[Foundation-l] board candidacies

Fri Aug 11 18:49:24 UTC 2006

> Danny:
> 
>>In many non-profit organizations in the US--but not the WMF--Board
> 
> membership is actually contingent upon making a significant donation to the
> organization.
> 
> One of the reasons I have my reservations about the US leading the world by
> example is how they often seem to fail to separate money and politics.
> Should I comment on how a US presidential candidate also has little change
> to serve his country if not backed up by millions of dollars to get his
> message across? The world can learn a lot from some of their core values,
> but they could learn from those of others. The notion that people would have
> to buy into non-profits is pretty detrimental and extreme to me. I would
> expect rich people who give a generous donation to be honoured for it. I
> would not expect in most cases they are the experts per se on how to spend
> it well for the cause at hand.

We may well meet a big cultural difference between usa and europe here :-)
It seems to be indeed frequent that in the usa, someone giving a big lot 
of money to an organisation, is offered to have an eye and hand on how 
it is spent, through the seat in the organisation board. Jimbo several 
times mentionned that.

What would we do if B. Gates Foundation gave us 1 000 000 dollars ?

(that's a serious question)

Ant