[Foundation-l] Wolf Mountain Wikipedia-Content Endowment Proposals

Sun Aug 27 04:40:39 UTC 2006

I have setup an endowment I have been working on with a large 
university, several Federally recognized Tribes, and several
outside financial contributors to support foundation projects for Native 
Language Preservation and have been discussing it
with the Foundations attorneys for several months.   I am nearing 
closure on the endowment and have obtained committments from several
large charitable groups.  The endowment is seeking total contributions 
of $10,000,000.00 to fund Wikipedia Language programs
and content promotion, publishing, and educational programs for Native 
American Communities.   A percentage of these contributions are
slated to be applied to approved Foundation projects which support these 
programs. 

I would like for interested community members who have an interest in 
working on Language preservation programs for languages
which will require machine assisted translation and direct machine 
translation to consider submitting project proposals identifying
language groups which would benefit from such a program.  Please submit 
any written proposals to myself and Brad Patrick
for review (if Brad wants to see them that is, otherwise, send them to 
me directly).    The Foundation has no direct agreements
with this program beyond shared community goals, but any programs where 
it chooses to contribute or be involved are welcome,
and programs which have shared resources will of course have shared 
access to funding opportunities.

I invite anyone who can identify languages which could benefit from such 
a program in any area or country where these languages
are in danger of being lost forever to consider making proposals.   You 
need to be a native speaker of these languages if you want us
to seriously consider working with you on such a program.    All 
languages are welcome if any Native Speakers wish to contribute
time to assist in creating a vehicle to package Wikimedia into 
accreditted educational porgrams.

Sincerely,

Jeff