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Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#51

Post by hinkley »

tristor wrote: post #38
mikepurvis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and I'm not sure it would be a defensible position to just be stashing your donated funds into a gigantic rainy day war chest— the money is there to spend on growing and fortifying the service in other ways, so it should be spent.

The proper way for non-profits to do this is to start an endowment fund, which provides consistent residual income that can help fund operations. Usually by identifying specific large donors who would wish to be named in the fund.

I guess we’re “disrupting” foundations too.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#52

Post by approxim8ion »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #36
ndiscussion wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly just like Mozilla. Most of these charities are a lavish waste.

“Lavish waste” my arse. You people will be dissatisfied so long as there is a nonprofit worker out there who isn’t subsisting on gruel.

This is exactly it. Somehow providing something for free means that every cent someone throws at you is scrutinized.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#53

Post by 93po »

Aunche wrote: post #14
umvi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wish there were a way to support just Wikipedia. I don't really care about a lot of Wikimedia Foundation's other pet projects, but the way they phrase their banners and emails, you'd think we are always a razor's edge from Wikipedia servers shutting off...

You can support just Wikipedia by contributing ;) I think that Wikipedia just doesn't need that much money. If people just let them fail their fundraising goals, the core service will likely continue to get the same budget, but they'll cut their pet projects and parties.

I tried contributing and there are so many entrenched "don't touch my stuff" senior editors or moderators that it's often hard to do much of anything depending on where you are. I gave up after spending 40+ hours attempting to help clean up little known articles of a genre of music only to have 90% of what I did get reversed even though I am very confident it was within wikipedia guidelines. I was also harassed and accused of racism (by the subject of the article) after nominating his article for deletion because it didn't meet notability requirements.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#54

Post by leetcrew »

Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

why did expenses rise by $21mm though? is the organization fortunate that donations rise fast enough to cover an annual increase in necessary spending, or does the spending grow as much as necessary to consume the donations?

WMF spent $52mm in FY 2014-2015. it spent $112mm in FY 2019-2020. is the core project really twice as expensive to run as it was five years ago?

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#56

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

No law of physics says they must continue pouring tens of millions into outreach programs if all revenue ceases. Hosting wikipedia is their one true cost and is relatively tiny compared to everything else they spend money on.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#57

Post by whimsicalism »

vorpalhex wrote: post #4
qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For profit entities use parties to bond teams and accomplish a goal. Non profit entities ought to have that freedom as well.

They are welcome to, just declare it upfront.

I think you should assume that every charitable organization you are donating to might throw the occasional party for their administrative employees and will certainly throw parties to attract donations.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#58

Post by jrochkind1 »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #42
jrochkind1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "declaring it upfront" look like, what are you asking for? Like, a copy of their budget before donating? I think you can probably get that?

I can't find any line-item in the Foundation Audit Reports named "parties" though. Is it under "other operating expenses"? How can I know how much of those $9M was spent on parties?

Do you want a line-item for how much they spend on office coffee-per-person too? Surely parties can't be the only thing you are concerned about.

There does seem to be a line "Special event expense, net". I would guess parties go in there? It was reported as around $300K, or 0.2% of expenses, in the most recent fiscal year.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim..."

I cannot tell you how much they spend on office coffee though. I bet they're wasting it on unecological kuerigs and gourmet brands. It's probably a reason not to donate.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#59

Post by tux3 »

hinkley wrote: post #48
Zababa wrote: post #24

> We have a deep and stable financial position that will help us grow and protect us from any storm, and the trust in our projects has never been higher. They earned 9 millions more than last year, from 120 millions to 129 millions, and spent 21 millions more, from 91 millions to 112 millions [1], with an increase of 10 millions in "awards and grants". The donations grew by 10 millions. If I read the financial statem…

When I hear “Foundation” and “stable financial position” I think endowment. They seem to be making the same mistake as the Mozilla foundation. You’re living on your nest egg instead of the interest. Spending 4 times as much as you should.

The foundation set up a Wikipedia Endowment some five years ago, which has now reached 90MM of a 100MM goal.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#60

Post by craigsmansion »

ndiscussion wrote: post #7
iso8859-1 wrote: post #2

I didn't know my Wikipedia donations funded parties in Accra, Berlin and Chandigarh. I think that should be been in the fundraising statement.

Sadly just like Mozilla. Most of these charities are a lavish waste.

> Sadly just like Mozilla.

Hmm. Maher earned about 375K in 2018 for presiding over a foundation with 145M in assets. I don't feel that's exorbitant in any way.

Looking through https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikim..., wikimedia has enough income from investments to keep the wikipedia site running indefinitely should donations collapse.

I don't like these big budgets for foundations and groups for the public interest either, but in my opinion Wikimedia definitely shouldn't be compared to Mozilla here.

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