[Foundation-l] Charity Navigator rates WMF

Thu Oct 8 20:31:13 UTC 2009

And yet, for organizational efficiency, the Red Cross earned three stars
from Charity Navigator, rather than only two.

Also, the CEO of Red Cross was compensated with 0.01% of the expenses.  I'm
not sure of Sue Gardner's total compensation these days, but it was last
reported at a half-year rate of $75,000, wasn't it?  A similar ratio as the
Red Cross would put Wikimedia Foundation expenditures at $1.5 billion per
year, based on CEO compensation.

Something doesn't compute.

The responses thus far trumpet the unusual energy and resources derived from
such a disproportionately large volunteer base.  I have to agree!  Indeed,
in 2007, there were about as many volunteers doing just as much work, but
the staff was only about one-fourth what it is today.  What is substantially
different about the Wikimedia Foundation's mission and accomplishments today
than were already in place in 2007?  My only striking conclusion is how much
more money the Foundation is now drawing in on the revenue side, and that
the GFDL license was altered and swapped.  The encyclopedias seem about the
same as they were in 2007, just bigger.  Commons is about the same.
Wikiquote seems pretty close to the way it was in 2007.  Is it possible that
what we're witnessing is fairly plainly geometrically-increasing
fundraising, which is supporting a geometrically-increasing staff, which
then feeds back into the cycle again?

Not that there's anything wrong with that!