I actually discussed the idea of donor earmarks with the other fundraising folks at WMF a while back. There are a few potential problems with such a system: * More overhead for managing donations * The Foundation is trying to move away from any type of strings attached to donations (including grants) so that resources can be managed optimally and flexibly * What happens to money earmarked for scuttled projects? Would it have to be refunded? (e.g. The Philip Greenspun illustration project)
I do think, however, that such an earmarking system would make donating more attractive to some people, so it's worth discussing at least. Ryan Kaldari On 9/3/10 3:11 PM, James Salsman wrote: > Platonides wrote: > >> ... And if you want WMF to have its employee do X, the pay would be >> 'I give Y money to WMF if they fix this first'? That seems a bit awkward. >> > It would be best to follow the pattern that the Red Cross uses, by offering > either "where needed most" as the default, or a handfull of alternative > options: > http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main > > Jean-Marc van Leerdam wrote: > >> Well, if you want to keep some control over destinations of the >> donations you could allow to earmark up to 50% of the donation.... >> > Yes, you could do that (with a footnote or similar disclaimer), and/or > associate a certain amount with some of the earmark options after > which those would be no longer available for selection (i.e., after > they were fully funded.) Earmarking options could be offered in the > order they score as maximizing total giving, until the closed-ended > items with a maximum budget are fully funded. (Each could have its > own goal thermometer shown. After all the closed-ended earmarks are > satisfied, only the open-ended projects would remain in the order that > donors find them most inspiring.) > > Platonides wrote: > >> The idea of earmarking for minor donations is good, but it should >> not be readily available ... while not completely hidden, either. >> > Absolutely; a multivariate linear regression test to determine the > extent to which each of the earmark options tends to maximize total > contributions should be run in advance, with a sample size (assuming > 30 earmark possibilities offered four at a time in a variety of > different languages and locales) of between 5000 and 30,000 donations. > > The dependent variable would be total amount given, while the > independent variables should be the binary flag of whether the option > appeared in each test (donation.) Here are some links to statistics > to help with multivariate linear regression: > http://www.statmethods.net/stats/regression.html > > As for the earmarks, in addition to the five I suggested earlier, and > the ten approved but un-slotted Google Summer of Code projects, and > Sue has a list of 15 open-ended goals which could be used. There is > ample opportunity to run more than just 30 earmarking options. I'm > sure people could suggest others, either that they think of or find on > their favorite mailing lists or village pumps. > > Best regards, > James Salsman > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
