[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com]

On Aug 10, 2011, at 6:42 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 7:22 PM,  <Birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> I don't care what people spoke of, nor of what they desire, nor what their agenda is. I never supposed that people were conspiring to fail.  I care what effect the actions people are proposing will result in.  I am quite confident that the result of funding chapters though a WMF grant program pushes them towards being franchises.  I might be wrong about this, as I said. But please share the underlying concepts that lead you to conclude that "these changes should have no impact on that at all", so that I might be convinced as well. Your good intentions, which I did not question, are irrelevant.
>> 
>> Perhaps I did not clarify a particular point very well in my first email. Donations pay for bandwidth, servers, etc. The WMF has no idea, and is doing nothing to develop a reliable accounting, on how effectively these donations are being used.  WMF can only report some numbers as to the quanity of use in different areas, but no one @ WMF could tell me what is going on the Albanian Wikipedia.  And if by some chance they could it would be an anomaly. An evaluation of the effectiveness of program work cannot be considered part of the near-term agenda. As for the rest I encourage you to exercise your moral duty by helping the chapters fulfill the reporting requirements, implement the financial controls, and operate transparently. You have been through this all before.  You were the chairman of the board when WMF was struggling with all of these items, so why not use your experience directing WMF through being out of compliance with such things to mentor those chapter which are struggling?
>> 
>> BirgitteSB
> 
> 
> Isn't that exactly what they are doing? It would have been better to
> institute higher expectations for a year from now instead of several
> months, but setting relatively clear expectations and offering
> assistance (while not taking the drastic step of cutting off funding
> completely) is exactly what the Foundation is doing. Your arguments
> seem predicated on the perception that the Foundation is cutting off
> chapters completely, or moving in that direction, but I see no
> evidence for that.  Since you don't appear to be against the concepts
> of accountability or appropriate financial controls, what would you
> prefer the Foundation do beyond offering aid, bridge funding and a
> template for organization to chapters who need such assistance?
> 

I don't think chapters are being cut off I think they are being centralized. Centralization, not lack of funding, is what I believe will make chapters ineffective.  Frankly, I think cutting off their funding would be less detrimental (although still not a good thing) to the chapter's long-term effectiveness than centralizing them into a grant program.  It would be worse for the near-term, but many would still recover from it as owner-led organizations funded locally outside of the WMF banner campaign.

I would prefer that aid be given to the chapters without drastically changing the structure from being organizations who most naturally feel accountable to their local populations who fund them to organizations who most naturally feel accountable to San Francisco. All other things being equal imagine which of those organizations will be more responsive and careful.

BirgitteSB