[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Risker]

On 30 August 2011 10:44, Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org> wrote:

> 2011/8/30 Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net>
>
> > On 08/29/11 1:55 AM, Lodewijk wrote:
> > >
> > > It may be a logical consequence for the WMF giving out these grants (I
> > don't
> > > know but wouldn't be surprised if i.e. Ford Foundation has similar
> > > requirements), but it clearly is a nasty side effect of the choice of
> the
> > > board to no longer allow chapters to fundraise.
> >
> > How can they stop chapters from fundraising? They can certainly stop
> > chapters from participating in the WMF's fundraising campaign, but they
> > will still have no control over a chapter's own fundraising programmes.
> > >
> >
>
> I have heard this argument too often now, so let me finally reply to it.
> Perhaps I should rephrase my statement to "not allowing good faith chapters
> to fundraise". Because that is basically what is happening - a chapter that
> has the best with the movement in mind, will not try to compete with the
> Wikimedia Foundation by fundraising on its own. I have never heard of any
> international organization which had two organizations (national and world
> wide) fundraising at the same time in the same country. And why would
> not-online fundraising suddenly be OK if the main reasons of the WMF are
> transparency and not following the WMF strategy closely enough? Why would
> it
> be so different? Because at the same time, chapters would still be asking
> donors to support those goals Wikipedia stands for: the sum of all
> knowledge
> available for every human being. The message doesn't change, the
> accountability doesn't suddenly improve and the performed activities with
> the money don't change. The only thing that is different is that it is less
> visible and that the fundraising agreement doesn't forbid it.
>
>

For the record, one of the examples used as an international charitable
organization with multiple local chapters, Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors
without Borders)...does indeed run both international and national
fundraising drives at the same time. My inbox contains recent requests for
donations from both my national chapter and the international organization,
dated within days of each other. And I have a choice as to whether to donate
to the international campaign or the national one, although I do so at
different websites, and only get a tax credit for donations made to the
local chapter. This 40-year-old internationally recognized organization has
only 25 recognized national chapters, which have needed to meet rigorous
standards to obtain and retain their status.

It does strike me as odd that, given the legendary openness of
Wikimedia-related projects and activities, at least the basic provisions of
the chapter agreement isn't widely accessible. It would be very demotivating
for groups to come together, gather momentum to move toward a more formal
relationship with the WMF, and then find out that their ability to form a
chapter is proscribed by conflicts between local requirements and the WMF
standard chapter agreement.  While I recognize that such a document can't
really be crowd-sourced, it might be helpful to at least have it publicly
available for reading. That is, unless each chapter agreement is
significantly customized for the needs of the individual chapters.

Risker/Anne