[Foundation-l] Grants -- a proposal

Sun Jun 19 18:56:06 UTC 2005

Hello,

It's great to see a public discussion of grants and donations.  Thanks
for starting one.  You suggest interesting ideas, some of which can be
implemented indepently of the others.

On 6/18/05, daniwo59 at aol.com <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:
> I therefore suggest that donors have the possibility of earmarking their
> donation. That is to say, they will have the ability to specify where they want
> their money to go. In that case, one donor may give specifically for servers,
> while another donor may give specifically to promote a language, print a
> particular wikibook, or whatever.

This has been discussed before, with the idea that people could
earmark where half of their donations go -- in the context of more
general divisions such as "hardware / software / content / language
development".   I think starting with a simple earmarking scheme like
this will make it easier to tell whether this is useful for small
donors.

People should be encouraged to give to the project as a whole; it
makes life easier for budgeters, and keeps the process of making a
donation simple.  On the other hand, people who really want to fund a
particular project should have a way of doing so.

< 1. People promoting projects [should] submit a budget for their
project.   Budgets should < be as detailed as possible...

Most current projects don't require a budget.  To the extent that they
incur more maintenance and hardware costs, their promoters aren't in a
position to evaluate what the costs will be over time.  Do we want to
encourage people to assess every new project in terms of financial
cost?   I agree that projects which lend themselves to a separate
budget (A VIBBER-box upgrade, a new-language microfinancing
initiative) should have lots of detail; including a budget in currency
and man-hours, a tentative timeline, etc.

>     2.  Donors giving to the Foundation will have the option of giving directly to the 
> general running costs of Wikimedia or  perusing the list of specific projects. 

This sounds like a bad idea.  I agree that donors who *already know*
what subproject they want to donate to should have a way of supporting
that project in particular - perhaps a separate form linked to from
that project's page, or a separate link on the donations page.  But
I'm not sure that readers who just love Wikimedia's work and follow a
"suppor this site!" link should be encouraged to express themselves
through project choice.

<    3.  IMPORTANT:  10 percent will be deducted automatically for "Overhead," 
< i.e., the day-to-day  costs of running the Wikimedia Foundation. 

Wikimedia is not a normal non-profit.  The "operating costs" you
mention are not salaries, stationary, international phone bills, and
rent.  They are the costs of *running the primary projects* which make
Wikimedia useful and successful.   Far less than 10% of the foundation
budget goes towards true overhead (salaries, travel).

It seems reasonable to require more than 20% of subproject donations
to go towards the main projects -- general-use hardware and software
development, for instance -- to ensure that the trunk and roots of the
wikimedia projects grow in proportion to new, tentative branches.  And
it seems reasonable to require a true overhead of 5% or so from each
donation to go into a long-term Wikimedia trust.  The core Wikimedia
projects and structures /still need much support/, and this should not
be forgotten in a rush to create new ones.

>     4.  Sums collected will be charted on the project page.  Once a project
> has reached its target sum, it will be removed from the list of projects
> available to donors. 

I like the idea of asking projects to set budgets for themselves
before raising money through the foundation directly, and of tracking
their fundraising success.  Of course each project can still go out
and solicit grants and support on its own, as was done for Wikidata;
but the promise of foundation support will help get better and more
organized information about budding projects.

> Any additional funds earned will be given to the general Foundation fund.

This, unfortunately, is hard to do.  The whole downside to constrained
giving is that you can't as a Foundation later decide it should be
spent some other way.

> I believe that this proposal has a number of important advantages.
>     3.  People involved in specific projects will  naturally assume the
> responsibility of "Project Heads" and naturally grow to  fill leadership positions
>     4.  Motivated individuals will promote their  projects, gaining them
> greater visibility.

How does this depend on the proposal above?  People active in a
project already naturally grow to fill leadership positions.  I'm not
sure it's a good idea to encourage a first-mover advantage here.  The
best project head is not necessarily the person most skilled at
'monetizing' and promoting a project.

Do we want motivated individuals to see creating a budget for a
project, and trying to raise strings-attached money for it, as a
necessary step on the road to personal visibility and project
ownership?  Do we want to promote project ownership?

>     5.  Public budgets for projects will foster greater transparency of the
> financial process. People like to know where their money is going and how it
> is being spent.
>     6.  With several projects emerging, the Foundation  will be able to
> release a "Catalogue of Giving Opportunities" for potential  donors, including
> large-gift donors.

Right on.  These things don't require the above proposal, but having
better public budgets for every project requiring specific funds --
and clear line-items in financial reports -- will make everyone feel
better about donating.

#6 is what I would like to see the Grants Team tackle : making the
soup of Wikimedia projects make sense to external donors.  We could
create public budgets and a catalogue out of existing projects,
without implementing any new proposals; and a focused group is
probably better at writing the needed copy than individual project
enthusiasts.

I hope such a Catalogue would have a few broad avenues for donation,
mentioning some specific projects associated with each; not a dozen
detailed initiatives.  This would make it less complex, and leave the
Foundation with fewer frustrating liquidity constraints.  ( For
instance, if 2,000 Euros have been earmarked specifically for Bambara
project A, and the coordinator disappears; we won't be able to use
those funds for Bambara project B, or for an identical project in
Twi.. )

-- SJ

P.S. Now if only we could get some big-picture hardware, software,
content, and usability discussions going as well...