[Foundation-l] Site Notices Phase 2 - Annual Fundraiser 2008

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The problem with precise definitions is that they are not necessarily known
and understood in this way by our audience. When you want people to give,
you want to appeal to people and get their money, you have to target and
emphasise the emotional side of the message. When you assume that people are
likely to understand things in a certain way based on formal definitions,
you forget that a large part of our readers do not have English as their
mother tongue and consequently their understanding is a lot less precise.
Even people for whom English is their mother tongue do not necessarily think
in formal definitions and they are also best approached with a more
emotional tinged message.

This requires a marketing approach.
Thanks,
        GerardM

2008/11/28 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>

> >> And, in fact, wikimediafoundation.org says "nonprofit charitable
> >> organization". I don't know why people generally say "non-profit"
> >> instead of "charity", then - charity would be more precise and would
> >> probably be better perceived.
> >
> > I'm afraid I disagree with you here.
> > Non-profit vs for-profit is a distinction in taxation and precise.
> > Charity vs not being charity may 1) no legal distinction in some cases
> > and 2) Wikimedia Foundation could be no charity in some definition of
> > non-US jurisdiction (and at worse it may be taken as deceitful).
> >
> > I am for adding "charitable" etc. but against replacing "charity" etc.
> > with "non-profit".
>
> I would say "being charitable" and "being a charity" mean the same
> thing (in reference to an organisation). Under the UK definitions (I
> expect other jurisdictions are similar), a charity is a non-profit
> whose objects and activities fit the definition of charitable objects
> and activities (that definition may vary from place to place). Since
> the WMF is described as a charitable organisation on the official
> webpage, I assume it is correct to call it such, so "charity" is a
> more precise term than "non-profit". I don't think there is a
> jurisdictional problem - as long as it is a charity in its own
> jurisdiction, it should be fine to call it a charity on its own
> webpages.
>
> The issue of varying cultural perceptions of the term "charity" (or
> literal translations) is a more serious one - we should give
> translators sufficient leeway to deal with such localisation issues.
>
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