[Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees June 2009-

[Nathan]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Jennifer Riggs<jriggs at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The discussion about a budget line item being appropriate in one context
> and not in the next has been very interesting to me. And especially in
> this case as it involves the provision of food, which is one of the most
>  deeply held cultural norms in many communities.
>
> Frugality is certainly a consideration for the WMF. I can say with my
> staff hat on that while we do get generous grants from foundations to
> help support your amazing work, everyone here also thinks about the $5
> that was donated by a student and feels a responsibility to that student.
>
> However the word and concept of "frugality" differs significantly across
> cultures. In my experience with many non-Western cultures, asking people
> to bring lunch from home or spend their own money for it would not only
> exclude participation, it would insult people. If the purpose is to
> encourage participation and commitment to a newly forming organization,
> it seems it would be very important not to insult people.
>
> In many cultures I've worked in, if you didn't bring cigarettes, you
> couldn't get a goat to listen to you. These may seem to be extreme
> cases, but I'm thinking about WMF and the Wikimedia movement as truly
> global. So I don't think we should dismiss this concept just because
> currently we aren't working with any people who require cigarettes
> before thinking about editing a Wikipedia.
>
> I have no idea what the cultural norms for providing food at initial
> meetings are in Portugal or many other places. I just add my crumb to
> the discussion as a reminder that if we are wearing limited cultural
> lenses when we create policy, it will forever limit us to working within
> communities who are interested and able to live within those restrictions.
>
> Jennifer Riggs


Thanks Jennifer for your comment. I hope that people go a little easy
in their responses to this e-mail, so that we don't accidentally
discourage Foundation staffers from replying to this list. I have some
questions, Jennifer, if you don't mind:

* The idea of tailoring funding to cultural norms is valid, in theory,
but I personally have a hard time understanding what major cultural
distinctions separate Portugal from other European chapters in this
regard. Does allowing for cultural norms in funding grants require
that the grant-makers familiarize themselves with the relevant norms?
(I was originally going to ask if you were aware of characteristics
unique to Portugal on this, but you've written that you are not).

* I'm curious about the process of distributing funding like this in
general, and what criteria for a pre-existing structure or evidence of
community support you look for ahead of making grants - and in the
same vein, what sort of follow up is planned to ensure funding is
spent and appropriately. If I'm wrong please let me know, but is it
accurate that the chapter is in its earliest stages, with no chapter
agreement, no review or involvement from ChapCom, limited organizing
activity on wiki and no legal structure for bearing responsibility for
money?

* Was there a series of off-wiki exchanges with the Portuguese chapter
folks about the best way to utilize funding, and whether face to face
meetings were appropriate for an extended series of planning meetings?

* Will the reaction to this grant will influence future grants,
whether similar requests and grants will be publicized in the future
(and to what extent)? What type of engagement the Foundation would
like with the community on the issue of community funding?

Hopefully this doesn't come across as entirely critical; I haven't
seen other finalized grants, don't know anything about the
behind-the-scenes communication, or even whether extenuating
circumstances (such as all founding members in fact living in
different cities) make the funding level more appropriate than it
seems on face value.

Thanks,

Nathan