[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[church.of.emacs.ml]

On 03/06/2011 12:06 AM, Philippe Beaudette wrote:
> It seems to me that we spent a year building a strategic plan, which
>  included huge business planning components for exactly this 
> conversation....

There are numbers for estimated expenses: $51M for 2014/2015
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses.png
Other numbers make this seem far less certain: $30M-$70M
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_30M-70M.png

A quote from
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Role_of_the_WMF#Projected_Revenue:
> "The primary source of revenue for Wikimedia Foundation will be 
> community giving (through on-line donations)"

So somehow normal donations are supposed to be increasing by 500% until
2014/2015 compared to the numbers of 2009/2010... (yes, I realize that
there will be a big increase in 2010/2011 with $16M already having been
raised)

But how this is going to happen is not described in detail:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_fundraising#Opportunities_exist

My approach would be to estimate how much money we can raise, set our
goals accordingly, and then look into the issue of spending that money
efficiently. It seems to me that it was done the other way around: Ask
what do we want to do, where do we want to spend money and how much need
we, and then setting this as a fundraising goal.
Then again, I'm not a financial analyst, so my concerns might be naïve
(sorry for that).

-- Tobias

Ps.: Sorry if I missed something on Strategy Wiki. It's a large Wiki and
not always super easy to find the information you need :)

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