Hoi, When you check out the Greenpeace website (at least here in the Netherlands) they have a powerful message that the likes of Google, Microsoft, Facebook use green energy to run the Internet. When we want to responsible, we could invest in green energy and offset the use of energy on a global scale AND make money at the same time. Thanks, GerardM
On 2 December 2015 at 16:37, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not an expert, but I like the idea of an endowment: there are many ways to put your money to good use out there, and if we will manage to do it ethically and in a transparent way, many good things can happen. Of course, "ethically" and "transparent" are crucial factors here, and a lot of work.
Aubrey
On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 4:08 PM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
A big advantage of having an endowment would be in conversations with our GLAM partners.
- An organisation funded by an endowment can more credibly make
longer-term
commitments than one that is not. This would be particularly attractive
to
some of our current and potential GLAM partners; "Entrust us with a copy
of
your images and metadata and we have the funding to keep it on the
Internet
for the foreseeable future" would be a very attractive commitment for us
to
be able to make. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment#Advantages
We don't need an endowment large enough to keep the organisation going as is, or even the pedias being still open to edit, before we can commit
that
"the media library on Wikimedia Commons has an endowment that should suffice to keep it on the web or on whatever replaces the internet for
the
foreseeable future" . In a world of budget cuts and short term thinking this would be a very positive thing for us to be able to say to museum curators and similar custodians of cultural heritage. That doesn't mean
we
commit to keeping everything in a particular image release, we might well delete some images because our policy on copyright risk will be different to theirs. But if you want to keep things in existence longterm then the strategy used by the writers of the domesday book still works. Make
several
copies and place them with organisations that intend to be around for millennia to come. An endowment could mean that we become such an organisation. I would hope that the WMF board aims for an endowment that allows us to make such a commitment.
An endowment so large that we no longer need an annual fundraiser would
be
a very much larger sum and harder in my view to justify. Why should this generation pay so that people can edit Wikipedia in 2050 without there being a fundraising banner?
> Message: 3 > Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 02:39:59 +0330 > From: Mardetanha <mardetanha.wiki@gmail.com> > To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Endowment Discussion > Message-ID: > <CAN6NyNrimRB0zv8X2qDXt==4v-gn88bt09CE7o= > f1sVhifu7qA@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > do we have any definite number that if reach then we would not any > fundraiser again in the future (I really would like to to see WMF inthe
position in which, it would not need yearly fundraiser to stand up and
keep
running ) , like 100 M mentioned in the meta page ?
Mardetanha
On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 4:22 PM, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 12:09 PM, Lisa Gruwell <
lgruwell@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@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
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Message: 4 Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 18:25:20 -0500 From: Risker risker.wp@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Endowment Discussion Message-ID: <CAPXs8yTkw4scDz6D_rDZJ= RF+1dvsWN_Q6bUsM+kzrdKk42X7Q@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Heh. $100 million USD is just a little more than is raised (and spent)
on
an annual basis throughout all the Wiki-chapters and WMF, including
grants
that are separate from direct fundraising. It *might* last 5-7 years
of
bare-bones "keeping the lights on only" functions, but that would mean
no
software upgrades (except what volunteers do in accord with their own desire as opposed to actual need), no community support, no funds to chapters, no Wikimania or hackathons or other conferences, no support
for
free-as-in-libre work, and very little assurance that if there were
major
changes in the most commonly used platforms, the WMF would be able to
keep
up-to-date with this.
This is going to take a fair amount of thinking through, and needs to include our thinking about what we would consider the minimal operating functions of the project, and how long it would need to be able to proceed.
Risker/Anne
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