[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Birgitte SB]

>________________________________
>rom: phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com>
>To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 8:13 AM
>Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Chapters
>
>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
>I can't help but point out that is begging the question. [1] It is a logical fallacy to say in answer to concerns that a grants program won't work well that you are supporting well-developed grants program (defined as something that works well).  It is just wishful thinking.

BirgitteSB


[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question