User talk:Sue Gardner/scratchpad/Movement Fund-raising and Fund-disseminating

Some thoughts

Hi Sue,

I wanted to add some comments to what I saw in the scratchpad. I would like to expand on things that I noticed in detail, and would do so later. So I am just adding somethings I noticed off the top of my head.

Sure, no problem. I am going to comment on your comments right now (because I've got a minute free). I'm not committing to commenting on everything anybody puts on this page though: the page is mainly meant to be a scratch pad, not a carefully-crafted public document. Anyway -- my comments to you below :-) Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• The entire pad treats WMF as the entire movement (WMF=Movement), even if you do include the chapters, those terms are not and should not be synonymous. For example, WMF brought in X amount of money from US and Germany, there is no absolute way to measure this besides the money you processed. It is much easier to say WMF and the chapter brought in X through fundraising. There are donations given in kind, volunteer effort, donations processed by other chapters that are not reported, it might even be activities done by local wikipedians, that have some component of effort - My point is there is a huge gap here. WMF + chapters ≠ Movement.

This is just about cash, Theo, not in-kind, etc. You are correct though that it only refers to cash that the WMF is aware of. Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• The point about WMF, Germany and Canada bringing 94% of the proceeds for the movement, begs the question, why is only Germany capable of bringing it in Vs. the dozen other EU chapters. We can look at this in terms of cause and effect, if we take only the German chapter's ability to raise the amount the start of an a priori argument, then why doesn't any other EU chapter match that? Surely, there are many other affluent countries we have chapters in. Do other chapter lack something or some maturity that only the German chapter possesses? Are we losing money as a movement for not being efficient and maximizing those proceeds?

There are lots of factors that influence dollars raised in any given country -- 'affluence' is only one of them. Population is a factor. Some countries have a strong tradition of individual donations to charity (eg US, UK, Germany, Canada); others do not. Other factors will include -- how popular are the projects in [x country], what is their reputation, does the country offer incentives for donations such as tax deductibility, what is the economy like currently in that country. Honestly, I think that the major determining factors are outside fundraisers' control. Excellent fundraising certainly has an influence on how much money comes in, but there are many other factors at play. Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• It makes a huge difference between who payment-processes, one is independence, the other is blind and utter reliance on another organization for existence. As importance as accountability might be, the issue of independence precedes and supersedes the other.

That's a perfectly reasonably opinion, I guess, but it's just an opinion. Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• "What editors want to spend money on?" places global south third lowest in terms of priorities. This is in stark contrast to our current 5 year plan and what the money is actually being spent on. I would also point out that chapter support was split up in two options each getting 7 cents each. (BTW the first line mentions allocating a $100, but the actual points are in cents.)

I think you're misunderstanding the survey question. It doesn't ask for a rank-order of priorities: it asks people to allocate cash. (And you're right: it should be dollars, not cents.) I'm not sure why you think it's different from the cash allocation of the WMF budget this year -- I don't think it's very different, actually; I think it's pretty close to how the cash actually ends up being allocated. Check the annual plan if you're interested. And, I don't know why you seem to think it matters that the chapters support was split into two? -- like I said, it's not a rank order. It's a total of 14 cents/14 dollars, split into two buckets. (I do think by the way that people need to be very careful how they interpret this question, and shouldn't take it too seriously. It's just one imperfect data point of editors' expressed views: the people who answered this question in the survey were answering off the top of their heads, and they probably all had different assumptions & interpretations of the question.) Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

• Centralization Vs. Decentralization, you are prob. saying it better than most people have. Personally, I think the benefits of decentralization outweigh anything centralization has to offer. The only benefit of Centralization is Accountability, the downside, among many, is concentration of all the power and resource with one organization, where it will inevitably lead to hierarchical power system, which according to who you ask might have already happened. A hierarchical power system would only lead to decay and constant turmoil within the relationship.

Yeah, again: this is your opinion. I think (like I wrote on the page) there are pros and cons to both :-) Sue Gardner 17:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reading.Theo10011 01:17, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Sue. With all due respect, you are dismissing most of my comments as "just my opinion", opinions are the basis for most human communication. They are subjective interpretations of facts. Every discussion, comment, post on a mailing list, or even your own comments are based on opinions. It is your prerogative to say you don't agree with them, but dismissing them for just being someone's opinion doesn't seem like a plausible reason for doing so. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply. Regards. Theo10011 03:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Theo, maybe it would have been more useful/specific for me to have called what you wrote 'unsupported assertions,' rather than opinions. It's got nothing to do with whether I agree with what you wrote --- the issue is that I don't really know what to do with it. Essentially, 1,000 people will have 1,000 views, and if we don't provide support and context for what we believe and why, we will never come nearer to consensus. Support and context advance the discussion --- hope that makes sense. And may I say, never have I felt more like a Wikipedian, than while distinguishing between opinions & unsupported assertions, in writing this comment :-) Thanks. Sue Gardner 00:29, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Recruitment potential for languages and geographies

Hi, Sue. I appreciate the very detailed view as to approached to fundraising and priority areas, but I hope you don't mind me being a little nitpicky on the subject of priority geographies and languages.

While I was browsing through the sections in question, I was left to wonder whether or not the Foundation will be giving priority to priority geographies or priority languages. This is because several countries (i.e. the Philippines, Malaysia, Kenya) are not on the list of priority geographies as per the list the Foundation drew up vis-à-vis strategic planning, but the major languages spoken in those areas (Tagalog/Filipino, Malay, Swahili) are on the list of priority languages. What concerns me is that if these languages ought to be prioritized to bring more editors in, what assurance do these project communities have that the project they've been working on will also have a commensurate number of readers if reader recruitment is not prioritized in those countries? I'm sure that editor recruitment is important, but as far as I'm concerned this has to be coupled with a steady stream of readers who can take advantage of the content as well. Building Wikipedia without readers, at least for me, is like building a ghost town: the town is complete but no one lives in it.

I hope you get to take this into consideration and thanks for allowing me to comment! :) --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 15:47, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Sky Harbor. Thanks for asking about this --- it probably isn't clear on the page what I'm trying to do there, so your comment gives me an opportunity to clarify: thanks. What I've done on the page is to list a number of rough inputs (types of information, more so than the actual information itself) for how we as a movement might want to make decisions about funds dissemination.

To date, money has tended to go to the Wikimedia Foundation and established chapters (which tend to develop earliest in wealthy countries). This means that until recently, almost all of our spending has supported either i) the entire globe (eg bandwidth), or ii) activities targeted to the Global North. More recently, within the past year or so, the Wikimedia Foundation has for the first time begun specifically funding activities designed to benefit high-potential geographies, such as India and Brazil. It seems to me that what we should be aiming to do, as a movement, is use the money to fund activities that show the highest potential in helping us execute our strategy in pursuit of the mission.

So: I felt a little uncomfortable tossing all that data onto the page, because the numbers are pretty rough and raw: I am not sure they would bear a lot of scrutiny. But I felt they are useful regardless, because the overall story is pretty clear. There is potential to reach new readers in Russia, Indonesia, India, Brazil and Turkey... there is potential to reach new editors who speak Punjabi, Wu, Hindi, Western Panjabi, Bengali.... The number of active editors is down in English and many European languages.....

To me, this suggests the path forward for the movement as a whole, globally. We want to reach new readers in the parts of the world where people are coming online for the first time. We want to recruit new editors, particularly in the Asian languages where there is so much potential. We need to stem the decline of active editors in English and the European languages. Etc.

This suggests to me that funding needs to take the same path.

Bah. I've just realized that most of what I've written here is unresponsive to your question about languages versus geographies: sorry about that. I need to run out for an appointment now, but I'll try to write a little more here later this weekend. Thanks. Sue Gardner 17:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

So here's a slightly more responsive reply, I hope.

Sky Harbor, do you remember the 'virtuous circle' graphic I showed at the chapters meeting in 2010, the one that is used in the strategic plan? This is one version of it.

The premise of the virtuous circle is that participation drives quality, which drives readership, which then further drives participation. And so forth. Through the work done in the strategic planning process, I came to believe that it is very important for the Wikimedia Foundation to focus on editor recruitment and retention. Here's why:

• Efforts to drive quality are primarily the work of editors and chapters. The Wikimedia Foundation could try to drive quality by for example negotiating content donations from cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian or the British Museum. But those institutions are largely nation-based, which suggests those donations would ideally be negotiated by chapters. The Wikimedia Foundation certainly has no direct involvement in driving quality via the editing process -- that's the work of editors. So in general, I would say that when it comes to driving quality, the Wikimedia Foundation plays a support role, by for example creating features that help editors.

• Specific activities designed to drive readership --e.g., by improving our mobile presence, creating offline versions, creating business deals that increase Wikipedia's presence on various devices, etc.-- are important. But I would say that the main way the movement attracts readers is by writing good articles. Again, this is the purview of editors -- it's their work, it's value they have created, and are continuing to create.

• So therefore, I would say that the Wikimedia Foundation believes that although it has a role to play in driving readership and quality, its primary emphasis ought to be on the recruitment and retention of editors, because the editors are the fuel that drive the projects forward: they create the value. And I'd say an emphasis on editors is particularly important right now because the projects are struggling in that regard, with English and German and many other language versions in decline, and others growing much more slowly than one would expect.

Sorry, this is quite long. But one more quick thing. The purpose of my lists on the main page here isn't to say that we should invest in those geographies and those language versions specifically, in that exact order. The data are not robust enough, and there are lots of other considerations that we'd need to take into account when making investments. Really, the purpose is just to remind us all that we need to take into account the entire world. Our chapters are primarily European (although with some strong recent growth in Asia), and most of our funding will always originate in Europe and North America. But we shouldn't confuse 'where the money comes from' with 'where the money should be spent.' What's clear from the data on the other page is that there is enormous untapped growth potential in Asia, MENA and South America, and our investment in those parts of the world, and those language versions, needs to be accelerating. Thanks, SkyHarbor -- I appreciate the opportunity to expand a little on this point, because I think it's important. Sue Gardner 20:12, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Funding

First - yes its is a useful document - thanks. Second "Wikimedia fundraises in whatever fashion most efficiently enables us to bring in the largest possible amount of money, and move it around with the maximum possible amount of freedom". No this isnt true. We won't give away drugs, absolve people from sins or even worse put adverts on the main page. There is some ethical and inspirational about the way we fundraise. I tell people about our banners. They don't believe it works. That OK because everyone knows that in theory Wikipedia doesnt work either. There is something special about our "fundraising" ... and thats not just a cheap debating point (although I'll have it if its going :-) Third - Got a life, got to go Victuallers 21:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

You're correct. I'll add a phrase like "while adhering to high standards of ethics and transparency." Thanks Sue Gardner 04:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

+1 when I read ""Wikimedia fundraises in whatever fashion most efficiently enables us to bring in the largest possible amount of money, and move it around with the maximum possible amount of freedom" I though this was the language of an unscrupulous speculator using all imaginable means to avoid taxes, not an NGO CEO --Ofol 08:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I think Sue's addressed the ethical bits, (which is part of the inspirational contribution of our fundraising). However my own view if that we gain a lot of status from the preference we have for crowd-sourcing our funding in a very simple way from everyone. Moreover we should crowd-source everywhere. We could save a lot of hassle by just capturing funds from big countries but this is no where near as good as gathering funds from everyone. If we gather funds from everyone then we can aspire to be seen as a self-help group for humanity ... and not a charity from haves to have-nots. Victuallers 17:11, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Victuallers, can I ask you to write a little more about this? I'm not sure I'm fully understanding what you're saying, but it sounds related to things that I've heard occasionally on mailing lists, so I want to check. Basically: I sometimes hear the argument that we ought to make sure that the fundraising is accessible to the largest-possible number of people --- that we ought to translate banners into all 280 languages, for all projects, and that we ought to make a point of aiming to accept all currencies. And I am not sure I'd agree with that. I tend to take a more pragmatic approach myself: I think that fundraising is about making money as efficiently (and ethically!) as possible, so you preserve as much as possible of each dollar, to be spent on programmatic work. Fundraising isn't the point of what we're doing here: it's just a means to an end. And personally I think it's fine for rich countries to pay for activities in poor countries. (I think it's not great for rich countries to make decisions for poor countries, but that's a different conversation.) So I'm not sure if I am mixing together strands from different conversations that don't belong together, which is why I'd be keen to have you elaborate on your views, if you want to. Sue Gardner 22:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I understand Victuallers as what you are wrinting into parenthesis: if all money comes from North countries or from wealthy (=haves), actions done towards South countries or poor (=have-nots) could be viewed from these people as intrusive.

To keep your example, I guess a way to achieve that could be to effectively translate banners in 280 languages, no matter it could be difficult; possibly by paying local people to translate banners (and not paying a big translation agency; this model (local people) is used by the translation team to create and improve translations in MW, or by Google to improve its translation software in some African languages). I don’t think these translations would cost more than the benefits it would result, and even if it isn’t a monetary benefit, it would have the benefit of creating links with local people, who could also diffuse what are WM projects.

I don’t know if the last idea is a good idea (probably other problems due to legislation, not let people thinking WMF would pay contributions to WP, etc.), but I think discussing and approaching carefully people before bringing them knowledge is a good method (sorry of these hard words, it’s just easier to express like that this idea). ~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:57, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

I am thinking our responses are probably culturally-oriented, and I have the feeling that in USA (I am wrong?) foundations helping poor people is a 'normal' thing and it is not really ashamed for these people to be helped, but I think it is less 'normal' in other countries (I have the feeling for France at least). For example, AFAIK, there is no Good Samaritan law in France* (="you will not be prosecuted if you help an injured people"), but there is the "opposite" Duty to rescue law (="you will be prosecuted if you don’t help an injured people") ~ Seb35 [^_^] 15:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

* I have some doubt about this fact by reading English WP, although I was always be said there is no Good Samaritan law in France; I check this. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 15:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

four of top ten dont have a chapter

The text currently says "note that of the top 10 countries as measured by total donations, four do not have a national chapter". Which are these? I think only Japan and United States are without a chapter. As the biggest chunk is the United States, can the WMF produce a state by state breakdown of this amount for the 2010 fundraiser? John Vandenberg 22:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, you're correct, John. I was working off the list of top-14 highest revenue generating countries, of which four have no national chapters. You're correct that of the top-10 it's only two. Re state-by-state breakdown, I don't personally have that info. Thanks. Sue Gardner 04:04, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

List of countries that are currrently spending on activities

I don't see Australia or Poland in the list under "List of countries/chapters that are currently spending on activities". John Vandenberg 22:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the list I made is a list of chapters that have either a) payment-processed or b) applied for a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. AFAIK neither Australia nor Poland fall into either of those groups, but please just change the page or tell me, if I'm wrong. Thanks John. Sue Gardner 22:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Random thoughts

Hey Sue, Thanks for putting this out. This is really useful and your thinking is both systematic and detailed.

• 'Background and Assumptions': I'm not sure that the question of how does the movement bring in money is that straightforward, except technically.

When individual donors donate, they give to wikipedia: not sure if any single entity can then lay claim to this amount. Who can claim this legally may be a different question from who can claim this 'morally'.

When institutional donors donate, they are more likely to give to a single entity, which can claim this both legally and morally.

• 'How Does the Movement Spend Money': "The Wikimedia movement determines where the money goes based on where it will be most effective at executing our strategy in pursuit of the mission."

While this is a good proposed statement, getting there will need movement alignment on the strategy. Currently, it seems like some see the strategic plan as a Foundation plan, others see it as a movement plan. Unless there is agreement on this, it will be hard for the 'movement' to determine where the money should go. Even if the movement agrees on the strategy, determining what percentage of dollars flow to what aspect of the strategic plan will be another big challenge. I would love us to get there, but suspect it may be a step by step process that takes more than one year.

• 'Hypothesis': The question of volunteer-based organizations made me wonder how volunteer-based organizations can be strengthened to maximize their program potential. Doing regular activities and programs is a time-consuming activity. So the programmatic and financial aspects are linked for me. Bishdatta 07:25, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Norwegian (bokmål) at 2. place on «Priority languages, where editor numbers are in decline»

• 
  New editors
• 
  More than 5 ed/mnt
• 
  More than 100 ed/mnt
• 
  New articles

I just checked to see how bad it really are for Norwegian (bokmål) Wikipedia. Used Zachtes stats [1] for new editors (B), editors with more than five (C) and hundred (D) edits, and new articles (G). Original numers are in blue, a quick mean value inside a sliding window for 3, 6 and 12 months in red, yellow and green, and a diff over one year in brown-ish. January 2006 on the right, August 2011 on the left. Huston, we have a problem. — Jeblad 10:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I've mentioned this on a close mailing list on Mon, May 9, 2011 at 1:09 AM - subject Fun facts and not so fun facts. But in my observation [Finnish is actually worse. Quote: The not so fun part, when I, out of curiosity look at Finnish, their very active editors seem to be declining, not stagnant, declining worse than the other rank close to it. From 150s in 2007 to 90s in 2011. I haven't seen any language statistic - decline so fast - for very active editors. Usually it stagnant with a little hiccup here and there. Do weigh that I only see some of statistic, not all. Siska.Doviana 12:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, Vietnamese is growing healthily (normal with the tendency to grow) to my observation, I don't know where the basic argument of "Vietnamese is in trouble" coming from. Siska.Doviana 12:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Jeblad and Siska. I'm not actually sure about Vietnamese, or about Turkish either. I class those two, along with Portuguese, as troubled because they definitely are high-potential geographies and high-potential language versions.. but they also appear to be suffering editor decline, based on my very quick-and-dirty analysis. But, the analysis isn't worth much -- it's just percent change from August 2010 to August 2011, a single data point. So really I consider it to be a red flag for those three languages that suggests they're worth investigating further. Upshot: I believe that Portuguese is fairly well known to be in editor decline, but the Vietnamese and Turkish language-versions may or may not be, and are worth investigating further. Thanks. Sue Gardner 17:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Some of the smaller languages (in editor numbers) can spike very much. Anyhow, this will probably end in a discussion about something else than fund-raising, better to get back on-track. My fault. ;) — Jeblad 17:44, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree re the spikes. And re getting back on track :-) But it does bear watching: it'd be worrisome if Vietnamese and Turkish were struggling, given that we should be seeing strong organic growth there. Thanks Jeblad. Sue Gardner 19:11, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Macedonian Chapter

Hello Sue, I feel a bit puzzled about your assumption that the "Macedonian chapter doesn't aspire to spend money". I do realize that we've been laggards in the reporting process (we didn't receive or spent any significant money in 2010), but 2011 is a bit of a different story: we did some very useful wiki-projects and received some basic funds for them (not from the WMF, though). We are really lacking more active members, but considering the time/human/financial constraints, I think we're doing a decent job here in Macedonia, and yes, we probably will request some minimal funding next year. Will that qualify us for the money dissemination conversation? :) --FlavrSavr 19:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi FlavrSavr! I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to imply anything negative about the Macedonian chapter, and I don't actually think that spending money and carrying out effective programmatic activities are necessarily very tightly correlated. Yes, definitely if Macedonia aspires to spend movement money on programmatic activities, it should be part of the money dissemination conversation. Thanks for raising your hand :-) Sue Gardner 19:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply! :) Still, maybe it is a good idea for non-spending chapters to be a part of the money dissemination conversation. I think they can have some valuable insights on how to spend money in their chapters or, better, they can provide insights on how not to spend movement money, especially when there is no need to. Cheers, :) --FlavrSavr 19:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Donors' intent

One of the questions that popped into my mind when I was reading your thoughts was this: what, if any, role does donors' intent play in deciding how money is spent? I've had a fascinating experience recently at a local meetup with a donor who's become a member of the German chapter. When I mentioned in passing that, of all donations received last year, half of those went to the Foundation, he was completely aghast. To him, it was inconceivable that such a large portion of his donation that he made to a German organization would go to activities outside of the country. I'm not saying that this is a typical reaction, nor am I saying that we necessarily have to spend money exclusively based on what donors want. But I am wondering whether and, if so, how we can take into account some of their expectations as well, when it comes to spending their donation. sebmol ^? 23:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a really good question. It's very difficult to discern what people want, because their understanding of how the projects work is necessarily limited. (For example, your German donor may have assumed that the German chapter paid the costs of the German projects.) You're also correct that you don't necessarily want to give donors what they want or expect. I, for example, had a donor once who wanted me to "fire" all the editors and hire writers for pay :-)

Given that, I think the best method is to 1) do what we think is best with the money, consistent with the mission, vision and values as we understand them, and 2) make it clear to people ahead of time what we plan to do with their donation, and make it clear to them afterwards what we in fact did do. That's why messaging matters. If all donations that originated in Germany came to the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation would need to fundraise with messaging that excluded any mention of German activities. If it were a split, we would message with both Jimmy-type global messaging and German-specific messaging. And if the money were spent 100% in Germany on [x type] of activities, then all the messaging should specify that. Sue Gardner 01:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Ways you can help with this page

Originally I asked that people just edit the talk page here, not the actual scratch pad page. But I want to ask you to edit some particular sections, if you're interested. (Still keep it in document mode please, not talk mode.)

I'd be happy to have people add to the sections on 'data we would like to have' (this is section 2.2 and 3.3). If there's information you think would help us make decisions about fund-raising and funds dissemination post-2012, that's the place to note it. And second, I am interested in us fleshing out the two sections dedicated to 'questions for stakeholders.' There are lots of questions already there, but I know I am missing a lot, so I would love if people would brainstorm questions they think should get asked. (The recipients for the questions are mainly but not solely chapters representatives.)

Thanks -- I would love your help on those sections :-) Sue Gardner 22:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

List of countries that are spending on activities

Hi Sue,

If you meant list of _countries_ that spend money on activities, Kenya has applied a couple of grants from WMF -- most notably in offline projects, and i don't see it on the list. --Abbasjnr 07:02, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Abbas. Originally the list was intended to be just chapters, but I think it makes sense to add any country that is spending, or aspires to spend, on programmatic work. Please go ahead and add Kenya to the list, or I will do it later. Thanks Sue Gardner 03:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

India

Now that India has a chapter, are there some special activities for Fund-raising in India? --92.204.57.153 16:38, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi 92.204.57.153. I don't know about any chapter fundraising activities in India -- that doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means I don't know about them. The Wikimedia Foundation is currently running activities in India, as well: those are paid for out of Wikimedia Foundation general operating funds, not funds raised specifically within India itself. Thanks. Sue Gardner 10:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)