On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Lisa Gruwell <lgruwell(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all-
For several years, the Wikimedia movement has been having discussions
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment> about whether and when to begin
building an endowment. I put an essay up on meta recently in an attempt to
rekindle this conversation with the community. We included launching an
endowment in the FY 2015-16 annual plan.
Fantastic, this is exciting news. I am very happy to see this moving
forward, and will comment on the talk page of the endowment essay.
On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Brion Vibber <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Thinking about our social responsibility as an
investor is
probably worthwhile.
I agree, and this is a good point to bring up.
The endowment, if it's of a scale that will be effective, will have an
investment manager and perhaps even an investment committee. I think
directing that group to look at investment vehicles (i.e. mutual
funds) with certain value guidelines in mind would be appropriate,
much as we would direct them to have certain financial goals and
levels of risk in mind. Figuring out what those values should be might
not be so easy, but we could look at the investment policies of other
large socially-minded organizations for ideas.
best,
Phoebe