Talk:Donation and grant acceptance

Just a note on the rationale for my edits:

1. Specifying at what level gifts result in phone calls / letters / visitsis a bit like instruction creep - I think it's better that the staff/trustees/volunteers involved in this continue to work out processes that are fit for purpose, rather than having a board decision on the matter.
2. I think we can delegate much of the judgement about what actually needs trustee attention to the Chief Executive. I don't think it would be helpful for us to say that every donation over £1,000 needs to be reviewed by the Board - better that if there is a case where there's a significant sum and any doubt, we rely on the Chief Exec's judgement about what to refer.
3. We also need to take care that we don't have a policy that says "we only take donations from people we like". Trustees' duties are to further the charitable objects of Wikimedia UK, and we have to assess what impact accepting a donation would have on Wikimedia UK, not make a judgement about how similar a donor (particularly a company) is to us. I can certainly see scenarios where we would turn down a corporate donation, but I much prefer my form of words here.

Thanks, The Land (talk) 21:07, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with most of your changes, but would point out a few things. The 'instruction creep' wasn't intended that way - it was intended to be a description of the process, not part of a formal policy. We're still in small-number-statistics for donations over £1k, so I would like the board to be at least told when those come in as standard for a while (but won't push that since it's short- vs long-term). I do think we need something in here about gifts in kind - was there a reason you removed it? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)