On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 10:13 PM, Michael Snow <[email protected]>wrote:
> On 8/11/2011 7:08 PM, phoebe ayers wrote: > > Anyway, thanks for raising the importance of decentralization. The > > Board agrees: there's a reason it was first in our list of principles. > > To my mind "decentralization is important" raises a whole bunch of > > other important questions: is decentralization more important than > > efficiency as a working principle? > I think it is, at least up to a point. We need to have a diversity of > tools and actors involved in fundraising, and decentralization should > help that if done well. Also, we do not have an obligation to maximize > revenue, so efficiency is not necessarily a cardinal virtue. I don't > mean that we should disregard efficiency, but we can choose to sacrifice > a bit of efficiency if, as a tradeoff, this benefits some other value we > think is important like decentralization. > > One thing that struck me about reviewing chapter financials was that > > there are 20+ chapters that don't directly receive donations and > > haven't applied for many grants to date, and thus have little to no > > money to support program work. Though mostly outside the scope of the > > Board's letter, this is for instance one part of our model that I > > would like to see change -- Wikimedians everywhere should have better > > access to resources to get things done. On this specific point, I do > > disagree with Birgitte -- I think a well-developed grants program [and > > it's true we're not there yet, but want to be soon] could actually > > help us decentralize faster, in that to obtain money needed for > > program work chapters or other groups wouldn't have to develop the > > (increasingly difficult) infrastructure needed to directly fundraise > > with all the attendant legal and fiduciary concerns. > I like the sound of this, but with a note of caution about a > "well-developed" grants program. In many contexts, as grants programs > develop and mature, grantees end up needing to develop increasingly > complex infrastructure to secure and manage grants. At that point, it > may not be any more helpful to these objectives than the model we are > trying to move away from. > > --Michael Snow > Fair point. By "well-developed" I just meant "something that works well." One of the criteria of working well could be low overhead... Again, the idea of supporting grants is not exclusive to the WMF: I am so pleased to see the expansion of the WMDE program, as well. -- phoebe _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
