[Foundation-l] Travel policy

[Delirium]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> I do not agree with this reasoning.  If it were legally possible (and  
> it is not) I would like to see the possibility for board members
> to get at least a small paycheck  (10,000 euros per year or similar).
>
> I think that board diversity is an important goal.  And the practical  
> reality is that serving on the board of the foundation takes up quite  
> a bit of time and energy for all of us, and that is not likely to  
> change.  Reimbursement of board expenses is quite important to  
> ensuring that people are able to serve without their service being a  
> financial burden.
>   
I agree with reimbursement of expenses being necessary to keep it so not 
only wealthy people have the opportunity to serve on the board, but 
there's always a balance there.  As I've noticed from being in academia 
(where traveling to conferences is commonplace), once you start adding 
perks as a way of helping people out, for some subset of people the 
perks start becoming the main goal---conferences are held in places like 
Tahiti and Hawaii, people try to get into certain positions just to get 
the $5k honorarium, etc.  I'm not saying any of the current board 
members would abuse these privileges, but adding too many perks to a 
position like board member is something to be careful of.

-Mark