC has less than 100 
chapters in all.

http://isoc.org/isoc/chapters/



-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se