Talk:2011-12 Fundraising and Funds Dissemination process/Recommendations

Future of fundraising discussions - Index edit
Guiding Principles discussion Introduction Fundraising principles Funds distribution principles Fundraising models/future discussion Introduction, timeline & faq Goals Zack's observations on online fundraising How long will the Fundraiser keep growing? Wikimedia Foundation staff memo and analysis Recommendations Final recommendations from Sue Editable recommendations based on Sue's final recommendations Draft Recommendations from Sue Draft Recommendations discussion Draft Recommendations Q&A Brainstorming about Recommendation 4 Pros and cons Questions flowchart Fundraising options Alternative recommendations and philosophies Alternative recommendations (Open to all contributions) Recommendations by Tango Wikimedia Foundation resolutions Resolution: Wikimedia fundraising principles (10-9-2010) WMF Board of Trustees letter regarding fundraising accountability (8-5-2011) Resolution: Developing Scenarios for future of fundraising (1-18-2012) Draft Board resolution (2-9-12) Final Board resolutions (3-30-12) FAQ Discussion Wikimedia chapter statements Wikimedia’s culture of sharing (Wikimedia DE) Resolution on principles (Wikimedia UK) The importance of being a Wikimedia chapter (Wikimedia IT) Iberocoop joint statement Opinion French chapter Questions for the German chapter Wikimedia UK response to Sue Wikimedia CH response to Sue Wikimedia NL informal statement Overview of relevant data Sign up to participate Initial Thoughts Draft grantmaking survey Funds Dissemination Criteria мой Resource list (for survey preparation) Where the money comes from today Outcomes Final Board resolutions Creation of the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)

Facilitation

I propose adding here general remarks about the facilitation of the discussion. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 23:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Given the extensive length of the page (and the whole discussion about fundraising), I try to summarize each intervention. It will allow new readers to have a first general insight of the discussions, as well as a support for recall the interventions of each one. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 23:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommendation 1

About tax deductibilty. Your arguments are extremly weak. I suggest a very simple experiment. During next fundraising and for banners displaying in France (for example), just put a big, black, and bold warning saying « By donating to an US organization you are not eligible to tax deductibility. If you want tax deductibility, please go to https://dons.wikimedia.fr ». (You know, those warnings that make it sure that WMF is fully transparent with donors). And let's see what happens. Kropotkine 113 08:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

We've run an even bigger experiment: We've given chapters banners, landing pages, payment processes, and other means by which they could maximize every single local advantage that they have in payment processing. And in the 2011 fundraiser, all the geographies which changed from that model to payment processing operated by the WMF made dramatic gains in revenue. Whatever advantages there may be in local tax deductibility, they are vastly outweighed by the disadvantages. The final numbers are still rolling in, but this result isn't going to change, and a full comparison spreadsheet will be made available soon.

You can also simply reason that, of course, if a chapter did everything that WMF does at least at the same level of quality, and adds the option of tax deductibility, of course it will do better. Getting to that point takes a very large amount effort (which easily outweighs the actual fundraising revenue of most geographies), and even if you do, you still have the other disadvantages that Sue mentions. --Eloquence 02:03, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, this argument has been thoroughly debunked on this page. The choice of chapters that fundraised this year was not a random sample from those that fundraised last year: they were all chapters with some (or a lot) of experience in fundraising; they did already pretty well in the previous year, and it is obvious that they could not increase the amount of money they fundraise as much as other countries. If you want to get figures that make sense, what Kropotkine proposes is basically the only solution: make sure everything is the same, and randomly send donors to the WMF or to the chapter. Then you have no confounding factor anymore, and you can actually make conclusions. There is *no way* you can make any conclusion about causation with the current data, so please don't do it. Schutz 09:14, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Schutz, I wouldn't have told better with my poor english :) @Eloquence : this year WMFR has reach a 90% increase in funds raised. Do you really think that WMF will make a "dramatic gain in revenue" next year in France with a warning saying "By donating to an US organization you are not eligible to tax deductibility" ? Well, I hope for you, but let me think that this has not been fully thought through. Kropotkine 113 10:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Erik - really, a set of final numbers, which aren't even presented in the currency the donations were raised in, doesn't count as analysis. What were the actual differences between 2011 and 2010 fundraising campaigns in Italy, say, and what contributed to this year's success? Equally, why did Wikimedia DE do so well in 2011? Just looking at an aggregate figure (in USD - and no, donors do not decide how many dollars they are going to donate) does not give a proper business case for a decision. The Land 12:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Also: you are forgetting here that chapters (and the WMF) had targets for their fundraiser. WM CH (at least) did not fundraise as aggressively as it could have because we knew (even before the fundraiser, but it was crystal clear after just a few days) that both our and the WMF target would be reached. So, in balance, we choose not to annoy donors by using aggressive banners, or contacting past donors and ask them to donate, for example, because it was not needed ! Given that the WMF itself set/approved the target, there is no way you can come afterwards and compare these figures (which show that we already collected more than expected) with country-specific data for which there was no specific target and use them to justify the fact that we actually perform poorly; this is dishonest. If WMF had said "we want to see which fundraising method works best, so please, provide everything you can and get as much money in as possible", we would have worked differently (apart from the lack of preparation time due to a late decision by the WMF). But that was not the rule: the rule was to achieve a certain target, and we did. We can do not better than 100% success, and comparing any other figure is meaningless. As mentioned above, if you want hard data, we need to plan an experiment that will provide them. Schutz 12:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that good point and example, Schutz. Is there some record of discussion about whether or not to use aggressive banners, contact donors, &c? The question of 'what is needed' and 'how much to annoy donors' is an important one each year, of course. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Last year, the board letter basically proposed that only chapters which satisfy a certain number of criteria (transparency, accountability, etc) and for which fundraising made sense (because it was efficient, and added significant value to the donors) should fundraise. I don't see how the arguments provided in the recommendation justify that this case-by-case approach should be replaced by a "the WMF does all the fundraising from the wiki sites": no reason is given why a chapter which can satisfy the criteria of transparency, effectiveness, efficiency, etc, should not fundraise. While speaking in my own name, I'll give a detailed example related to Wikimedia CH. This is just one anectodal example, but one counter-example is enough to disprove a generic claim. As a reminder, the WMF itself came back to WM CH to suggest we should fundraise this year, because we were able to provide local payment methods, and to respect local laws in a way that was impossible for the WMF.

• Transparency: while these points are fair, there is no strong arguments that say that fundraising chapters can not satisfy these requirements. Handling the mixed model of payment does not seem to be a problem (at least, we should try !).
• Effectiveness: the numbers cited seem anectodal (it would be nice to provide a link to the actual figures for each country, 2010 and 2011, so we can have a closer look -- I did not find the details of donations to the WMF per country, and would be curious to see which countries saw their donations tripling), and it would be a stretch to assume (without further evidence) that there is causality link. Also, while the banners are down, the fundraiser is not finished for WM CH, because there is a delay before we receive all donations on our bank accounts, and we are clearly above the 43% figure (as a side note, with regards to my comments above: averages are not useful here; we should look at each chapter separately, and see where things work well or not). Also, as mentioned above, while the text mentions all the local payment methods that the WMF has introduced this year, it should also indicate that it could not do so in some countries. Despite what is written in the text, there is absolutely no doubt that the fact that WM CH can offer both local payment methods and tax deducibility (whatever happenend in other country) contributes to higher donations (the large number of people who have asked us for tax receipts and for printed payment slips is a strong argument in this direction). But this could be easily tested, in the same way that we test banners.
• Efficiency: again, this paragraph does not apply to WM CH. For most donations we receive, the fee induced is exactly 0, and the low amount of our administrative fees is really hard to beat ! Otherwise, with regards to the hiring of staff, there are little concrete arguments in the paragraph. It may make sense for local chapters to hire staff to fundraise or not, but this should be appreciated on a case-by-case basis (is it worth it or not). As indicated in the document, the WMF still expects that the community should develop and translate localized methods, something that could easily justify hiring local people.
• Easy transfer of funds internationnaly: WM CH has consistently transfered money to the WMF, without any problem, earlier than expected (we have already transfered 100'000 CHF from the current fundraiser to the WMF before the end of 2011), and even when it had no obligation to do so (during the earliest fundraisers). So this not an argument in favor of centralized payment.
• Robust controls: as for transparency, there is no reason why chapters could not satisfy these requirements. Even with a grants agreement in place, chapters will handle large sums of money, which remains donors' money even if it was not received directly, so robust controls are required anyway. WM CH has put in place some internal controls, and is also audited by an external accounting firm, plus it has to report to the tax authorities to justify its tax-free status. We can go further, and I think it should be a goal. As for the laws of probabilities, the argument seems pretty useless to me. Larger organizations with more employees will have a higher probability that any one of them will commit fraud; and if the money available is larger, the resulting damage will be larger too. The argument could be reversed by saying that letting chapters fundraise allows us not to put all our eggs in the same basket.
• Legal exposure: centralized payments means all donations from Swiss donor go through the USA; this can only increase the legal exposure, in comparison to donations that remain in one country. For the donors themselves, it also means they have a tighter control on their donations (they know the relevant laws, and it is easy for them to complain in case of a problem, while there is not way a Swiss donor will go to court in the US if he believes his donation was mishandled). I find it hard to believe that the WMF is better suited that a local organization to make sure it can comply with local law; in addition, this would imply significant legal expenses, detrimental to the efficiency. As a matter of fact, WM CH also works with one of the top firms in the country (although I would not consider this a real argument, but only pure marketing -- the fact that we work with compentent advisors should be enough).
• Independence: clearly, being a payment processor does not bring independence to a chapter. But it would hard to argue that a chapter is less independent when fundraising that when it is receiving a grant -- and the contrary is quite obvious: with a grant, a chapter simply receives a lump of money. When fundraising, even through the WMF wikis, the chapters can at least influence the amount received (by acting locally), and build experience with fundraising in general. I must entirely disagree with the conclusion that "Decentralized payment processing is not a path that leads to chapter independence from the Wikimedia Foundation". Decentralized payment processing does not prevent chapters from fundraising locally -- in any case, not less than if they were receiving a grant.
• Relationships: suffice to say that I entirely disagree with what is written here; I don't see how simply saying "payment-processing is off the table" will make chapters reply "ok, then, let's move on to something else". In any case, we are here in the realm of speculation, and I don't think this is a strong argument either way.

So, to repeat myself: I don't see how a general prohibition on payment processing by chapters could be a good thing, when it seems clear that some chapters could (potentially at least) fulfill all the requirements for an efficient and transparent fundraiser. Schutz 09:35, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I won't go into as many words, but an approach of "no fundraising through WM sites by anyone but the Foundation" seems to go far, far, far beyond what the Trustees asked for in the Haifa letter. Craig Franklin 12:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

Hi, my points about the (hidden) arguments. I’m obviously speaking on my own.

TRANSPARENCY I regret the lack of a precise vocabulary (in the whole process).
As an example here, "donor" in "The Wikimedia movement's experience thus far tells us that in a decentralized payment processing model, it is more difficult to be transparent with donors."
Who are the "donors"? To my mind, a donor is rattached to an entity and gives to someone: here are they WMF-donors, Movement-donors, Specific-chapter-donors, Wikipedia-donors, Commons-donors? Given the specific phrase, it’s for me a nonsense. This specific phrase sounds as if WMF should be "transparent" regarding the whole Movement.

EFFECTIVENESS Like Schutz, I would like the figures. Additionnally I find quite doubtful to compare uncomparable figures given the very (very) important number of parameters involved to explain different amounts. At least, a core parameter is to compare figures in the same countries: what would have been the collected sum by WMF in a chapter-fundraiser country; tests could have been done by having a 50%-banner for WMF and the same 50%-banner (and appeal, geographies, etc, but always precised tax-deductability and actual use of the money) for the chapter in the same time.
So I find the [citation needed] is rather a [data needed].

EFFICIENCY "[chapters] hiring of staff and engagement of third-party payment processor companies. These are unnecessary additional costs.": is it not the same for WMF hiring staff or third-party payment processors like Global Collect? is it also "unnecessary additional costs"? One should recognize collecting money is not free for anybody.
This argument of efficiency of a centralized online-fundraising should be balanced with the cost of the distribution (strictly money-speaking), as well as the resulting feeling inside and outside the movement and the workload created.

• Fund distribution costs money even if WMF has zero costs international transfers, in staff time; and it costs volunteer time (you speaks in #4 of a full-time volunteer position, it’s probably quite rare, at least on the long-term, so probably a high turnover in these positions)
• Feeling in the chapters movement: besides the legal danger for the chapter to be dependant of a foreign foundation (non-profit status/independance status), chapters volunteers (I feel, not speaking for everyone) would not mastering their own budget, and it could unmotivate some (me at least), feeling they are exploited by a foreign big company which don’t take care of them.
• Feeling in the projects communities: don’t know exactly, project communities seems to have a light interest in the wikipolitical topics, apart when someone wants to do some specific project with a budget
• Feeling in the public: don’t know exactly (I’m too involved), but I have the feeling it would reinforce the feeling Wikipedia is a big machinery governed by a big company (which becomes to be very true indeed)

The [1] note is related to transparency, not efficiency, and some are not suppressed by your centralized model (report, auditing).

I do not continue now, ’must return to work, still spending another lunchbreak to read and write wikipolitics; perhaps I will continue with the other points.

Anyway I find as usual it’s a poor accountability the WMF offers to the movement, negating role of chapters and other groups (yeh, you sandwich-technique the chapters). As usual very (very) sad WMF again impose a decision process 1/ we take a decision 2/ we expose it to you 3/ you are unhappy, vociferate, roar during some time (generally during the week-end) 4/ we try to enforce it anyway. I am really mistaken if it is again that process? (’try to stay polite as requested). ~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

In terms only of your question about the timeline, Sue plans to present her recommendations to the Board on February 3rd. She plans to finalize her recommendations in late January, and is inviting feedback during these several weeks to help shape her thoughts, so she may be able to consider and perhaps incorporate feedback and input from the community. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 17:58, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

"she may be able to consider and perhaps" This translate into Sue will not listen and not incorporate? That Chapter and community feedback is awesome, but unlikely to lead to Sue changing her recommendations? This is very, very, very disheartening. :( The Stakeholders who this impacts get no voice before the Board in fundraising. :( --LauraHale 19:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Laura, I'm right here, and I am listening. When I first started asking questions and talking about this issue back in October, I said that I would try to achieve consensus, but that in good conscience I wouldn't be able to recommend anything to the Board of Trustees that I don't think is right for the Wikimedia movement, or that I think will not work. I'm here, I'm listening, and I hope to incorporate changes and feedback as the discussion progresses. Thanks Sue Gardner 02:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

And while the Board has asked Sue for her recommendation and will take it most seriously, we are also reading the discussion here. Please consider all of this an issue that we need to resolve together. Feel free to suggest something altogether new as well (see below). –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if my language was inadvertently misleading. I intended to use the modal verb to indicate a condition to permit: "inviting feedback so [that condition having been met] she will be able" as opposed to intending to suggest doubt. It's common usage hereabouts, but "can" would certainly have communicated itself more clearly. If you're in doubt of what I mean, please ask before being disheartened. :) I'm happy to clarify. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 11:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommendation 2

Part of this recommandation is trivially true ("All movement entities should be free to fundraise outside of the wikis operated by the Wikimedia Foundation"), as it is outside the competences of the board of trustees to decide whether such entities fundraise outside of the wikis or not. However, the second part of the recommendation ("in ways that are consistent with the guiding principles for fundraising laid out by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees") is puzzling: I did not find anything about this in the chapter's agreement, so see no reason why the BT should guide the way other movement entities fundraise in any way (as long as they respect the chapter's agreement and operate within the law, of course). I am not sure what outcome is expected from this recommendation ? Schutz 08:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this has much to do with the Board. We should have movement-wide fundraising principles that all fundraising groups agree on - and those should be noted or linked to in the Chapter or trademark agreements. We don't have any such principles at present. The Board is considering a resolution that suggests some initial high-level principles, which I expect will be improved and replaced over time through public discussion. So the wording here could be changed to 'with Wikimedia's fundraising principles'. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I would phrase this as such:

"All movement entities are of course free to fundraise outside of the wikis operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. However, the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, as part of its duty to the wider movement to ensure that we are not all damaged by rogue actions, will withdraw or cancel licensing/Chapter agreements if a movement entity acts in a way that brings the movement into disrepute, as set out in the movement's guiding principles for fundraising that are affirmed by the Board of Trustees."

Is that clearer? Certainly, I would agree with this (both as a statement of current practice, but also as where we want to be, I think). -- James F. (talk) 12:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

If the actions of a chapter bring the movement into disrepute, that can and should be addressed through the chapters agreement. It seems to be completely out of place in a discussion about funds dissemination. Craig Franklin 12:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

Generally agreed. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Chapters are free to do whatever they like if it doesn't involve the WMF. The WMF has no say whatsoever about how chapters fundraise independantly. The chapter's agreement includes certain provisions about not acting in a way contrary to the movement's interests, but it doesn't say chapters have to obey the WMF's fundraising policies. (There was a draft of a new chapters agreement that said chapters have to obey all rules of the WMF, past and future, but that was summarily rejected as an incredibly flawed agreement and the whole thing was thrown in the bin.) --Tango 12:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

What I think is not addressed here is what we mean by "rogue actions". I'm not sure if these recommendations come with a glossary or with a set of implementing rules and regulations, but as much as I have faith in the Foundation to act in the best interests of chapters, I do not want to see it go overboard and suddenly decide to declare a chapter's actions as being "rogue" when the other party may deem it to be otherwise. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 13:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

But you seem to assume "all mouvement entities" are only chapters. It seems to me that Sue outlines above that we should go much beyond chapters, but also welcome various organized groups (such as the Amicale). Are those groups included in the "mouvement entities" ? If so, how is this recommandation going to be implemented ? By having these non chapters sign a sort of "whatever" agreement ? if not, how is the WMF going to enforce non respect of those guidelines ? By reputation ? How could it be done ? Anthere 13:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This would be a nightmare to actually enforce. It just gives an option to WMF, and upper-hand if legal actions are indeed needed. Theo10011 22:46, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommendation 4

Not much to say about this apart from "I like the idea", although the devil will of course be in the detail. The proposed FAC should be an actual diverse body, not dominated by any one particular segment of the movement, and it should not be a toothless tiger like the GAC, if this is going to work. Craig Franklin 12:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

The current wording is unclear on whether the decisions on this committee would be binding on the WMF or whether it would have a veto as it currently does (I think that veto is what Craig is refering to as the toothlessness of the GAC). That is a very key point. I would also propose (as I mentioned on one of the other hundred meta talk pages where we are debating these issues) that the WMF's core spending goes through the same process. To use someone else's example from one of those other talk pages, the WMF shouldn't be free to buy gold-plated server racks without it going through the approval process. I think we can trust the committee not to refuse reasonable proposals from the WMF to spend money on servers. They should be able to rule on whether those proposals are reasonable, however. --Tango 12:56, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

IMO this is the most crucial of Sue's recommendations. How and whether this recommendation is implemented determines whether this set of recommendations, as a whole, leads to a more centralized vs. a more decentralized Wikimedia movement.

If done well, it will accomplish the latter, because it will devolve power from Boards and chapter bureaucracies to the community at large, and also rely on the wisdom of many smart people who aren't part of the community. If done poorly, it will turn into either a toothless committee with little bits of input on the margin, or a Soviet style planning process.

While changing to a WMF payment processing is a big deal for chapters which are either currently payment processing or hoping to do so in future, this recommendation would, in my opinion, be a far more significant change with more far-reaching consequences.

Here are my two cents:

1) Like Thomas says, it's essential to give this body real power. That means that vetoing its decision needs to be a major overriding action and an active effort, rather than the reverse (its recommendations are being reviewed and approved by the real decision-makers). There will be boundaries within which we'll have to remain for reasons of fiduciary responsibility, but it should be possible to delegate some of the authorities vested in the Board to a larger body that's in large part community-driven.

I'd be in favor of considering the Board election model really seriously at least for the majority of seats. This model has the advantage that it's already understood in the Wikimedia community. There's an election which is widely announced, candidates present their positions, and there's an expectation that those candidates will have authority vested in them. If that authority is somehow overridden, this will cause major and legitimate outcry and should only be done if circumstances fully justify it.

I'd also suggest at least experimenting, as well, with direct vote as a mechanism for program/impact assessment and importance ranking (perhaps surfacing both reader and contributor voices through distinct processes). It shouldn't be the only mechanism, but it could be a very valuable input to the final decision and ranking, and counter some of the problems that occur in large-scale resource planning.

2) Regarding core vs. non-core, I agree with the proposal of keeping them separate, at least for now. We don't know if the model as a whole is workable yet, and the Board has a fiduciary duty to not experiment with the organization's fundamental ability to serve its mission. If the model successfully survives a planning cycle or two, I think it would be more appropriate to consider moving the core spending through the same process.

--Eloquence 02:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Erik, I have to agree actually with most of what you're saying here. So far, my view is that the WMF strategy has been all stick, and finally we may just be getting a carrot :-).

Like I said, the devil is really going to be in the detail. Unfortunately my experience in dealing with the Foundation has been that many of these sorts of initiatives are often just cynical attempts to paint a varnish of decentralisation and consultation over a core of centralisation and command. But, the fact that you've put it straight in these terms makes me cautiously optimistic that this time might just be different. If this is indeed a genuine effort to bring chapters, the community, and volunteers into the tent and let them make substantial contributions to movement decision making once more, you will have my full and unconditional support to make it work. Prime issues I think that need to be addressed quickly is "who sits on this body?", "when can the Foundation override its decisions?" and "how soon can we get started?"

I have some ideas on how I would like to see such a body constituted and working, but I think it would clutter this page a but if I listed them all out here, would people prefer I stick them onto a subpage somewhere? Craig Franklin 11:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC).

I don't know how lengthy your ideas are, but I think it may be better to try to keep things in one place, if possible. :) What about a subsection here, in a collapse box if necessary? More easily accessible than leaving the page and would keep conversation together. It can always be split out later if need be. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 13:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and created a brainstorming page with some specific open questions here: Fundraising and Funds Dissemination/Funds allocation brainstorming. (It could be transcluded and collapsed on this page if that's useful.) I'll add some thoughts of my own over the next few days.--Eloquence 20:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea to me, Erik, to make sure that newcomers don't lose sight of it. Alternatively, we could more prominently link it somewhere, perhaps at the top of this section. I worry that newcomers will lose it as the page grows too long for them to easily digest. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 20:14, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Erik. I've just posted some thoughts there. They aren't particularly well thought through and aren't at all carefully written up (which is why I thought your brainstorming page was a better place for them than here), but hopefully they'll kick start some discussion. --Tango 00:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

While I believe a (very) strong community committee is warranted for the review of grants, I do not find this proposal in its current form viable. It essentially creates a new board of trustees responsible for the distribution of >$10M. When $1-2M was raised globally, something like this might have worked. WIth $30M+ raised this year and growing, perhaps the primary legal responsibility of a WMF Trustee is the oversight of the foundation's finances (the donors' money). Not our only responsibility, but certainly a primary one from a legal standpoint. Delegating authority for that to a different body seems inappropriate if not illegal. The critical point is decision making authority vs. strong input / recommendation. I can easily imagine a body that reviews and recommends approval of grants and that these recommendations would be approved by WMF and/or the BoT (depending on size, probably) 90%+ of the time. But complete delegation of this responsibility doesn't seem feasible. Mhalprin 03:27, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Matt. It is heartening to know that there are two opinions on this within the board. Craig and others have made compelling arguments, I never thought this proposed committee could be a viable solution at this juncture. Regards. Theo10011 03:42, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, 9-10 years ago there was concern about Jimmy as a God-King with too much power, so the Foundation was created as a balance. Now there is concern about the Foundation having too much power, and from that stems the idea of a FAC. It seems like the cycle will just repeat itself again -- soon the clamoring will start that the FAC has too much power and must be replaced by something else. Shouldn't we just do the hard work now to sort out a best possible and realistic system, rather than kicking the can down the road? Stu 04:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Or, you know, at the risk of sounding hopelessly idealistic, we could come up with something that works and will continue working. For what it's worth, the reason you state was not the primary driver for the creation of the Foundation in the first place, although it may have influenced some people's thinking. Craig Franklin 05:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC).

Good point and thanks for info, Craig. Regardless of history, the issue as I see it is a fundamental tension between our decentralized culture and the challenges of our newfound wealth. Together, over the past few years, we have all built some extraordinary capabilities in raising funds to pursue our vision. That has given us tremendous resources to pursue free knowledge. But if we want to continue to have access to resources at that scale, we have to accept the responsibility to our donors to ensure every contribution is spent wisely and with the greatest impact. That requires a concentrated effort to analyze spending and opportunities and allocate donor funds effectively. Some system has to play that role, and some group of people has to carry out the work of that system.

Whoever plays that role -- the Foundation, the Board, a new entity like the FAC, whatever -- it's going to be hard and time-consuming and painful. And frankly it's not at all fun -- you have to make some hard decisions, say "no" to people, and at times be very very unpopular.

But it's a role that has to be played. We cannot just ignore that responsibility to our donors for a few months or years until a Volunteer Council, Movement Roles, the FAC, or some other group is able to focus on the issue, come to agreement on a system, and then build the capability to carry it out consistently. That is why, in my role as the Treasurer of the Board of Trustees, Chair of the Audit Committee, and long-term member of our community, I have pushed and will continue to push Sue and the Foundation very hard to play the assertive role it is playing now. It just has to be played. Our obligation to our donors has to be fulfilled. We have to try, and an imperfect system of grants and project plans and annual reporting is infinitely better than no system.

If you have a problem with the current system, come to me and complain. Come to the Board and complain. Do not personally attack Sue and her staff. Do not challenge their professionalism. You are completely misdirecting your frustration. Get angry at me. Get angry at the Board. Flame us, but don't flame the 90 incredibly committed, incredibly passionate believers in our cause who have chosen to devote not just themselves but their careers to our mission. We are incredibly lucky to have them in our movement, working with us to build our shared vision.

Even more appropriate, get angry at life. Get angry at the amazing impact we are having. Because what we are experiencing is a natural outgrowth of our success. It is what happens when you build something that helps a half a billion people a month. When over a million people want to support you with donations. This is what is called ironically in English a "high-class problem." For all the hand-wringing that's going on, we are incredibly fortunate to have this wealth to spend.

This tension is understandable. Our culture is decentralized. That's what attracted a lot of us to the projects in the first place. That's what made our projects so great. And as volunteers, most of us like the luxury of being able to choose exactly what we work on. But if we want to continue to have such amazing resources to pursue our cause we are going to need a system to help us allocate and monitor the use of donor funds. And that will involve a different kind of decentralization, and perhaps a different degree of decentralization, than we are used to. That's what we have to accept. Everything else – the nature of the system, who operates it -- is just a detail.

So in the end I'm saying I agree 100% with Craig. We all need to accept that there has to be some system in place to make tradeoffs in a sincere effort to ensure donor funds are spent well, whether it is the Foundation, the GAC, or a new FAC, or a peer review process, or a Magic 8 ball. And we need to accept that sometimes we won't personally like the answers that come out of that system. But we still need the system.

And that brings us to this amazingly long discussion page, and to Sue Gardner. Sue and her team are making an extraordinary effort to reach out for feedback, input and help in figuring out the right answer for what this system to be. They chose to do this a month ahead of the board meeting, six weeks ahead of the Finance meeting in Paris, and three months ahead of the Chapters meeting, to ensure as much time as possible for collaborative problem-solving. I applaud what they are doing. I think those who respond to their outstretched hands by slapping them aside with a wave a rhetoric and bile are letting our entire community down. Take advantage of this opportunity. Join the discussion. Please. We need all of you and your best thinking so our community and movement can figure this out together. Stu 07:58, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Stu, thanks for your post above. There is no need to get angry, but it is an emotional outcome of all this frustration. My point is, we never actually worked on a system for accountability. It always started with No direct chapter fundraising. I know that system or process would be something extremely hard to come up with, but how about giving it a chance? how about actually trying to fix this problem rather than give up and take it all away? How about a bit of trust first? All the projects are there because of the trust in people's goodness. Donors place their trust in us, why cant WMF try and place its trust in the chapters? give them a chance or a system to fail or succeed? Theo10011 14:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I must agree here with Theo. Inasmuch as I understand the Foundation's concerns, I think it would be very helpful if they assumed good faith and provide mechanisms to allow chapters to be more accountable, rather than assume that all chapters are unaccountable and we should centralize fundraising control in the Foundation. While this may sound very radical (and probably irrational), I'd like to see us prove you guys wrong, or at least let us prove you guys right. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 14:36, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Das ist nichts als ein Wasserkopf irgendwo weit weg, wo nur noch Leute mit sehr guten Englischkentnissen sich unterhalten. Meiner Ansicht nach ist genau das Gegenteil der richtige Weg. Es gibt Entscheidungen, die zentral getroffen werden müssen, alle anderen sollten dezentral getroffen werden. --Goldzahn 16:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC) Vielleicht noch einen Hinweis: Ein guter Teil aller Metadiskussionen in de:WP betreffen das Handeln von WMDE. Diese Diskussionen sind offen für alle Wikipedianer einzusehen und alle können daran teilnehemen, nicht zuletzt weil sie in der Muttersprache geführt werden. Diesen Diskussionsbeitrag hätte ich niemals in Englisch schreiben können und so wird es vielen ergehen. Eine solche Umstellung wäre zumindest für uns ein sehr großer Rückschritt und würde sicher auf wenig Zustimmung stoßen. PS: Das Sprachproblem war bereits im strategy-wiki offensichtlich. Bin mal gespannt wir hier damit umgegangen wird. --Goldzahn 17:14, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Goldzahn, mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht, aber ich habe versucht zu übersetzen. :) Ich denke, "Wasserkopf" muss ein Idiom werden. Ich kann nicht verstehen, Ihr letzter Satz. Ich bin sicher, jemand wird es fix! --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 20:25, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Poor translation (please improve!) This is nothing but an oversized - hydrocephalic-like buerocracy [happening] somewhere far away, where only people with very good English skills talk. In my opinion, the opposite is exactly the right way. Some decisions need to be made centrally; all others should be made locally.

Perhaps a hint: a good part of all "meta" discussions in de:WP concern the actions of WMDE. These discussions are open for all [German-language] Wikipedians to view and all can participate, not least because they are conducted in their native language. This discussion post I would never have been able to write in English, and so it will be for many others. Such a change would, at least for us, be a very big step backwards and would certainly meet with little agreement. PS: The language problem was already evident in strategy-wiki. [I will look forward to how the language problem will be treated here.]

Comment moved from content page

I'm moving a comment from the content page to here, so that it doesn't get lost (and so that Sue can be sure to see it and answer it). Philippe (WMF) 10:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Sue wrote:
"And yet, in the UK we saw only a 21% increase in donations from 2010 to 2011, which was less than the average country increase. This is not a lot of data to go on, but it seems to suggest that tax deductibility is not a significant driver of donations."
To this, Mike Peel writes: (This is completely inaccurate - please check your sums again! Mike Peel 09:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)).

I'm not at all sure where Sue got this number from, and the context it's used in is extremely misleading. We're still working out the numbers, but there's a summary of the current understanding of them at wmuk:Reports_3Jan12#Chris_Keating_.28incl_Fundraiser.29 - the bottom line is that we saw a 41% increase in donations, and that's _before_ Gift Aid which adds an extra 25% onto the donations it applies to (this gives us an extra ~10% overall). Mike Peel 10:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned in my long comment above, it would be nice to have all the figures mentioned by Sue in a wiki page or a Google Doc, broken down by country. For WM CH, we do not have final numbers yet either, so it's difficult to make comparions (I know WM FR also receive payments by check, which take longer to be processed), and none of these figures should be used as arguments in the discussion (yet). Schutz 10:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The correct figure is an 81% increase, not a 21% increase. This is a very regrettable inaccuracy. The Land 10:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Figures for reference (from here: WMUK for 2011/12 raised a projected UK£ 873k (US$1.36m), of which UK£87k (US$136k), or was "extra" 11%; theoretically if every UK donor had been a UK taxpayer, had not used up their limit, and had filled in the form, WMUK could have raised an extra 25% or US$305k; in practice, what they managed to achieve is considered high. Not sure if doing it all from the US (and so losing this 10-20%) would save that much money, but that's not my call. :-) -- James F. (talk) 12:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. Chris/Land's email to wikimediauk-l on New Years Day said WMUK had raised £1,014,176, which is very different to £873k (I believe the 81% increase Chris mentions about is based on the £1m figure, since that is vaguely consistent with my memory that we raised just under £600k last time). It is worth noting that the current UK total is based on assumptions about how much we'll actually get from the recurring donations over the next year and doesn't include any allowance for those recurring donations continuing into future years. It is possible that everyone will cancel their direct debits within a few months and actual total will be significantly below projection and it is also possible that those direct debits will continue for many years and the actual total will be significantly above projection (I think the latter is far more likely than the former). --Tango 12:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the apparent errors in the numbers (which, while unfortunate, are to be expected in a first draft) I have concerns about the statisically methodology. The countries where a chapter fundraised last year and the WMF fundraised this year is not a random sample of the chapters that fundraised last year. The ones that continued to fundraise were those most able to do so effectively. A lot of the chapters that ceased fundraising are ones for whom 2010/2011 was their first attempt at fundraising. It's not all that surprising that the first attempt isn't very successful, but that doesn't mean the whole concept of chapters fundraising is invalid. --Tango 12:47, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflicted) Just to clear this up, hopefully once and for all. The total raised during the Fundraiser by Wikimedia UK was £1,015,000. This is an increase of 81% on the £560k raised in 2010. The increase in donations was 43676 in 2011 as against 32364 in 2010, a 31% increase. The average donation also increased significantly because of our focus on Direct Debits. Many of the Direct Debits set up this year will still be paying in 2013 and subsequently, so the lifetime value of those donations is rather higher than the £1 million for 2012 suggests.

£87,000 of this total is Gift Aid (i.e. tax we can reclaim on donations made to us), but that is a bit on the low side - we saw a lot of progress in collecting the relevant declarations during the fundraiser, next year's figure would be higher.

The figures are in the spreadsheet James linked to above, which is very thorough, but in being thorough creates room for misinterpretaton.

I am happy to discuss this further, on- or off- wiki, and will be writing some reports on the success of the Wikimedia UK fundraiser later this week. The Land 13:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

(continuation to Tango) I aggree with the poor statistical methodology, as I said above in my paragraph Effectiveness. You cannot say (or if you have figures, please show them) you raised more than a chapter would have raised without having tested (see § above). And please share your raw data: you are really speaking about tripling the last year’s amount, not doubling? BTW France doubled its result compared to the last year. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 17:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see the raw data too. How is the "average increase" calculated? Is it (total raised in 2011 across all countries)/(total raised in 2010 across all countries)-1 or is it (amount raised in country X in 2011)/(amount raised in country X in 2010)-1 calculated for each country and then added together and divided by the number of countries? They will likely give very different answers due to the extremely variability of the amounts raised in countries that don't raise very much (eg. £1000 in 2010 and £3000 in 2011 is a 200% increase, but not one we want to pay attention to). It's often useful to look at the absolute numbers rather than the relative numbers, since you lose a lot of information if you just have percentages. --Tango 17:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey folks. What I published was super-early provisional data that's been updated since I wrote that text, and I think will continue to be refined over time. I just talked with Zack; he tells me that Maggie will update the text here with the most recent numbers, and somebody will also be publishing the spreadsheet. I don't know when that will happen -- I am guessing probably tomorrow. Thanks, Sue Gardner 01:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sue. It seems like the final figures are so different from those you included that just updating them doesn't make sense; they counter, rather than support, the point you made with them initially. Nathan ^T 02:49, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course that won't be such a problem if the conclusions are corrected along with the stats. WereSpielChequers 13:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I made a bunch of changes based on the updated information that was published earlier today, and I also pulled back from giving percentages based on absolute numbers (since they will continue to change as information is updated), to instead make slightly more general assertions that likely will continue to be supported by updated numbers. If anybody thinks the point I'm making on the page is inaccurate, please say why here. Thanks Sue Gardner 21:50, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sue. I note that you now say "By contrast, in the UK we did not offer tax deductibility for donations in 2010, and in 2011 we did. And yet, in the UK we saw a lower-than-average increase. As best as I can tell, that's still a false statement - WMUK saw a much higher than average increase in donations (as Chris says above, we saw an 81% increase), and when you fold in donations that went straight to the WMF then it still seems to be either on par with, or significantly above, average (I believe that Chris calculates 43% here; I calculate circa 57% excluding currency conversion variations [1], compared with 42.3% for WMF based on $20.7 million vs 14.5 million as per [2]). But still: these numbers aren't definitive enough for drawing any conclusions on this issue yet, so please refrain from doing so until they are. I note that the UK donations received directly by the WMF appear to have decreased by 50% this year - I'd love to know why that was (hopefully it was due to improvements in geolocation, such that more donations went directly to WMUK rather WMF, rather than for any other reason). I'm afraid that as far as I (personally) can tell, you seem to be drawing the conclusion that you'd like to see here, rather than a conclusion that's supported by the data (an issue that seems to pervade this document, I'm afraid). Mike Peel 22:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Recommendation based in a inaccurate survey

I saw the recommendation #1 and got to the Q&A to see the reason for it, and found this:But wouldn't people prefer to donate to local organizations and not the Wikimedia Foundation?

Which is based in the survey from 2 years ago, and is based in a question I actually questioned about the results here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-August/067731.html, waited more than one month and asked again: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069440.html, and after several reminders and ask again during a Office IRC hour, Mani bothered to answer that she didn't know: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2011-October/069728.html.

So how that same result can be used now to "prove" that the donors don't want to donate to chapters? Béria Lima ^msg 12:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Beria. I'm not sure it's based on the same survey. According to the page to which Mani directed you ([3]), the survey you were talking about was conduced in April of all Wikipedia users, 5,073 in total. According to Sue's footnote ([4]), that data seems to be drawn from a donor survey with 3,760 participants, conducted in August. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 12:34, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Maggie is correct - Beria, you're conflating surveys. The one that is referred to for the Q&A is from the donor survey, which was commissioned by the Foundation, executed and designed by Seachange and Rand, and analyzed by Q2 Consulting. It's not the one that Mani was responsible for. It actually, I think, predates her involvement with WMF. Philippe (WMF) 18:20, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Maggie, do you know if the raw numbers from that survey are available? Because they certainly don't match with the numbers that came out of the general survey of editors that Beria is referring to. More generally, I would also question the validity of talking exclusively to Foundation donors (not a particularly representative group) and asking them whether they'd prefer to donate to the Foundation or someone else, and using that to justify this course of action. Craig Franklin 12:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC).

I don't know, Craig, but I will try to find out. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 12:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Craig, what raw numbers do you want that aren't available in the report? It broke down the cross-tabs, I believe. But I can see if I can get whatever you'd like from that one. Philippe (WMF) 18:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Philippe, hoping for something like this, if it's available. Simply because I'm the sort of dork who enjoys number crunching in Excel :-). Craig Franklin 08:16, 6 January 2012 (UTC).

There are gaping holes in this assumption. First, most donors don't know the difference between Wikipedia and Wikimedia, instead of educating or gauging what they know first, the survey skews the sample group to begin with. Then the point Craig made that these are WMF donors, why not WMDE donors, ask them the same question? Either way, a Donor survey conducted by WMF is being used to argue that WMF alone should deal with donors, convenient. Theo10011 13:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean "commissioned by WMF"? (As I read it, the survey was actually conducted by Q2 Consulting, LLC. I could be wrong there, but it's under their imprint. :)) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 13:28, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I was going by Fundraising_and_Funds_Dissemination/Recommendations/Q_and_A#But_wouldn.27t_people_prefer_to_donate_to_local_organizations_and_not_the_Wikimedia_Foundation.3F, maybe the mention of this agency and the commissioning coming from WMF might benefit from being mentioned there? I have no idea about this agency. I stand corrected. Thanks. Theo10011 13:40, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The survey was designed by Seachange, commissioned by Rand for the WMF, and analyzed by Q2 Consulting. Philippe (WMF) 18:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Is the methodology for this public? How people were selected? What sort of representation was done on a global level? American donors operate in an area where there is no national chapter. This is different than Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Serbia, Bangladesh, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia, Philippines, Netherlands, Spain, etc. Do you know if the methodology and the results were broke down based on national origin of the donators and what differences there were in geographic responses? This seems very important and necessary to make informed decisions on a global level. --LauraHale 20:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Philippe provided the links to Fundraising 2010/Survey and Fundraising 2009/Survey below. These may answer some of your questions, at least as regards methodology and selection. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 13:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This kind of questions is indeed very dependent on how you pose the question. For example, in the footnote that Maggie refers to, the question (with an audience where 45% lives in the US and 80% doesn't know there is a chapter in their country) stated: "Next time you donate, would you say you would rather donate to the Wikimedia Foundation that operates Wikipedia, or to the national chapter representing your country?". There are several flaws with that - and if posed the question this way, I would probably also have answered WMF. Because for the WMF it does explain what it does, for the chapter it only says "represents your country" - which is not the activity of a chapter. It doesn't mention that the chapter also supports Wikipedia (in other ways, for example through supporting the community in that country) etc. Also, there is no 'representing' involved of course, it sounds more like a political thing - and that is not what it is. It also fails to mention that the chapter still shares in several costs that would have to be made either way, that the WMF also spends money on non-hardware goals etc. Quite misleading if you want to draw conclusions from it for this purpose. Effeietsanders 15:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Please note that the content and design of this survey was done openly, on the wiki, at this page. Much of the language was also worked out publicly, on the wiki here. Several chapters members were involved in the design, and at least one (very) vocal critic of the Foundation was involved in the design. Philippe (WMF) 18:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Even if the survey have been collectively written, it doesn’t change the fact that the question is phrased in a way it’s probably more advantageous for the WMF as Effeietsanders explained. I aggree writing neutral questions is quite difficult, but here the result is quite expected given the phrasing. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 21:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Philippe, this is the first I am seeing this survey. This might have been around the time Rand left? or maybe he left after or during this? The page and the vocal critic you mentions only makes a single question. There are 4-5 people who commented on the entire page, and maybe 9-10 points at most. I am surprised why the chapters weren't consulted or participated in this but that is another point. This also brings the second question, why is a 2 year old survey being used now? A survey, commissioned by a WMF staff member who left soon after. I only see 3 chapter people commenting, not several, maybe I'm wrong? It does mention alex, casey making minor corrections. I'd be more interested in reading the discussion about the result of the survey, can you point me to it pb? Thanks. Theo10011 22:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Found the survey results, the pdf anyway, but no discussion about it. Maybe there is another place? Theo10011 22:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Theo, it's not the first you've seen of the survey... it was linked from the 2010 fundraising pages on the master template, all year last year, during the fundraiser. Philippe (WMF) 02:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Just a comment on the survey response. When I developed these recommendations, the response to that survey question was not a factor in my thinking. We do not have robust data that conclusively tells us what donors' intentions are, mostly because of the kinds of issues that Effeietsanders has raised --- basically, it's extremely hard to construct a question that will yield useful results, because donors just don't have a good-enough understanding of who we are and how we operate to be able to give us an answer that accurately reflects whatever their wishes might be. We stuck that survey response into the Q and A because it's one of a very few pieces of insight we have on the issue, and I think its usefulness is limited but not zero. But to be clear: it was not and is not determinative in terms of influencing my recommendations. Thanks Sue Gardner 02:00, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record: I did not want to suggest there was bad intent from the side of the WMF by putting together the survey (sorry Philippe if you felt that way), but how it is written and whether there was an imput period wouldn't influence my opinion on what kind of conclusions you can draw from a survey question anyway.

Sue: Perhaps it is then better to not use that survey question in the Q&A? That way it is also not suggested that it is one of the reasons. Effeietsanders 08:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Here you go: I've changed the Q and A page. I think it's worth keeping the response itself, but I've put in a bunch of caveats so people don't misinterpret it, or think the Wikimedia Foundation is misinterpreting it. Thanks Sue Gardner 21:33, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sue, you are calling the data inconclusive yourself and saying that the recommendations were independent of them, while using that same inconclusive data as an addendum for your biggest and most contentious recommendation. Either remove it and state that it is your opinion, and not based on any conclusive data or defend its use. Using it and then dismissing it yourself, is complicating and frustrating those who are trying to read and follow up. As Effe suggested, can you please have someone remove it, and re-word your recommendations to reflect that it is either based on inconclusive data or your feelings? Thanks.Theo10011 20:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Pb, correct me if I'm wrong but the survey draft started in February of last year, and most of it seems to have been completed by June-july according to the talk page. I was hired sometime around october/november, there is no way I could have known or participated in it. I did notice the link in the sidebar but never really paid much attention to what it was for, like several hundred other people. Theo10011 20:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Context- Flawed and one-sided

The entire section about geography/language divide is ridiculous. It ironically starts out with calling the existing mechanism flawed. WMDE is somehow different because the "overlap is high" in germany between language and geography? I am not sure what that is supposed to mean. Why WMDE is being singled out instead of a dozen european chapters with identical overlap. Maybe because WMDE was allowed to fundraise from the beginning? was that because of this "overlap"?

It goes on to denigrate EU chapters and exalt the global south bodies as if they are being marginalized, sadly, they are the same Wikipedians from a different country. This might not have sunk in yet, that global south chapters might want the same things as EU chapters, freedom, independence, they might be critical of WMF as much as other chapters.

Depending on the outlook if all entities were considered one, WMF would be the biggest chapter, ten times the size of the next one. It would be based in one language and one geography, all the arguments being made against the chapters would apply ten folds to WMF. Considering some of the recent criticism and questions about WMF accountability, I'm not sure what high moral ground one organization can take to criticize the other for not being responsible. Theo10011 13:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Re the first paragraph; I think WMDE was used as an example, and the example works in some respects, but there may be a better way of making the point. According to the English Wikipedia, there are 178m (98m native) German speakers, and 81 million people in Germany (not all of whom speak German) - necessarily making German citizens a minority of all German speakers, not unlike other European nations with an eponymous language. Nathan ^T 18:32, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Quick roughtly factual note:

• High overlap speakers/citizens (apart Germany, not totally true as Nathan pointed out): Italy (partly), Finland, Norway, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania…
• Weak overlap speakers/citizens: Spanish, Portuguese, English, French

Regarding the Global South, this is needs to be defined. I've done a quick search on meta. There is not a page that defines what the term actually means. --LauraHale 20:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Laura. I just did a quick search of my hard drive, and here is the definition that has been used by the Wikimedia Foundation. I forget its origin (an international aid organization or the UN, something like that). It is also on the wikis somewhere, perhaps on strategy. Thanks Sue Gardner 02:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

"The Global North is comprised of Canada, the United States, Hong Kong, Macau, China, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City, Australia, New Zealand and Russia.

The Global South is comprised of Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Democractic Republic of Congo, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, East Timor, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, North Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgystan, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Naura, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papau New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.''

Nathan, my comment was in context of WMDE -WMDE was the only chapter mentioned in the board letter about fundraising and intentionally given a pass to be allowed to fundraise, which 99% of other chapters were not. If the logic there was that some "overlap" between geography and language facilitated, I would like to know. Either way, it makes an assumption that germany doesn't suffer from some issue that all of europe does. Movement roles discussed the abstract of the language vs. geography issue, but this is turning it on its head and taking an unrelated albeit a real issue, and unnecessarily making it a part of this conversation. Would it help if the chapters tomorrow choose to make language based distinction rather than geography based? it is the same people, with the same issues and the same opinions. I can take 4 languages and start a "language chapter", It might satisfy some myopic shortcoming that is marginalizing all the people from my part of the world, but it is not going to change my opinion, it is not going to have an effect on fundraising. A Wikipedian from the non-privileged part of the world - Theo10011 21:30, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The Haifa letter doesn't mention any chapters by name. Sue sent an email to internal-l on 8 August 2011 that said it was the Board's opinion that only WMDE should fundraise in 2011 (it's clear from the Haifa letter than their intention was for other chapters to fundraise once they could demonstrate they were ready). I'm not sure how accurate her understanding of the board's position was, though - Ting had to correct her on at least one point in that thread. I would rather hear about the opinions of the board from the board... --Tango 21:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

To clarify again: that was not the Board's opinion. Having many chapters serve as payment processors was in line with the Board's comments; we primarily wanted to ensure there was a high bar, with well-defined standards, for anyone processing payments. Some trustees may have thought only WMDE would be able to completely meet those standards last year; others hoped all interested chapters would manage to meet them. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully follow your objection. I understand Sue as making the argument that the (typically) nation-specific nature of the chapters is not an extension of any fundamental characteristic of the Wikimedia movement nor any distinction normally used by the Wikimedia community. Many of the best arguments for nation-specific chapters are legal and financial, but these are seemingly mooted if chapters no longer have a role in raising Wikimedia funds. While Sue didn't explicitly list alternatives, it's quite conceivable that there are better organizing principles for groups supporting the Wikimedia mission - among them, as you say, languages.

Sue implicitly made this connection with her example of WMDE; language is a logical demarcation method for supporting organizations, but one that rarely coincides well with the current chapter system. In her view, the exception of WMDE seems to illustrate the rarity. You can see from my previous comment that I don't really agree, since there are nearly a hundred million German speakers living outside Germany (more than the population of Germany itself). Nathan ^T 23:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Dependence and sustainability

Speaking for myself here, not for the board. There's a few key themes that have been raised in this and previous discussions. The Board has given ourselves a deadline to hash this out, and make a decision for the WMF; it's not easy, and there are many contentious points. So following Sue's lead I'm going to try and think through various issues for myself in public.

• Dependence versus independence -- many people have raised the issue of dependence or independence of chapters on the WMF. This post explores that issue in particular.

• Currently, all chapters are dependent on the WMF to sign a trademark/chapters agreement, and on the WMF Board of Trustees to approve chapter creation. In the future, even if this moves to an AffComm decision as suggested by movement roles, the WMF will very likely still hold the trademarks of the projects & Wikimedia name, licensing them in some way to the chapters. And, the reason for being for all chapters is to support the Wikimedia projects, which are hosted by the WMF though governed on a day-to-day basis by the community of editors (who may or may not belong to chapters, and largely do not). The chapters have very little say currently in activities related to the hosting of the projects; they (like the rest of the community) are dependent on WMF for that basic infrastructure.
• Currently, those chapters who do not payment process and have never payment processed (the large majority) are dependent on either asking for grants from the WMF, in a to-date fairly uncertain and rocky process, or some other revenue stream (e.g. membership dues). Many if not most have been hindered by lack of funds; despite this, many chapters have not asked for grants, preferring to rely on other revenue sources or doing projects that don't require much money.
• Currently, those chapters who do payment process donations directly are dependent on signing a fundraising agreement with the WMF (which starting this year included budget approval, a source of tension and overhead for everyone) and working closely with the WMF fundraising team; site banner space is still controlled by the WMF. Revenues are uncertain ahead of time for the chapter, since they depend on the generosity of donors within that particular country. There have been complaints that fundraising agreements are vulnerable to a single-point-of-failure (acceptance or rejection by a few key staff members), thus leading to unhappy dependence on the WMF for the chapters.
• Proposal for the future:

• improve and stabilize the granting infrastructure, and move grant-making and budget review decisions away from the WMF and to a community body (to both increase community review and remove the single-point-of-failure problem). Offer annualized grants so chapters and projects can have a stable revenue stream throughout the year, regardless of the whims of donors. This process is proposed to encompass WMF spending as well, removing some decision making from the WMF board directly so that we all can more easily make global decisions and see who is funding what (and so more people, including non-affiliated community members, can have input on the annual plan process).
• All chapters would still able to raise funds in all the other ways (i.e. membership dues and grants), keeping the status quo of funding for many chapters.
• All chapters whether they come from a poor country or rich country have access to funds, regardless of how much people in their country are able to donate. Fundraising costs for payment-processing chapters diminish dramatically; overhead for chapters who may newly apply for grants will increase, but that overhead cost would likely be there in any grant or payment-processing scenario.

• Under this scenario:

• presumably local fundraising messaging could still be developed and deployed; and data could still be shared with the chapter about local donors for outreach purposes (subject to the privacy policy etc); however, chapters would be more dependent on the WMF to share this information (however, there is already a dependent information-sharing relationship in place, and those who haven't participated in the fundraiser have never gotten this information).
• Chapters would not have the assurance that locally donated money would go to the local entity (of course, that's already true in any place that doesn't have a chapter or where the chapter doesn't fundraise). The WMF would lessen its dependence on local chapters being able to transfer big sums around around, which is a consideration for nearly every chapter that is payment processing; however, for granting, every place that gets a grant would be dependent on the WMF's ability to send money there (the WMF has a fair bit of practice with this, having given out a good amount of money to individuals and groups in all kinds of places already).
• There are arguments on both sides about transparency to donors, and benefits to donors and the movement to donating locally, versus to the global projects; while crucial to the genesis of this proposal they don't seem to have much bearing on the independence/dependence question, so I will leave them out.

So would chapters become more or less dependent on WMF funding under this proposal? They are already quite dependent in every scenario we've tried out over the years; and there is a significant coordination cost to working with the WMF fundraising team and transferring money back and forth. That coordination cost under this proposal would be shifted rather than lessened, but shifted to a community body rather than the WMF, providing an equalizing mechanism for all movement participants.

There are as ever a great number of potential pitfalls in this proposal; the largest one seems to be the difficulty in getting a fair and community-governed funds distribution committee going. There are also a large number of pitfalls in the current model, however. I'll try to think through these in a future post. I am taking it for granted that every chapter and the WMF all have independent governing mechanisms, including individual boards.

Is this an inaccurate summary? If so, on which points? Are there other things to consider on the question of independence/dependence? -- phoebe | talk 18:58, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

• p.s. one consideration might be that of laws, and whether US laws would apply to grants in a way that would be harmful to chapters; but I don't see a clear argument in that thread yet that really makes sense nor do I know the legal details. So I will just note the issue here as one possible aspect for others to expand on. -- phoebe | talk 19:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Control and independence is a tough subject. Naturally people want freedom in decision making, most particularly when it comes to money. In the Wikimedia community, the monetary freedom of the WMF and of chapters have been inextricably linked - the more freedom the WMF gives to chapters, the less it retains for itself. This is the fundamental tension underlying this debate, and we shouldn't mistake or disguise the clear intent of the board and Sue to recover a greater degree of control over the collection and use of funds.

While most people are, I think, willing to stipulate to the various risks and responsibilities expressed as concerns by the Board and staff (fiduciary responsibility and liability with respect to financial controls, inter-organizational disclosures, etc.)... It sort of defies logic to question whether the proposed change will result in greater or lesser dependence of chapters. The motivation of the Board in this debate, greater and more muscular control over funding (whether delegated or not, as delegation does not alter the legal and moral responsibilities of the Board), is crystal clear and has been telegraphed both explicitly and implicitly since the Board letter was released. The proposal can be characterized as granting liberties which the chapters already have while eliminating those they have previously enjoyed; chapters always were able to raise funds independently, but there is no reason to expect that oversight requirements under a system where the majority of funding is received by grants will be in any way less onerous than in the current system of budget approval and comprehensive chapter agreements.

Of course, some (or even many) chapters may see improved prospects in this new system. Chapter-based payment processing privileges developed nations, both because of the relative ease of institutional development and the comparatively greater potential for raising money. Additionally, a purely grant-based funding model is more conceptually friendly to non-geographically oriented organizations, which may encourage the formation of "chapters" focused on specific languages or issues.

This is all not to say that I disagree with Sue's recommendations or the thrust of the Board letter. I've said before that it was inelegantly managed and the source of significant harm to relationships with dedicated Wikimedians, but the Board has serious moral and legal responsibilities that make a better grip on funding an inevitable development. It is, however, disingenuous to try to present these recommendations as an avenue for improved chapter independence. Nathan ^T 00:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to make an argument one way or another; I just think this is one of the fundamental issues that as you say is underlying a lot of the tension, and we haven't really explored assumptions about it as thoroughly as we might. -- phoebe | talk 00:38, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

While I have the highest degree of respect and admiration for you and your work, Phoebe... It strikes me as disingenuous for you, an officer of the board, to pose the question of independence in this way without distinguishing it as rhetorical (and then providing the obvious answer). Do I mistake the seemingly clear motive of the board when I say that it desires better oversight over spending and, as a natural consequence, over recipients of funds? If not, then proposing this discussion of "more or less independence" just confuses the issue and quixotically promotes debate on a question for which the Board already holds a clear answer. Nathan ^T 00:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's my motivation for raising this topic. Yes, a large part of the driving force behind the Board's Haifa letter, and working out the fundraising process now, is that the WMF Board was concerned that there was not enough oversight of donor money when it came to fundraising through chapters. However, I have heard some rhetoric to the effect of "if we go to a grants-only model then chapters will become branches of the WMF and lose all independence", and similar. Frankly, I don't think that's true. I think that chapters are already largely dependent on the WMF, and the WMF dependent on chapters, in ways that lead to lots of fighting currently; and that a grant program would actually provide an opportunity for increased independence to the majority of chapters that don't fundraise at all. And, in Sue's current recommendations, I think the recommendation to have a community review body for both chapter grants *and* WMF programs lessens dependence on both sides, counterbalancing any other effects. But: I am willing to say that my thinking is faulty, or there are other arguments that I haven't considered; so I wanted to think through the question in public. It may just confuse the issue -- if so, I apologize -- but the issue is already pretty darn confused. -- phoebe | talk 01:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If all of Sue's recommendations were adopted and implemented well, it would materially alter the power dynamics in a completely new way, because it would introduce a new funding body that both WMF and Chapters would become dependent on. And if that funding body maps closely against a combination of the community's will, and the insights of wise and smart people who represent additional voices which aren't contained or not contained sufficiently in the community, then this will be a valuable decentralization of power rather than the opposite.--Eloquence 02:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

As written, I don't see how that can be true. Here's the header: "The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees should commit to delegating movement-wide allocation of funds (excluding Wikimedia Foundation’s core operating budget) to a newly-formed movement body." Delegated authority is not surrendered authority; the board remains the final arbiter, in a legal sense, and thus retains all the responsibilities and liabilities that led to its desire for change. I can't imagine the board making a big deal out of oversight and fulfilling its fiduciary obligations, and then irretrievably delegating its authority to another body while retaining all the risks. If Sue intended that the WMF board actually surrender final authority to a different committee... I'd be really interested to hear the legal implications of this proposal from an expert in corporations and non-profit law. Nathan ^T 02:58, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Having veto power and delegating decision-making are not incompatible, though. And it would, indeed, be a new thing to say "we ask for funding decisions from this community body" (rather than say, the wmf staff). -- phoebe | talk 03:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

So the authority would still be being exercised by the board, but by a different intermediary with a different composition. Depending on how that body is composed, I can see it contributing to some different funding decisions; I'm not sure I would say it would materially alter the power dynamics, but it might give a wider array of people more direct input. Given the necessary restrictions the board would have to place on the funding committee (i.e., the type of oversight exercised would still have to be rigorous and of the sort chapters might resent), I'm not sure that wouldn't just shift the burden of friction from one group to another... but maybe the chapter reps would feel more ownership if they formed part of the composition of this committee. That would make the chapters not more or less dependent-in-fact, but it could have a different feel. Nathan ^T 03:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Just bear in mind that we're talking about two sets of decisions: one is grants, to anyone/any body that is not directly a part of the WMF; and the second is vetting WMF programs. It would, in fact, be a huge change for how the WMF is run to go ahead with Recommendation 4; and yes, I think the goal would be for the whole community to feel greater ownership in what gets funded, everywhere in the movement. As for veto power, a lot of it is cultural norms I think -- the Board (and I am not speaking for the board here, but just my understanding of the situation!) would have to really commit to trusting the results and decisions of that funding committee for it to be effective. (As would the chapters and everyone else funded by it). -- phoebe | talk 22:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If you were to go for such a centralised solution how would you avoid such a centralised body becoming inefficient, remote, bureaucratic and inflexible? Are there any organisations that operate on a similarly international level to us that have gone down the centralisation route and avoided such pitfalls? WereSpielChequers 03:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation sites

There is a typo here: "would not be able to use the Wikimedia Foundation sites to do so" -> "would not be able to use the Wikimedia sites to do so". ~ Seb35 [^_^] 19:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

How is that a typo? Nathan ^T 00:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The websites we are referring to are those owned by the wikimedia foundation. There are more sites which I consider to make up the "Wikimedia sites" which would include those run and operated by the chapters (the toolserver being the most prominent example). This wording is accurate. Seddon 19:18, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not really. A better phrasing would be 'would not be able to use the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation to do so'. The sites belong to the community (right to fork and all that), not to an organisation, and we shouldn't forget that... But this is a side-issue here. Mike Peel 19:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This is not right. The sites belong to the Wikimedia Foundation. Much of the content on the sites belongs to its many creators, and is licensed to others. Much like an office building; a real estate company may own the building, but its contents aside from infrastructure belong to others. Nathan ^T 19:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Except here, the office building goes under the name of 'servers', not 'sites'... Unless you're thinking of different infrastructure? Mike Peel 19:30, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

We're verging into the silly at this point, but a "site" can be conventionally defined as a URL, the design and structure of its pages, the contents of those pages and their functions. A "site" can be moved from one server to another without changing its ownership, and in this case the WMF owns both the sites and (many of the) servers. In any case, the community is not formally an entity nor does it have any ownership rights. Nathan ^T 19:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It could be for you a bad phrasing, but it’s for me a major issue (not only this small occurence, but also all others, as well as the general spirit). By saying Wikimedia sites (or perhaps better Wikimedia projects, following Seddon’s remark) it means it is a community website (neither the WMF created alone WP, neither the editors created alone WP, neither the Chapters, etc.); by saying Wikimedia Foundation website it would rather mean WMF has the authority on the websites, and the community (editors, chapters and other stakeholders) just has a right to use it, although editors also are a core stakeholder in the success of WP (and hence the successful fundraisers).

I aggree WMF owns trademarks, domain names, servers and operational staff, but the fundamental asset of the projects is the editors. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 22:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

An alternative analysis of fundraising effectiveness

Given the flaws mentioned above in Sue's analysis of the effectiveness of the WMF and chapters at fundraising, I thought I'd have a go at analysing it using a different approach. I have calculated (and I would ask people to please check my maths) that the 4 chapters that fundraised this year raised 26.3% of the funds (according to this Google Doc spreadsheet, ignoring funds raised after 31 December so as to compare like-with-like, although this means FR, DE and CH lose out on the big last day boost) and represent 13.7% of the world's GDP (according to the IMF figures here). You cannot directly conclude from this that the chapters did better than the WMF would have, but I think it is very clear that the chapters were very effective (although, it should be noted that if you remove Germany the figures go down to 10.2% of funds from 8.5% of GDP, so still better than rest-of-world, but not by much, so really it's WMDE that is super-effective, but the others are still effective). I would appreciate it if someone at the WMF could provide me with a breakdown of the WMF's revenue by country so I can do a better analysis (it may be that the WMF's statistics are being dragged down by a few wealthy countries where very little is raised - eg. China, perhaps?). --Tango 21:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll see what figures I may be able to find. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 22:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! --Tango 22:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Tango, I've got the latest numbers for you. Like the numbers Sue used, they are preliminary figures, evolving as data comes in, but I'm sure they'll be helpful in figuring out trends. If you've got any questions about it, please let me know, and I'll try to get you answers. If I've managed to do the "sharing" correctly, it should be visible as a Google doc spreadsheet to anyone who clicks here: [5]. If you encounter any issues, please let me know. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 11:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

These are measured in dollars, that has some advantages for WMF planning but could explain the misconception as to whether donors are more or less willing to donate to a local chapter. It is possible that both the WMF figures and the Wikimedia UK figures as to UK donations are correct, provided they are in different currencies and the dollar has done well against Sterling and the Euro in the last year. If so then what the WMF is encountering is not that donations in the UK and Europe are growing more slowly than elsewhere, it would be that the weakness of sterling and the Euro is partly masking the success of local payment processing. Remember most people in the UK are earning the same or less in in sterling than we did the previous year - so to measure the success of UK fundraising as opposed to US fundraising in the UK you need to measure the percentage change in donations in sterling as that is the currency that the donors earn and the currency that they donate in. WereSpielChequers 11:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just looked up the USD-GBP rate and it has hardly changed (it changed a lot during the year but has come back to the same level). The mid rate for 31 December 2010 was 1.5470 and 31 December 2011 it was 1.5455. That change isn't going to have a noticeable impact on anything. The Euro has weakened against the dollar by about 2.3%, which is worth taking into account but isn't likely to change any conclusions. The Australian Dollar and Swiss Franc have both changed by only about 0.1%. So basically, currency movements haven't been significant (but you are right that we need to remember to check them). --Tango 12:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned by email, the figures for Wikimedia CH are wrong -- they include only the fundraiser, not the period July-November, despite what the column says. And indeed, change in exchange rates can make a large difference too, so we are comparing apples and oranges here. And we should add to this table money that was fundraised in CH that does not fall within the fundraiser agreement (e.g. a person who made a large donation specifically to WM CH): while not part of the agreement, it's part of the money received through the chapter's fundraising effort, and shows why they are efficient. Schutz 12:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Maggie! I'll look over them properly over the weekend. --Tango 12:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

What's a better solution?

I am curious what better ideas people have. If you were going to redesign our fundraising/dissemination system, and had to: ensure oversight of donor money and transparency; meet all other goals; reduce fighting; adhere to the fundraising & dissemination principles; serve the mission -- what would you do? This is related to Stu's question about how would we design the movement if we had to do it from the ground up. And for what it's worth, no, I don't want us to simply repeat what we did last year or the year before -- there were simply too many problems, on both sides. But if you want to, then let us know why. -- phoebe | talk 22:43, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

ps. I am asking because if folks find the proposals fundamentally flawed as-is (and I personally don't think they are), then I want to know what better ideas are on the table. -- phoebe | talk 03:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think the only solution is to move responsibility for this kind of thing away from the WMF. The WMF does a great job of running the servers, handling legal matters, doing outreach, etc., but whenever it tries to assume a leadership role within the movement, it ends badly. I think the movement does need some leadership, but it can't just be the biggest entity filling the power vacuum. We need to actually design a system that meets our needs, has legitimacy and that people will accept. I proposed one possible such system on my blog a while back (when I find time, I'll go over it again in light of experience we've had since I wrote it - the details need work, but I still think the basic principle is sound). If other people have other ideas how we can have some leadership in the movement without the problems the WMF trying to take on that role causes, I would be very interested in hearing them. --Tango 22:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought at the end of August 2011 about a very near model. Like in your model, my model is the creation of an entity (your name of Trust is very good) whose the Board would be composed of 1/3 "WMF" representatives, 1/3 community members, 1/3 chapters members; until here quite the same as your model. The main difference apears that in my model I thought that newly-created entity would operationally run the sites and would give fundraising aggrements to all other entities which want to fundraise through the sites; this entity would have an operational technical team, an operational legal team and an administrative/finance team and would have no extra job. The other jobs would stay in the domain of "WMF", which I call Wikimedia International (but can be called WMF as well) given it would coordinate global activities like global programs (Global South, global Editors decreasing, global advocacy, MediaWiki development, support to innovation, etc.).

The core idea of these two near models is to distribute true power to communities, and in mine also having a very stable entity (an endowment?) which would be dedicated to run sites. I can expland a bit if you like. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 23:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I considered something closer to your idea, but decided it was better to keep the hosting with the WMF. The WMF is doing a decent job of hosting the sites, so why change what isn't broken? One of the key principles I used when formulating my idea was to try and change as little as possible. On a day-to-day level, there would be very little impact on anything under my proposal. I thought that increased the liklihood of it ever getting adopted. --Tango 12:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The structure you envision reminds me of a lot of the governance experiments proposed for the English Wikipedia; interesting thought experiments that haven't necessarily been thought all the way through and don't actually address clearly identified problems or make any substantial improvements. You seem to acknowledge near the end of your post that a major component of your proposal is a cosmetic change - the Trust will have been conceived as a governing body, rather than become one by default, even though you anticipate it will act in a manner virtually identical to the Board. Except now we would have two governing committees, with all the potential for bureaucratic complexity and conflict that entails (the WMF, as a non-profit corporation, would need to continue to have a boarD). We would additionally have two entities with legally independent responsibilities and liabilities that may conflict - so they would need to, for example, make duplicate expenditures on legal advice and representation that could quite conceivably be contradictory. All the while, the experience for chapters will be more or less unchanged.

The only element with any substance is the composition of the Board - you grant greater authority to chapters and the voters in the Wikimedia community. Perhaps you can address Sue's counterargument against devolving power to chapters - why are chapters, which do not represent either the projects or their audiences, the best and most legitimate source of leadership of the Wikimedia movement? Nathan ^T 00:43, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't underestimate the importance of psycology. Transfering things to a new body means that body can have a fresh start without all the baggage of the controversial decisions the WMF has made. There is also a significant change in that these big decisions would be being made by the volunteer board of the Trust, not by WMF staff as they tend to be now, since the Trust wouldn't have lots of staff. I don't see the creation of an additional entity as a big deal - we're creating new chapters at a rate of several a year and they each have their own board and their own responsibilities and liabilities and all the same potential for conflict. --Tango 12:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi phoebe, you may recall I had a few thoughts on this subject. I actually had structural solutions and models that might have worked. I referred to them last year, I never got a chance to address or discuss them. The thing is, I know I can do better, I know we can do better than this. There just has to be some decisions that need to be made by Sue and the board - the first without which this entire process is pointless is, if all the requirements for accountability are satisfied and all the stakeholders comply and accept, will the chapter be allowed to fundraise or not? if the discussion starts with, no more chapter fundraising, then I am sorry to say this entire process appears to be a ruse. Regards. Theo10011 22:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Theo, you've been posting long emails on the lists nearly every day for weeks now. I find your saying that you have never gotten to discuss your thoughts a bit of a stretch. -- phoebe | talk 01:37, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok phoebe. You are right. I am honestly tired of this. You've formed some opinion of me from before without a single direct interaction, that I am somehow less unaware than you or prone to drama, and that might define most of your interaction and opinion of me. You are characterizing me almost as some rambling narcissist, you honestly don't know me, I am not in the habit of lying. So, I guess there is nothing more to say except feel free to ignore all of my long emails. I apologize to have subjected you to them. If you do wanna look, go look through all my weekly long emails and see the one in november, before Jan-bart started the process and Sue went to europe, Subject:Structural problem. I expressly said, I have a couple of ideas and I am being told are not needed, because the staff and the board think they have this covered. After that most of my emails have been responses. Theo10011 03:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Theo, please do flesh out your structural ideas and models -- on a new page, perhaps? I don't believe anyone thinks "they have this covered" -- even the most specific proposals so far have been somewhat vague. And I agree with you that we can do better than the best ideas proposed so far. Sue's draft recommendation may currently say 'all payment processing by the WMF', but there is a reason this is being discussed in public; that should not limit the community discussion. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Phoebe, one radical alternative would be to decentralise - the actual figures will probably show that this is the best route financially, and more importantly decentralisation has a much better fit with the wiki culture. But, and this is a key difference, we need a matrix structure where we can when appropriate operate at language level or topic level. The last is the biggest opportunity - we currently have wikiprojects operating in language based silos and we should be enabling them to collaborate better across languages. Actually running the servers and maybe developing mediawiki software should remain a WMF function, along with domain registrations and probably legal. While trademarks, application development, GLAM and Outreach could all be decentraliased. WereSpielChequers 03:33, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what decentralise means to you without specifics in this context, of fundraising and funds dissemination -- can you clarify? -- phoebe | talk 03:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Better solutionS would be : check the problems case by case, chapter by chapter, and try to find solutions adapted to each issue with each chapter, and try to help chapters experiencing a problem to resolve it. I understand how much it would be relaxing to think that there is ONE massive solution applying well to all, and I do understand how it's intellectually interesting to virtually rebuild the movement from the scratch. But it's not realistic, and IMHO that's not the way our movement should be directed. We are worldwide, we are numerous, we have an history, and we are differents, and this is not the problem but the solution. WMF has a paid staff dedicated to resolve these problems, I'm sure that this staff is able to provide finely worked and localized recommandations (with the help of the chapters, of course). And if this staff is not able to do that, oh well, we have a major problem... Kropotkine 113 09:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Not actually starting from scratch

Just a quick point Phoebe - do bear in mind that we are not actually building a system from the ground up. Indeed, there are probably about 200,000 people who have donated to chapters in the past. Their contact details and giving histories are on the chapters' databases. Some of them have recurring gifts set up to the Chapter. To fundraise from them effectively we ought to make use of that information and the work that certain Chapters have done to build relationships with donors. Switching to a Foundation-only model would mean we took a step backward with that data and those relationships. It would also stop donors from making tax-deductible donations as they have done in the past, which is scarcely something in our donors' interest! (PS am trying to resist engaging in this conversation too much before I have the chance to respond at length this weekend). The Land 12:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that if someone has a direct debit setup to one legal entity we can't readily transfer that to another legal entity, especially if that is overseas. Donor mailing lists may also be organisation specific. WereSpielChequers 13:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, of course we're not actually starting from scratch; if we were, this would be a very different debate. I am wondering though what an ideal solution under that circumstance would be though. -- phoebe | talk 15:38, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Community vote

Is it programmed a vote by the Wikimedia community? It would be a good practice before any important change like this one. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 23:11, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. The board decisions haven't really been open for votes in the last year. Community disagreement is becoming more and more common with these decisions, it seems. Everyone realizes, if this was put up for vote, it would be heavily voted and criticized against WMF position. I'm really disappointed. Theo10011 23:19, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

There are two main problems I can see with putting something like this to a vote. 1) What proportion of the community will actually understand the issues? Most Wikimedians are content to get on with creating free content and don't concern themselves with the politics of the WMF and chapters (if they even know what the WMF and chapters are). Having ill-informed people voting doesn't gain us much. 2) The community (at least the English community, I can't speak for other languages) tend not to like simple majority votes. Everything has to be a "rough consensus" (which is code for 2/3 supermajority, in most cases). I doubt any proposal for how to raise and disseminate funds could ever reach 2/3 support. --Tango 23:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Get the data correct then make conclusions

I don't know about the other countries doing national payment collections but the actual UK figures as opposed to the ones these assumptions were made on show that a decentralised model as one would expect way outperforms a centralised one. Can we get the figures checked and corrected before we go any further? WereSpielChequers 02:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Ahhh why are you not on internal already? :P we need you! You are not the first to suggest and discuss decentralization, this topic has been under discussion for several months. Theo10011 03:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Someone nominated me months ago, I've never been officially told I was blackballed or why I was rejected, but no I'm not on internal. But why have such discussion in secret and not in public? WereSpielChequers 03:57, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It is not, look at my edits from months ago, most of it is also on Meta, it is just several months old at this point. About the lists, actually you aren't blackballed or anything that I know of, I will leave a reminder for list admin to check up why you haven't been added. Regards. Theo10011 04:02, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Some of it is here [6] and [7]. There is probably more, but it is lying in bits and pieces across several talk pages related to this process. Hope that helps. Theo10011 04:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers, I'm sure you know how hard it is to keep conversations in one place. :) In terms of this particular conversation, Sue has requested that Philippe and I try to keep it on Wiki, and I'll remind people there again that we should be talking here. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 11:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Maggie, does that mean we can expect corrected figures here soon? WereSpielChequers 13:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It means that I've asked people on Internal-L to please remember that this is a public conversation and to address it here. I was responding to your question "But why have such discussion in secret and not in public?" --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 13:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate that. But as you are doing so with a WMF id it would really help if the WMF were to quickly check those figures, make appropriate corrections and then if appropriate amend their recommendation. For example it is difficult to dispute that if you ignore the tax Wikimedia claims back through Gift Aid then having a UK chapter looks less attractive. But that reclaimed tax is real money that the UK chapter has coming into its bank account and which a US based operation could not get, so it should be included in the calculation. WereSpielChequers 00:06, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm here to facilitate conversation and may be able to help with getting information, as with the preliminary data report I linked from the fundraiser, but the figures I've linked are all I currently have. Can you tell me, are the figures you are looking for missing from that link? If so, I can try to get them if you can be specific as to what you're looking for.

Given what you say about the WMF amending "their recommendation", I do think it might be helpful to point out that this is not a collective recommendation. :) This document is Sue's, representing her draft as she is gathering information and ideas. I'm sure she will be updating it as seems appropriate as more of both come together. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 01:46, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Cost of international transfers

It has been repeatedly stated that the cost of international transfers is a significant negative. Please could this be quantified. What exactly are the costs that have been incurred in past international transactions both to and from the foundation by both payment processing chapters transferring money to the foundation and grant recipients receiving grant funds and returning unused grant funds. Seddon 07:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The total expense for transferring funds from WMAU to the WMF last year was AUD$60 - and that was only because we did two transfers instead of one. It may be different for other chapters or countries. Craig Franklin 08:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC).

Thank you for that craig. Do you have information on the exchange rates at the time of transfer and the dates of the transfers as well as total amounts? Similar information from other chapters would be greatly appreaciated. Seddon 08:24, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

For the 2010/11 financial year, the WMF requested $USD132,854.48, and we transferred $AUD127,727.60. So I make that an exchange rate of 1AUD = 1.04USD. We did raise the exchange rate issue with the WMF and were told not to worry about it. Craig Franklin 12:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC).

For WM CH, if we transfer money to the WMF account in France, the cost is actually zero (and it is indeed an international transfer). If we send the money to the US, the cost is... 2 CHF (<3 USD) per transaction. Schutz 08:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe that international transfers from WMUK to WMF currently cost something like £40 - which is fairly negligible compared to the amounts that we've transferred thus far. Those costs will be going down as we're in the process of switching to a new international transfer system (http://www.baydonhillfx.com/). I suspect that the bigger issue is actually converting the currency into USD - given that conversion rates fluctuate so much, it's important to try to make these transfers at the right time to get the most amount of USD for GBP, which I gather our new transfer system will let us do (but I doubt that most systems, such as Paypal, do this to the customer's benefit). Note that using GlobalPay wouldn't make these problems go away - it would actually make them doubly worse since you'd have to convert money granted back to WMUK via GBP -> USD -> GBP, hence doubling the costs and the currency conversion risks/inefficiencies... Mike Peel 09:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The question is a little bit complicated. The cost has basically an impact in the donation. I meant to explain that a donor who transfer money in another bank account with international transfer may have some additional costs, this could happen also by credit card. It means that it makes sense to collect the funds locally and after to transfer outside with an unique transaction. --Ilario 10:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, what is really important are the costs of the exchange rate. Let's make an example: the exchange rate is really variable, for instance the exchange USD/CHF at the end of October was 0.86, now is more or less 0.94, it means a difference of ~0.10 CHF. Imagine that we receive the donations in CHF in an account in USD, we may lose the original amount of the donations cause the exchange rate. The chapter will receive this money partially back as a grant, but it means a new conversion and again a lose of the original value. So my questions is: does it make sense to collect the money in USA and receive them back in the original country with the risk of the exchange rate? Why a double conversion? In the other hand if the exchange rate is favourable, this may be advantageous, but it seems really stupid to me that WMF should keep a bank account in Swiss Francs to save the real value of the donation. --Ilario 11:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

The thing with exchange rates is that if someone is donating in anything other than USD, it has to be converted at some point. Whether that happens when the donor makes their initial donation, or when the funds are transferred from a chapter to the United States is immaterial; it has to happen. And when exchange rates are factored in, the foundation may get a windfall or it may make a loss, there's nothing really that can be done about that. The only possible mitigation is holding it in a chapter's account and playing the exchange market to try and get the most favourable rate possible, but I'm not sure it's entirely ethical to do that sort of thing with donor funds. Craig Franklin 11:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC).

At least, when a local chapter is a payment processor, exchange rates are not an issue for money raised in this country that is used in the country (the share that is kept by the chapter); that's already a large proportion of money raised that won't need to be exchanged. That's a pretty strong advantage of local payment processing. Schutz 12:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Correct, and agreed. However, I think it's reasonable that some portion of the funds eventually make their way to the WMF, so at some point the issue will raise its head. You can't avoid it, even by going to a completely centralised or completely decentralised model. Craig Franklin 12:15, 6 January 2012

Of course, you can't avoid it, but it's already a big win if you can avoid it on part of the total revenues (>50% in the case of WM CH this year). Schutz 12:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Table of contents

Resolved. Done. Maggie Dennis (WMF) 01:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Extended content
Just for the sake of readability I would like to request to have the __NOTOC__ tag removed. I would make reading and navigating the document so much easier.. --Johannes Rohr (WMDE) 11:21, 6 January 2012 (UTC) I'll run that by Sue, Johannes. She'll see it herself, I know, when reading this page, but I may be able to bring it to her attention sooner. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) 11:27, 6 January 2012 (UTC) Sure -- this makes sense to me. Thanks Sue Gardner 20:36, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This section is believed complete. If there are new issues or outstanding concerns related to this, please start a new conversation. Maggie Dennis (WMF) 01:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Christophe Henner - Drop the data, focus on the issues

Hi everyone,

The following is my personal point of view and does not reflect in any Wikimedia France's.

I love data. Data is literraly my job, at least part of my job. But, data isn't the answer to our issue.

As we saw the past few days, the same datas are used to back both position (WMF fundraising and everyone fundraising), henceforth I guess we should stop using data to discuss this issues and work it the other way around, what issues are solved by each structure.

So first, let's list the objectives and issues of our fundraising (based on Sue's and adding some) :

• Maximising donations
• Cultivating our donors
• Creating a relationship with our donors
• Accountability of the payment processing organisations
• Transparency of the payment processing organisations
• Fairness in money sharing
• Efficiency of the fundraiser
• Money transfer
• Minimising legal exposure
• Independence of the organisations
• Involvement of the community

I don't think I've missed any, if I did, please feel free to add it :)

What struck me when I've read Sue's recommendations is that the recommendations are made to solve two kind of objectives/issues. A first set we could call "legal" and a second one "cultural".

Legal would be everything that is forced to use either by law or by good practices.

Cultural would be everything that is forced to us by our donors or volunteers culture.

Once this is being said, let's do a wikitable to sort them out !

Legal	Cultural
Accountability of the payment processing organisations	Maximising donations
Transparency of the payment processing organisations	Cultivating our donors
Fairness in money sharing	Creating a relationship with our donors
Money transfer	Efficiency of the fundraiser
Minimising legal exposure	Involvement of the community
Independence of the organisations

So we have more legal issues than cultural issues. If I use this wikitable and extract data I would say that ~54% of our issues would be solved by WMF processing all of the donations. Great ! Let's do that. Oh but wait, I said I wouldn't use data.

A good part of my job is to help companies to help them integrate new media in their structure and governance. When I work on this kind of projects, what I do first is to assess what kind of issues can be solved easily (mainly by training) and wich can't (deep change in the company "spirit", global governance overhaul, etc.). What can be solved by training are not issues I care of, they're easy to solve.

I mean training someone is really easy. However issues that needs a "governance" overhaul are horrible to handle. So what I try to do, is find the solution that solves most of the issues that are complicated to solve and I don't care for the others (I already knwo how to solve them, training or hiring).

Issue	Type	Solution
Accountability of the payment processing organisations	Legal	Easy. There are standards to respect. We define them and have all the organisations that wish to fundraise to meet them.
Transparency of the payment processing organisations	Legal	Easy. Same as above.
Fairness in money sharing	Legal	Easy to design complicated to implement. It's the 4th recommendation, a "neutral" body. I would go even further than Sue, but the idea is there.
Money transfer	Legal	Easy. If there's no legal work around, as in Germany, we can have operational work around. I proposed it to Barry while negotiating the fundraising agreement. WM FR cannot transfer more than 50% to WMF, but on top of those 50% we could give grants. So let's say that above 50% of our donations it goes to grants. This is a viable solution. There might be others.
Minimising legal exposure	Legal	Complicated then easy. Complicated to define all the legal threat around the payment processing. But once they are identified, we have to fix them. And identifying them isn't tide to wether WMF or Chapters are fundraising.
Independence of the organisations	Legal	This is one is tricky. I do totally agree that Chapters are definitely dependent on Wikimedia Foundation. Ever was. And whatever the structure we end up with, Chapters will be dependent on WMF. So this isn't really an issue, whoever fundraises, we depend. We either depend on the Grant giving process or the fundraising agreement. Little difference for me.
Maximising donations	Cultural	Complicated for WMF, easy for Chapters. Ok so, I agree that part of maximising donations can be done through A/B testing. But an other part is cultural. "Wikipedia Forever" isn't gonna work in France. Period. You can translate it, but if you're not french, kind of hard to grasp wht could or couldn't work. So, if WMF really wants to solve this issue, it has to get consultancy for the main countries it fundraises in.
Cultivating our donors	Cultural	Complicated for WMF, easy for Chapters. Same as above. Even worse in fact. How could WMF organise events with the donors of every single countries in the world ? Or contact them at the right moment. Will WMF staff be able to keep up with local news so they wouldn't send newsletter at the wrong time ?
Creating a relationship with our donors	Cultural	Complicated for WMF, easy for Chapters. Except if WMF is gonna have staff fluent in every main languages and having the time to answer to donors questions, well they couldn't built a strong relationship. Even worse, for France at least, as next year your main topic of discussion with the donors would be to explain to them why they ad a tax deduction last year and not this year.
Efficiency of the fundraiser	Cultural	Tricky. There are too many variables to take into account when calculating the cost of the fundraising. And if we want to be correct, we would have to confront the cost difference with the difference in income. There's no way to do that. Saying solution A would decrease fundraiser costs wouldn't be based on any extensive study.
Involvement of the community	Cultural	It isn't easy or complicated. Why do people edit Wikipedia ? Because they can see and appreciate the fruit of their work. Even if people starts to edit for the ideal, and the ideal is a strong motivation, what makes people stick to the projects, is the reward. The reward to see their work online. Useful. Appreciated. It's kind of the same as gardening. Would you garden your neighbour garden for free ? I would not. Here it's the same. How volunteers could get motivated to spend days working on the fundraiser if, in the end, they work, and the fruit of their work goes to Wikimedia Foundation with no guarantees whatsoever that they will get it a fair share back.

Having WMF being the sole donation processing organisation would solve quiet quickly most of the legal issues, but wouldn't solve cultural ones.

Having a mix structure, as we actualy have, would solve organicly cultural issues but would need work, time and resources to solve the legal ones.

I would like us to be around for decades. And I know WMF too.

And in 10 years, all Wikimedia organisations could be able to get to beyond expectations accountability/transparency. But even in 10 years, Wikimedia Foundation will not be able to cultivate donors/create a relationship, fit to the cultural standards as well as a chapter could. If you don't agree, please come with supra strong arguments.

As I said before, both on list and in person, I'm backing the board 100% regarding the accountability issues. They are important, urgent and critical issues to be solved. Even if the how was not good back in August (but hey shit happens), I do totally agree with the board decision to have higher standard regarding payment processing for both chapters and foundation. As I said back then, following the board letter, we had figured a ladder (who can or can't fundraise) but not the steps in between. We are really close to a system that could be fair and sustainable.

But, having WMF being the only donation processor is solving the short term issues and creating new long term issues. But now that we are close, the first recommendation would drive us to more debates, hard feeling, harsh words, etc. We don't want that. All of this is preventing all of us to do much more interesting stuff for the projects.

So here we are, crossroads of what we are as a movement.

We can take the easy path, Wikimedia Foundation being the only donation processor and solve all of our short term issues and not being able to cultivate donors in non-US countries, not able to really engage donors. Or we can take a more complicated path, which we already are on by the way, and define really high standards, having a mix system between WMF and chapters, defining new "committee" to ensure a fair treatement of all the organisations. Struggle for the next few month to get everything perfect. And then, being able to cultivate our donors and create a strong relationship with them.

I know we all want what's best for Wikimedia Movement. And I hope we'll find the best solution possible. But going down the easy road wouldn't help us improve our long term fundraising capability and would create a lot of involvement issues within the chapters. And if we really want the sum of human knowledge freely accessible to everyone we need involved and highly motivated wikimedia volunteers. And chapters helps providing that. Chapters made many amazing things happened, and being able to fundraise, to "garden" their very own organisation, to be empowered with their "destiny" allowed that. Just empowering people with editing Wikipedia lead us to have an awesome free encyclopedia.

I hope Sue you'll make the "right" recommendations, and if not, I hope the Board will. I do not want to imagine how things would be if not. Schiste 14:10, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I think that fallacies exist on both sides of the argument. When the cost of transfer is less than 0.01% (in the case of both WMAU,WMCH and WMUK) of the total transfer (so less than the cost of a night in a decent hotel room in most major european cities) it is a fallacy to state that the cost of international transfers is something to prevent chapters fundraising. Particularly when the return for example with WMUK being a charity is around 10-15%. There are many idealistic values and I will happily put those forward. But just as the foundation SHOULD remove fallacies stated by the chapters in defence of payment processing, so should the chapters do likewise. We all have a responsibility for any decisions made to be based on factually correct understandings rather than assumptions. Seddon 19:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

• Hey Schiste, I will have to sit down and spend some time thinking about this in detail to respond, but thank you for making this post -- this is awesome :) I love tables (maybe not table syntax, but I do love tables). -- phoebe | talk 22:09, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, Schiste, I had started to draft a reply of my own, and here you have mentioned most of what I was going to say about legal vs. cultural, and short-term vs. long-term solutions. Thank you.

I will add one thing I have noticed: some Wikimedians who care about this topic, don't see why 'payment processing' is an important part of fundraising, and imagine that centralized processing is simply more efficient and easier to optimize. Maybe it is so efficient, they think, that it overcomes any advantage to donations being tax-deductible. Others don't understand what a good donor relationship or an efficient fundraiser entails, and again assume that centralized means more efficient / more reliable / better donor relations. So we are not all speaking the same language yet. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I think your metaphor of a ladder without steps captures the current situation - so the question then is: How does one add steps into the ladder? I remember that you had brought this up in Haifa, and was struck by it then too. But even now, after so much water has flowed under the bridge, this remains a powerful metaphor, and a good way to think about this issue. Bishdatta 18:08, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

The best path to independence

I want to talk a little here about independence. This will be a little long. I'm sorry about that, but I am aiming to be as clear as possible -- there's a tl;dr at the end :-)

I'm going to start by repeating something I said a few months ago on internal-l.

An important problem here is that the Wikimedia movement currently seems to want three things:

1. We want the chapters to be entirely independent of the Wikimedia Foundation;
2. We want the chapters to have a share of movement resources;
3. We want the Wikimedia Foundation to be a responsible custodian of donations that come in via the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Those three goals conflict with each other. As I see it, we can choose to sacrifice one or more of them, or we can try to find ways to balance among them. The recommendations I've drafted are an attempt to find that balance.

For the last several years, the Wikimedia Foundation has tended to err on the side of supporting chapters in being able to payment-process, even if we weren't 100% positive they were equipped to do it well. What the Board of Trustees said to us all in Haifa was that it was concerned that the third goal (being a responsible custodian of donations) was receiving insufficient priority. It wanted the Wikimedia Foundation to take seriously its responsibilities to donors, and to “raise the bar” for compliance, by more thoroughly vetting chapters' ability to payment-process before letting them do it. Many chapters representatives were upset by the process by which that decision was made and by the timing of it, but I haven't heard anyone arguing with the substance of the decision itself. Indeed, many people have applauded it, and quite a few chapters representatives have told me privately that although they were angry about how it was communicated, they were glad about the decision itself: they didn't believe their chapter was equipped to payment-process, and they were relieved when the Board of Trustees took the decision out of their hands.

Meanwhile, for the past year, many chapters have been expressing increasing unhappiness about the Wikimedia Foundation's attempts to raise the bar in terms of compliance. By “raising the bar,” I mean things like the Wikimedia Foundation developing more robust and detailed legal agreements, tracking chapter compliance with them, asking chapters to demonstrate that they are publishing plans and activity reports, reviewing program plans, monitoring compliance with local laws, and so forth. Generally, chapters have seemed to resist and resent the Wikimedia Foundation's efforts to review and evaluate aspects of their operations. I understand this and I sympathize with it. They are independent organizations, and it can be very uncomfortable for an organization to be reviewed and evaluated by another party, particularly if they feel there's a risk of a relationship developing that's basically “head office” and ”subsidiary.” So, things started getting uncomfortable and unpleasant when the Wikimedia Foundation first began making efforts to more effectively ensure payment-processing chapters' compliance about a year ago, and it got worse after the Board asked me to raise the bar further. That does not mean we should stop 'raising the bar.' As many of us have acknowledged and agreed: it is the right thing to do. But, it comes at the expense of chapter independence, which is making the chapters unhappy.

So. If we were to continue to have chapters payment-processing in future, here is what I anticipate would happen:

• The chapters that meet the requirements for payment-processing would continue to have (or to feel they are having) their autonomy eroded by the Wikimedia Foundation. Why? Because the Wikimedia Foundation can't ignore its responsibilities. Therefore, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to require payment-processing chapters to prove they're in compliance with relevant local laws, and we will need them to get in compliance where they currently are not. Chapters will need to prove that they have no privacy issues, no potential data leaks, and appropriate insurance. We will need to further tighten up our legal agreements and introduce auditing to ensure they're complied with. We will need to begin to ensure the messaging to donors is honest and accurate, and that plans and reports are published. We will need to review and approve revenue targets and program plans. All of that will feel like the continued/increased erosion of autonomy for the chapters. I would anticipate increasingly difficult relationships, with some potentially deadlocking in disagreement.

• Meanwhile, I anticipate that chapters which did not payment-process in 2011 *will* aspire to payment-process in 2012 and beyond. (I noticed the other day that the Philippines aspires to payment-process in future; I am sure many other chapters also do.) Those chapters will face a bumpy, uncomfortable road, trying to demonstrate to the Wikimedia Foundation that they are ready to payment-process. Probably some will argue that they are ready before they actually are, which will force the Wikimedia Foundation to prove those chapters are "not mature" or "not professional" enough, increasing chapters' alienation and offence.

I would like to avoid that. I think it would be unpleasant for everyone, and would lock us into relationships that are fundamentally adversarial.

I think that the key to avoiding it, is avoiding chapters payment-processing donations that come in via the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Why? Because when chapters payment-process during the annual campaign, it can be argued that they are acting as an arm of the Wikimedia Foundation. That poses a number of challenges. One is, the Wikimedia Foundation has a fiduciary responsibility to donors that come in via the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, and sending donors to independent entities can only work if the Wikimedia Foundation has a great deal of visibility into the operations of that independent entity, as well as understanding of it, and influence over it. Which flatly contradicts the desire for chapter independence.

In sum: if the chapters payment process, IMO they become much more interlinked and interdependent with the Wikimedia Foundation. Independence via payment-processing is a fiction.

So I looked for another solution.

If chapters don't payment-process in the annual campaign, much of their requirement to demonstrate compliance to the Wikimedia Foundation simply evaporates. They still need to comply with local laws, but they don't need to prove compliance to the Wikimedia Foundation. It's still in their interest to create plans and fundraising messaging and activity reports, but they are not accountable to the Wikimedia Foundation for doing it. There is no need to negotiate revenue targets with the Wikimedia Foundation, nor is there necessarily a need to share program plans. They do not need to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Wikimedia Foundation that they have no privacy issues, no potential data leaks, no local fundraising compliance issues, and the appropriate insurance to cover risks.

That's what led me to the Funding Allocations Committee. I think it's worth exploring, in part because I think it increases chapter autonomy rather than eroding it.

Here's why.

The Wikimedia Foundation can't entirely relinquish control over money given out via any process: that would be irresponsible. *Payment-processing* requires the tightest control of all financial relationships. Money given out via grants requires less control on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation, relative to a payment-processing relationship.

If we build a FAC, the Wikimedia Foundation could not relinquish total control over the money given out by the FAC. However, the Wikimedia Foundation could restrict its role to due diligence ensuring money will not be misspent. The level of due diligence required for a defined portion of resources is significantly less than the level of due diligence required for an undefined, theoretically unlimited amount of resources. For small grants this could be a very lightweight checklist; for bigger grants it would be more extensive, but still much less than would be required for payment-processing. The purpose would be strictly to ensure money was used for the purposes requested.

Meanwhile, the FAC, with decision-making authority delegated by the Wikimedia Foundation, could be constructed to do all other vetting of proposals. Is the proposal a good idea? Does it make sense? Will the activities proposed be beneficial for the projects? We could collectively design a FAC that handles all of that.

The result would be, I think:

• A world which allows chapters more autonomy, not less;
• A world which enables the Wikimedia Foundation to appropriately safeguard donations coming in via the sites it operates;
• A world in which chapters (and other movement players) have access to the resources they need to get their work done, and the work is funded in a way that's transparent and provides for appropriate accountability to the movement as a whole.

The reason I’m posting this here is not to defend the draft recommendations (although of course I do believe in them, or I wouldn’t have written them). My purpose is to lay out some of the thinking that went into them. Essentially, I believe that if we continue with chapters payment-processing during the annual campaign, then we are on a path towards continuing the erosion of chapter autonomy, that is making so many chapters unhappy. (And frankly, is also very difficult for me and the rest of the staff.) If we want to preserve or increase chapter autonomy, I think we will need to come up with something other than a solution in which chapters payment-process.

In summary, I think that leaving behind the model of chapters as payment-processors and adopting a Funding Allocations Committee-type model to allocate funds may best balance among the three needs (chapter independence, chapter access to resources and responsible custodianship by the Wikimedia Foundation) we have, in a way that will improve relations across the board. I believe it would reduce a major source of tension, and would help us focus on what matters: how to ensure that good programmatic activities get funded in a way that best provides accountability to the international Wikimedia community. Thanks Sue Gardner 00:16, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Sue for offering an in-depth view of your thinking on this issue. Once payment processing is off the table, what level of due diligence would you anticipate for chapters receiving large "operating" grants? Moreover, with the issue of undefined, potentially unlimited diversion of funds behind us, will the Foundation turn its attention to scrutinizing the operations of those organizations with whom it has shared its name and other trademarks? If I were a chapter leader, I'd wonder if close scrutiny wasn't as easily justified by protecting the goodwill inherent in the marks... and if a resumption of such scrutiny was inevitable as a result. Nathan ^T 00:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Sue. I really wish you'd actively raised these issues with chapters during your November travels, because there are so many misunderstandings here that I'm finding this all to be rather unbelievable. To pick just one example from many: "Therefore, the Wikimedia Foundation will continue to require payment-processing chapters to prove they're in compliance with relevant local laws, and we will need them to get in compliance where they currently are not." - I can't believe that there are any chapters out there that don't want to ensure, and to prove, that they are, "in compliance with relevant local laws" since it's de facto a legal requirement for them to do so - and that they should be happy to publicly demonstrate that compliance. If that is not the case, then the WMF should naturally be assisting them to ensure that this is indeed the case. I'm simply gobsmacked that you might think otherwise. I'll provide a more detailed reply in the next few days (I would provide a more detailed reply right now, but I have to get some sleep before heading to London in a few hours time to host and run a Wikimedia workshop over the weekend), and I'm sure that others will reply to your points quicker than myself, but I would strongly encourage you to reconsider what you have written here. Mike Peel 00:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Sue, you describe a lot of problems you are trying to resolve - non-compliance with local law, dishonest messaging, privacy issues, data leaks, etc.. Could you please clarify - are these actual problems that have been and are being experienced or are these just hypothetical problems? If they are actually happening, then something certainly needs to be done, but I would like to see some evidence of that. If they are just hypothetical, then all you really need is for the WMF board to be able to tell with reasonable confidence that they haven't started - the report from each chapter's auditors in that chapter's annual report should go a long way towards providing that assurance. If there are specific questions you feel need answering that aren't covered in those reports, it shouldn't be too difficult to ask the auditors to look into those matters at the same time as they are doing the rest of their audit (we'd have to pay our auditors a bit more, but that isn't a big problem, the movement isn't struggling for cash). --Tango 01:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tango. I might write a little more here later, but I did want to respond quickly to this point, because I have been thinking about it while I wrote the draft recommendations, and struggling a little with how much to say. Yes, there are actual, current issues. There are compliance issues currently faced by payment-processing chapters which I do not talk about publicly because I don't think it would be particularly helpful: the relevant chapters are aware of them, and I do not want to embarrass or damage them in any way. But you asked, so I will tell you that. Separately, I think people can determine for themselves whether they think the messaging used is accurate. I think it's a grey area, but I am not tremendously comfortable with what we're doing, currently. I do want to also say again though: my goal here is not to criticize the chapters, nor is it to give ammunition to critics of the chapters. They are good people doing good work. I just believe that on balance, there are better ways to fund the movement's activities in a truly decentralized fashion, than via country-based payment processing. Thanks Sue Gardner 03:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I think it will be very difficult for us to have a proper discussion about these topics without all the relevant information being out in the open (and past conduct of chapters is an extremely important factor in predicting future conduct, so this information is highly relevant). If necessary, we can take this part of the discussion over to internal-l, but I don't think that is necessary - if we're doing something wrong we should be open and honest about it, even if that is damaging.

I'm afraid I can't just take your word for it that chapters have had significant problems because the Foundation's past record with claims of problems at WMUK hasn't been good. I heard numerous claims in Haifa (from WMF board and staff members) that WMUK was a big part of the problem because we have $1m sitting in the bank not doing anything. This was simply untrue (we had raised $1m during the fundraiser, so had had that much in the bank for a short time and we time our year-end to come just after the fundraiser, so it was that time that our annual accounts reflected, but by Haifa we had already transferred about half of that to the WMF).

The Foundation also blew out of all proportion the fact that we were a little late in filing our accounts. It looked bad because it was our first set of accounts and Companies House (the relevant UK regulator) automatically begins proceedings to strike off companies that miss the deadline by even a day, but that's just an administrative thing to get companies that were founded and then never did anything and never filed anything off the register as quickly as possible. If you are an active company that has just had a few delays in getting your accounts together, you are at no risk whatsoever of getting anything more than a small monetary penalty. At no time was there a credible risk of WMUK being struck off.

Until I see some details, I have to assume that you are being similarly inaccurate or disproportionate with these new claims (because the alternative is assuming chapters are misbehaving, which seems the less likely of the two). --Tango 15:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I really don't know where to start. This entire narrative is flat-out wrong and full of holes. You first start out by saying, that chapter representative privately communicated to you that they were relieved to not payment process? Let me get this straight, a chapter fought to be able to fundraise, invested in infrastructure, set up all sorts of legal precedents, some even applied for tax-deductible status, then re-invested for next year, hired staff, rented offices,and in the end, from the handful of chapters that actually went through all this trouble, they wanted you to take it away from them? This sounds like an extremely odd position. Even if that assumption is accepted, if one chapter had cold-feet, the most logical option was punishing everyone else with a single brush stroke? You do realize, no one was forced to fundraise, they could have bowed out by their own volition at any point.

The other argument, about unhappiness with compliance requirements, I have been on Internal-l for over an year, and in close proximity to chapters for around the same time. I never saw WMF make a concerted effort to put across any responsibilities or a system. The first attempt was taking the fundraising away, then Sue starting this process several months later and then finally deciding no one is competent or trust-worthy enough to fundraise except WMF. I don't know a thing about this FAC, and frankly I think it is the carrot at the end of the stick while you whip the horse. No one has any idea what this proposed committee is, how it would function, WMF couldn't get a single committee or project to work. Now when there is incredibly heated and important issue, this a fabled committee that no one has any idea about will fix all our problems. Incidentally being proposed by the same person denying everyone else their independence. How convenient. Theo10011 01:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Dear Theo, rudeness does not suit you, nor anger improve your reasoning. Chapters that were relieved were presumably ones that had not invested in infrstructure, but were debating whether they should build up that infrastructure because it seemed like the only way to get significant funds.

Sue - I also love it when you share your thought process like this, thank you. As to compliance with high standards for privacy, financial accountability and the like: I hope that we all do become more accountable to one another, no matter how much of a nuisance it is at first. That is part of growing up as a movement - it's not just about some groups being accountable to the WMF. We all need to start being accountable to the highest global standards, since we all influence how the Projects and how Wikimedia as a whole is perceived. We need to do this regardless of how the fundraising process develops. –SJ talk | translate   03:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I missed you Sj <3. I'm sorry but I have been getting more and more frustrated by this process lately. Theo10011 03:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

And I you! I hear you... I see threads of progress everywhere, but the way it is happening is exhausting everyone. I will try to channel positive energy. –SJ talk | translate  

Hi Sue, thanks for explaining your thinking a bit, and I will say that I do support the concept of the FAC (or as I've retermed it in the Recommendation 4 brainstorming page, "FDC"). However, I do want to correct one thing you say here. Chapters recognise the need for financial responsibility, and we've been saying it from the start. I'm dismayed any time an allusion is made that we don't and the real purpose of our opposition is so that we can be reckless with donor money. I think the resistance you're encountering is not based on a reluctance to better account for money that's donated, the resistance is based upon the unaccepted principle that the Foundation is the only logical person to manage the distribution, the unaccepted principle that the money belongs (morally speaking) to the Foundation as opposed to being entrusted to the movement as a whole by our donors, and lastly and perhaps most importantly, the very aggressive fashion in which these changes are being pursued by senior WMF management (to the degree that I've had WMF employees, who will remain anonymous, telling me off the record that they think you're going in much too hard). Of course, I may just be the outlier there, but I am a bit worried that you don't even seem to understand why the friction has developed. Craig Franklin 08:41, 7 January 2012 (UTC).

Hey Sue, This is very interesting and helping me grapple with this more deeply. I have questions on two of the three goals you've articulated at the top, so putting these below each point.

"We want the chapters to be entirely independent of the Wikimedia Foundation."

Do we? I thought we wanted chapters to be able to function autonomously, but given that chapters have agreements with the Foundation, is it feasible to have a goal which makes them entirely independent of the Foundation?

"We want the Wikimedia Foundation to be a responsible custodian of donations that come in via the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation."

I would rephrase this thus: "We want all Wikimedia entities to be responsible custodians of donations that come in via the sites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation." Regardless of whether some of these 'donations' go directly to movement entities via payment processing or indirectly via other mechanisms, such as grants, we do want them to be responsible custodians of these donations. And in the case of grants, the Foundation becomes a donor to other entities within the movement, so we still want them to be responsible custodians. This goes to the heart of the financial accountability issue, but calls on only the Foundation to be a responsible custodian.

I am also having a hard time understanding why "the chapters that meet the requirements for payment-processing would continue to have (or to feel they are having) their autonomy eroded by the Wikimedia Foundation." On the contrary, I would imagine that chapters that meet the requirements for payment processing would have strong financial and other controls, thus they would be organizationally stronger - because they could only process if they meet the accountability criteria. Getting direct donations would also give make them financially stronger, by giving them flexibility on how to spend this money - as opposed to grants, which are tied to specific programmatic activities. So, to me it seems like those chapters that meet the requirements for payment processing would have more autonomy, rather than less. Bishdatta 19:02, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Grants are no longer necessarily tied to specific programmatic activity. You may have missed the announcement, but we are actively discussing an unrestricted grants proposal based on annual plans, to formalize the kinds of grants that have already been given to WMAR, WMAT, WMHU, WMNL, and WMSE. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 21:04, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I for one welcome our new WMF overlords. Chapters no longer have to deal with independence, individual donors, or payment processing. All that matters now is what the WMF thinks of the chapter, and apparently they like WMSE a good lot. The future for chapters lies in successful lobbying in San Francisco. Instead of convincing Swedish donors to give to WMF rather than the Red Cross, we now only have to convince WMF to give to WMSE rather than WMUK. Destructive? Perhaps, but so far it has paid off. We remain loyal to San Francisco. --LA2 22:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK - gross misrepresentation

There really has been a gross misrepresentation of the funds collected by Wikimedia UK. The values do not whatsoever take into account the different fundraising philosophy by the chapter that prioritised the long term sustainable growth over the short term benefits of jumping from year to year whilst at the same time fulfilling the 150% growth limit on the budget. This year Wikimedia UK became the first organisation to use direct debits and as a result did sacrifice the short term one off benefits but has dramatically improved the long term sustainability of the movement. 36% of the total estimated to be taken by Wikimedia UK from the 2011/12 fundraiser was taken from direct debits.

Ignoring any benefits of gift aid (UK tax benefit for chaity), the average life span of a direct debit is around 5 years, declining each year at rate between 10% and 20%. Taking that into account the actual lifetime worth of the direct debits this year puts a value of $1.5 million at a rate greater than 20% drop off a year. If you take the more optimistic look of 10% that's $2.0 million dollars. That doubles the value of the Wikimedia UK fundraiser even if the money isn't in the bank. This really should be acknowledged. Seddon 08:04, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

No more payment processing greatly removes privacy and security risks - a false dichotomy

So there are two parts to this argument currently chapters have around 300,000 donors across 12 chapters donor databases (~85% of which are amongst DE, UK, FR and CH) right at this very moment. These have been collected across the last two years (so its probably more). We must remember that those 300,000 arn't just going to go away, the privacy and security issues are not simply going to disappear. If the problem exists, we have to deal with it either way, whether or not chapters continue to payment process.

The second issue is that if chapters are being encouraged to fundraise from sources outside of the banners, the issues of privacy and security remain and should not be considered lesser. The risks of data protection breaches does not change, particularly if chapters become successful at alternative fundraising. We need to think of this no matter what the situation is and its not a viable argument for the end of payment processing. However its a issue we need to think about whatever happens because if it is as real as sue says it is. The work that has to be done is going to exist no matter what. Seddon 08:12, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Getting down to it

"This is the kind of point that it would be great to get down to, because then we can really focus on solving for it."

Some ideas taken from internal-l, anonymized unless the authors want to claim them.

Allocation, comparative review

luckily we're still only considering how to share of funds raised, not yet how to share our shared bounty of public media, volunteer effort, or editorial/curatorial attention.

1. How do we decide who is allowed to spend how much and on what?

• How do we do this now, when we have as much cash as we need? Then how do we prioritize in lean times?
• Who acts as the 'we' here, how does it change over time?

  Suggestion: have separate review of annual plans for all significantly-sized groups, and of specific requests for funds; similar but distinct skillsets.

2. When is the accountability associated with applying for and potentially being denied money a good thing?

• WMF takes a strong position of not relying on grant funding [to maintain independence]. Chapters also don't want to be too reliant on it. But grant hurdles help establish goals and articulate processes, they help us measure progress outside our own echo chambers - both WMF and chapters.

3. How can we develop better ways to spend money when it is available, matching available funds to active programs?

• We regularly have the chance to advocate for major content holders to release their work under a free license (cf. recently: the Korean national dictionary project) but no idea how to value such work, or compare it to other active priorities
• We don't know what levers we could push in these scenarios. We have returned a donation we were unable to spend.

Fundraising skill, privacy, security

privacy and security and legal requirements are sometimes used unintentionally as brinks to end discussion.

1. Learning to fundraise professionally: when is the long-term benefit worth the short-term cost?

• to fail, improve, succeed, report, account for it - may have some short-term risk, but is valuable for organizational growth for a chapter (and valuable to the movement long-term)
• The benefits increase and the risks drop the more often we do this and the better we get at this as a movement.
• Risk: short-term increased variance in accountability, crispness? (yet authenticity?) of donor engagement
• Counter-risk: failing to develop deep and broad expertise in this core set of skills.

2. How does centralizing payment processing remove privacy and security risks?

• Seddon claims ~300,000 donors tracked by chapters that have processed payments to date. What is the concern about donor privacy that would impact future donors but not these? Is there an advantage to stopping the flow of donors to those groups, compared to ensuring they have world-class programs and procedures?
• What does WMF do to protect donors that others do not at present?
• Is it possible to share donor management tools across all movement groups, to allow local followup while ensuring system and data security?

Independence

WMF and Chapters all seem to respect the idea of a distributed movement and independence. Different people see independence in universal grant-making, in high-accountability payment processing, and in wholly independent fundraising (Poland!)

1. What would make Chapters or other movement entities truly independent? How might this be risky, when is it worth the risk?

• True independence comes from having an established base of supporters, and warm personal relationships with them. This includes relationships with partners, donors, politicians, content liberators; and other volunteers and organizations and [community, regional] leaders.

  Chapters currently excel in regional politician and content partnerships; a few have great donor relationships.

  Risk: establishing permanently a group that later becomes ineffective.

  Risk: amplifying other risks (say, 'learning to fundraise professionally) -- can be minimized by bootstrapping one with the other.

'True independence' may be a bit of a myth, but a diversified donor base - or a diversity of fundraising strategies: institutional grants, individual donations, generating revenues if possible - does usually lead to financial independence for an organization, as opposed to relying on a single donor, only one funding mechanism, or 'putting all your eggs in one basket'.Bishdatta 18:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

2. How should we ahare donor relationships, to maximize benefit to the donors?

• We all need to be wary of the impulse to hoard relationships, rather than empowering supporters to find one that is most meaningful to them. (every group thinks 'clearly the most meaningful relationship is with me ;)')

Sharing priorities and discoveries

Each day sees many strategies, many plans, and many new things learned

1. We all have different strategic plans, aiming at the same large set of goals. When is this a problem for prioritization or allocation?

• Some feel that the 2015 strategic plan developed by WMF and the community was for all groups across the movement, others feel it was just for the WMF.
• This often becomes a source of opposition, rather than a chance to learn from one another.
• The plan itself notes tasks left to Chapters (outside the scope of that doc).

2. How can we learn from one another when we can't overcome our simplest language barriers?

• The Strategic Plan is still available only in English (with partial translations in a random set of languages), years later.
• Language barriers are hurting all planning discussions.
• Across even our ~35 chapters, we rarely hear any reports in English from half of the active communities -- and many highly active editing/curating communities simply don't engage on Meta or in meta-processes. Our Internal lists have almost no non-English traffic.
• Fixing this - by investing in community development and professional support - is no longer expensive compared to our annual communication budget, or the complexity of the international reviews and assessment considered above.

3. How can we develop measures of success in our core work: content coverage, educational impact, usefulness vs. alternatives?

• Are we measuring our strat plan targets? Do other groups have their own targets? (cf. Indonesian success targets for writing contests)
• We need outside feedback. We are not keeping up with developments in our own fields (There are hundreds of complete courses and thousands of popular videos under free-content licenses that are not yet on Wikimedia projects), while tracing ruts in familiar curatorial tracks.
• We need ways to act on such feedback. When we get consistent messages re: major areas we do not cover well, we know not how to proceed

Strategic innovation, the many uses of data

take 9 wikimedians, get 10 views on what our strategy means for short-term priorities

1. Many of the chapters that were deeply involved in crafting their own fundraiser have tried methods quite different from the global online campaigns. How can this innovation be captured in our data, identity stories, and visualizations?

• WMF data sometimes present everything as a small set of aggregate numbers, underplaying the value of such innovations.
• Chapters sometimes claim that those innovations were tied to payment processing (though this is not always so - cf. Spain's publicity campaign two seasons ago)

2. A few arguments, from all sides, have built on estimates of available data that had to be quickly revised... or have summarized established data quite boldly. Is there a better way to reason from data?

• Are there ways to share raw data and its visualizations, and to have inline deeplinks to source data? (this would improve all of our projects!)
• <obligatory WikiData joke>

tax deductibility

This is often mentioned and then droppped without tackling just how important it is in each country's case. the overlap between WMF and chapter capacity to take tax deductible donations in some countries is often downplayed, but surely important

1. Local organizations that can receive tax-deductible donations get a direct boost to funds raised. Those that receive tax breaks as institutions may get a similar bonus. How significant is this, and are there alternatives?

• Do we track data (for us particularly, for each country major donor country) about the impact on donation volume? Where is getting this status a priority, and what value should the movement put on it there?
• Where are there alternatives to having a tax-deductible chapter for taking tax-deductible donations?
• In some countries, WMF is able to accept t-d donations independently. In a world where mature chapters aspire to process their own payments, how would this work? Should this be begrudged/allowed/preferred until the national group qualifies for tax deductibility?

Response from Chris Keating (The Land)

I thought I would respond at length on some of the points Sue raises. For those who don't know me, I am a board member of Wikimedia UK and was the lead person for Wikimedia UK in the 2011 fundraiser. I am also a professional fundraiser and have worked for a number of British charities, universities and political parties. To the best of my knowledge I am the only professional fundraiser on any of the Boards in the Wikimedia movement, so I probably have a unique perspective. (And for clarity, this is a personal response, not a Chapter view, etc, etc)

I'm mainly going to talk about chapters and payment processing, though I appreciate that the idea of a new international body to make funding decisions would be a very interesting one and a big step for the movement to take.

Chapters payment processing

First, I'd like to say that the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising team is very professional and effective and I have enjoyed working with them over the last few months. They know what they are doing and their work involves a lot of skill and judgement, supported by some quite sophisticated technical tools. It isn't something where it is easy for volunteers to just jump in and sort stuff out. It is therefore a challenge for chapters to fundraise effectively.

However, that said, I disagree with Sue's statement that it is always more efficient for the Foundation to handle donor data, payment processing, and so on. There are now enough examples to the contrary for me to feel that this would definitely be a mistake. Here are my responses to the various arguments Sue has put forward. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you share some of these examples? Bishdatta 18:15, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Transparency.

The Foundation's fundraising messaging is about how wonderful Wikipedia is and how vital it is to keep Wikipedia free. The Foundation doesn't go into a great deal of detail in any of its fundraising appeals, emails, etc about the work it does. There is no mention of (say) Global South outreach or visual editors. Chapters tend to use the same messaging. Chapters, equally, don't put up fundraising banners about the work they are doing with the Palace of Versailles or the British Museum or the German National Archives.

If anything, some chapters do more to communicate the true breadth and depth of the Wikimedia movement than the Foundation does. Last year, Wikimedia Deutschland wrote to all their donors with a letter enclosing a copy of their "Wikimedium" newspaper. This year, Wikimedia UK is sending thankyou letters that include a lot of information about some of our recent outreach work. The Foundation does not, to the best of my knowledge, do anything like this. So in Germany and the UK, chapters are taking responsible steps in line with good fundraising practice to inform donors about the Wikimedia movement and consolidate their support. In the rest of the world, donors don't hear anything more than "keep Wikipedia free". The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for mentioning this - I, for one, had no idea about this. Bishdatta 18:14, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Tax-deductibility

I am surprised to read that there is "no evidence that donors care about tax-deductibility". Until November, the Foundation's position was that tax-deductibility was very important, and it was a core part of both the March edition of the Fundraising Agreement and the August Board Letter on the subject. I can see no reason why this should have changed.

Within the Wikimedia community, there is only one new data point since November, which is the UK experience in this fundraiser. From November 3rd we were able to offer Gift Aid, which is a UK scheme where charities are able to reclaim income tax already paid by donors on donations received. The value of donations received by Wikimedia UK increased by 66% compared to 2011, a better increase than was seen in many other rich nations which saw effective fundraising campaigns in both 2010 and 2011, e.g. the USA, Canada, or Germany . The actual value of tax we expect to reclaim from those donations is about £87,000, and if you include that then we saw an 81% increase year-on-year in donations. (If you take a longer time horizon then the increase is even bigger, because of our focus on recurring income - see below). I find it impossible to see in this evidence anything that suggests that British donors don't care about the tax effects of their donations.

Futhermore, it's not just the Wikimedia movement that has evidence on tax-deductibility. I was just reading this paper from a researcher at the University of Bristol who found that donors would tend to give more in the event of favourable changes to tax deductibility in the UK. Other academic papers are referenced in that link and I am sure research has been conducted on this point in other nations as well.

Finally, I would question the value of deliberately preventing donors from making their donations tax-deductible, which is what is being proposed. Many donors value the ability to reclaim tax on donations. They would not be impressed if the Wikimedia Foundation took an administrative decision to prevent them from doing so in future. It is not effective donor stewardship. It is, in fact, the opposite of effective donor stewardship. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Effectiveness

It is true that most of the increase in fundraising effectiveness recently has been led by the Foundation's fundraising team. However, it is fairly easy for a other entities in a decentralised fundraising operation to "cherry pick" the best results of the Foundation's work and then enhance it. Active fundraising chapters have the opportunity to conduct additional testing based on their local circumstances about things that wouldn't necessarily occur to the Foundation.

For instance, after this year's fundraiser, we can be fairly confident that including a photo on a donation landing page will increase donations in Germany, but not in the UK or the USA. This was something tested by Wikimedia DE, Wikimedia UK and by the Foundation and different nations had different results. I don't believe this would have been picked up by the Foundation's team on its own.

Another example; Wikimedia UK decided to focus on asking for recurring Direct Debit donations this year in a way that is unique in the Wikimedia movement. British charities generally try to recruit donors who will give a recurring Direct Debit gift because they are much more valuable in the long run. The 7,200 people who signed up for Direct Debits in the UK this autumn will contribute £280,000 in 2012, but over the next 5 years those donations will be worth well over £1 million, even if one uses a cautious assumption about how fast people cancel them. That is another increase in fundraising effectiveness thanks to a chapter initiative which the Foundation had nothing to do with.

Finally, effective fundraising requires effective use of donor data. There are now records going back some years of donor details and deciding to switch fundraising away from chapters will mean that those records become unavailable to future fundraising. This could be particularly important for higher-value fundraising in future. We know that Wikimedia UK, for instance, has received a number of smallish donations from wealthy individuals. It would be a potentially massive opportunity to develop relationships with them and follow them up with a view to making much larger gifts in future. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Efficiency

I think Sue has a point about economies of scale. It would be interesting to see how payment costs compare between Chapters and the Global Collect alternative. I suspect Global Collect would be cheaper on the whole, though I'd be surprised if the overall impact was more than a percentage point. I am less sure there is a great deal of duplication between the Foundation and Chapters; things like databases are probably a bit more effort while decentralised, but also the Chapters relieve the Foundation of a bit of a burden of customer service and add a wider range of ideas and experience to the overall campaign. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Governance issues

(fund transfers, legal exposure, fraud, etc). I am not sure this is so fundamentally linked to payment processing as it appears. Many of the risks would equally apply to grant-receiving chapters. Furthermore, centralising things in the USA creates risks of its own. Say the U.S. Government imposed sanctions on a country where the Wikimedia movement was doing some work. With everything centralised in the US, there would be no possibility of continuing any work there. With a decentralised system, programme work and funding could continue via a different nation which was taking a different approach in its foreign policy. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Relationships

I suspect that fundraising would be the cause of much less friction if it weren't for the continual changes in the area. We are now on the 3rd system for movement fundraising in 6 months. One was agreed back in March, then the Foundation decided to scrap it in August as well, and this new proposal differs quite markedly from the discussions in August. I am not sure that it is wise to say that because the Foundation repeatedly keeps moving the goalposts again and again, prompting yet another round of debate, that Chapters and the Foundation cannot work productively together in this area. I am also sure that if these proposals are adopted as they stand the effect on relationships between Foundation and Chapters will be very negative. The Land 13:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Excellent points Chris. You've articulated the concerns and implications quiet well here. I hope the board members and Sue read these. Thanks for this. Theo10011 14:51, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Fair point - agree that continual changes in anything can hardly lead to good working relationships. Bishdatta 18:11, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation has been *unable* to find any evidence

"However, the Wikimedia Foundation has been unable to find any evidence suggesting that tax deductibility is an important incentive for donors giving small amounts of money, and the Wikimedia movement's experience thus far shows no correlation between tax deductible status and amounts donated during the annual campaign".

WHAT ?

Reading that, I didn't believe my eyes. This is completely absurd, price elasticity of tax deductibility is well studied and very high (why to do you think a vast majority of developped countries offer this ?) As a matter of fact it is common that 60 to 70% of money donated to charities is tax-deductible. I would certainly not choose to give my money to a non tax-deductible charity, because it means that for the same amount given in the end, my donation is three times less effective than giving to someone else.

Please Ms Gardner, give us an estimate of how much your brillant move would cost to the wikimedia movement, once donors realize this. Economic data *is* easy to find. But Ok you are unable to find it, let's give a hand => first google scholar result here : "we estimate tax price elasticities by nonprofit type. We find (..) a private foundation elasticity of -2.0" "How Does the Incentive Effect of the Charitable Deduction Vary Across Charities?"

• I'm just a volunteer and a small donor Ms Gardner, but please
  • remind me how much Wikimedia money goes in fact into your pay/expenses/benefits ?
  • ... And please compare this to the cost of your brilliant "out-of-the-box" idea..

Millions are at stake here, Millions. --Ofol 15:33, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

We fall under the public charity category rather than a private foundation, don't we? So the relevant number is -0.8, not -2.0. I think that essentially means that, for every dollar less than goes to the tax man, charities get 80 cents more. That is still quite substantial. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a little less for us, though, since we tend to receive lots of very small donations and I believe tax deductibility tends to be more important to people donating large amounts (which is why private foundations show such a large elasticity). Of course, it's a completely different situation in the UK - here, the money goes straight from the tax man to the charity, so the elasticity must be at least -1 (for donations from basic rate tax payers, anyway). --Tango 15:54, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Ideas on global accountability

There are some ideas discussed above and elsewhere about some initiative to reframe accountability across all pats of the movement. Some people feel this has already happened; others feel that there are separate standards for small groups, grant requests, Chapters, the WMF, and external partnerships.

Theo: can you consolidate some of your essays into a specific process or recommendation? –SJ talk | translate   18:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Not at this juncture, sorry. Theo10011 18:41, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I first want word from the board, that this entire process is indeed about accountability and nothing more. That chapter fundraising will be permitted if concerns about accountability are addressed. Without it, any discussion, ideas or suggestion would be just noise and an exercise in futility while the mind of the people in charge, is already made up. Theo10011 18:49, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

2011 Fundraising targets

Given all the back-and-forth about chapter's plans for the 2011 fundraiser, I'm not sure what the final decisions were. Could the WMF and the 4 fundraising chapters please let us know what their fundraising targets were and how they compare with how much they actually raised? Can the chapters also be clear about whether their target includes a share for the WMF or not (and if so, how much)? Thanks. --Tango 19:28, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

At WMF, on our fundraising team, this is how we approached our targets: The WMF needed to raise about USD 29,500,000 total from all revenue sources. Most of that would be the fundraiser. We only wanted to raise as much as we had to from the fundraiser (i.e. banners on the site). But because our fiscal year ends June 30, that means we need to do some guessing about future income from other sources (such as foundations). In the end we raised about 24,000,000 in the fundraiser. Depending on how much money comes in between now and June 30, we'll probably be over budget by one or two million. There's always a chance though that if all our assumptions are too optimistic, then we could fall short by a little -- which is why we aim for a small surplus. Extra money helps us add to the reserve, which is only about 6 months of operating budget, I think. Zackexley 20:50, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Zack. Where does revenue shared with you by chapters factor into those plans? --Tango 21:00, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Far from everything

For me it's enough. If the board will say yes to this, the porcelain betwenn a lot of people from ather comunities than the englisch language ones will be destroyed. What Miss Gender and her stuff here has shown for ideas are big kiks betrween the legs of the Comunity. After the image filter I don't have longer time to discuss anything with the Foundation with Mistress Gardner at the lead position. Miss Gerdner sayd so often she will do anything for a better mood in the comunity. Sorry, when I read about such ideas without any respect for the chapters, where the real work will be done, I'm out of anything good. It's so frustrating - since some months only bad news, very, unbeleavable bad news come from the Foundation. But the Foundation bubble will burst. Such ideas will cost us a lot of authors in project who are not en:WP. But Miss Gardner only thinks on en:WP and her personal projects of a "global south". Miss Garnder - please go finally and take your terrible ideas with you. You've done more bad things to the Wikimedia movement than the worst trolls ever could done! Marcus Cyron 23:04, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

So what

are u planning now. At first it was, I remember

• the picture filter. (So the communities were not interested?)
• the new ToUs (they didnt show their enthusiasm either?)
• now this one (they will have to apply for grants, soso?)

U r planning centralism. Lawsuits? Please apply to any court in California. What a mess.--Angel54 5 23:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)