Mailing List Archive

On 6/12/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> 1 Are we allowed to solicit funds anywhere? Not quite as simple as you may
> think.

I remember that we've had those discussions before about the
fundraising page and the way it should be worded. In recent fund
drives, however, we've become more aggressive, with a personal appeal
from Jimmy, slogans like "Help empower the world", and so on. We still
have a disclaimer that this does not constitute a solicitation, but is
that sufficient? Are we currently registered in any U.S. state other
than Florida for solicitation of funds? If not, would such a
registration make sense?

> 2 What is the cost of a direct mailing? Try multiplying postage costs by 1000s,
> add printing costs, then add hourly rates. We can either do the mailing in-house
> (at which point you must consider whether it is worth paying my salary to have
> me stuff envelopes) or a service (which adds to the costs).

How about trying to decentralize the "licking envelopes" part? Allow a
large number of reasonably trusted volunteers to send "thank you"
notes (add some legal disclaimer about the sender not being a
Wikimedia employee etc. if necessary). Compensate them for postage,
but not for time. I'm not sure this is a viable model, but it may be
worth trying out.

> 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes

That's a good point. How good are we presently at complying with these
regulations, e.g. notifying people who make >$200 donations outside
regular fund drives? Does the applicable law already allow for the use
of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?

Erik
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On 6/12/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> All of this fundraising talk is very nice and dandy, but it sounds like plans for the local glee club, not an international foundation. No one has yet mentioned any of the legal/accounting requirements of fundraising, the costs, or the actual manhours involved.

How was this handled in the past? Did it go well? What were the
problems? Can someone give a report?

Do you have any idea where one could go about looking up the
legal/accounting requirements of fundraising, or is this a first step
that needs to be taken?

> 1 Are we allowed to solicit funds anywhere? Not quite as simple as you may think.
>
I would think under US law that this is allowed, but obviously a
lawyer needs to be contacted about that. I'd suggest taking that to
juriwiki. Maybe you or someone else could give a report, since many
of us don't have access to that list.

> 2 What is the cost of a direct mailing? Try multiplying postage costs by 1000s, add printing costs, then add hourly rates. We can either do the mailing in-house (at which point you must consider whether it is worth paying my salary to have me stuff envelopes) or a service (which adds to the costs).
>
It certainly wouldn't make sense to have you stuff the envelopes. Is
direct mailing definitely something that's going to be done?

> 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes, Any donor who gives over $200 must receive written notification for IRS purposes. This includes multiple donations--for instance, if someone gives $20 a month over a period of a year, they will require such notification. That's a lot of donors to keep track of
>
Are you sure this isn't just a requirement in order for the donation
to be tax deductible? Can you give a cite so we can look at this? I
know there is a requirement that cash donations over $250, including
over the course of a year, must be substantiated in order to be
deductible, but I always thought that the burden was on the donor to
provide correct contact information. It's certainly *possible*, for
instance, for me to put $10 a week in cash into the church basket
without the church knowing to give me a written receipt. It just
wouldn't be fully deductible in that case.

> 4 Someone suggested that the committee "oversee" the sending of proper thanks, etc. Note that the average donation last year was $25 and we raised about half a million, i.e., 20,000 thank you notes. While it is good of you to volunteer overseeing me sending them out, it would be much more helpful if you would actually lick the envelopes.
>
It's good that you pointed this out. The committee should certainly
consider making sure there are enough volunteers to handle such a
task. And someone should buy you one of those sponge things so that
Wikimedia doesn't have to pay for your worker's comp when you get
poisoned by envelope glue :).

> These are just a few items off the top of my head. Note that donations come via Paypal, Moneybookers, direct deposit to either of two accounts (US and Europe), and checks mailed to the office. A percentage of our donors are repeats. Proper records must be kept for all donations for accounting purposes or else we risk losing our tax-free status, yet no one has considered GAAP for not-for-profits. Hey, guys, welcome to the real world.
>
> Danny

Geez, someone should certainly be considering this. Isn't this the
job of mav and/or the treasurer?

If no one is considering this, I'd say call three or more CPAs right
now and get quotes. And get the job listings ready - you need a
bookkeeper.

Anthony
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On 6/13/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> On 6/12/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> > 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes, Any donor who gives over $200 must receive written notification for IRS purposes. This includes multiple donations--for instance, if someone gives $20 a month over a period of a year, they will require such notification. That's a lot of donors to keep track of
> >
> Are you sure this isn't just a requirement in order for the donation
> to be tax deductible? Can you give a cite so we can look at this? I
> know there is a requirement that cash donations over $250, including
> over the course of a year, must be substantiated in order to be
> deductible, but I always thought that the burden was on the donor to
> provide correct contact information. It's certainly *possible*, for
> instance, for me to put $10 a week in cash into the church basket
> without the church knowing to give me a written receipt. It just
> wouldn't be fully deductible in that case.
>
See publication 1771 for more on this. Now I don't know if this was
what you were talking about, but according to the publication:

"An organization which does not acknowledge a contribution incurs no
penalty; but, without a written acknowledgement, the donor cannot
claim the tax deduction."

The publication also says that "An organization can provide the
acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to the
donor."

It also says "Separate contributions will not be aggregated. An
example of this would be weekly offerings to a donor's church of less
than $250, even though the donor's annual total contributions are $250
or more." I guess I was mistaken that such donations wouldn't be
fully deductible.

Note that none of this applies to quid-pro-quo donations, which have a
different set of rules. So if you're giving cafe-press T-shirts to
donors, and these shirts don't meet the "token exception", then you
have to play by different rules.

Obviously that whole publication should be read. It outlines the
exact requirements of the acknowledgement letter, which I won't copy
here.
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--- Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:
> How about trying to decentralize the "licking envelopes" part? Allow a
> large number of reasonably trusted volunteers to send "thank you"
> notes (add some legal disclaimer about the sender not being a
> Wikimedia employee etc. if necessary). Compensate them for postage,
> but not for time. I'm not sure this is a viable model, but it may be
> worth trying out.

Getting that to work should be easy enough. All we really need are a number of trusted people
willing to do the work. However, getting this wrong could have enough of a penalty to warrant an
in-office solution that periodically uses a limited number of supervised volunteers who can travel
to the St Pete office. We have a meet-up each year in St Petersburg in mid-January and the
deadline to get notifications out for the previous calendar year is at the end of January. I’m
sure we could get some trusted people who would already be in St Pete for the meet-up to help with
a mailing.

> > 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes
>
> That's a good point. How good are we presently at complying with these
> regulations, e.g. notifying people who make >$200 donations outside
> regular fund drives?

This has already been taken care of for the 2005 tax season.

> Does the applicable law already allow for the use
> of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?

It must be written and include some other stuff not on normal PayPal or MoneyBookers payment
confirmation emails (which reminds, me - I need contact our PayPal rep to find out how to change
what those emails say).
See
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html#d0e3485

-- mav


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On 6/13/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Does the applicable law already allow for the use
> > of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?
>
> It must be written and include some other stuff not on normal PayPal or MoneyBookers payment
> confirmation emails (which reminds, me - I need contact our PayPal rep to find out how to change
> what those emails say).
> See
> http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html#d0e3485
>
> -- mav
>
Just to clarify what mav said, emails are considered "written"
communications. From Publication 1771: "An organization can provide
the acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to
the donor."

Anthony
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I think this raises some important questions. I am giving only partial
answers right now, but they should be some indication of the direction, at least
as I see it.

In a message dated 6/13/2006 6:21:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
eloquence@gmail.com writes:

On 6/12/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> 1 Are we allowed to solicit funds anywhere? Not quite as simple as you may
> think.

I remember that we've had those discussions before about the
fundraising page and the way it should be worded. In recent fund
drives, however, we've become more aggressive, with a personal appeal
from Jimmy, slogans like "Help empower the world", and so on. We still
have a disclaimer that this does not constitute a solicitation, but is
that sufficient? Are we currently registered in any U.S. state other
than Florida for solicitation of funds? If not, would such a
registration make sense?
Yes, however, I would hope that a genuine fundraising campaign would extend
beyond placing a banner on our websites. It would involve solicitation and,
especially, donor cultivation, especially of people making large gifts. The
registration process to do this outside of Florida is complicated. It is well
underway, but requires time and oversight, as it must be done annually in each
state individually.





> 2 What is the cost of a direct mailing? Try multiplying postage costs by
1000s,
> add printing costs, then add hourly rates. We can either do the mailing
in-house
> (at which point you must consider whether it is worth paying my salary to
have
> me stuff envelopes) or a service (which adds to the costs).

How about trying to decentralize the "licking envelopes" part? Allow a
large number of reasonably trusted volunteers to send "thank you"
notes (add some legal disclaimer about the sender not being a
Wikimedia employee etc. if necessary). Compensate them for postage,
but not for time. I'm not sure this is a viable model, but it may be
worth trying out.

I agree that this may not be a viable model but worth trying out. Note that
in an earlier email, I asked for volunteers and specifically mentioned this.
So far one person has volunteered. Regardless, there are some other issues
taht should be considered, such as the uniformity of the thank you note. This
would mean shipping cards, letters, printed envelopes, and what have you to
people--another cost that should be considered. There is also the issue of
oversight. I can imagine people pushing off the tedious stuffing of envelopes for
any number of valid reasons. What assurance do we have that the proper
mailings get sent. Note that I do not believe these problems are
insurmountable--just that they should be considered. There are also other options, such as
paying a commercial service to do this, however, this is an added expense.


> 3 Are there any mails that we are required to send by law? Yes

That's a good point. How good are we presently at complying with these
regulations, e.g. notifying people who make >$200 donations outside
regular fund drives? Does the applicable law already allow for the use
of digitally signed e-mails, or do we have to send snail mail?
To date, this has been done in time. I have even instituted a policy that a
letter is now sent immediately upon receipt by snail mail of any gift over
$200. I also have PDFs of each letter for our own records. One practical thing
to note is that the bulk of larger donations is sent via bank transfer or
personal check mailed to the office, not by Paypal. As such, even if we were
able to send such letters electronically (and I was under the impression that
we could not), the only contact information we often have is a snail mail
address, so the question is moot.

Danny




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On 6/14/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
> Yes, however, I would hope that a genuine fundraising campaign would extend
> beyond placing a banner on our websites. It would involve solicitation and,
> especially, donor cultivation, especially of people making large gifts. The
> registration process to do this outside of Florida is complicated. It is well
> underway, but requires time and oversight, as it must be done annually in each
> state individually.

Are there ways in which the community or the fundraising committee
could help with that process?

> I agree that this may not be a viable model but worth trying out. Note that
> in an earlier email, I asked for volunteers and specifically mentioned this.
> So far one person has volunteered.

Prod, prod, prod! :-) Let's make a page on Meta for people to sign up
and indicate their interests to do this for particular countries, and
then announce it widely (most Wikimedians don't read foundation-l).
But before we do this, I would like to clearly distinguish between the
_legal_ requirements and what we _want_ to do. Anthony said:

> Just to clarify what mav said, emails are considered "written"
> communications. From Publication 1771: "An organization can provide
> the acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to
> the donor."

Is that correct? What is Brad's opinion on the legal requirements? In
some EU countries, we have also gradually introduced digital
signatures as a valid definition of "written communications". I would
like to be absolutely clear on what we have to do. If we can use
digitally signed e-mails, we should do so, even if it requires an
initial investment in know-how and a certificate.

Written thank you notes and Christmas cards are a good idea to
maintain donor relations, of course. But if we can keep the legal
requirements separate, we might be able to more efficiently
decentralize our communications by not burdening our volunteers with
unnecessary legal complexity -- we could send out standard e-mails
_and_ creative volunteer greetings from around the globe. This would
also make the checking whether a letter has been sent less critical.
And let's face it -- getting a personal greeting from a Wikimedian is
cool in its own special way.

> Regardless, there are some other issues
> taht should be considered, such as the uniformity of the thank you note. This
> would mean shipping cards, letters, printed envelopes, and what have you to
> people--another cost that should be considered.

Well, I'm not sure how uniform they have to be given the above. The
legally required communications should be standardized, of course.

Erik
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On 6/13/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:
> But before we do this, I would like to clearly distinguish between the
> _legal_ requirements and what we _want_ to do. Anthony said:
>
> > Just to clarify what mav said, emails are considered "written"
> > communications. From Publication 1771: "An organization can provide
> > the acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to
> > the donor."
>
> Is that correct? What is Brad's opinion on the legal requirements? In
> some EU countries, we have also gradually introduced digital
> signatures as a valid definition of "written communications". I would
> like to be absolutely clear on what we have to do. If we can use
> digitally signed e-mails, we should do so, even if it requires an
> initial investment in know-how and a certificate.
>
Publication 1771 is available at
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1771.pdf if anyone wants to read it.
And to clarify, there's no requirement for the email to be digitally
signed.

Of course, if you have the person's address, I agree the point is
rather moot. Even if it costs $1 to send a letter to someone donating
$250, that's only four tenths of one percent. Email would be more
useful if there are donors making that size donation who don't want to
release their address.

I suppose it might cost more than $1 to send a letter outside the
United States, but then again how many people living outside the
United States donate more than $250 to Wikimedia and then file a US
tax return where they itemize deductions? Probably 0.

Anthony
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--- Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> > It must be written and include some other stuff not on normal PayPal or MoneyBookers payment
> > confirmation emails (which reminds, me - I need contact our PayPal rep to find out how to
> > change what those emails say).
> > See
> > http://www.irs.gov/publications/p526/ar02.html#d0e3485
> >
> > -- mav
> >
> Just to clarify what mav said, emails are considered "written"
> communications. From Publication 1771: "An organization can provide
> the acknowledgment electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to
> the donor."

Anthony is correct. My point though, is that I'm pretty sure that the confirmation emails sent by
PayPal and MoneyBookers do not clearly provide all the information needed for donors donating $250
or more. Most importantly, they do not explicitly declare whether or not we gave the donor "any
goods or services as a result of [the donor's] contribution (other than certain token items and
membership benefits)."

Giving people gifts for donating would complicate that equation. The current system simply can't
handle that can of tracking. Something I'd like the fundcom to tackle. We need people familiar
with php, HTML and/or MySQL to work that out.

Sign up at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_committee

-- mav

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On 6/13/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Giving people gifts for donating would complicate that equation. The current system simply can't
> handle that can of tracking. Something I'd like the fundcom to tackle. We need people familiar
> with php, HTML and/or MySQL to work that out.

There are several good software packages out there for donor
management. Unfortunately, none of them are open source. There are
no such packages in the open source world (while there is a
rudimentary open source CRM solution, it is primitive at best and is
not specifically designed for the needs of a non-profit). Our problem
is that we need a solution now, today, not in the two to three years
(if ever) it would take for the open source community to develop such
a package.

Perhaps the Foundation would care to hire a few developers to write
such a package; if they're not up for that, I'd strongly urge them to
consider using one of the commercial packages, ideological differences
about nonfree software aside. (Hey, we use Cisco hardware, which runs
on the very proprietary IOS, and I suspect you'll find that a majority
of Wikimedia contributors run either MacOS or Windows, neither of
which is free either. We have no real claim to ideological purity.)

Kelly
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> On 6/13/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But before we do this, I would like to clearly distinguish between the
>> _legal_ requirements and what we _want_ to do. Anthony said:
>>
>>
>>> Just to clarify what mav said, emails are considered "written"
>>> communications. From Publication 1771: "An organization can provide
>>> the acknowledgement electronically, such as by an e-mail addressed to
>>> the donor."
>>>
>> Is that correct? What is Brad's opinion on the legal requirements? In
>> some EU countries, we have also gradually introduced digital
>> signatures as a valid definition of "written communications". I would
>> like to be absolutely clear on what we have to do. If we can use
>> digitally signed e-mails, we should do so, even if it requires an
>> initial investment in know-how and a certificate.
>>
>>
> Publication 1771 is available at
> http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1771.pdf if anyone wants to read it.
> And to clarify, there's no requirement for the email to be digitally
> signed.
>
> Of course, if you have the person's address, I agree the point is
> rather moot. Even if it costs $1 to send a letter to someone donating
> $250, that's only four tenths of one percent. Email would be more
> useful if there are donors making that size donation who don't want to
> release their address.
>
> I suppose it might cost more than $1 to send a letter outside the
> United States, but then again how many people living outside the
> United States donate more than $250 to Wikimedia and then file a US
> tax return where they itemize deductions? Probably 0.
>
> Anthony
How,
I do not know how you arrive at that $1. It typically is substantially
more. It is not only postage, you are sending something that is printed,
there is the handling, there is a certain percentage that returns. You
do want to maintain your database and register those RTS. You then have
to consider how to follow up, do you want to find out what is wrong with
the address. On average it costs over $5 to handle a RTS. When you do
not handle this well, you get yourself on the wrong side of
organisations that monitor charities that ask for money. This can cost
you your license in the first place but worse, it can give a
organisation a bad name.

Once you decide to do professional marketing, you have to ensure that
you maintain your database. This should mean that you commit to doing it
well. The benefits can be huge and given our brand recognition it is
likely to be huge. But please do this well or do not do it all.
Thanks,
GerardM
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On 6/14/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > Of course, if you have the person's address, I agree the point is
> > rather moot. Even if it costs $1 to send a letter to someone donating
> > $250, that's only four tenths of one percent. Email would be more
> > useful if there are donors making that size donation who don't want to
> > release their address.
> >
> > I suppose it might cost more than $1 to send a letter outside the
> > United States, but then again how many people living outside the
> > United States donate more than $250 to Wikimedia and then file a US
> > tax return where they itemize deductions? Probably 0.
> >
> > Anthony
> How,
> I do not know how you arrive at that $1. It typically is substantially
> more. It is not only postage, you are sending something that is printed,
> there is the handling, there is a certain percentage that returns. You
> do want to maintain your database and register those RTS. You then have
> to consider how to follow up, do you want to find out what is wrong with
> the address. On average it costs over $5 to handle a RTS.

I don't know how you arrive at $5, but that's only for letters that
are returned to the sender. What about the others, and what
percentage is generally returned to the sender?

And what if you just want to ignore those letters that are returned to
the sender?

Let's think about 1000 letters. High quality business paper should be
less than $50. Add $50 more for toner. Envelopes are $10. Labels
are $10. A paper folder is $100 (should last a lot longer than 1000
letters, though). That makes $220 to produce the letters. Add in
$390 for postage, which assumes you don't have the volume to send at
the nonprofit rate. Now let's assume you can't get volunteer labor,
which is probably untrue considering there are probably enough
Wikipedians just in the Tampa Bay area willing to help. At 50 letters
an hour (slow) and $10/hour (expensive) that's $200. Comes out to
$810, so at that volume with those assumptions we're still under
$1/letter with about 20% to spare.

If volume goes down price goes up, but take the volume under 500
letters or so and it's something Danny could do by himself in a couple
days.

Now I assume the foundation already has a decent laser printer. Am I
wrong here? And I was neglecting the cost of keeping the database,
because that's something that has to be done anyway.

> When you do
> not handle this well, you get yourself on the wrong side of
> organisations that monitor charities that ask for money. This can cost
> you your license in the first place but worse, it can give a
> organisation a bad name.
>
What license is going to be lost by making what types of mistakes?

> Once you decide to do professional marketing, you have to ensure that
> you maintain your database. This should mean that you commit to doing it
> well. The benefits can be huge and given our brand recognition it is
> likely to be huge. But please do this well or do not do it all.
> Thanks,
> GerardM

I wasn't talking about professional marketing, I was talking about the
cost to send letters to people who donated at least $250.

If it really does cost $5/letter, you could always tell people to
include an extra $5 if they want a written confirmation letter. But I
don't see where you're getting this figure.

Anthony
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On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> Now let's assume you can't get volunteer labor,
> which is probably untrue considering there are probably enough
> Wikipedians just in the Tampa Bay area willing to help.

In Tampa bay?

Do you think that just one person working for a few hours is enough to
stuff 1000 envelopes?
If not, I don't know what you're thinking... because pretty much not
more than number of Tampa localers showed up at the last meetup there,
and .. well.. A meetup isn't work.

You seem have odd notions about how much work, beyond babysitting
their pet article and windbagging on lists, that a majority of our
volunteers are willing to perform.
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On 6/14/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> > Now let's assume you can't get volunteer labor,
> > which is probably untrue considering there are probably enough
> > Wikipedians just in the Tampa Bay area willing to help.
>
> In Tampa bay?
>
In the Tampa Bay area, say a 50 mile radius of the main office. Or
say the USF campus, to make it even simpler.

> Do you think that just one person working for a few hours is enough to
> stuff 1000 envelopes?

I've seen 2000 envelopes stuffed by 3 people in a few hours. But that
was where the content of all the envelopes was identical, which is a
lot easier.

As I said, I think 50 envelopes per person-hour is a slow estimate.
That'd be 5 people for 4 hours.

> If not, I don't know what you're thinking... because pretty much not
> more than number of Tampa localers showed up at the last meetup there,
> and .. well.. A meetup isn't work.
>
I'd be more likely to show up at a meeting where something important
is going to be accomplished than to show up at a meetup where people
hang out and socialize.

> You seem have odd notions about how much work, beyond babysitting
> their pet article and windbagging on lists, that a majority of our
> volunteers are willing to perform.

We're not talking about a majority of volunteers, just a handful.

Anthony
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On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> In the Tampa Bay area, say a 50 mile radius of the main office. Or
> say the USF campus, to make it even simpler.

Actually, that's a great idea. Hit up some college or university
campus, find a group of 5-10 people, tell 'em you'll give 'em a few
bucks (20-40... depending on how many you recruit) for stuffing
envelopes for WMF for a couple of hours. Most college kids are
strapped for cash and would eagerly participate. While the speed of
the work may not be that of a professional company, it would be
cheaper, and perhaps even spark interest in Wikimedia projects if the
university newspaper ran a little story about students helping out WMF
(like we need more university student contributors 8^ ) ). I don't
know, just throwing out some thoughts. --LV
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On 6/14/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> > In the Tampa Bay area, say a 50 mile radius of the main office. Or
> > say the USF campus, to make it even simpler.
>
> Actually, that's a great idea. Hit up some college or university
> campus, find a group of 5-10 people, tell 'em you'll give 'em a few
> bucks (20-40... depending on how many you recruit) for stuffing
> envelopes for WMF for a couple of hours. Most college kids are
> strapped for cash and would eagerly participate. While the speed of
> the work may not be that of a professional company, it would be
> cheaper, and perhaps even spark interest in Wikimedia projects if the
> university newspaper ran a little story about students helping out WMF
> (like we need more university student contributors 8^ ) ). I don't
> know, just throwing out some thoughts. --LV

If you're going to go that route, you should at least pay minimum
wage. I rounded up to $10/hour in my estimate.

Of course I think you could probably get 5-10 people from the USF
campus just by offering them free pizza and soda and telling them it's
for a good cause. And more than 5 people is probably too much unless
we're talking about a volume much greater than 1000. Those paper
folding machines are an enormous time-saver, and just one inexpensive
one probably isn't going to support more than 5 workers.

Anthony
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On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> If you're going to go that route, you should at least pay minimum
> wage. I rounded up to $10/hour in my estimate.
>
> Of course I think you could probably get 5-10 people from the USF
> campus just by offering them free pizza and soda and telling them it's
> for a good cause. And more than 5 people is probably too much unless
> we're talking about a volume much greater than 1000. Those paper
> folding machines are an enormous time-saver, and just one inexpensive
> one probably isn't going to support more than 5 workers.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a stipend in exchange for
helping out a good cause (rather than an hourly wage... as I have
found, that _sometimes_ leads to people dragging out the work). Or do
pizza and soda with a small cash "prize" of like 25 bucks for the one
who stuffs the most. I just ran by the Office Depot website and priced
a few decent looking paper folders in the range of USD 150-1500 that
fold between 1800 and 10,300 pages an hour. Just in case you cared.
Although, my guess is that these could be found cheaper if you know
who to go to (or have some connections) ;-) --LV
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On 6/14/06, Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
> > If you're going to go that route, you should at least pay minimum
> > wage. I rounded up to $10/hour in my estimate.
> >
> > Of course I think you could probably get 5-10 people from the USF
> > campus just by offering them free pizza and soda and telling them it's
> > for a good cause. And more than 5 people is probably too much unless
> > we're talking about a volume much greater than 1000. Those paper
> > folding machines are an enormous time-saver, and just one inexpensive
> > one probably isn't going to support more than 5 workers.
>
> Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a stipend in exchange for
> helping out a good cause (rather than an hourly wage... as I have
> found, that _sometimes_ leads to people dragging out the work). Or do
> pizza and soda with a small cash "prize" of like 25 bucks for the one
> who stuffs the most.

I'm not very familiar with minimum wage law, so I don't know whether
or not calling it a stipend would work. I do hate minimum wage laws
because of exactly this type of situation, though. And,
unfortunately, Florida did just pass one recently.

> I just ran by the Office Depot website and priced
> a few decent looking paper folders in the range of USD 150-1500 that
> fold between 1800 and 10,300 pages an hour. Just in case you cared.
> Although, my guess is that these could be found cheaper if you know
> who to go to (or have some connections) ;-) --LV

That price range sounds about right (a little on the high side, but
not much). The thing you have to remember though is that these
letters are almost surely going to be personalized. So if you plan on
processing them first and then stuffing them later, you have to
consider how you're going to maintain order.

As for connections, I live in Tampa and I *might* be able to borrow
one of these for a couple days. Let me know when and if there are
definite plans as to when this is going to be done.

These machines really are a time saver. Back when I was a volunteer
firefighter we used to fold our donation request letters manually, and
it took a *lot* longer.

Anthony
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--- Lord Voldemort <lordbishopvoldemort@gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, that's a great idea. Hit up some college or university
> campus, find a group of 5-10 people, tell 'em you'll give 'em a few
> bucks (20-40... depending on how many you recruit) for stuffing
> envelopes for WMF for a couple of hours. Most college kids are
> strapped for cash and would eagerly participate. While the speed of
> the work may not be that of a professional company, it would be
> cheaper, and perhaps even spark interest in Wikimedia projects if the
> university newspaper ran a little story about students helping out WMF
> (like we need more university student contributors 8^ ) ). I don't
> know, just throwing out some thoughts. –LV

Which reminds me - I have a standing offer from a professor at a university in the Tampa area to
have his students help in just such an effort. All I think we would be expected to give the
students is lunch, refreshments and maybe a ride.

-- mav


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Gregory Maxwell wrote:

>You seem have odd notions about how much work, beyond babysitting
>their pet article and windbagging on lists, that a majority of our
>volunteers are willing to perform.
>_______________________________________________
>
>
Part of the problem attracting interest in what others choose to define
as "work" is this mindset of telling others to shut up and get back to
work or attempting to shut down information flow by calling others
"windbags" or implying if they will not volunteer for your personally
defined most important task they should minimize the impact on the
mailing list.

This was chanted early and often by our lead editors and founding
members. I arrived at 39k and counting. Now the English wikipedia
has well over a million articles and counting and a few people on this
list, which as I understand it is not the wikipedia english list, are
presenting issues around the quality of articles throughout the english
Wikipedia as a possibly generic problem with wiki data products built by
internet volunteers. Shutting up and adding another article to the pile
will not resolve this or many other issues which the Wikimedia
Foundation is experiencing.

Feel free to ignore my posts. It will reduce the wind for the next few
days, weeks, or months substantially.

I intend to particpate heavily in this list until it becomes time to
initialize wikiversity and I shall vamoose for a while until in my
perception it becomes advantageous to my pet project with wikiversity to
show up and absorb some more information regarding the politics,
organization, and procedures that seem to be impacting my preferred
tasks in less than optimal ways.

I know little of your background but I will share with you in case it
has escaped your attention that even when you are paying people it is
usually counter productive to "yell shut up and get back to work" unless
you are running an old style sweatshop or have very specific well
defined tasks and plenty of supervisors standing around playing gestapo.

Modern business practice in the U.S. has generally concluded the
getstapo overhead is too high to remain competitive. Perhaps this is
true even when not paying some or most of the work force?

Have a nice day.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Lord Voldemort wrote:

>On 6/14/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal@inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>In the Tampa Bay area, say a 50 mile radius of the main office. Or
>>say the USF campus, to make it even simpler.
>>
>>
>
>Actually, that's a great idea. Hit up some college or university
>campus, find a group of 5-10 people, tell 'em you'll give 'em a few
>bucks (20-40... depending on how many you recruit) for stuffing
>envelopes for WMF for a couple of hours. Most college kids are
>strapped for cash and would eagerly participate. While the speed of
>the work may not be that of a professional company, it would be
>cheaper, and perhaps even spark interest in Wikimedia projects if the
>university newspaper ran a little story about students helping out WMF
>(like we need more university student contributors 8^ ) ). I don't
>know, just throwing out some thoughts. --LV
>_______________________________________________
>
>

Better check out local labor laws. It is my understanding that
occasionally tasks may be completed like this but if it becomes a
regular thing then it is frowned upon as avoiding minimum wage laws and
there can be substantial fines.

regards,
lazyquasar

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Michael R. Irwin wrote:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>
>
>>You seem have odd notions about how much work, beyond babysitting
>>their pet article and windbagging on lists, that a majority of our
>>volunteers are willing to perform.
>>_______________________________________________
>>
>>
>
> Part of the problem attracting interest in what others choose to define
> as "work" is this mindset of telling others to shut up and get back to
> work or attempting to shut down information flow by calling others
> "windbags" or implying if they will not volunteer for your personally
> defined most important task they should minimize the impact on the
> mailing list.
>
> This was chanted early and often by our lead editors and founding
> members. I arrived at 39k and counting. Now the English wikipedia
> has well over a million articles and counting and a few people on this
> list, which as I understand it is not the wikipedia english list, are
> presenting issues around the quality of articles throughout the english
> Wikipedia as a possibly generic problem with wiki data products built by
> internet volunteers. Shutting up and adding another article to the pile
> will not resolve this or many other issues which the Wikimedia
> Foundation is experiencing.
>
> Feel free to ignore my posts. It will reduce the wind for the next few
> days, weeks, or months substantially.
>
> I intend to particpate heavily in this list until it becomes time to
> initialize wikiversity and I shall vamoose for a while until in my
> perception it becomes advantageous to my pet project with wikiversity to
> show up and absorb some more information regarding the politics,
> organization, and procedures that seem to be impacting my preferred
> tasks in less than optimal ways.
>
> I know little of your background but I will share with you in case it
> has escaped your attention that even when you are paying people it is
> usually counter productive to "yell shut up and get back to work" unless
> you are running an old style sweatshop or have very specific well
> defined tasks and plenty of supervisors standing around playing gestapo.
>
> Modern business practice in the U.S. has generally concluded the
> getstapo overhead is too high to remain competitive. Perhaps this is
> true even when not paying some or most of the work force?
>
> Have a nice day.
>
> regards,
> lazyquasar


Oh, we reached the Godwin point ;-)
Well, whilst I certainly do not agree with all your points lazyquasar, I
found many insightful comments in your emails. I do not ignore your posts.

Ant

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Stop writing to me !
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anthony DiPierro" <wikilegal@inbox.org>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fundraising ideas - bursting the bubble


> On 6/14/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Anthony DiPierro wrote:
> > > Of course, if you have the person's address, I agree the point is
> > > rather moot. Even if it costs $1 to send a letter to someone donating
> > > $250, that's only four tenths of one percent. Email would be more
> > > useful if there are donors making that size donation who don't want to
> > > release their address.
> > >
> > > I suppose it might cost more than $1 to send a letter outside the
> > > United States, but then again how many people living outside the
> > > United States donate more than $250 to Wikimedia and then file a US
> > > tax return where they itemize deductions? Probably 0.
> > >
> > > Anthony
> > How,
> > I do not know how you arrive at that $1. It typically is substantially
> > more. It is not only postage, you are sending something that is printed,
> > there is the handling, there is a certain percentage that returns. You
> > do want to maintain your database and register those RTS. You then have
> > to consider how to follow up, do you want to find out what is wrong with
> > the address. On average it costs over $5 to handle a RTS.
>
> I don't know how you arrive at $5, but that's only for letters that
> are returned to the sender. What about the others, and what
> percentage is generally returned to the sender?
>
> And what if you just want to ignore those letters that are returned to
> the sender?
>
> Let's think about 1000 letters. High quality business paper should be
> less than $50. Add $50 more for toner. Envelopes are $10. Labels
> are $10. A paper folder is $100 (should last a lot longer than 1000
> letters, though). That makes $220 to produce the letters. Add in
> $390 for postage, which assumes you don't have the volume to send at
> the nonprofit rate. Now let's assume you can't get volunteer labor,
> which is probably untrue considering there are probably enough
> Wikipedians just in the Tampa Bay area willing to help. At 50 letters
> an hour (slow) and $10/hour (expensive) that's $200. Comes out to
> $810, so at that volume with those assumptions we're still under
> $1/letter with about 20% to spare.
>
> If volume goes down price goes up, but take the volume under 500
> letters or so and it's something Danny could do by himself in a couple
> days.
>
> Now I assume the foundation already has a decent laser printer. Am I
> wrong here? And I was neglecting the cost of keeping the database,
> because that's something that has to be done anyway.
>
> > When you do
> > not handle this well, you get yourself on the wrong side of
> > organisations that monitor charities that ask for money. This can cost
> > you your license in the first place but worse, it can give a
> > organisation a bad name.
> >
> What license is going to be lost by making what types of mistakes?
>
> > Once you decide to do professional marketing, you have to ensure that
> > you maintain your database. This should mean that you commit to doing it
> > well. The benefits can be huge and given our brand recognition it is
> > likely to be huge. But please do this well or do not do it all.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
>
> I wasn't talking about professional marketing, I was talking about the
> cost to send letters to people who donated at least $250.
>
> If it really does cost $5/letter, you could always tell people to
> include an extra $5 if they want a written confirmation letter. But I
> don't see where you're getting this figure.
>
> Anthony
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:

>On 6/12/06, daniwo59@aol.com <daniwo59@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>>4 Someone suggested that the committee "oversee" the sending of proper thanks, etc. Note that the average donation last year was $25 and we raised about half a million, i.e., 20,000 thank you notes. While it is good of you to volunteer overseeing me sending them out, it would be much more helpful if you would actually lick the envelopes.
>>
>>
>It's good that you pointed this out. The committee should certainly
>consider making sure there are enough volunteers to handle such a
>task. And someone should buy you one of those sponge things so that
>Wikimedia doesn't have to pay for your worker's comp when you get
>poisoned by envelope glue :).
>
Alternatively, use self-adhesive stamps that you can just peel off of a
backing sheet.

Ec

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