There are two kind of situations I can imagine where donating money without a grant request would make sense to me (aside from facilitating a fundraising):
* There is a specific need, a conference we could support, a developer event or something we could help out with. There is a clear goal, and it is one-time. We have a clear benefit. For example: helping OTRS to become less messy. * Setting the right example and therefore have an even wider impact when it comes to using free software. I think it is defensible if we agree on a 'software fee' for the software Wikimedia movement organizations are using, and then donate based on the number of employees/servers/computers/whatever running that software. Something you could calculate, and an example that could (and might) be followed as 'the right thing to do' by other organizations. I would not be in favor of 'just donating money' - i think we should be able to explain at all time why we are donating, and why that specific amount. We owe that to our donors, and we owe that to the volunteers whose grants are being rejected/reduced. Best, Lodewijk 2014-04-17 23:39 GMT+02:00 Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com>: > This would be an interesting discussion to have in the next movement > strategy process. > > I can see the attraction of doing this, but much better to think about it > alongside questions like "what are our collective goals", "how much money > do we want to have" and the like. > > Regards, > > Chris > On 15 Apr 2014 20:51, "Erik Moeller" <e...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > > > Hi folks, > > > > I'd be interested in hearing broader community opinions about the > > extent to which WMF should sponsor non-profits purely to support work > > that Wikimedia benefits from, even if it's not directed towards a > > specific goal established in a grant agreement. > > > > This comes up from time to time. One of the few historic precedents > > I'm aware of is the $5,000 donation that WMF made to FreeNode in 2006 > > [1]. But there are of course many other organizations/communities that > > the Wikimedia movement is indebted to. > > > > On the software side, we have Ubuntu Linux (itself highly indebted to > > Debian) / Apache / MariaDB / PHP / Varnish / ElasticSearch / memcached > > / Puppet / OpenStack / various libraries and many other dependencies [2], > > infrastructure tools like ganglia, observium, icinga, etc. Some of > > these projects have nonprofits that accept and seek sponsorship and > > support, some don't. > > > > One could easily expand well beyond the software we depend on > > server-side to client-side open source applications used by our > > community to create content: stuff like Inkscape, GIMP and LibreOffice > > (used for diagrams). And there are other communities we depend on, > > like OpenStreetMap. > > > > So, should we steer clear of this type of sponsorship altogether > > because it's a slippery slope, or should we try to come up with > > evaluation criteria to consider it on a case-by-case basis (e.g. is > > there a trustworthy non-profit that has a track record of > > accomplishment and is in actual need of financial support)? > > > > I could imagine a process with a fixed "giving back" annual budget > > and a community nominations/review workflow. It'd be work to create > > and I don't want to commit to that yet, but I would be interested to > > hear opinions. > > > > MariaDB specifically invited WMF to become a sponsor, and we're > > clearly highly dependent on them. But I don't think it makes sense for > > us to just write checks if there's someone who asks for support and > > there's a justifiable need. However, if there's broad agreement that > > this is something Wikimedia should do more of, then I think it's worth > > developing more consistent sponsorship criteria. > > > > Thanks, > > Erik > > > > > > [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Freenode_Donation > > [2] Cf. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects > > -- > > Erik Möller > > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
