Policy:Fundraising principles

These are principles for fundraising and funds dissemination, and criteria for organizations that handle donor data and process donor information. They apply across the Wikimedia movement, to the raising and dissemination of all funds under the Wikimedia umbrella.

Fundraising

originally from a January, 2012 WMF resolution

Consistency with mission, vision and values: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be conducted in a manner that's consistent with our overall mission, vision and values. They must not create unnecessary legal exposure for the projects, or otherwise unduly interfere with our ability to achieve our mission.
Minimal cost and minimal disruption: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must aim to raise the maximum possible amount of money from donors while minimizing administrative costs as much as possible (in order to reserve the largest amount of money possible for programmatic activity), while causing minimal disruption and annoyance for users of the projects.
Transparency: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must be truthful with prospective donors. We need to tell people what we intend to use their money for, before they donate. And we need to report in a timely fashion on how it was actually spent.
Responsibility: All Wikimedia fundraising activities must ensure funds received are safe from fraud or misuse as determined by existing third-party standards for appropriate financial controls, and must adhere to relevant laws and regulations.
Internationalism: Our movement is international in scope, and our fundraising practices must support the easiest possible transfer of money internationally in support of the movement's priorities.
Independence: We prefer a fundraising model in which we are supported primarily via the many-small-donors model, because this is the model that best supports our independence.
Flexibility: We do not need to adhere to a single monolithic model for fundraising: multiple donation streams are fine.
Sustainable donor relations: We must safeguard donor privacy and avoid slowing the "donate now" flow.
Good faith: The Wikimedia movement assumes that all movement participants are acting in good faith, with regards to each other's actions and intentions.

Funds dissemination

originally from a January, 2012 WMF resolution

Protect the core: Core activities that ensure the continuity of the projects need to be funded first.
Assess impact: Funds should be distributed in ways that support mission work, agnostic with regard to where the money was raised.
Promote transparency and stability: Decisions about funds distribution must be made transparently, in accordance with published guidelines and processes. The model must enable each entity to carry out financial planning to support efforts to be sustainable.
Support decentralized activity: Funds must be distributed in ways that support decentralized programmatic activities for furthering our mission.
Promote responsibility and accountability: Funds must be distributed in ways that enable the Wikimedia movement to confidently assure donors that their donations will be safeguarded appropriately, and that spending will be in line with our mission and with the messages used to attract donors.
Be collaborative and open: Funds must be distributed in ways that are collaborative and open, and which respect the diverse and international nature of the Wikimedia movement.

Criteria for handling donor data

We are deeply committed to decentralized pursuit of our mission and to supporting the long-term sustainability of chapters and other movement partners. Because of its role as operator of the websites, the WMF has to be satisfied that any organization directly receiving donor funds will treat them with an appropriately high level of care and transparency.

An organization can directly receive donor funds as a payment processor if the following criteria are met:

There is sufficient money raised in the geography to merit the logistical effort.
The organization offers tax deductibility or other incentives to local donors.
Regulatory issues about any international funds flows are fully resolved.
The organization's current financial resources are not enough to fund proposed program work.
The WMF can confidently assure donors to the chapter that their donations will be safeguarded, that our movement's transparency principles will be met, and that spending will be in line with our mission and with the messages used to attract donors.
The donation process clearly discloses information about the organization receiving the donation.

Global sharing of resources

The WMF is committed to developing a community-led Funds Dissemination Committee to make movement-wide decisions about how to allocate funds to major programs. The wMF is also committed to a staff-led grants program to provide funds to individual projects.