Wikiversity

Grants and fundraising/Wikiversity nonprofit corporation

< Grants and fundraising


Participants in the Wikiversity NPC project create a nonprofit corporation (NPC) that will produce Wikiversity content.

Learning project

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The Wikiversity NPC learning project allows Wikiversity participants to learn how to create and manage a nonprofit corporation. The corporation will be entirely oriented around the use of MediaWiki technology for the promotion of education.

Business plan

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The goal of this nonprofit corporation (note, a name for the corporation needs to be selected) is to hire experts who will be employed to produce learning resources for Wikiversity. The corporation will also hire experts to write grant proposals for both itself and for the Wikimedia Foundation. Any profits made by this NPC will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation.

November 2007. The Wikimedia Foundation has an illustration project designed to allow people to get paid for creation of “key illustrations” that will be used by Wikimedia wiki projects. If the Wikimedia Foundation is able to support this kind of arrangement for Wikiversity, then a new NPC as proposed here will not be needed.

"aiming to see if the general idea -funneling restricted donations to community members for execution- is workable. To the extent that it does work, it could be very powerful." - Sue Gardner

(Note: I doubt that the grant funders will let you do this. Roadrunner 18:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC))

The corporation will be a strictly educational entity with no purpose other than to advance education as made possible by the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikiversity project.

The corporation will engage in commercial activities such as providing the services of certified educators who specialize in teaching by making use of Wikiversity-derived learning resources. Income derived from fees charged for these services will fund grant writing and the creation of new Wikiversity learning resources.

(Note: This is probably not legally possible. Any funds that you make from for-profit activities will be subject to tax, and if it makes up a large fraction of your income, you will lose your non-profit status. If you are going to engage in any for-profit activity, it is much simpler to simply create a for-profit corporation.

Non-profit law in the United States allows schools and universities to have non-profit status. The trouble is that they have a rather restrictive definition of school (it has to have a formal curriculum. Simply having classes without a curriculum, will not get you that exemption.

Roadrunner 18:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The point is not to create a school. The point would be that there could be charges for services provided by the NPC; if there was any money from those charges above the costs of providing the services the money would go into the mission of the NPC, support for the Wikimedia Foundation's Wikiversity project.)

Research

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We need to do research into the history and activities of the Wikimedia Foundation and other education-oriented NPCs.

Interested users

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The histories of Wikiversity pages indicate who the active participants are. If you are an active participant in this project, you can list your name here (this can help small projects grow and the participants communicate better; for large projects a list of active participants is not needed).

I AM interested... I run an NPO in South Africa

See also

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Potential R&D partners and NPC resources:

  • What is a Nonprofit Corporation? - The nonprofit resource center.
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - committed to raising the high school graduation rate and helping students get ready for college and work.
  • Richard Lounsbery Foundation - has in the past supported the Wikimedia Foundation; supports elementary and secondary science and math education.
  • MacArthur Foundation - Digital Media, Learning and Education.
  • Nolo Guide to Non-Profits.
  • National Endowment for Humanities digital projects
  • KLD Research & Analytics "...the leading authority on social research and indexes for institutional investors." See w:Amy Domini
  • Grants.gov - A comprehensive tool for finding and applying for Federal government grants in the USA. It encompasses all programs in all departments (Agriculture, Energy, Education...) at Federal, and in some areas State levels and their funding opportunities.
  • WorldBank.org - a source of financial and technical assistance especially to developing countries. They provide low-interest loans, interest-free credit and grants to developing countries for education, health, infrastructure, communications and many other purposes.
  • Google nonprofit portal
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