[governance] Re: [bestbits] DISCLOSURE REQUEST Re: Funding Available for Strengthening Civil Society...

[Mawaki Chango]

Dear JFC,


On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 11:01 PM, JFC Morfin <jefsey at jefsey.com> wrote:

> Dear Mawaki,
> two comments:
>
> At 20:28 10/11/2013, Mawaki Chango wrote:
>
>> #3 That procedure does not have to be carried out publicly on a
>> discussion list such as these ones --for, among other things, the safety
>> reasons and possible risks that have already been mentioned. A structure
>> may be put in place (NomCom?) to receive such statements.
>>
>
> We know from experience there only are public discussions, with the help
> of NSA and/or wikileaks and co. As E.S (Eric Schmidt, not Edward Snowden)
> puts it: if you do not want something to be published on the internet do
> not do it.
>

Right! Except that I am pretty sure whatever people would have to disclose
in a case like this would have been already communicated through some other
email exchanges, say, between them and their sources of funding. I believe
it's always a trade-off between the stake (and benefit) one has in finding
out and the cost of finding out. That cost is somehow raised by sending the
information to a limited group of trusted professional individuals, and
further raised by encrypted the concerned communications. But there will
never going to be 100 per cent secrecy, we agree on that.

>
>
>  there are basically three ways for having money: i) you sell something,
>> goods or services; ii) you tax someone else; or iii) someone chooses to
>> give you the money for whatever reason, possibly including a service you
>> didn't even set out to sell. In CS we do at least a little bit of the three
>> --through grant proposals or consultancy, member dues (albeit with less
>> dire consequences than defaulting on your income tax), and fundraising or
>> donations CS orgs receive. But it looks like the latter category is what
>> supports the most CS advocacy activities. That makes you think twice about
>> where we actually are on the power map. Maybe there is some solace to be
>> found in the fact that many of the sources CS orgs get money from are also
>> part of CS, to begin with: private citizens who once were industrious
>> enough and with enough ingenuity to become wealthy and set up foundations
>> or other charity orgs. Short of that, CS would perhaps have to receive the
>> bulk of its money from the people who tax other people.
>>
>
> The origin of the money is not a problem. The problem is the
> non-disclosure.
>

Again, agree with that. That's why the above section of my message you're
referring to was not integrated as part of my core points but in manner of
concluding reflection. And I mentioned the perspective that it provides
about CS in terms of our place on the power map. That was all my
observation was intended for, no more no less.



> There are several ways around that can be explored:
>
> * a CS oath, as for the Olympics.
> * the sponsorship to be disclosed at registration.
> * the creation of a CSFoundation to collect and attribute fundings in a
> fairly ballanced manner and published policy.
>   Its CSnomcom list would gather reps from all the participating CS
> organizations.
>

Interesting suggestions, especially the last one. Isn't that the model BB's
approach is hinting at (except that it is not a foundation and it's limited
to BB coalition/ participants/ members --whatever applies)? I'm just
asking... While a significant portion of groups like these are
organizations with their own funding and programs for working (if only
partly) on things that are related to issues we are concerned with here,
individual membership are just are valuable and as legitimate. Therefore,
it becomes clear to me that there is some discrepancy to reckon with in
claiming some identity --as in "global CS"-- for these groups if there is
no funding mechanisms (and clear governance mechanisms, for that matter) at
that same level of such global identity. Otherwise, as is currently the
case, we become at critical moments of decisions and actions reduced to an
opportune coalition of whoever has gotten the resources to show up, without
any sense of representativeness whatsoever.

Best,

Mawaki

>
> jfc
>
>
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