Appropedia:Funding: Difference between revisions

Note: This is a draft proposal for a funding/donations page or pages - for more details on donating to this project, please contact the Appropedia Foundation.

Update: Great news - as of late October 2007, Appropedia is a registered 501(c)(3), meaning it is a non-profit, and donations are tax-deductible in the US!.

Appropedia runs on the goodwill of its supporters. We currently cover the costs out of the pockets of supporters within the Appropedia community of editors. As the site becomes more popular and server demand increases, funding will become more critical.

We are also looking at ways of increasing the rate of development of the site, through employing people to work on different aspects of the site, including contributing content, soliciting contributions of content and developing collaborations, facilitating networking, and providing technical support, to complement and support the larger community of voluntary contributors - to do all of this would require a number of full-time and/or part-time positions, and funding will be required if this is to be implemented.

Our world faces serious challenges of continuing poverty and threats to our environment, and Appropedia seeks to empower individuals and communities to meet those challenges. We believe that your support of Appropedia is an investment in a better world, whether financial support, or whatever form of support you are able to give.

What will the money be used for?

• Staff to develop the site, expand our cooperation with other organizations, and improve our service. Currently there are no paid staff, and Appropedia's progress on some fronts is very erratic, depending on when our volunteers are available.
• Internships (esp in the majority world)
• Hosting costs,
  • upgrade, move away from shared hosting
  • have powerful enough servers to allow more features, especially Semantic MediaWiki and additional Drupal modules
  • go carbon neutral
• Advertising? Probably not, if we decide there are better ways of getting publicity.

Corporate funding

It is suggested that this section be given its own page (eventually).

For the integrity of both Appropedia and corporate donors, it is made very clear that open editing and editorial independence are not negotiable, and no favorable treatment is expected in terms of Appropedia's content. Donations are on a pro bono basis.

On the other hand, this is not an excuse to launch unfair attacks on any person or organization, regardless of whether they are a donor - baseless accusations will be removed; relevant criticisms will be allowed to stay, citing sources and presenting other sides to the issue where appropriate. None of this is dependent on whether the person or organization is a donor.

Tax deductions

The Appropedia Foundation is currently processing 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status in the USA. Options for making tax deductible donations in the meantime are being explored, as are the options for tax-deductible donations made from other countries, including Australia.

See Foundation:Deductibility of donations for Wikimedia's tax status. Setting up local chapters or making partnerships with local NGOs may be ways of offering tax-deductions.

Methods of payment

If you are interested in supporting this project, please contact one of the Appropedia Foundation's directors, such as Lonny (via his talk page).

Suggested means of payment to be implemented in the future:

• ^W
• ^W
• Direct deposit or bank transfer (does this make receipts difficult, for tax-deductions?);
• Check (by mail) - less convenient, but not many are likely to do this anyway. We may as well make it available for those who do want to donate this way.

Interwiki links

Examples of donations pages:

• Foundation:Fundraising at Wikimedia Foundation - accepts various methods of payment.
• Greenlivingpedia's donations page, accepts PayPal.