Questions:

Should Wikimedia Chapters fundraise?
How should the money raised be distributed between and amongst the Wikimedia Foundation and the Chapters?

Assuming that running this thing we call the Wikimedia Movement costs money, lots of money, the question follows – where does that money come from? The Wikimedia Foundation has three main streams of income (in increasing order of importance):

1. business development;
2. major gifts/grants;
3. community giving a.k.a donations

Furthermore, community giving can be broken down into a) money donated to the Foundation directly and b) money donated to one of the Wikimedia Chapters around the world. This money does not stay only with the organisation that it was donated to but can (and should) be redistributed back and forth. How to do that equitably and for the greatest benefit to the mission is the key.

Should Wikimedia Chapters fundraise?
In my opinion it is part of the core business of Wikimedia Chapters to engage in fundraising. They exist to help grow and develop the Wikimedia movement in their country and collecting money is a key part of that. This does not mean every chapter will be able to raise funds, as it may be especially difficult when a chapter is very new or in a developing nation, but that if it is possible then it should be a priority. There should be other ways to identify with the movement (as Brianna is attempting to map out) and these other forms of “Wikimedia Interest Groups” need not be legal entities or engage in fundraising. That’s not what they’re for and that’s fair enough. But this only increases the importance of the administrative function of Chapters. Fundraising should be central to what Chapters are. Currently the overwhelming majority of money is donated by Americans to the Foundation directly. I would hope that one day donations from other nations constitute a more representative proportionate of the total (and that the total increases). Achieving this requires Chapter engagement in fundraising. I also hope that there will one day be a USA Chapter (with WM-NYC et al as branch organisations) to take care of the fundraising in America that is currently run by the Foundation directly.

How should the money raised be distributed between and amongst the Wikimedia Foundation and the Chapters?

Section 1 – The donation website:

There are at least three ways of setting up the donation website to differentiate between Chapter and Foundation:

• Language edition;
• Location;
• Globally.

Last year it was differentiated by language. For example, the French donation page gave the option to donate to Wikimedia France or Wikimedia Switzerland or the Foundation directly. It looked like this:

This system meant that only if you were looking at the French edition would you be be able to see the French chapter. To my mind this approach is limiting as it assumes language and nation are tied and has the curious effect that some Chapters appear on multiple language links (the Swiss chapter appears four times) but only a very few Chapters would ever be linked from the English edition.

Another proposed option is to provide links to Chapters based on the location of the reader. This requires using the IP address of readers to give a rough estimate of their location and then displaying the donation of the nearest Chapter. Whilst this might seem more nuanced than the language approach it does imply that you would only donate to the Chapter to which you are physically closest. Wikimedia Israel points out that most of the donations to the Israeli Red Cross/Crescent/Crystal actually come from America, not Israel. Equally, most Chapters with large expatriate communities would expect a large proportion of donations from overseas. The Indian Chapter is another example. For this reason I don’t think the location-based system is equitable either.

The third main option is to simply show everyone! And I suggest this is best. In short, have an interactive version of the map that appears at the Wikimedia Foundation page listing all chapters. Perhaps add an alphabetical list of Chapters and some zoom functionality for Europe where there are a lot of chapters in a smaller area:

Section 2 – the money flow:

[caveat: this is just my thinking and a first draft proposal. If you don’t like parts of it, that’s fine, it’s not like this is set in stone. But please don’t bite my head off.]

So, how do we make the most utility out of the money that is given to the Wikimedia Movement and how do we make those donors as happy as possible? I suggest that the answer is a multi-stage process and each Chapter will need to find the stage that is most suited to its level of organisational maturity. The underlying principles of my proposal are:

• Different Chapters have different levels of capacity and therefore they should be treated as such. Different rights and responsibilities should be accorded to Chapters as they grow;
• The amount of money that is currently raised is barely scratching the surface of what can be achieved and should be achieved if we ever hope to fulfill our mission;
• The Wikimedia movement will remain in flux for a long time to come and so there can be no set/fixed/universally-applied solution. Power relationships will change and so too will the makeup of the movement.
• Irrespective of the stage that a Chapter is at, it should still appear at the donation website and on the map. The reason for this is that donors should not have to wade through all of the minutiae of Chapter/Foundation relations – they just want to donate. So, we should make a nice neat and consistent website and the Wikimedia community can work out all the fiddly bits behind the scenes (with appropriate disclosure and documentation if donors really want to know, of course).
• These ‘stages’ only really apply to the central donation website as Chapters are still able to undertake their own independent fundraising on other websites (or shake a bucket at people in the street!) if they want to.

The three models I propose below would not be employed universally – each Chapter would need to choose the model that most suits it independently of what the others are doing. The diagrams below represent what would happen if every Chapter was the same. In practice, all three models would be in place simultaneously.

Stage 1: Centralised
[Appropriate for newly formed Chapters, Chapters in very small or developing nations]

The first step, the one that places the least onus on the Chapter, is for the donation system to be centralised into the Wikimedia Foundation and all donors’ money given via the main donation website would be given directly to the Foundation. Then, once the money is raised, distributed back to the Chapter via the grants system to undertake projects/events/local outreach/capacity building. This system would mean that a Chapter would not have to invest its limited time/resources in undertaking a fundraiser (and managing the bureaucracy that comes with that), donors would be assured of being treated professionally and the Chapter could then focus more of its time on being a “free culture service provider”.

Stage 2: Hybrid
[Appropriate for middle-sized/established Chapters with a local presence and some capacity]

This is the stage that effectively mirrors what happened last year for all chapters – the proverbial “50/50 money”. Donors can now give money to the Chapter directly but a proportion of that money must be handed up to the Foundation. Equally, the Foundation grants program is still in place if the Chapter wishes to apply for it. Alongside the added power that comes with being able to take money directly from donors via the main donation website must also come added responsibilities – more stringent financial reporting and donor relationship being the key ones. Of course, it is up for debate what proportion of money is handed up to the Foundation and/or the process for agreeing to spend that money on a Chapter sponsored project.

Stage 3: Distributed
[Appropriate for large, professionalised chapters]

In this final stage, the one that I would hope all chapters – at least in developed nations – should aspire to (especially the mythical USA chapter) is that all donations go directly to the chapter via the main donation website (the inverse of stage 1). Chapters are thereby the primary source of money into the Wikimedia movement and would therefore have commensurately high responsibilities to look after that money. Also, as the core funding would be coming in via the Chapters rather than directly to the Foundation, this would require that a larger proportion of that funding be handed up to the Foundation to maintain and grow its fundamental services. (This will not be a problem until the USA national Chapter starts to compete with the Foundation for donors). The Chapters grant process may be less prominent in this stage as by then the Chapters should be quite self-sustaining. On the other hand, the grants program might become larger as bigger projects are undertaken.