[Foundation-l] Board letter about fundraising and chapters

[John Vandenberg]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 8:06 AM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com> wrote:
> .. Honestly, I must say that it
> is a colossal disappointment to find that with all the posts I've seen
> both here and on internal-l, nobody has yet made a single edit to the
> talk page on Meta where the letter was posted. Doesn't anybody here know
> how to use a wiki?

Michael, the board announcement is not a good way to start a conversation.
Perhaps it is you who doesn't know how to use a wiki. :P

It is a pronouncement, and talks about "criteria" which are not in the
agreement the chapters recently signed.

If the letter talked about improvements to be made to the next
agreement, you would have a lot of positive activity around the
letter.  The recently signed agreement covers this financial year, and
*only* this next financial year.  Now is a good time to start working
on the next agreement, so that we can slowly work through all the
issues related to 35+ countries with a chapter.

If the WMF wanted to make changes to the current agreement, and
recognised that late changes are going to be difficult, we could work
with you make some important changes which raise the bar but do not
adversely and unnecessarily exclude anyone who has already signed the
agreement.  To begin with, chapters would be wanting a tiered approach
to these criteria.  For example, tax-deductibility does not make sense
for a small chapter, and it is usually impossible for small
organisations to obtain this.  It is silly to exclude a chapter on
this basis - the WMF cant become tax-deductible in these countries
anyway, so there is no possible benefit to the donor if the chapter is
excluded from the fundraising process because they are not
tax-deductible.  Until the chapter becomes tax-deductible, there is no
possibility for the donor to obtain a tax deduction.  In some
countries it is very inappropriate to fundraise without government
approval, so the WMF shouldnt be fundraising in these countries
anyway.  Chapters receiving significant amounts of dollars should use
those funds to pursue the often difficult process of
tax-deductibility.  There are only a few chapters who fall into this
bracket, yet WMF is trying to reduce all chapters to wikipedia clubs.
And in doing so, the WMF wont have the benefit of the donations that
are made because the donor responds well to the fact they know in
advance that the money goes to a local organisation - an organisation
which is accountable to the local regulatory system.

This letter comes on the heels of WMF staff privately contacting
individual on chapter boards over the last week and telling them that
they are breaking the fundraising agreement, after the chapters have
sought qualified opinions on the matter and signed the agreement on
that basis.  Now we know why.  Perhaps I should post those private
conversations to the wiki so we can use the wiki to discuss the real
problem: how the WMF is implementing the improvement.

--
John Vandenberg