[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> My team here at the foundation has begun to do a little leg work so that we
> are ready to go, if the Board should decide to pursue an endowment.  We
> have begun to "tip our toes" into the world of planned giving and have had
> conversations with some of our major donors about it.  At this point, the
> planned gifts are for general support, but our strategy would likely be to
> direct these types of gifts to an endowment, if we go that route.  We also
> set up a simple page on the foundation site about planned giving or "Legacy
> Gifts," as we are calling it.
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Legacy_Gift
>
> So far, the conversations have gone well.  There is an interesting
> challenge in that donors have to be convinced that the organization is
> going to be relevant in 20 or 30 years (or in the case of an endowment –
> forever).  I'd love to hear your best arguments for why that this true. (Or
> maybe we could devote some thinking to this during the next strategic
> planning process).
>
> Best,
> Lisa Gruwell


Thanks Lisa -- now *that's* a good question :) I added a quick section to
the endowment page, if people want to discuss there:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment#Will_we_be_relevant_in....3F

-- phoebe