On 14 March 2013 08:09, Manuel Schneider <[email protected]> wrote:
> thanks for collecting these links, they are interesting. Anyway, I > didn't fully understand the idea behind the page, especially as a > non-native speaker I have problems to come up with a proper translation > / understanding of "Endowment". I understand it as "what WM(F) owns" and > it may refer to the "right" WM(F) expects to have on getting / using > their donated money or may refer to the reserves WMF is currently building. > > Can you explain this a bit better for people like me, please? Maybe > right on that Meta page would be good, so others can read it as well. Hi Manuel, The basic idea of an endowment is that it's a large sum of money collected to "set up" a charity - it then uses the income from investing this money to cover some or all of its operating costs, rather than just spending it over a long period of time. The Wellcome Trust is a pretty good high-profile example; it has a capital endowment of around fifteen billion pounds, and spends about six hundred million (4%) a year. (In the US context, they're very common for universities, but this is less so in Europe; here it's more "traditional charities") I've given a quick outline on the meta page. Building up an endowment sufficient to run WMF would be tricky, of course :-) -- - Andrew Gray [email protected] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
