[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[George Herbert]

My two cents -

The Board telegraphed this ahead of time, not the particulars
(who/when) but the generalities.

The process is not unusual for other charitable organizations.

There are more community members (active or ex) on the Board than any
other category.  There still will be even if all the potential /
authorized expert slots are filled.

While there is always a theoretical potential for some sort of
un-core-principles like covert coup from within, there is whether one
invites external board members in or not and whether or not we accept
money from people with strings.  I see no sign that any of the staff
or board are interested in any such thing.

They seem to be doing a lot of "Make the charity a serious,
self-sustaining organization", in addition to just keeping the lights
on for the servers.  But that's the purpose of the Foundation.  A pure
volunteer pure individual donations organization can't accomplish the
stability and help expand open access to information in the way we all
would like to see.

We (the community) wanted this growth and maturity.  We hired people
who can do this growth and mature the organization, and are moving
down the track in the direction we asked them to go.

The strings here are probably to our advantage - more competent people
with wider experience and sharing our core values on the Board is a
good thing, not a bad one.

Bravo to the Board and Staff for this.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com