4 ms·
Every American nonprofit publishes all their financial data by law. They're called 990 forms. Typically a year or two lag from filing until public but you can a
by tootie 4y ago
Every American nonprofit publishes all their financial data by law. They're called 990 forms. Typically a year or two lag from filing until public but you can always see executive comp, major outlays and income sources, trustees, etc. It's incredibly cynical to just assume they're up to no good. Large orgs do work at scale that smaller ones never can. Certainly some of them are bad, but they're behavior is almost never secret.
- akolbe 4y agoThe Wikimedia Endowment contains over $100 million of donations. Find me one Form 990 for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tootie 4y agoWell the entire issue is that it's a tenant of the Tides Foundation which does file a 990 which is where all this info comes from about how the money is spent. It's not clear if tenant money is earmarked or otherwise set aside.
- akolbe 4y agoHere is the Tides Foundation's Form 990: https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-Foundation_Form-990-Public-Disclosure-1.pdf https://www.tides.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2020_Tides-... It is searchable. I cannot find a single mention of "Wikimedia" or "Wikipedia" or "Wiki" in it. So what does it tell us about what happened with people's Wikipedia donations?
- yucky 4y agoThat is not the case here because the Tides Foundation is a Donor Advised Fund, which is a dark money vehicle used to fund causes indirectly, hiding the source. Let's say (hypothetically) that Wikimedia wanted to use our donations to fund the eradication of Palestinians from Israel. If they fund it directly, people would know and might stop giving money to Wikimedia. However, Wikimedia can give your money to the Tides Foundation with instructions on how to disburse it. Tides doesn't have to disclose who's money is used for what. Ta-da! Dark money charities.