Grants talk:APG/Fundraising and Funds Dissemination/Editable recommendations

My thoughts on editing this down for simplicity:

• Separate out the principles/guidelines -- these deserve their own page, and will change slowly over time (but not so slowly as a resolution.)
• Leave staffing/consulting decisions to the ED; the Board shouldn't be explicitly directing anyone but the ED
• Leave FDC operational details to a separate page, along with further details on the advisory committee
• Separate out a resolution creating the committee with its initial chair and membership

Details removed

"The staff lead and the key liaison with the advisory committee, will be the Wikimedia Foundation’s Chief Global Development Officer. The staff will be supported in this by Bridgespan, the consulting firm that supported Wikimedia in developing its 2010-15 strategy plan;"

• Leave a comment delegating these decisions to the ED; or leave it implied..

Reposts of guidelines/principles for funds distribution and fundraising from an earlier resolution.

• Create Fundraising principles and Funds dissemination principles and link to them.

Separating out FDC operations

The whole section on what the FDC would be like, including the details about the advisory committee and an initial model for the first year's FDC group, might better have its own page - part of it is explicitly a draft which is bound to change soon. Perhaps this can link to a specific revision of Funds Dissemination Committee, with a {{draft}} notice at the top.

An initial proposal for committee structure:

• Members: A diverse body of 5-7 people from across our movement with appropriate expertise for this purpose. This may include paid staff, though no more than 1/3 of the body will be WMF staff.
  • Committee membership will require significant time commitment, and may involve in-person meetings;
  • WMF staff will support and facilitate the work of the committee, with the goal of preserving its time for decision-making;
• It is expected that there will be three major categories of funding requests, each handled differently:
  1. annual funds allocations for recognized chapters and partner organizations;
  2. restricted grants for individuals and entities;
  3. reimbursements for individuals and entities
  • The primary work of the FDC will be to allocate funding to the first category: annual funds allocations for qualified chapters and partner organizations
  • The FDC will also allocate blocks of funding to categories 2 and 3 (restricted grants and reimbursements), which will be distributed via processes led by WMF staff. Those processes to distribute smaller sums of money will be supported by a revamped version of the Grants Advisory Committee.
• Success of the FDC will be assessed based on the following:
  • Total amount of money given out;
  • Proportion of FDC recommendations (in both number and dollars) accepted and carried out by the Wikimedia Foundation;
  • Fund-seeker satisfaction (that the FDC process is understandable, that the FDC members are fair, responsive, approachable and have the necessary expertise, that decisions are made promptly);
  • Stakeholder satisfaction (that the process is seen as effective in advancing our shared mission).

Condensing into two resolutions

The recommendations can be merged into two statements, on fundraising and on funds dissemination. –SJ talk   17:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

If im honest, I lost interest in that discussion. WMDE acquired six new members of their stuff in February/March and is planning to acquire four more (middle management) till the end of the year. Funds dissemination, whats that? Acquiring stuff members (22/28/32) in one year? I dont see the point in this discussion anymore, senseless. Wasting money on getting big, thats it.--Angel54 5 (talk) 00:45, 25 March 2012 (UTC) btw. I forgot the new adress in April, there have to be offices available for all that new stuff members... all this is ridiculous, wasting money for no real purpose. And there is a wikidata project from WMDE, whose aim noone knows, eight members for 1 and 1/2 years project duration calculated--Angel54 5 (talk) 00:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. WikiData is a project many, many editors and reusers have been hoping for for years and years. As I understand it, grants from external foundations are supporting the work, which is being organized in part with the semantic mediawiki hackers - a talented group. I understand the concerns about staff growing too big -- it's something I worry about for the WMF -- but I welcome a WikiData initiative with all my heart. –SJ talk   19:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

So u didnt grasp the meaning? What will be FDC good before, if there isnt any money left, cause its already spent? Absolutely nothing. To ask about the last cents left is not worth it. The argument is: we have a huge sum to pay for stuff, these are our costs (thats why its core). If u calculate that way (not even a small percentage to support communities), lets first build a fat organization, the funds are in, never ever something useful will come out. Its a self-service-store first and foremost.--Angel54 5 (talk) 18:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC) btw: If u calculate economically u always ask: how much money will be spent on what. Do these members of stuff participate for useful purposes, how much money do they cost, how much do they at the other hand bring to the table? Are they helpful to support the whole thing? In which way? If they only cost and have no real purpose, I as an employer would throw them out...--Angel54 5 (talk) 18:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok - the wikidata project. If u ask me, learn from faults made in recent history e.g. the toolserver project, a WMDE project, right? Used to mirror sites at the European side of the pond, used to throw some admin tools there too. If I look at s1 (or any other server) I get that pic: http://toolserver.org/~overlordq/rrd/s1-year.png from 2011. The last entry in the blog is that one: http://journal.toolserver.org/. I also know, that most of the hardware was sponsored by SUN. There isnt anyone responsible for that server cluster. But it was a project, running some processes. I dont know much about network computing, but what I see is that this service is running down since 2010. How useful was it to spent money on that? what expectations were there? I hope the next project will be more fruitful. As far as Im concerned, I dont even trust the guiding principle to build articles out of already existing text modules. If u write an application for a job, would u use text modules - how then can u expect that good articles will be the end result, I cannot even imagine, how that should work, its a concept from the stone age of data processing, noone uses anymore in modern life, means an article conglomerated out of three boiler plates wont be a good one, its the thinking: better have something than nothing. --Angel54 5 (talk) 19:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

removal of recommendation 3a, 3b

let us remove recommendation 3a, and 3b. they are very controversal. 3c is the same thing just in other words, and leaves it up to the foundations board as well. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 18:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

review in 2015

since the beginning we had a fundraising and agreement discussion every year. more and more time was spent on this. the same is true with budgeting, apply for grants. imo it would be wise to let it finally stabilize. and let us review both sides together, if we introduced them together. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 18:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

global revenue target --> global budget (spend) + global revenue target (income)

this sounds like a very nice idea. it removes the pressure from e.g. the WMF ED to consider one USD donation better than 2 usd donated to WMDE (just to give one example) - which is a very understandable position seeing only the WMF, but of course not true considered from a movement perspective. it seems to be on the income side, and fundraiser planning, isn't it? try to move it down therefore. and call the split of the money "global budget", as it looks like a very good idea. --ThurnerRupert (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

donation processing: take out some "work"

this is something i am acutally not sure about, there was no clear consensus on a talk page. quite a number of people were moaning about it the one way or the other in paris. took out ", if they again meet the criteria and negotiate a fundraising agreement with the WMF" from chapters doing fundraising. it seems not giving value to negotiate something "new" / "different" every year. why not just leave something in place for a couple of years, e.g. 2015. the concerned organizations do not develop revolutionary and change from one year to the other, and there is a long-standing mutual trust, each other knows what can be expected. and _if_ they change in a not-desired way, unexpectedly, the fundraising agreement can anyway be adjusted / terminated. would this be acceptable, or it feels too much? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 19:49, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

global budget

this is as well something i am not sure about. there were discussions with various people with various outcomes. the basic ideas are:

• attract talent all over the globe, early and long term.
• spend the money in other countries, to get as well people still at universities, doing research, not yet ready to move to another country.
• get some competition into software development as well. this competition was so successful with program work, but, contrary to program work which is often "byte-sized" (i.e. very little effort of a single person is necessary to achieve a lot in a group), software development needs better planning, more funding, and somebody who supports the outcome to make it live longer.
• reduce the battleground. currently at some points there seem to be some "fight about the money", or "who decides". the hypothesis is that this is driven by the desire to allocate funds for some "strategic" work. so try to externalize it, visible for everybody, and create a "handle" to plan and manage strategic spending. therefor separate it from the non-controversial parts, keep alive, and "other" work done on a more local / smaller level.

--ThurnerRupert (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

So u r from Switzerland? Then u know whats happening there - let me ask u a question: who do u think, gets a sponsorship for Wikimania, are they wikipedians or are they primarily attached to WMDE? There will be nothing in it for the community in the future, the same people decide the same things in the same manner.--Angel54 5 (talk) 22:40, 27 March 2012 (UTC) It would be a good idea to give sth like that to authors of excellent written articles instead give this kind of incentive just for lobbying - not a single article gets better by those people they only consume resources.--Angel54 5 (talk) 22:54, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The time to decide, which way to go is now. Not 2015. Im very grateful to Sue Gardner to start that discussion, it helps to reflect the basics.--Angel54 5 (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

btw. Thanks for ur email, Rupert, I think this was meant sarcastic. I updated via IP the following article in German WP: [1]. Thats my work in General. I was hindered to do more by admins. Thats all. This is not my fault, that I can read what Marx said, right?btw: meanwhile this is a philosophical discussion, but u should know that too.--Angel54 5 (talk) 22:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC). Throw out if u must - there are those ugly Chinese and there is North-Korea. U are contributing to a scheme that does not exist. --Angel54 5 (talk) 22:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks to those who contributed to this version of the recommendations. Text developed here was included verbatim among the options considered by the Board in its March 29 meeting, and while it was not part of the consensus resolution that resulted, it received significant minority support in interim discussions, and helped inform the process. –SJ talk  17:13, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I realized, that u voted against - thank u too. U cant make the world a better place agreeing with everything...--Angel54 5 (talk) 14:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)