Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Hello dear all, at first thank you very much MZ for put this together. This is a quite hot topic both for the board election, which is coming soon again, and also on the board. The following is my personal opinion why WMF should not build an endowment. The rationale from me are the following three: 1. WMF doesn't need an endowment 2. An endowment poses extra risks and problems for the WMF 3. From some aspect an endowment is contraproductive for the WMF even if we ignore the risks. Let me explain in more detail: 1. WMF does not need an endowment. For most NGO and non-profit organizations, an endowment is a method to mitigate the risk of unconstant income and unsecure funding. With the endowment the organization is indepenmdant on the ever changing fundraising result or on its dependance on grants. The WMF is not facing these problems. The WMF is not dependant on one or few grants, and it is not dependant on some big donations. The fundraising model of the WMF is based on microgrants from hundreds of thousands of participants, and practically from every region of the world. This makes it less vulnerable for example on changing economic situations. This is especially the case since we are not exhausting our fundraising potential (and as I understand the current strategy, we are not planning to exhaust this potential), and we have a fairly good strategic reserve. For the year 2009 for example we were all a bit nervous on our fundraising result since at that time the financial crises began to seriously impack the world economy. But at that year we doubled our fund raising result, achieved our goal before the targetted fund raising deadline. This trend kept for the last few years, independant of the world economy. It proves the robustness of this fundraising model. In comparison to most other non-profit organizations we are in a lucky situation that this model works for us. It certainly does not work for all organizations. And because the model is robust and it works well for us, we should not simply do what everyone else does: try to build up an endowment. If we don't need it, we don't need it. 2. An endowment poses extra risks and problems for the WMF An endowment is a very big bunch of money. And if you have that money somewhere in your safe, it won't be any benefit. You need to invest it so that it get's return. An endowment is actually pretty similar like a bank. And as a bank, you need experts to take care of investment, of risk management, and all other things. Either you need your own experts (actually you always need your own expert at least for overseeing), or you need to buy experts. You need to trust him. Either way it means that you must pay the bill. And, the following is really my very personal and unprofessional opinion: There is no 100% security if you are a bank. Lheman Brothers were rated by all agencies as AAA until it went bancrupt. Even the United States Treasury Security is not as secure as it seemed to be. I trust the hundred thousand people who give us 10 to 100 dollars more than the few experts, when it comes to security. And the work ethic investment was already mentioned here in the list. I believe we can debate forever if investment in United States Treasury Security is ethic or not. 3. From some aspect an endowment is contraproductive for the WMF even if we ignore the risks I believe the Wikimedia projects represent a culture: the sharing culture. Even if it is not explicitely stated in our vision and mission, the Wikimedia projects are avant gards of this culture, and they get their strength from this culture. The annual fundraising campaign is one of our most effectful method to propagate this culture, even it is not designed so. I know many people, my colleagues, friends, people who use Wikipedia daily, but never think about how its service is maintained, until the annual fundraising campaign. Often it is at that time when people tell me: Oh, I just see you are fundraising again, I am happy to make this contribution to show my support. Normally people never say this, until at the end of the year when our fund raising banner is on our project pages. I know for a lot of you the banners are annoying. But I also know that for a lot of people, who are not so involved in our projects, the banner is the reminder of our sharing culture. It is the time when they feel that they need to contribute something, and it definitively make them happy to do so. It makes them to feel also to be part of it. Our annual fund raising campaign is not thought to be a propaganda for the sharing culture, but in effect it is a very effective propaganda for it. And I believe it would be a los for all of us, if we don't have it any more. So far, my thoughts. As I said all my private opinions, and some of them certainly very primitive and unprofessional. I am happy to get feedbacks and critics and learn from them. Greetings Ting
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
A couple of counterarguments for Ting: 1) (WMF does not need an endowment). The crux of this argument is that the WMF is not dependent on large grants, but from a widely spread grassroots campaign of small donations. While it is true that this has worked for us in the past, the WMF budget grows and gets bigger, and it is dangerous to rely solely on donations. A year of underperforming donations, poor fundraising, bad economy affecting users willingness to donate, etc., could be disastrous for the WMF. An endowment is a long-term security blanket to cover the WMF in situations when fundraising fails. Additionally, our fundraising model is not perfect. Zack can correct me if I'm wrong on this, but the annual fundraising drive is disruptive to people's experiences and expectations. It serves as a reminder, but probably also serves to turn some people off to further engagement in Wikimedia. We've evolved from staring at Jimmy-face year after year, and our campaigns keep getting better, (thanks in no small part to work by Megan, Zack, Ryan, and the rest of that team) but it would be best if we didn't have to run them at all. So no, I dispute the premise that the WMF does not need an endowment. It's been well established that we can benefit from an endowment, and while there are certainly drawbacks, sticking the status quo is not really acceptable for this kind of innovative organization. 2) (Endowment poses extra risks and problems for WMF). Yes, endowments require money management. So does fundraising. Is it really so different for us to have a team dedicated to overseeing and growing an endowment, than for us to have a team that exists mostly to run tests on banners for fundraising every year? The comparison to banks is irrelevant. An endowment is not a bank, it is not regulated as a bank, and it answers to a different set of stakeholders than a bank does. The 2008 financial meltdown was a catastrophic failure of management, oversight, ethics, on many sides. Despite the AAA ratings from Moodys and other institutions, plenty of people saw it coming and gave the dire warnings. Actually, an endowment acts as a hedge against this sort of thing. Careful wealth management can limit the risk to the endowment from market shocks that fundraising cannot avoid. For instance, high unemployment will, broadly speaking, hurt fundraising which depends on disposable income. Endowments don't rely nearly as directly on end-consumers, their confidence, and their job/financial security. 3) (Endowment counterproductive to vision). I disagree with this point as well. The Wikimedia vision and culture is about getting information to people, about sharing, about freedom of knowledge. I wholly disagree that the fundraising campaign is an effective way to propogate this culture. In fact, it is antithetical to this culture. It is essentially an annual hostage-taking of the WMF projects until we get our money. It means that projects are not truly free -- they are not gratis because if enough people don't donate, they will disappear, and they are arguably not libre because they are under a constant existential threat. If we want more people to have access to Wikimedia projects which makes more sense -- removing the risk of shutdown by employing an endowment that will ensure the freedom of the projects in perpetuity; or to beg for money year after year, simply because it reminds people that we exist? Finally, it's a false dichotomy that we can't have both an endowment and do fundraising. The endowment itself can do its own fundraising as needed, which can serve the purpose of reminding people we exist, and continuing to grow from a personal, grassroots level (rather than by large grants). Frankly, without senior WMF staff buy-in, an endowment is dead in the water. Even if the community designed and implemented one on their own, it'd need support from all sorts of other entities (WMF legal, probably WCA, etc.). -Dan Dan Rosenthal On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Ting Chen wing.phil...@gmx.de wrote: Hello dear all, at first thank you very much MZ for put this together. This is a quite hot topic both for the board election, which is coming soon again, and also on the board. The following is my personal opinion why WMF should not build an endowment. The rationale from me are the following three: 1. WMF doesn't need an endowment 2. An endowment poses extra risks and problems for the WMF 3. From some aspect an endowment is contraproductive for the WMF even if we ignore the risks. Let me explain in more detail: 1. WMF does not need an endowment. For most NGO and non-profit organizations, an endowment is a method to mitigate the risk of unconstant income and unsecure funding. With the endowment the organization is indepenmdant on the ever changing fundraising result or on its dependance on grants. The WMF is not facing these problems. The WMF is not dependant on one or few grants, and it is not dependant
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Ting Chen skrev 2013-03-18 08:20: So far, my thoughts. As I said all my private opinions, and some of them certainly very primitive and unprofessional. I am happy to get feedbacks and critics and learn from them. I wonder if our thoughts on an endowment depends on our presupposition on what the purpose of an endowment would be. You seem to think of fund to ease uneven funding from year to year and if this would be the purpose I would agree to your concerns My thought is of a fund to be used in extreme situations, many many years ahead from now, if nightmare scenarios would occur in 30-60 years from now, to ensure the content of our projects will still be accessible for all free of charge. And in my perspective I am in no hurry getting it up, it could be part of our next 5 year strategic plan to get it going But I would like to see as MZ suggest, that we as son as possible look into the technicalities of an endowment so we have a common understanding what we mean when we discuss this further. Anders ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
hi Fae, I share your commitment to avoiding a bureaucratic monster. However, I have to practically point out, that in our case any vision and strategy of a long time horizon is a grave mistake. We can't predict technologies and Internet trends 10 years in the future, so even vision creation beyond this point is a dangerously blinding and binding exercise. Strategy creation and its time horizon have to be based on the stability of the environment. The only business I know of that relies on something close to 100 years of time horizon for strategy is forestry. We, on the other hand, are in the Internet business, and going beyond 5 years in terms of strategic plans, and beyond 10 years in terms of long-term powerful visions is more likely to lull us to sleep, rather than help. best, dariusz (pundit) On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 9:45 AM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: I enjoyed Ting's perception, he always seems to have a viewpoint reliably in the center of the Wikimedia movement. I previously pushed for a commitment to perpetuity, including a 100 year plan for basic backup. The operational side of our movement failed to either understand why this is important, or properly to respond to a relatively simple proposal for a better strategy. Should an endowment run the risk of establishing a century spanning immovable bureaucracy, then our shared open knowledge vision, must be far greater than the English Wikipedia, bigger than Wikipedia, span wider than any Wikimedia project. These projects have a natural lifespan of less than a decade, not generations. Until the movement is ready to lay out a serious vision and strategy that covers the next 100 years, we are not ready to justify asking donors for hundreds of millions of dollars to stick in a WMF managed investment account. This alone would create a potential for reputational risk so great, it could wipe out the Wikimedia brand, and our stake in the open knowledge movement, permanently. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- __ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 09:03, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote: hi Fae, I share your commitment to avoiding a bureaucratic monster. However, I have to practically point out, that in our case any vision and strategy of a long time horizon is a grave mistake. We can't predict technologies and Internet trends 10 years in the future, so even vision creation beyond this point is a dangerously blinding and binding exercise. Strategy creation and its time horizon have to be based on the stability of the environment. The only business I know of that relies on something close to 100 years of time horizon for strategy is forestry. We, on the other hand, are in the Internet business, and going beyond 5 years in terms of strategic plans, and beyond 10 years in terms of long-term powerful visions is more likely to lull us to sleep, rather than help. The sum of human knowledge is not about internet technology of the moment, or limited to the next 5 years. If the WMF and the leading figures in our movement cannot produce a vision or even a highest possible level strategy for 100 years, then the case for having a billion dollar endowment looks exceedingly weak and probably idle dreaming. There is no sensible case for an endowment fund that only imagines the next couple of years - that is in fact why we talk about reserve funds that cover that period and short term risks that might arise. If I am looking to leave a million dollars in my will to benefit human knowledge, I would want the comfort of knowing the organization that will use my money will exist *long* after my death, it will not repurpose funds in unexpected ways, or waste it on an empire building bureaucracy that has the natural priority of paying benefits to careerist senior management types involved in operations. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: The sum of human knowledge is not about internet technology of the moment, or limited to the next 5 years. Absolutely! And this is a great vision. But adjusting strategy to this vision requires understanding current technologies. Thus, it is impossible to create anything meaningful strategically that far into the future. If the WMF and the leading figures in our movement cannot produce a vision or even a highest possible level strategy for 100 years, then the case for having a billion dollar endowment looks exceedingly weak and probably idle dreaming. I agree with you that a compelling vision is a different story - and you've just quoted it above. There is no sensible case for an endowment fund that only imagines the next couple of years - that is in fact why we talk about reserve funds that cover that period and short term risks that might arise. An endowment is a fund that basically is meant to secure the long term existence and to support what we do now - with an assumption that we'll adjust to the emerging technologies (a huge leap of faith, considering that even now we're pretty bad at keeping up with the pace of new ways of doing the web services). I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, I only emphasize the importance of not talking about strategic planning for 100 years. Call it a vision exercise and we're on the same page. If I am looking to leave a million dollars in my will to benefit human knowledge, I would want the comfort of knowing the organization that will use my money will exist *long* after my death, it will not repurpose funds in unexpected ways, or waste it on an empire building bureaucracy that has the natural priority of paying benefits to careerist senior management types involved in operations. Yup, totally agree, I think that the endowment should be clearly reserved for keeping knowledge free, but not necessarily for management at all. dj ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Dariusz Jemielniak, 18/03/2013 10:33: It is not about being a business or not - it is about basics of strategic planning. Comparisons for endowments undoubtedly should be made to non-business organizations, but the horizon for strategic planning is not determined as much by the profit/non-profit nature of our organization, but rather by the nature of the industry we're in. It just does not make much sense to create strategies and visions 100 years into the future in our case. I disagree. The horizon for strategic planning in the case of business is just making profit, so you can build dams or power plants with a 50 or 100 years timeframe in mind, sell them all ten years later to buy banks or other big factories in a new sector and start again (cf. creation of Enel as told by Paul Ginsborg). That's exactly the opposite of what donors want for an endowment, and the point you're missing in your last reply to his point: it's reasonable to be unable to produce a meaningful long-term strategic plan for the sort of activities and objectives that the WMF has, but not for Wikimedia in general. In fact in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Trust I defined the aim as *negation* (or rather, the complement) of the 5-years strategic plan; more on the page. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Markus Glaser is elected Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council
Hi Congratulations! I look forward to a continuation of the more practical and transparent approach that the Chapters Association has been taking in the past month (and thanks Fae and the rest for starting that). I enjoyed exchanging some ideas with you in London! I hope to see that the Association will soon be able to benefit all the chapters (member or not) :) Jan-Bart On Mar 18, 2013, at 1:58 AM, Markus Glaser markus.gla...@wikimedia.de wrote: Hi, thanks for voting and thank you for your trust. Time will show if I can meet your expectations. Thank you, Fae, for all the work you have done so far. I assume I can continue to count on your experience :) In order to get things going, I totally depend on the help and support of the Council members. We also need to involve all chapters and affiliate organisations. Furthermore, I hope for very friendly relations to WMF and their organisations. In order to shape the future of the WCA, please approach me with all comments, criticism and suggestions! There's quite some work ahead of us! Our next milestone will be the Milan conference. Cheers, Markus Am 18.03.2013 01:12, schrieb Kirill Lokshin: Congratulations to Markus! I look forward to working with everyone to make the WCA a success in the coming year! Cheers, Kirill On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 8:08 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulations to Markus on becoming the Chair of the WCAC. The election results is available at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Votes , with an associated detailed QA from the candidates on the associated talk page. Thank you to all candidates for coming forward and taking part in the public debate so well. I look forward to supporting Markus in his role as our Chair, and the discussions with everyone at the Milan conference next month. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council sChair/s http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Markus Glaser WCA Council Member (WMDE) Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Dariusz Jemielniak, 18/03/2013 11:41: [...] are we seriously arguing whether in the practice of strategic planning for NGOs time horizon for STRATEGY (not vision) can be set for 100 years? If you don't know, nobody can; *you* brought this topic up. And I still don't see anything in your arguments supporting your theory that in our case any vision and strategy of a long time horizon is a grave mistake, except the claim that, probably, all the institutions with endowments are more similar to forestry business than to us. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[Wikimedia-l] Committee changes at Wikimedia Australia
Hi All, As some of you may be aware, Wikimedia Australia has been planning a reshuffle of committee positions, based on ‘real world’ commitments of some committee members that made them unable to continue to commit to the heavy workload that being on the committee entails. I’m happy to report that after a consultation period with our members, the committee at our meeting yesterday approved the changes. The new committee is as follows: President: Craig Franklin Secretary: Graham Pearce Treasurer: John Vandenberg Members: Kerry Raymond, Steve Zhang Observers: Charles Gregory, Ross Mallett Charles Gregory remains an observer on the committee, and will continue to be responsible for the chapter’s social media, as well as being Wikimedia Australia’s representative to the Wikimedia Chapters’ Association. Ross Mallett will also join us as an observer on the committee, in addition to taking on the responsibility of being our Assistant Treasurer. It is my experience that when you get the basic things running like clockwork, success soon follows, and I’m confident that someone with Ross’s skills and experience around to help will see us running as smoothly as possible. The position of Vice President is currently and deliberately left vacant. Over the coming weeks we will be assessing what additional skills and expertise are required in the committee, and searching for someone who can bring that to the organisation. Stay tuned for more information on that! I’d like to thank my fellow members of the committee for their support during this process, for the work that they’ve already done, and for the great things that they’ll no doubt do for the chapter and the movement in the coming months. I’d like to specially single Charles out for praise as well, as he has been a longstanding member of the committee and helped us out of a tight spot last year by taking over as Secretary and doing a great job of organising our AGM and elections. Regards, Craig Franklin President – Wikimedia Australia ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 11:28, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote: ... I honestly don't believe that anyone with some basic understanding of principles of organizational strategic planning would dispute that. However, I entirely agree with Fae that we need a powerful, long-term vision (and I believe that making all knowledge universally accessible is quite good in this respect, and also appealing to donors for endowment). As I have a MBA specializing in international strategy, hand in hand with a couple of decades as a consultant, I would count myself as having a basic understanding. ;-) In other words, I completely do not understand why you insist that in spite of a long term vision we also need a 100-year spanning strategy. But let's assume we do: could you give examples of goals, say for year 10, year 20, year 50?... I suggest you step away from the technology component before this becomes a mantra. Given a span of 100 years, assumptions become rather large. We can start to assume that within one or two decades, *everyone* on the planet is data-connected, we can assume that language barriers break down or become irrelevant, we can assume that connection and hardware costs become vanishingly small and we can assume that engagement with human knowledge is fully immersive. Developing a strategy would require some big thinking of scenarios: * Does Wikimedia get subsumed into a new ecology of open knowledge organizations? * Does operations become irrelevant as it will be naturally factored out? * In a future of cheap as chips access, does access mean socialization and education? Classically, one might bounce around environmental scenarios such as religious division, hyper-connection social instability (meme threats), population crisis etc. It's a big talk, and above was mentioned spending 5 years on this. Consider how darn slow us unpaid Wikimedia volunteers are to nit-pick our way forward, thinking of how we take longer than a year+ to reach some conclusions is not unreasonable, and it is not as easy as saying quote examples as if this was a discussion short-cut. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 1:01 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: As I have a MBA specializing in international strategy, hand in hand with a couple of decades as a consultant, I would count myself as having a basic understanding. ;-) I'd assume it goes way beyond basics. Developing a strategy would require some big thinking of scenarios: * Does Wikimedia get subsumed into a new ecology of open knowledge organizations? * Does operations become irrelevant as it will be naturally factored out? * In a future of cheap as chips access, does access mean socialization and education? The thing is, this is guesswork, and also a dangerous one in the sense that we separate this discussion from our resources (for instance, we have text-based knowledge bases, are we sure these will be even relevant in half a century? no way to decide. In terms of access: again, a great leap of faith is made e.g. in terms of energy resources allowing for a sustainable development of networks. It is just possible to conceive a scenario in which we'll have to wind down bandwidth consumption, rather than all go into a realistic VR). A century-long time horizon makes telepathic data transfer perfectly viable. Same it goes with hardware to brain porting. With this perspective, universal connectivity to the net as we know it now is a very modest assumption. We know that technologies completely changing our field are behind the corner. Classically, one might bounce around environmental scenarios such as religious division, hyper-connection social instability (meme threats), population crisis etc. And so did e.g. Barber or Huntington, and failed in many of their predictions just several years after they were made. It's a big talk, and above was mentioned spending 5 years on this. Consider how darn slow us unpaid Wikimedia volunteers are to nit-pick our way forward, thinking of how we take longer than a year+ to reach some conclusions is not unreasonable, and it is not as easy as saying quote examples as if this was a discussion short-cut. As long as it is not really a strategy creation exercise, but rather an imagination stimulation and concept brainstorming, I think it is a great idea. But we should not mistake trying to look way too far beyond what we can see as great vision. It is guesswork. best, dj ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Fine, let's call it strategy. Off-the-record, can you name some other organizations, preferably more or less in our industry, which have strategies longer than 20 years? Other than that I think that your idea of discussing a dispersed archive is great and definitely worth covering, and beyond any doubt it is also a good reason to have an endowment for. best, dj On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 18 March 2013 12:14, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote: ... As long as it is not really a strategy creation exercise, but rather an imagination stimulation and concept brainstorming, I think it is a great idea. But we should not mistake trying to look way too far beyond what we can see as great vision. It is guesswork. I'm happy to continue calling this part of strategy creation, while you call it speculation or guesswork. However I believe it is perfectly clear that if the movement has no 100 year plan, even in concept, and cannot set some top level goals to show our commitment to a century long view, then a public call to create a billion dollar endowment will quickly be shot down as banking money for the sake of job security. An easy-peasy goal is to ensure all project knowledge content is actively archived in a way that the commitment to preservation is meaningfully demonstrated. Pointing to a reasonably future-proofed but cost effective 100-year (multi-location) archive is one obvious way of explaining what an endowment is for. PS I have heard the archive question answered recently by a representative of the WMF on a radio interview as Oh, it's all over the internet, if we disappear it could always be re-created (or words to that effect) - I thought this a particularly naff answer for an organization with many millions in the bank to spend on operational risks. Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae -- __ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On 18 March 2013 13:24, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote: Fine, let's call it strategy. Off-the-record, can you name some other organizations, preferably more or less in our industry, which have strategies longer than 20 years? Google it - some random reading: * 100 year project http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2199247/The-100-year-Starship-project-plans-transport-humans-solar-system.html * 100 year plan http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Unigen-pens-100-year-plan * 100 year plan http://www.cnv.org/server.aspx?c=3i=541 * 100 year scenario planning http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Technology-in-the-next-100-years-the-futurologists-view * How Google and Virgin wanted to be on Mars in 100 years http://www.google.com/virgle/plan_1.html :-D A business search might discover some more down to earth long term strategy examples. If this gets a bit more serious, I might spend a couple of hours in the British Library business center tracking some down. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
To return to the endowment again as the main topic, I think there are some risks we need to consider in an endowment. In general I think having an endowment is a good idea for a charitable institution, and certainly the WMF needs a strategic reserve of some size to maintain operations in the event of a crisis. But a lot of thought has to go into the target size of that fund, the nature of its fundraising, how or whether it is used, and what role (and of what prominence) it plays in WM/WMF public relations. There's a risk that the presence of a large endowment, or even a campaign to raise funds for an endowment, could cannibalize or turn off some donors. While I agree with Dan that there is something undesirable in making each annual fundraiser a life or death event, and essentially threatening our userbase with the end of the projects if the fundraiser doesn't go well, it's also clearly true that this is at least effective in raising money. There would at a minimum be a need to recalibrate messaging if an endowment were established that could carry the WMF through several years. We should also consider how having an endowment might affect the democratic nature of the WMF. (And before someone says NOT#DEMOCRACY!! yes, I know). This is the flipside of making the organization dependent on the annual fundraiser. While it's subject to economic fluctuations, it also is held responsible for the value it provides to user. If at some point the WMF loses the confidence, interest or support of the greater community of readers, then the organization will suffer as a result. But as an endowment becomes larger, the influence of the community decreases and the independence of management increases. I'm not sure what the current target is for a reserve, but a good starting point and middle ground between an endowment and a reserve is to have a fairly robust target - say three years of operational funding with a complete cessation of fundraising. In anything but a nightmare scenario, that should give the WMF a solid cushion of at least 5 to 10 years in the event of a major disruption in income, but avoid some of the challenges of a larger endowment and related campaign. ~Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
thanks for these three examples. All relate to innovation breakthroughs (the main goal for strategy is achieving something completely technologically impossible, and not movement growth/sustenance). They are interesting though - let me know if you come up with something else :) For now I think we can mute this dispute, as it diverts from the endowment issue. best, dj On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:46 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: On 18 March 2013 13:24, Dariusz Jemielniak dar...@alk.edu.pl wrote: Fine, let's call it strategy. Off-the-record, can you name some other organizations, preferably more or less in our industry, which have strategies longer than 20 years? Google it - some random reading: * 100 year project http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2199247/The-100-year-Starship-project-plans-transport-humans-solar-system.html * 100 year plan http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Unigen-pens-100-year-plan * 100 year plan http://www.cnv.org/server.aspx?c=3i=541 * 100 year scenario planning http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Technology-in-the-next-100-years-the-futurologists-view * How Google and Virgin wanted to be on Mars in 100 years http://www.google.com/virgle/plan_1.html :-D A business search might discover some more down to earth long term strategy examples. If this gets a bit more serious, I might spend a couple of hours in the British Library business center tracking some down. Cheers, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae -- __ dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak profesor zarządzania kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i centrum badawczego CROW Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Markus Glaser is elected Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council
Congrtz Markus.. On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Craig Franklin cr...@halo-17.net wrote: Congratulations Markus, I suspect that you have a difficult road ahead of you but I'm confident that with the support of chapters you will do us all proud. Thanks also to Fae for his work as Chair until this point; while he has operated under difficult conditions he's done quite well considering, and I hope he'll continue to support Markus throughout 2013. Cheers, Craig On 18 March 2013 18:46, wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote: Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2013 01:58:20 +0100 From: Markus Glaser markus.gla...@wikimedia.de To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Markus Glaser is elected Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council Message-ID: 514666ac.1020...@wikimedia.de Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Hi, thanks for voting and thank you for your trust. Time will show if I can meet your expectations. Thank you, Fae, for all the work you have done so far. I assume I can continue to count on your experience :) In order to get things going, I totally depend on the help and support of the Council members. We also need to involve all chapters and affiliate organisations. Furthermore, I hope for very friendly relations to WMF and their organisations. In order to shape the future of the WCA, please approach me with all comments, criticism and suggestions! There's quite some work ahead of us! Our next milestone will be the Milan conference. Cheers, Markus ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- * Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive* * * (নুরুন্নবী চৌধুরী হাছিব) Facebook Fan Page: NCH http://www.facebook.com/itsNCH Auto-confirmed, Reviewer Roll backer Editor: bn.nhasive http://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:Nhasive FB http://www.facebook.com/nhasive :: Twitterhttp://www.twitter.com/nhasive :: Skype http://www.skype.com/nhasive: nhasive http://www.nhasive.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Nathan hit on something that I was thinking about, while reading Darius and Nemo's comments. (some snipping below) We should also consider how having an endowment might affect the democratic nature of the WMF This is the flipside of making the organization dependent on the annual fundraiser. If at some point the WMF loses the confidence, interest or support of the greater community of readers, then the organization will suffer as a result. But as an endowment becomes larger, the influence of the community decreases and the independence of management increases. This is definitely a risk, and one that needs to be addressed. In our current state I think if we had an endowment magically appear today, the combination of board, staff, and community could be counted on to provide enough oversight that while there may be policy disputes, the vision and fundamental shape of the WMF are generally similar to what they are now. We could reasonably count on that to stay the same in the near future. But as that timeline grows further into the future, that assumption becomes more shaky, especially when you reach the point in time where the majority of staff/board/users have turned over from the present generation to the next; losing that institutional memory. We've seen how contentious questions involving the community's relationship with the WMF can be. If the endowment can be structured in such a way that it guarantees perpetual community oversight of the WMF's implementation of the movement's vision, this is a good thing. But if not, it risks the organization slowly drifting into something different, without the leverage of the fundraiser to bring it back. Dan Rosenthal On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 4:52 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 18 March 2013 13:39, Thomas Morton morton.tho...@googlemail.com wrote: Just having a backup is only 1/10th of the problem though, if that. If Wikimedia Commons, for example, where to disappear in a cloud of smoke overnight what would it take to turn one of those backups into a properly functioning replacement? Open knowledge data is only useful when it's accessible :) Yes, that's the precise thing I'm saying needs proper testing :-) My threat model here is if WMF vanishes one day, say it's hit by a meteor (including legal meteors). - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
Nathan wrote: To return to the endowment again as the main topic, I think there are some risks we need to consider in an endowment. In general I think having an endowment is a good idea for a charitable institution, and certainly the WMF needs a strategic reserve of some size to maintain operations in the event of a crisis. But a lot of thought has to go into the target size of that fund, the nature of its fundraising, how or whether it is used, and what role (and of what prominence) it plays in WM/WMF public relations. [...] These are all good points. I suggested quite recently that the Board pass a resolution creating a committee to examine the points you raise and additional questions outlined here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment/Questions. I continue to think that we (as a community) are still not at a place where we can make good judgments about whether to set up an endowment. There simply isn't enough information available to make a sound decision, in my opinion. That said, the idea of creating an endowment does seem like an idea that has broad support for further consideration and exploration, which is why I think an investigative or exploratory committee would make a lot of sense here and now. Thoughts? MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Info: Markus Glaser is elected Chair of the Wikimedia Chapters Association Council
Congrats Markus Now, everyone is looking for future results ;) I'd like to also thank Fae for the good work he has done so far, in an environment which was not always easy. I appreciated your goodwill and ability to keep calm in all circonstances ;) Florence On 3/18/13 6:53 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: Markus, Congratulations. I looking forward to seeing you in Milan. And thank you, Fae for your work so far and leadership of the election process. Regards, SJ On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 8:58 PM, Markus Glaser markus.gla...@wikimedia.de wrote: Hi, thanks for voting and thank you for your trust. Time will show if I can meet your expectations. Thank you, Fae, for all the work you have done so far. I assume I can continue to count on your experience :) In order to get things going, I totally depend on the help and support of the Council members. We also need to involve all chapters and affiliate organisations. Furthermore, I hope for very friendly relations to WMF and their organisations. In order to shape the future of the WCA, please approach me with all comments, criticism and suggestions! There's quite some work ahead of us! Our next milestone will be the Milan conference. Cheers, Markus Am 18.03.2013 01:12, schrieb Kirill Lokshin: Congratulations to Markus! I look forward to working with everyone to make the WCA a success in the coming year! Cheers, Kirill On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 8:08 PM, Fae fae...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulations to Markus on becoming the Chair of the WCAC. The election results is available at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Votes , with an associated detailed QA from the candidates on the associated talk page. Thank you to all candidates for coming forward and taking part in the public debate so well. I look forward to supporting Markus in his role as our Chair, and the discussions with everyone at the Milan conference next month. Cheers, Fae -- Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) fae...@gmail.com Chapters Association Council sChair/s http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WCA Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Markus Glaser WCA Council Member (WMDE) Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Report, February 2013
Pine: Our relationship with JP Morgan Chase is that they handle part of our international banking. This is a separate division of the bank from the one that had the trading losses. I agree with you that this type of news report is not good news. I have reviewed the information I have available, and have determined that the money JP Morgan Chase is holding for the Wikimedia Foundation is not at risk. When we did a review of banks that can handle our international banking, unfortunately all of the banks we looked at were involved in some sort scandal, from risky trades to LIBOR manipulation. This is not an ideal situation for a community based movement and I am continuing to look at options for all or some parts of our international banking needs. Regards, Garfield On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 9:55 PM, ENWP Pine deyntest...@hotmail.com wrote: I'm curious, what is the nature of WMF's relationship with JP Morgan Chase? Given the stories that I'm reading in the news such as this one, http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/jpmorgan-executives-face-withering-questions-at-senate-hearing/?hpw, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that WMF has a business relationship with JP Morgan. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! *https://donate.wikimedia.org* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia (Foundation) endowment
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 9:53 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I continue to think that we (as a community) are still not at a place where we can make good judgments about whether to set up an endowment. There simply isn't enough information available to make a sound decision, in my opinion. That said, the idea of creating an endowment does seem like an idea that has broad support for further consideration and exploration, which is why I think an investigative or exploratory committee would make a lot of sense here and now. Thoughts? I have seen some good criticisms, which I tend to disagree with but I think are very healthy to explore and discuss. I think that an exploratory committee is an excellent idea. I think that, regardless of what form it takes, preserving the data and its history and editability for future generations and the benefit of humankind writ large is a goal I think it would be good to get consensus around and then start some thinking / planning. If an Endowment helps that, then it's worth examining more closely. If it hurts that, then perhaps not. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On 18 March 2013 20:00, Garfield Byrd gb...@wikimedia.org wrote: Thomas: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking at its capacity to hire and is reviewing how many positions we can hire next fiscal year. We are working overall to have a good annual plan that matches our outcomes, but with a dynamic movement like this one, variance from plan is a part of the process as we want to make sure we are spending money prudently and not just to meet plan. In statistics we don't call it variance if it is always in the same direction - we call it bias. A high variance is often unavoidable, but bias is generally a bad thing. You'll note, my question wasn't about changing the spending, it was about changing the planning process. You shouldn't spend money just to meet your plan, certainly, but you should plan as accurately as possible. Prudence should be explicitly allowed for in reserves or a contingencies budget, it shouldn't appear accidentally due to biased planning. In addition, since unspent money goes into the Wikimedia Foundation reserves, which we are still in process of building, we have some time to calibrate the the annual planning process to the needs of the Wikimedia Movement and the Wikimedia Foundation. Can you elaborate on your plans for the reserves? When I search for reserves policy on the foundation wiki, it doesn't find anything. That is extremely worrying... Reserves should be built up intentionally, not as a result of accidental underspends. Either you need the reserves, in which case you should plan to save the money, or you don't, in which case you should either spend the money or not raise it in the first place. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Mid-Year Financial Statements
On 13 March 2013 07:58, Erik Moeller e...@wikimedia.org wrote: For 13-14, I've asked for finance and HR to work with us in applying performance metrics based on our hiring velocity and attrition rate in 12-13 against the hiring plan for the purpose of estimating the actual dollar spend. I've applied those same metrics to our total req # ask, as well. Instead of attaching unrealistically precise timing to each position, we'll develop a hiring plan that's focused on an a rough overall prioritization of requisitions. Erik, I noticed I never responded to your email. Thank you for your answer. I'm glad to see someone is taking this problem seriously. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
