[Foundation-l] Donation drive stopped early with insufficient funds collected

Wed Sep 7 17:29:11 UTC 2005

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>--- Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>My recommendation is that the German chapter continue to work closely
>>with the Foundation and NOT go out and randomly accept a hosting offer
>>and buy random servers.
>>    
>>
>I did not suggest that they randomly accept a hosting offer or buy random
>servers. Of course they need to work closely with the foundation and developers
>on these issues. But, we’ve all been in the *exact* same situation since our
>first co-organized fund drive in October 2004. 
>
I agree that ill-considered hosting arrangements could compromise the 
credibility of the entire project, or that poorly chosen equipment could 
be incompatible with what already exists. At the same time it is 
reasonable to expect that what funds are raised in Germany should be 
spent in Germany.

>>The building of a coherent global network is a significant technical and
>>organizational challenge that many good people are working hard on, 
>>    
>>
>The German chapter has been in limbo for almost a year now as to how they can
>help globally. It has been my observation that the trustees of that chapter
>want to help globally but the issues relating to what can and can’t be done
>with that money outside of Germany has been a major reason why little has been
>done with that money outside that nation. Please correct me if I’m wrong. 
>
>So I simply suggested that everybody consider setting aside the issues that
>have been stopping action for nearly a year. I did *not* suggest that any rash
>decisions be made or that things get decided unilaterally or randomly. But I
>did suggest that issues relating to legal ownership (a major bottleneck - in my
>observation - so far) can be worked out in due time. As is, the great majority
>of the money is just sitting there. 
>
Admittedly, I have not followed what happens to funds very closely. I 
have no technical knowledge about servers so I don't participate in 
those discussions, and I'm not in Germany so that puts me further from 
what happens with their funds. As long as Wikipedia could operate with 
two servers in San Diego there was not much to worry about in the 
ownership of the servers. The size of the recent fund drive, however, 
makes it clear that we are not far away from a million dollar annual 
budget. AFAIK there are no models for a wiki with that size of budget.

I think that the wikification of budgets will seem even stranger than 
the wikification of an encyclopedia. It comes as no surprise when a lot 
of people who have embraced the wiki way are oblivious to issues of 
accounting and finance. I did notice that there was an item in the 
budget to pay for external auditors, but before we get to that we need 
to deal with internal audits. This could perhaps be through an audit 
committee of Wikipedians who are independent of the money management, 
and who are given full access to all the information that they need 
including acess to receipts, cancelled checks, bank records and whatever 
else they may find relevant.

I believe in a dispersed ownership where each national organization has 
fiscal autonomy, and full ownership rights in whatever equipment it 
purchases. A German organization should be accountable to the broader 
membership as a condition of having the right to use our trademarks, but 
it should be in such a way that it has no obligation or effect on the 
reporting requirements of the parent organization to the U.S. Internal 
Revenue Service.

If any national organization gets into legal trouble of any remotely 
imaginable kind the organization should be such that no other national 
organization is affected. This holds especially true for the 
organization in the litigious climate of the United States where you 
don't need to do something wrong to get sued.

>>I do not think it is wise to give advice like this.
>>    
>>
>Then can you suggest a way for the process to be moved along? 
>
>Either the German chapter can help us with global issues, or their fundraising
>page needs to be changed to tell exactly what money donated to the German
>chapter can be used on and what it can’t. So far, everything seems to give the
>impression that money donated to the German chapter can be used to help with
>global needs. *That* is why I’ve been drafting budgets and coordinating fund
>drives that include the German chapter as a means to help us attain global
>goals. So I merely suggested a way that that could be done. 
>
What are our understandings on this? Co-ordinated fund-raising makes 
sense. It is also understandable that there would be global needs, but 
there still needs to be a definition of what needs are global.

>As more and more chapters get tax exempt status, this will be more and more of
>an issue. This issue needs to be worked out ASAP, before over half the money
>generated in fund drives goes to chapters instead of directly to the
>foundation. 
>
In some countries tax exempt status depends on the funds so collected 
being spent for needs in that country.

Mav, I know that you are working very hard at this, and that you are 
approaching the task in an autonomous and independent manner, though at 
times I do wonder whether you're in over your head. I would have loved 
to have heard you views on this in Frankfurt, and was very disappointed 
that you could not be there.

Ec