[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Michael Snow]

On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote:
> Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The 
> Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. 
> To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of 
> other important questions: is decentralization more important than 
> efficiency as a working principle?
I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of 
tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should 
help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize 
revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't 
mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice 
a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we 
think is important like decentralization.
> One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that 
> there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and 
> haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no 
> money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the 
> Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I 
> would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better 
> access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do 
> disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and 
> it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually 
> help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for 
> program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the 
> (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise 
> with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns.
I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a 
"well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs 
develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly 
complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it 
may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are 
trying to move away from.

--Michael Snow