[Foundation-l] Fundraising banner ad

Tue Oct 23 07:08:58 UTC 2007

Erik Moeller wrote:
> As for programs, yes, those are also planned. We want to reach out and
> network with other organizations that (want to) use our content in
> intelligent ways. We want to pursue grants that help our projects &
> our mission. We want to distribute our work as widely as possible. We
> want to increase sustainability through brand licensing and other
> business partnerships.
>
> None of these ideas seem controversial. Indeed, we've been talking
> about them constantly -- and Board members, including yours truly,
> were elected based on the idea of helping to turn them into reality.
>   

Is that actually the goal---to reach out and network with *other* 
organizations? And what specifically is being done towards that? I see 
more evidence of ever-aggrandizing our own organization than of that.

I support Wikimedia primarily as a platform for *producing* free 
content, released into the world for others to do with as they wish. I 
will be happy to support some of those other organizations as well, and 
if Wikimedia wants to pass on those organizations' calls for donations 
to me I'd be happy to take a look---I wouldn't even object to letting a 
worthy organization or two temporarily borrow some sitenotice space. But 
I'm quite wary of one giant organization, with a significant permanent 
staff, large overhead budget, and institutionalized rather than 
grass-roots setup, both producing and controlling the distribution and 
branding of said content, which is what it seems to me the current 
direction is leading towards.

This isn't a particularly unique to Wikimedia worry, of course. Many 
organizations get more institutionalized and less grass-roots as they 
grow, usually eventually to a point where they become useless. Some 
manage it better than others, and I'd like to believe that Wikimedia 
isn't following the standard nonprofit growth/failure model, but am so 
far not seeing much assurance of that. But then I run Iceweasel rather 
than Firefox too, so maybe I'm already the enemy of "brand licensing and 
other business partnerships".

-Mark