Hello,
2017-05-17 10:08 GMT-07:00 David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com:
Are there any activities that could have a meaningful impact if we ask donors for such amount of seed money? Are there reasons to do so?
Can we offer anything else in this world than truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment?
"Truth, free knowledge, and an open inclusive environment" is already a pretty big commitment :)
From a numbers perspective, USD/EUR 1 billion isn't that much of a stretch.
Consider that the combined funds raised by the Wikimedia Foundation [1] and Wikimedia Deutschland [2] last year amount to approximately $85 million [3]. We're currently developing a movement-wide strategy using the 2030 time horizon [4], meaning 13 years from now.
If we're very conservative and assume no increase at all in funds raised across the movement during that period, that's still a low estimate of $85 million × 13 years ≈ $1.1 billion.
Of course, I'm not advocating against having big dreams. We can certainly do a lot more if we manage to accelerate our efforts and find new ways to finance them. My point is that it's less about the numbers, and more about what we decide to focus on (what we use the money for), and how committed we are to that goal (how quickly we get it).
This thread is a useful thought exercise because it helps us think big about what we really care about. The good thing is that now is the perfect time for everyone to share their thoughts on what they care about and what they think we should focus on over the next decade. The goal of the movement strategy discussions is precisely that. [4].
So I encourage everyone to participate in those discussions and make their voice heard. Because if we put our minds to it and agree on what to use it for, getting that $/€ 1 billion isn't unrealistic at all, and we can get it long before 2030.
[1] https://annual.wikimedia.org/2016/financials.html [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Jahr esbericht_Wikimedia_Deutschland_2016.pdf [3] This is a low estimate that doesn't include funds raised by other organizations. WMF and WMDE were the easiest to find. [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017