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stevertigo wrote:
> It occurs to me that when people donate money to something, it is to
> some degree with an expectation that the recipient entity grows to
> eventually gain a certain kind of financial self-sufficiency. Is this
> not also the case with Wikimedia and many charitable donations to it?

Do you mean building an endowment? Because the Foundation management
believes that donors expect their money to be spent on charitable
activities, and that reserves should only be sufficient to cover
income fluctuations over the next few years. I'm told that this is the
prevailing wisdom in the non-profit world.

However, the reserve is enough that if one income source were to stop,
others could be developed before money to pay the fundraising staff
dried up. So it's self-sufficient in that way.

-- Tim Starling


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On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Tim Starling<tstarling@wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Do you mean building an endowment? Because the Foundation management
> believes that donors expect their money to be spent on charitable
> activities, and that reserves should only be sufficient to cover
> income fluctuations over the next few years. I'm told that this is the
> prevailing wisdom in the non-profit world.
>
> However, the reserve is enough that if one income source were to stop,
> others could be developed before money to pay the fundraising staff
> dried up. So it's self-sufficient in that way.

My impression is that Wikimedia currently lives year to year on
donations, and that reserves are sufficient to pay a skeleton crew of
fundraisers. I'm sure its been discussed before though, but yes, it
would seem to make sense for Wikimedia - established as its flagship
project is - to build an endowment or trust - donation-seeded and
transparently managed of course - to cover most yearly costs.

Wikipedia alone has been several times estimated to be in the 4-5
billion dollars market worth range, so - at least now while I'm
sitting here in a free internet cafe and still wearing last night's
rose-colored beer goggles - a quarter-billion dollar long-term
endowment figure doesn't seem too infeasible to me. There are quality
assurance issues with en.wiki articles though, that might put limits
on those seed funds.

-Stevertigo

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2009/7/31 stevertigo <stvrtg@gmail.com>:
> It occurs to me that when people donate money to something, it is to
> some degree with an expectation that the recipient entity grows to
> eventually gain a certain kind of financial self-sufficiency. Is this
> not also the case with Wikimedia and many charitable donations to it?
>
> -Steven

Nope. Many charities of various sizes rely on year to year donations.
Financial self-sufficiency is mostly limited to various internet
projects that manage to replace donations with ads and merchandise.


--
geni

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geni<geniice@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nope. Many charities of various sizes rely on year to year donations.
> Financial self-sufficiency is mostly limited to various internet
> projects that manage to replace donations with ads and merchandise.

Keep in mind Geni, that Wikipedia is not so much an "internet project"
as it is an encyclopedia - the most important general information
resource on the planet - if not yet the most accurate and substantive.

The internet is just the recently-developed efficient content delivery
system - just as the wiki software is just an interface to manage the
databased content. The project transcends both wiki and internet -
which are just the tools that make it work.

- Stevertigo

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2009/7/31 stevertigo <stvrtg@gmail.com>:

> My impression is that Wikimedia currently lives year to year on
> donations, and that reserves are sufficient to pay a skeleton crew of
> fundraisers.  I'm sure its been discussed before though, but yes, it
> would seem to make sense for Wikimedia - established as its flagship
> project is - to build an endowment or trust - donation-seeded and
> transparently managed of course - to cover most yearly costs.


My understanding is it was pretty much hand-to-mouth for ages, and
that one of Sue Gardner's big projects is making it less so, precisely
as you describe - which would be why the WMF has hired quite a few
fundraisers in the past year or so. The idea being to build up a
reserve and then make that something we might be able to live on. I
can't see donations ending, though - and remember that the last one
pulled in over its target quite nicely.


- d.

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stevertigo schreef:
> It occurs to me that when people donate money to something, it is to
> some degree with an expectation that the recipient entity grows to
> eventually gain a certain kind of financial self-sufficiency. Is this
> not also the case with Wikimedia and many charitable donations to it?
>
> -Steven

Wikipedia & Co lives on donations (mainly) as a matter of choice. It is
the NPOV on the Foundation level.

Commercializing Wikipedia to earn an income is nearly a taboo subject.

An other way would be that Wikimedia is funded by some international
body, like UNESCO. The WMF budget for 2009-2010 is 9,4 million US
dollar. That is not a lot on a global scale.

I find it very normal that institutions are government funded. Probably
because from where I am from, Belgium, that is the way it is. But I know
that is not so everywhere. In some places the musea, schools, Churches,
hospitals and so need to receive donations to function. So that approach
would also not be acceptable for some because the have some problem with
using public funds for public services.

So donations it will be.

--
Contact: walter AT wikizine DOT org
Wikizine.org - news for and about the Wikimedia community


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On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Walter Vermeir<walter@wikipedia.be> wrote:

> An other way would be that Wikimedia is funded by some international
> body, like UNESCO. The WMF budget for 2009-2010 is 9,4 million US
> dollar. That is not a lot on a global scale.
> I find it very normal that institutions are government funded. Probably
> because from where I am from, Belgium, that is the way it is. But I know
> that is not so everywhere. In some places the musea, schools, Churches,
> hospitals and so need to receive donations to function. So that approach
> would also not be acceptable for some because the have some problem with
> using public funds for public services.

Interesting points. And yes, accepting government or institutional
money would probably come with conditions like improving overall
article quality, and maybe even getting rid of our "fetish" and other
destructive-sexuality / pro-depravity articles and images - something
our great many pro-"freedom" dogmatists just don't want to do.

-Stevertigo

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On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 5:52 PM, stevertigo<stvrtg@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting points. And yes, accepting government or institutional
> money would probably come with conditions like improving overall
> article quality, and maybe even getting rid of our "fetish" and other
> destructive-sexuality / pro-depravity articles and images - something
> our great many pro-"freedom" dogmatists just don't want to do.

As opposed to you, who'd just love to destroy that content to get money?

-Matthew

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On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Matthew Brown<morven@gmail.com> wrote:

> As opposed to you, who'd just love to destroy that content to get money?

Destroy what content? Recall I used the terms "fetish" and other
destructive-sexuality / pro-depravity articles and images" and
referred to people who support their ubiquitous access as "pro-freedom
dogmatists." Granted there are light, grey, and also black areas
within the overall realm of what might loosely be called "sexuality,"
and we need to deal with most of them, but thats not to say we need to
deal with every destroyed se
x attached concept as if it were a ubiquitous part of any loving
relationship. Wikipedia is censored after all. The question then is
about scale and degree.

-Stevertigo

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W dniu 31.07.2009 01:16, stevertigo pisze:
> It occurs to me that when people donate money to something, it is to
> some degree with an expectation that the recipient entity grows to
> eventually gain a certain kind of financial self-sufficiency. Is this
> not also the case with Wikimedia and many charitable donations to it?

Why do you think so? Any basis for that?

masti

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I'm pleased to accept the epithet. Pro-freedom dogmatist describes me
nicely with respect to many areas of life, including both sexuality
and access to information. I think it comes close to describing most
of the people at Wikipedia in matters of personal life and of
information.
Those who support censorship are obviously not going to be our sources
of funding.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 5:20 PM, stevertigo<stvrtg@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 11:28 PM, Matthew Brown<morven@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As opposed to you, who'd just love to destroy that content to get money?
>
> Destroy what content? Recall I used the terms "fetish" and other
> destructive-sexuality / pro-depravity articles and images" and
> referred to people who support their ubiquitous access as "pro-freedom
> dogmatists." Granted there are light, grey, and also black areas
> within the overall realm of what might loosely be called "sexuality,"
> and we need to deal with most of them, but thats not to say we need to
> deal with every destroyed se
> x attached concept as if it were a ubiquitous part of any loving
> relationship. Wikipedia is censored after all. The question then is
> about scale and degree.
>
> -Stevertigo
>

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On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM, David Goodman<dgoodmanny@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm pleased to accept the epithet.  Pro-freedom dogmatist describes me
> nicely with respect to many areas of life, including  both sexuality
> and access to information. I think it comes close to describing most
> of the people at Wikipedia in matters of personal life and of
> information.

I agree with access to information - and further concede that shining
light on dark concepts helps to destroy them. I agree also with
pro-freedom concepts, though I must ask that you concede my point that
being "dogmatic" is not as good as being intelligent. And that's not
to mention that "dogmatists" will often do more damage to their cause
than help.

> Those who support censorship are obviously not going to be our sources
> of funding.

Well we did turn down that NAMBLA funding for *some reason - was it
because they were not "pro-freedom?"

- Stevertigo

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"Dark concepts"? Really? As encyclopedists, it is rarely our job to
judge, rather we are here to document from a neutral point of view.
Please remember that "darkness" is subjective, I'm sure there are
practices you consider "dark" that I do not and probably vice-versa.

Anyhow, David Goodman said "those who support censorship are obviously
not going to be our sources of funding", NOT "we will gladly accept
funds from anybody who is opposed to censorship".

Mark

On 8/3/09, stevertigo <stvrtg@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:24 PM, David Goodman<dgoodmanny@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm pleased to accept the epithet.  Pro-freedom dogmatist describes me
>> nicely with respect to many areas of life, including  both sexuality
>> and access to information. I think it comes close to describing most
>> of the people at Wikipedia in matters of personal life and of
>> information.
>
> I agree with access to information - and further concede that shining
> light on dark concepts helps to destroy them. I agree also with
> pro-freedom concepts, though I must ask that you concede my point that
> being "dogmatic" is not as good as being intelligent. And that's not
> to mention that "dogmatists" will often do more damage to their cause
> than help.
>
>> Those who support censorship are obviously not going to be our sources
>> of funding.
>
> Well we did turn down that NAMBLA funding for *some reason - was it
> because they were not "pro-freedom?"
>
> - Stevertigo
>
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>


--
skype: node.ue

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