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Study Reveals Wikimedia Foundation Is 'Awash In Money'
New submitter Harold Dumbacher writes: Few things seen on Wikipedia aggravate its users more than the annual fundraising banners. Yet millions of people continue to contribute, seeming to think that Wikipedia will "go offline" if they aren't given more donations. Yet as a new Wikipediocracy blog post reveals, the Wikimedia Foundation is rolling in dough — $53 million in net assets as of this year (that's actual hard sitting-around currency, currently put into various investment vehicles). Meanwhile it only costs about $2.5 million to actually keep Wikimedia project servers online and handling user traffic. The rest of the WMF's annual donations go for "staff salaries, travel and miscellaneous." And evidently, many people are growing disgruntled with this ongoing state of affairs, even Wikimedia staff who benefit from it.
a Pyle of money.
Wait, so is this liquid cash or invested money? This is a rather important distinction since non-profits often depend heavily on interest from investments as their primary stable source of income. So if this is the later case, it sounds like responsible stewardship, at least that piece of it since I gather the amature nature of administration shows through in other areas.
Look, over there! -A financially successful venture.
Why do they have millions? that's not right 'they' should take all the money away or wikimedia foundation should give us stuff, because.
Sure, we didn;t envy them when it was just a concept considered shaky at best. We didn't envy when they were struggling or were on the verge of collapse...
But look, over there, they have money! -they should have dust, or little else because *anger*, just because.
A few bucks for a rainy day, or an expansion etc. always easy to count costs for someone else and what they should and shouldn't do with money that is not your own.
Have a coke and a smile. Say, 'heck few people thought this will ever make money, now it did even though it was not created solely out of greed. Congratulations and well done!'
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Yes, for a non-profit 50 million $ just laying around seems like a lot. The WMF page says there are 230 employees for a revenue of 38 million $ (mostly from donations). You can hardly claim they are being secret about it. Also, paying 230 ppl an avg of 50,000$ a year is already 11 million$ ( so it's not a trivial amount, and if the avg is higher that goes up by a margin as well).
However, when you look at the presence of WikiPedia on the internet, it's basically first hit on google in every search on every possible subject. It's probably the number one source for people to find information about a subject. They have a HUGE presence. If someone had to put a value on that, it would be worth billions. Look at other internet companies. Google (365 billion $), facebook (200 billion $), etc... Sure, they are not Google or Facebook, but would definitely be valued in the billions. The 50 million $ is just change compared to their net worth.
Sorry, but every time I've ever contributed to Wikipedia, my articles are either marked as not meeting Notability criteria, or my edits are reverted by some 14 year old, so he/she can re-implement the same edits in their own wording.
Since I've had so many terrible experiences with Wikipedia, I refuse to donate my time or money.
Like this? http://wikimediafoundation.org...
There are things to dislike in the report, but I don't get the "new Wikipediocracy blog post (study) reveals" breathlessness. It's an annual nonprofit report - read it. You might also be surprised to know that other major charities usually have a bunch of their own dirty laundry. Take the American Cancer Society: of the $890M it takes in, it only passes on about $680M, and it even has to worry about an employee pension system. http://www.cancer.org/acs/grou...
If any particular charity's overhead bugs you...go find another charity, or start your own. There will never be shortage of needs.
Sorry but 53 million in assets for foundation with that level of operating costs that is rising every year is hardly awash in money. Harvard has a 36 billion dollar endowment, that's an example of an organization awash in money.
That's not a fair characterization of the United Way. They do all of the overhead fundraising stuff so that smaller charities don't have to. Then those smaller charities come out fantastic on those brain-dead "overhead" rankings, because someone else spent the overhead money.
Similar criticisms leveled at the Red Cross are misguided. The Red Cross is huge and has corresponding overhead, but they have to stockpile massive amounts of stuff and then just sit on it waiting for something to happen. It's never going to be "efficient", but they are the main and first"boots on the ground" at every major disaster, and they are at every residential fire with blankets, clothes, and shelter. Sometimes it is worth paying people who are good at their jobs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes, they most certainly do. Every nonprofit on the planet has the long-term goal of having an endowment large enough that they can focus on their core mission rather than bullshit fundraising drives. In order to do that sustainably, they need to have an endowment approximately 25x their annual operating budget, plain and simple.
Nonprofits still function as corporate entities that need to pay the bills, they just don't have - as you might infer from their name - "profit" as their primary mission.
I have my objections to Wiki's policies (primarily editorial), but the fact that they have targeted a self-sustaining endowment, I don't fault them for - Quite the opposite, I give them credit for actually having a viable business plan. Yes, "business plan" - Nonprofits still need one of those, like it or not.
If any particular charity's overhead bugs you...go find another charity, or start your own. There will never be shortage of needs.
Or share the information with others to raise awareness so they don't spend their money where it won't help. Like this story.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nonprofits don't generate shareholder returns, this doesn't mean that they are prevented from enriching executives via compensation packages.
I have my objections to Wiki's policies (primarily editorial), but the fact that they have targeted a self-sustaining endowment, I don't fault them for - Quite the opposite, I give them credit for actually having a viable business plan.
I completely agree with your sentiment here. But the question is not whether that's a good business plan, but rather whether those who have donate that money actually realize they are giving money to support an endowment and a bunch of ancillary services and staff, rather than barely keeping the site "going for another year."
See last year's fundraising message:
DEAR WIKIPEDIA READERS: This week we ask our readers to help us. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads. We survive on donations averaging about $15. Now is the time we ask. If everyone reading this right now gave $3, our fundraiser would be done within an hour. Yep, that's about the price of buying a programmer a coffee. We're a small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers, staff and programs. Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park where we can all go to think and learn. If Wikipedia is useful to you, take one minute to keep it online and ad-free another year. Thank you.
When you include words and phrases like we survive, small non-profit with costs of a top website: servers..., keep it online... another year, etc., it implies that (1) you're barely making it by ("survive"), (2) the majority of your "small non-profit" funds must be going directly into infrastructure when they're not, and (3) if you don't donate now, we may not be able to go on for "another year."
All of that is misleading. At no point do they appeal to an idea that they are trying to build a sustainable long-term endowment or something. I'm sure some people would donate to that too. But right now their rhetoric doesn't match their financial situation or goals... and that's a serious problem when you're trying to convince people to donate.
(And there's also the problem that most people don't realize that the Wikimedia foundation contributes almost nothing toward maintaining, improving, or policing the content that people actually visit the site for -- all the real work for the actual content is generated by volunteers.)
translation: "If they were honest how much would people contribute "?
Just because ethical behavior is harder doesn't excuse unethical (immoral: deception) behavior.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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