On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Mike Godwin <mnemo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sam Klein writes: > > I do think there are more risks inherent in this sort of growth than >> are listed in the 'potential risks' section -- for instance, >> "inability to acculturate new staff due to aggressive growth" -- and >> we should be alert to these risks to avoid them. >> > > Just to be clear about this, I read Sam here as saying something like "there > is a potential risk that we will be unable to acculturate new staff as we > grow." This of course is true -- and it's even true when growth is slow!
Precisely :-) > But in practice the Foundation takes this risk very seriously, and takes > pains to promote the acculturation of new staff, not just to Foundation > culture but to the larger community. Yes. The influx of staff at Wikimania this year will be a sight to see... I look forward to seeing you there. Ziko writes: > It struck me that the Foundation has decided to concentrate on the > large public, the small donators, and not seek much further to > approach big spenders or make money by business partnerships. This is > a statement not only about our history and our future, and also about > our character as movement. Is it too much to call this an event of > historical importance? Yes, it is a big deal. I think it helps clarify the Foundation's philosophy as well, unifying our donors and general audience in a satisfying way -- as Sue says, we are lucky to be able to make that decision. Eugene writes: > The cost of doing an endowment drive is enormous. There is usually an 18 > months ramp > up time simply to start the drive, and you need a huge staff to manage it. > That work > comes at the expense of other work. Furthermore, endowment drives also > typically court high wealth donors aggressively. This seems like an extreme type of 'endowment drive' - just as we don't court high wealth donors in general we would not necessarily need to for this. Setting up a dedicated fund for supporting core services, for instance (whatever you call it) need not have elaborate staff, 18-month ramp ups, or other extraordinary overhead... I think it's good that an endowment drive is being planned for the future - I hope a target for it shows up in our five-year timeline. SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l