Hoi,
Spending and fundraising are two sides of the same coin. I remember that it
was strongly suggested that money had to go through the WMF for all kinds
of political reasons. At the time it was the Dutch chapter that received
money. Long story short, after some animosity the WMF now has the whole
field to itself. Given the animosity and lack of trust at the time I would
not do any fundraising without an accompanying say so of the money spend.
Liam why did you only react to some of the lines and not others?? Paying
for a hole in the ground that will be invested 'wisely' but without any
charm, any pointer why but a rainy day seems stupid. PS It rains a lot in
the Netherlands.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 3 February 2016 at 16:53, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I wish to respond to this specific statement:
On 3 February 2016 at 13:11, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters. The
current funding model has chapters rely totally on the vagaries of the
funding committee. Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may
want to do things different for reasons of their own. Now they cannot or
do
not because of the additional stress involved.
To take the sentences in turn:
When the WMF wants more funding, it can if it trusts its chapters.
This, I completely agree with and would like to see more of it. Now that it
seems clear that the maximum effectiveness of the centrally-coordinated
banner-centric fundraiser has been reached, and making the banner more
aggressive is only going to bring diminishing returns. We have reached
"peak-banner". Howver, what surprised me about this year's WMF annual plan
fundraising-related risk statements (here;
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan#Fundraising )
was that none of the proposed remedies included the involvement of the
Chapters.
It seems daft to me that the current model of fundraising in our movement
forces two affiliated organisations to compete for the same donors, in the
same jurisdiction, for the same money, at the same time, for the same
mission, in the same medium. No wonder donors are confused about who they
can get a tax receipt from! Rather than competing, I would LOVE to see the
WMF fundraising model invest in improving and coordinating the fundraising
capacity and efficiency for all. Rather than two groups fighting over who
gets to have a bigger slice of the available cake, the focus should be on
increasing the size of the cake in the first place, sharing it effectively
to who needs it most, and ensuring that it's a good moist cake that can
continue to be "eaten" every year rather than drying up.
The current funding model has chapters rely
totally on the vagaries of
the
> funding committee.
As an elected member of that Committee, I should point out in fact that
many chapters do not rely on funding via the Annual Plan Grant process.
Some don't use it at all because they obtain all of their funds
independently (e.g. Indonesia, Poland); some use it as a major, but not
sole, source of income (e.g. UK, France); and some access WMF-funding
through other grant processes (e.g. by combining a series of "project and
event grants" or like Spain, Estonia in this year's newly created 'simple
APG' process
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Simple/About ).
Legally they are distinct and fundamentally they may want to do things
different for reasons of their own. Now they
cannot or do not because of
the additional stress involved.
Quite the opposite. For several years now, the FDC recommendations for
applicant who come from rich countries have requested the Chapter
investigate diversifying their funding sources. All have tried, and their
success has varied depending on many factors. Some have actually been quite
successful - I refer in particular to the recently announced grant by
Wikimedia Sweden:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Connected_Open_Heritage
-Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
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