4 ms·

That was my thought too on reading; those grants are a pretty small portion of budget (not even a big portion of surplus) so don't seem like a big deal. But if

That was my thought too on reading; those grants are a pretty small portion of budget (not even a big portion of surplus) so don't seem like a big deal. But if I understand it right, they have a $50 million surplus on a ~$150 million budget? Why are they still fundraising so aggressively in such a situation? (Under some circumstances, such a huge surplus leftover can even make the IRS suspicious of a charitable organization's tax status, although this may not apply legally to the particular kind of organization Wikimedia is).

akolbe 4y ago
A $51 million surplus on a $112 million budget, to be exact: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf&page=5 https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWi... Though in fact, the real surplus was nearly $90 million, because in addition, their Endowment, held at the Tides Foundation (and therefore not included in Wikimedia Foundation assets) increased from $62.9 million: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=20317968&oldid=20308708 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endow... to over $100 million: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=22056029&oldid=21872920 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endow... in the same year. Note also that each year the Wikimedia Foundation pays at least $5 million into its Endowment. These payments are included in the Foundation's expenses: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  I'm definitely going to stop giving any money to wikimedia as a result of their on-screen fund drives. And I actually support that expenditure to fund that "Knolwedge Equity Fund", and don't find anything unethical about wikimedia supporting such a fund with a small portion of their budget, especially when they have extra. (I think it would be appropriate to send some to the Internet Archive too). But they clearly don't need my money.
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
> Why are they still fundraising so aggressively in such a situation? They've got many millions of users and billions of page views, so if all it takes is a little banner to bring in millions of dollars, and a little, slightly deceptive tweak to the language to bring in millions more...do you really expect them to decline that opportunity? What real, measurable incentives do they have to not fundraise? You can hardly blame those grant applicants when they ask their really, really rich friend for some support or a day or two of fundraising to achieve that support. There aren't financial or legal consequences, especially for the smaller group doing the asking. It's really hard, especially in 2022, at the level of a global multi-million dollar, multi-billion page view organization to make decisions on vague, difficult to measure concepts like ethics and reputation.
- naasking 4y ago
  > They've got many millions of users and billions of page views, so if all it takes is a little banner to bring in millions of dollars, and a little, slightly deceptive tweak to the language to bring in millions more...do you really expect them to decline that opportunity? Yes, because destroying your credibility risks destroying future fund raising potential.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  I think most people "really expect" Wikipedia/Wikimedia to act ethically and responsibly, yeah -- which is why their fund-raising is so successful. If they lose that reputation, it will be less so. Certainly I don't donate money to organizations I don't "really expect" to act ethically and responsibly. Do you?
- jaywalk 4y ago
  "When being unethical brings in so much money, how can you expect them to act ethically?" How is this materially different than if I started a GoFundMe saying I needed money for my mortgage and other bills, but actually using it to take a huge vacation? You see, if I didn't take that vacation, I would have burned out from my job, lost it, and then been unable to pay my bills (after my savings ran out). Why defend this blatantly unethical behavior?
- 4y ago
mschuster91 4y ago
> But if I understand it right, they have a $50 million surplus on a ~$150 million budget? Why are they still fundraising so aggressively in such a situation? If there is one thing that the COVID pandemic has shown us, it is that resilience is a very good idea - and that grave crises can easily last years at a time or yet another grave crisis comes up like the Ukraine invasion, followed by energy price explosions and insane inflation. It is a decent idea to have at least five years worth of financial runway these days... you never know what is coming up (or well, we do, climate change, but that still leaves a host of other issues that can go badly wrong).
- mhb 4y ago
  So they shouldn't be giving their rainy day fund away to random other organizations.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    I mean, they aren't. The amount they are giving to this Information Equity Fund is a small portion of the endownment they are building up; plus it's not "random", it's something they decided was mission-aligned. You disagree with that assessment, but it's not "random"; they've always given other grants too, and continue to, I'm not sure if you and others are opposed to _all_ granting from wikimedia or just disagree with this particular choice. You are allowed to disagree with this particular choice without being required to object to all granting of course -- I feel like people are feeling compelled to argue that wikimedia ought to never give any grants to any third parties, when they really just don't like this particualr choice. There is no reason for such a compulsion. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start But meanwhile... fund-raising to build up a "rainy day" fund of 5x your annual operating budget is... just not something non-profits generally do. It's certainly not standard practice. Of course most organizations wouldn't be able to pull that off even if they decided it's a goal, most orgs don't have the capacity to fund-raise an extra 50%+ beyond their operating budget "just in case". I think it's debatable whether it's a wise or responsible use of funds or a good goal. So I disagree with both of y'all!
throwoutway 4y ago
> so don’t seem like a big deal The big deal is people being duped. 9.8M divided by $25 (my best guess on what an average person might donate) is 392,000 people being duped into giving $25 to something they did not intend to give money to. The 30% surplus is just salt in that wound

akolbe 4y ago

A $51 million surplus on a $112 million budget, to be exact: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf&page=5 https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWi... Though in fact, the real surplus was nearly $90 million, because in addition, their Endowment, held at the Tides Foundation (and therefore not included in Wikimedia Foundation assets) increased from $62.9 million: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=20317968&oldid=20308708 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endow... to over $100 million: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=22056029&oldid=21872920 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endow... in the same year. Note also that each year the Wikimedia Foundation pays at least $5 million into its Endowment. These payments are included in the Foundation's expenses: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...

jrochkind1 4y ago
I'm definitely going to stop giving any money to wikimedia as a result of their on-screen fund drives. And I actually support that expenditure to fund that "Knolwedge Equity Fund", and don't find anything unethical about wikimedia supporting such a fund with a small portion of their budget, especially when they have extra. (I think it would be appropriate to send some to the Internet Archive too). But they clearly don't need my money.

LeifCarrotson 4y ago

> Why are they still fundraising so aggressively in such a situation? They've got many millions of users and billions of page views, so if all it takes is a little banner to bring in millions of dollars, and a little, slightly deceptive tweak to the language to bring in millions more...do you really expect them to decline that opportunity? What real, measurable incentives do they have to not fundraise? You can hardly blame those grant applicants when they ask their really, really rich friend for some support or a day or two of fundraising to achieve that support. There aren't financial or legal consequences, especially for the smaller group doing the asking. It's really hard, especially in 2022, at the level of a global multi-million dollar, multi-billion page view organization to make decisions on vague, difficult to measure concepts like ethics and reputation.

naasking 4y ago
> They've got many millions of users and billions of page views, so if all it takes is a little banner to bring in millions of dollars, and a little, slightly deceptive tweak to the language to bring in millions more...do you really expect them to decline that opportunity? Yes, because destroying your credibility risks destroying future fund raising potential.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I think most people "really expect" Wikipedia/Wikimedia to act ethically and responsibly, yeah -- which is why their fund-raising is so successful. If they lose that reputation, it will be less so. Certainly I don't donate money to organizations I don't "really expect" to act ethically and responsibly. Do you?
jaywalk 4y ago
"When being unethical brings in so much money, how can you expect them to act ethically?" How is this materially different than if I started a GoFundMe saying I needed money for my mortgage and other bills, but actually using it to take a huge vacation? You see, if I didn't take that vacation, I would have burned out from my job, lost it, and then been unable to pay my bills (after my savings ran out). Why defend this blatantly unethical behavior?
4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago

> But if I understand it right, they have a $50 million surplus on a ~$150 million budget? Why are they still fundraising so aggressively in such a situation? If there is one thing that the COVID pandemic has shown us, it is that resilience is a very good idea - and that grave crises can easily last years at a time or yet another grave crisis comes up like the Ukraine invasion, followed by energy price explosions and insane inflation. It is a decent idea to have at least five years worth of financial runway these days... you never know what is coming up (or well, we do, climate change, but that still leaves a host of other issues that can go badly wrong).

mhb 4y ago
So they shouldn't be giving their rainy day fund away to random other organizations.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  I mean, they aren't. The amount they are giving to this Information Equity Fund is a small portion of the endownment they are building up; plus it's not "random", it's something they decided was mission-aligned. You disagree with that assessment, but it's not "random"; they've always given other grants too, and continue to, I'm not sure if you and others are opposed to _all_ granting from wikimedia or just disagree with this particular choice. You are allowed to disagree with this particular choice without being required to object to all granting of course -- I feel like people are feeling compelled to argue that wikimedia ought to never give any grants to any third parties, when they really just don't like this particualr choice. There is no reason for such a compulsion. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start But meanwhile... fund-raising to build up a "rainy day" fund of 5x your annual operating budget is... just not something non-profits generally do. It's certainly not standard practice. Of course most organizations wouldn't be able to pull that off even if they decided it's a goal, most orgs don't have the capacity to fund-raise an extra 50%+ beyond their operating budget "just in case". I think it's debatable whether it's a wise or responsible use of funds or a good goal. So I disagree with both of y'all!

throwoutway 4y ago

> so don’t seem like a big deal The big deal is people being duped. 9.8M divided by $25 (my best guess on what an average person might donate) is 392,000 people being duped into giving $25 to something they did not intend to give money to. The 30% surplus is just salt in that wound