Wikimedia Foundation wires biased study of donors

The Wikimedia Foundation that governs Wikipedia has released the results of a survey directed at past donors (of less than $1,000) to the non-profit organization.  The report draws the usual conclusions:

• Three-quarters of respondents are male
• About 90% want to "keep Wikipedia free for all users"
• More than 80% think "it's important to support something I use so heavily"

One wonders what these donors would think if they were informed that Charity Navigator gave the Wikimedia Foundation only one star out of four in the category of organizational efficiency, because only 41 cents of every dollar the non-profit receives actually goes toward program expenses.  A recent Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) report admitted that the group, rather than using donations to "keep Wikipedia free", has left unspent over $5 million in unrestricted cash on hand, and has squirreled away certificates of deposit and US Treasury bonds totaling more than $8 million.

The 2010 survey of small donors was orchestrated by young Philippe Beaudette, from Oklahoma.  He started exerting his influence on the WMF around the same time as Rand Montoya's departure.  Montoya had chaired an initiative to design and execute a 2009 survey of WMF donors; however, despite ample assistance from members of the Wikimedia community (including your trusty Examiner reporter), the survey never got off the ground.  Montoya then ignored multiple requests for status updates.  It wasn't long after that he was looking for work elsewhere.  Sadly, only two people on the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list even bothered to wish him well in future endeavors.

Beaudette got his start with the WMF by taking control of its Strategic Planning initiative in July 2009.  Despite the WMF board's mandate that the initiative solicit input in a way that was as "open as reasonably possible, and to encourage broad participation", Beaudette immediately dove into the usual petty games of censoring critiques in order to hide serious questions about the future of the Foundation.  In fact, during his stint in charge of Strategic Planning, Philippe Beaudette blocked over 100 users from participating in the discussion. As a result, the Foundation was directed into a disappointingly unambitious five-year plan that one spokesman of the creative content industry derided.

Who got the contract?

Once Beaudette established his loyalty to the Wikimedia Foundation, he got his reward by being hired permanently as Head of Reader Relations and leading the WMF's 2010 annual giving campaign.  To inform the campaign, he actually kick-started Montoya's old survey of past donors by hiring an outside market research firm to get it done.

In most corporate environments -- especially non-profit ones -- a certain amount of due diligence will take place before a large outside contract is awarded to conduct professional work on behalf of the organization.  In other words, before awarding a project to a vendor, one typically issues a "request for proposal" or "request for quotation" (RFP or RFQ) across several competing prospective bidders.  Did Beaudette do this?  We cannot say for sure, because both he and the WMF's Head of Communications Jay Walsh refused to answer the question, as is the practice of most Wikimedia Foundation staff.  They're awfully good at ignoring issues that point to their lack of basic good governance skills.

So, which market research firm got the contract to field and analyze the donors survey?  Well, we know that Philippe Beaudette hails from Oklahoma, so it was not much of a surprise that the winning firm, Q2 Consulting LLC, is headquartered in Oklahoma.  Furthermore, from December 2006 through August 2008, Philippe Beaudette was employed by Q2 Consulting as a research associate.  Nothing like having an "independent" past employer getting the research contract that (very likely) wasn't put out to competitive bid, huh?  Now, admittedly, Q2 Consulting is a very notable business -- it has been mentioned in the media not once, but twice -- in the Greater Tulsa Reporter, and in Tulsa World.  The company's blog has also been very active, with one inaugural post of 22 words, six months ago.  So, clearly, they were qualified to conduct this study, even if the deal was (probably) wired directly to them, against no competing bids.

*** See also Part II of this exciting drama of institutional suppression of fact-finding. ***

Readers, what do you think?  Your thoughtful comments are welcome below.

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