[Foundation-l] Chapters

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Michael Snow <wikipedia at frontier.com>wrote:

> 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
>

Fair point. By "well-developed" I just meant "something that works well."
One of the criteria of working well could be low overhead... Again, the idea
of supporting grants is not exclusive to the WMF: I am so pleased to see the
expansion of the WMDE program, as well.

-- phoebe