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@gmail.com wrote:
I wish to respond to this specific statement:
On 3 February 2016 at 13:11, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@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
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