Nemo, can you explain what the benefits would be? What I see is a massive future headache over bureaucracy and roles, and no tangible benefit to separating a "Trust" from the actual ownership and management of the Wikimedia projects. I read the meta page, but don't see an outline of why this would be a good idea.
~Nathan On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemow...@gmail.com> wrote: > Creating a new thread because the other is apparently running in circles > now. > > phoebe ayers, 14/03/2013 21:38: >> Yes. In an university context, which is what I'm most familiar with (and >> where endowments are very common in the U.S.), there is often a specific >> "endowment campaign" to plan for and build the endowment that is separate >> from normal fundraising -- for instance, you might have a dedicated team >> that would work on the endowment, solicit wealthy donors, etc. > > Thanks for this, you reminded me that I sometimes should try to put at > profit some 12 months spent writing the bylaws of the most important > university of Italy (by LERU standards). :p > > (Some) universities can have endowments because they are multi-centuries > insitutions with stable stuff to do and because they're deeply rooted in > their territory (be it a country or a region or whatever).[1] On the other > hand, they often have to set up different structures for more ephemeral > tasks, so they may own foundations or for-profits.[2] > > The WMF has the opposite problem than a university, i.e. it's busy with > mostly short-term goals (few years) and that's most of its budget, because > Wikimedia projects are innovation and without that they die etc. etc. > So why not use the same approach, just reversed? Make a spin-off for the > long-term purposes that are currently not covered anywhere. For once I did > an attempt at being a bit imaginative, consider it just a thought experiment > if you wish: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Trust > > Nemo > > [1] Harvard, for instance, is a special case because it aims at being not > only the best USA university but the center for the best minds of the world, > so "the world's university". > [2] Big donors and investors want to see some effect for their donation > (that ideally is not selfish). For instance, if I'm a rich widow with, say, > 50 million € to give away in my will, I may choose to donate to a university > because it's important and all, but if it goes to the general budget I don't > want the money to be consumed by usual operating expenditure (especially > wages) where it would be a drop in the ocean, so I may set some very strict > requirements... that however are very 19th-century-sounding and end up > making the money impossible to use, so that it will just rot on some bank > account (true story). > >> And in turn, the endowment is not meant to fund all expenses or to preempt >> normal fundraising. It can fund some expenses, and provides long-term >> stability for the organization. Endowments often come about when you >> either >> have a very wealthy donor who is setting up a foundation, or when you have >> a humanitarian institution that wants to be in business essentially >> forever >> (as is the case with most universities). >> >> There is complicated law and best practice around endowments that I don't >> pretend to understand. I do know it's more complicated than setting up a >> bank account and calling it the endowment fund, at least to do it well. >> Having an endowment would ideally be a part of the WMF's strategic and >> long-term financial plan, with some dedicated resources (i.e. staff time >> to >> manage the fund and solicit donations) applied to it. And we would want to >> be clear on what we wanted the endowment to do -- what its role would be >> over time -- and how it would interact and perhaps affect annual >> fundraising. >> >> All that said, I strongly support the idea, on the principle that what we >> do is important for the long-term and needs to be supported as such. We >> did >> discuss the idea during my time on the board, a year or so ago, and it >> sounds like it's coming up again, which is great! >> >> -- phoebe >> > > _______________________________________________ > 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