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

[Austin Hair]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wow, that's... pretty offensive, actually.
>
> If you are offended by statements of fact, that is your problem.

I think it's fairly clear that I dispute the factualness of your statement.

> Last time I checked, being a non-profit (and a charity if possible)
> *was* a requirement to be a Wikimedia chapter. The WMF does have
> experience of running a charity.

I don't know when it was that you checked, because this has never been
a requirement.  In countries where there's some analog to what
Americans and Brits would call a non-profit, that's generally the
desired form, but different countries have different legal systems—WMF
Inc., for instance, is not a "charity" in the American sense of the
word—and we do now have chapters which are neither.

That's not even the point, however.  WMF Inc. does not have experience
running a non-profit in, say, Brunei.  I couldn't tell you the
exchange rate in Brunei, much less what it costs to organize an event
there.  It's preposterous to assume that we can step in and throw
highly paid western consultants at a situation, with the poor,
incompetent Bruneians bowing to our superior wisdom and experience.

Austin