While I understand the arguments of the fdc in the light of the policies they are bound to, what you Gerard write , really hits the core of the challenge we are facing.
What I find the most hypocritical is that the wmf and the fdc want to dump other organizations into fundraising adventures the wmf with all its professionalism tried and found unsatisfactory. when sue Gardner startet there were four income channels. First, Business development, which never gave income. Second, get money from the rich, which gave a glorious conflict of interest discussion e.g. when virgin doubled part of the 2006 fundraiser. I never heard of this one again. Third, get money from the dead aka applying for grants to other foundations. This proved expensive compared to the result, mostly giving restricted funds which then resulted in problems with reporting the success. Many of the chapters face this today. And fourth, as now only remaining cornerstone, get money from the poor, aka fundraising banners on the website.
The wmf today plays two roles, spending money and owning the website, and with it deriving the single right to collect money of it. Which is an inherent conflict of interest imo responsible for 99% of the inefficiencies we have today, including the local focus brought up by Gerard.
Rupert On Nov 26, 2014 8:05 AM, "Gerard Meijssen" gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, With all respect, these are pennies to the pound. When you have people working professionally the choice is very much: are they to do a job or are they to raise funds and do a job. To do the latter effectively it takes two because the skills involved are different.
I completely agree that it is possible to raise much more money. However, in the current model where the foundation monopolised fund raising and not doing the best possible job the amounts raised are not optimized. Currently it is not needed. The notion that all money raised should go in one pot is foolish because the reality is that several chapter opt out of the process altogether. Several of these make more money than they can comfortably handle BUT cannot share for legal reasons,
What we have is a political correct monstrosity that does not what it is supposed to do under the notions of political correctness. It would be much better when the whole process of fundraising and spending was changed in such a way that the process became more equal, A process where the chapters can more easily take up jobs they are suited for. Why for instance have developers go to the USA while they can live really comfortable in countries like India where there is an abundance of really smart and educated people ? Why not have technical projects run in India? (I know reasons why not but they are not the point).
We do not have metrics for many jobs. What we have we do not apply equally or divide on equal terms. Thanks, GerardM
NB Wikidata is underfunded
On 25 November 2014 at 21:25, Anders Wennersten mail@anderswennersten.se wrote:
As Nathan I see no contradiction.
I would feel embarrassed if WMSE had used FDC funding in their project to get more female contributes. Also as it is rather easy to get that funded from within Sweden and semi-government financing organisations
(but
not for WMF to "get" that money for general use)
But I feel quite comfortable that FDC money was used to buy the camera that was used by a volunteer in ESC 2013 to take photos that has been uploaded to Commons and used in 60+ versions and been viewed almost a million times and believe our small donors would approve of that use
Anders
Nathan skrev den 2014-11-25 20:45:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 2:38 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com
wrote:
Both of these policies are internally consistent and logical, however I
believe that they are at least partially contradictory. I believe the
FDC
is working on the best advice it has available, and I know that I have not read *all *the most recent documentation about Chapter finances. But, I would like to know if there is a policy position from the WMF Board of Trustees that clarifies what is expected of Chapters in this area.
Can you elaborate just a little on how you find them to be
contradictory?
If we assume, as I think is reasonable, that the first principle applies to funds raised by WMF and the second is directed at funds raised by individual affiliates, they don't seem to me to be in conflict. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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