[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[Jason donovan]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 6:59 AM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 09/03/2011, at 10:15, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>
> > All of this makes for one of the stronger arguments for a more
> decentralized
> > office structure at this point, in my opinion. (Lightly echoing what Liam
> > said.)
> >
> > MZMcBride
>
> That's actually not what I said, or at least not what I meant to say.
> I am very supportive of the WMF being headquartered in San Fran and also of
> having offsite employees when applicable (being one myself for this year).
> But by "decentralising" I was referring to a focus more on building up the
> professional capacity of the Chapters and did not mean to refer to expanding
> the number of WMF offices (nationally or internationally). The strategic
> projects to create 'catalyst' teams/offices in India, Middle East and Brazil
> are very cool/worthy/useful projects and I support them fully. Ultimately
> though I would like to see these being developed with an aim to the
> infrastructure being "handed over" to the local chapter once it too is up to
> an appropriately professional standard. This is not the same as saying that
> the WMF should decentralise.
>
> I think the question that makes this debate the clearest is when you ask:
> "should there be a Wikimedia USA chapter". If you think "Yes" then that
> implies there will be a USA office (in NYC?) that is for domestic issues and
> the WMF office in San Fran for the movement generally - rather like the way
> there is a Red Cross Switzerland and also the International Committee of the
> Red Cross/Crescent in Geneva. If you think "No" then that implies that
> Chapters need only be in places/roles that the WMF choses not to focus on.
> Unsurprisingly - I think "Yes".
>
> -Liam
>
> Wittylama.com/blog
> Peace, love & metadata
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I am new to this but from my impression of things- I believe the core issue
here is that the Foundation appears to be growing fast, almost too fast.
It's losing its identity, on one hand its trying to compete with the top ten
"big boys" by choosing San Francisco as its base of operations and behaving
like the other 9 - expanding into emerging markets for example. It's also
still trying to appear like a small non-profit with a limited staff and
shoestrings budget that was evident in the early phases taking on the other
big companies. The appearance seems to switch between those two identities,
there is probably nothing wrong with that, but their seems to be some lack
of vision at the helm.

My impression from the finance reports linked to earlier by someone is that
the foundation is raising more money than it actually needs, bloat would be
the most likely outcome. If its not apparent now, then it probably will be
later. My advice would be better financial planning.