Answers: Difference between revisions

From Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki
Content deleted Content added
tweak
Foundation: To what extent is the Wikimedia Foundation an advocacy organization?
Line 120: Line 120:


It's important to recognize (and the Wikimedia Foundation does) that sustainability is a state: it is something to be ''maintained'', not something to be ''achieved''. Just as it is poor practice to "borrow from tomorrow to pay for today" - which happens when a nonprofit pushes all of its revenue into current program activities and fails to achieve long-term goals - it is irresponsible stewardship to reserve too much. The Wikimedia Foundation regularly assesses its financial health, ensuring that it puts appropriate funds into meeting healthy and realistic short-term goals to drive forward its mission while reserving an appropriate amount for future costs. --[[User:Mdennis|Maggie Dennis]] 12:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
It's important to recognize (and the Wikimedia Foundation does) that sustainability is a state: it is something to be ''maintained'', not something to be ''achieved''. Just as it is poor practice to "borrow from tomorrow to pay for today" - which happens when a nonprofit pushes all of its revenue into current program activities and fails to achieve long-term goals - it is irresponsible stewardship to reserve too much. The Wikimedia Foundation regularly assesses its financial health, ensuring that it puts appropriate funds into meeting healthy and realistic short-term goals to drive forward its mission while reserving an appropriate amount for future costs. --[[User:Mdennis|Maggie Dennis]] 12:31, 23 September 2011 (UTC)


===Foundation: To what extent is the Wikimedia Foundation an advocacy organization?===
<blockquote>''To what extent is the Wikimedia Foundation an advocacy organization like the [[:en:ACLU|American Civil Liberties Union]] (ACLU) or the [[:en:Electronic Frontier Foundation|Electronic Frontier Foundation]] (EFF)?</blockquote>

The Wikimedia Foundation is not an [[:en:advocacy group|advocacy organization]]. Such organizations have as at least a part of their core mission the impetus to influence legislation. As a global organization, with a global mission, the Wikimedia Foundation cannot invest substantial resources in advocacy in any one jurisdiction, not even the one in which it is based. To do so would be to take resources away from its primary goal of empowering a global volunteer community to collect and develop the world's knowledge and to make it available to everyone for free, for any purpose.

The Wikimedia Foundation ''does'' recognize that it has a powerful potential to influence [[:en:Social movement|social movements]] and legal causes related to its mission, primarily by supporting organizations that share its values and [[local chapters]], which are better positioned to work with local laws. For one example, in June 2011, the Wikimedia Foundation's attorney joined the EFF in filing an [[:en:Amicus curiae|''Amicus'' brief]] in a [[:en:Golan v. Holder|United States case]] that may restore to [[:en:public domain|public domain]] works rendered nonfree by the [[:en:Uruguay Round Agreements Act|Uruguay Round Agreements Act]] (see [http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/engine?do=post_view_flat;post=239102;page=1;mh=-1;list=wiki;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC the announcement]).

In 2009, the Foundation assembled a [[:Strategy:Task force/Advocacy Agenda|task force]] to consider its approach to advocacy, including exploring the issues that impact the WMF's mission and its position on those issues, defining what organizations hold similar or opposing values, and determining the best means of supporting those values. The task force reported its findings and recommendations in a series of documents on the [[:Strategy:Main Page|strategic planning wiki]]. You can read the full reports there ([[:Strategy:Task force/Recommendations/Advocacy 1|Advocacy 1]], [[:Strategy:Task force/Recommendations/Advocacy 2|Advocacy 2]], [[:Strategy:Task force/Recommendations/Advocacy 3|Advocacy 3]], [[:Strategy:Task force/Recommendations/Advocacy 4|Advocacy 4]] and [[:Strategy:Task force/Recommendations/Advocacy 5|Advocacy 5]]), but in a nutshell they recommended that the Wikimedia Foundation only sparingly engage in advocacy and only on matters related to its survival or the success of its projects. The issues they found to be of concern were [[:en:Network neutrality|network neutrality]], [[:en:Censorship|censorship]], [[:en:Copyright|copyright]], [[:en:Digital divide|the digital divide]], [[:en:Environmentalism|environmentalism]] and (to a lesser degree) [[:en:Privacy|privacy]]. --[[User:Mdennis|Maggie Dennis]] 13:31, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Revision as of 13:31, 29 September 2011

Template:Answers header

Wikimedia Foundation – Answers