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Reblogged by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻"):
thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange ("The Nexus of Privacy") wrote:
Poll: should the new Social Web Foundation (SWF) be transparent about their funding?
@socialwebfdn recently launched with a mission of "a growing, healthy, financially viable and multi-polar Fediverse”. In TechCrunch, @Sarahp reported that SWF has "some backing" from Meta as well as Flipboard, Ghost, Mastodon, and others as well as a "large grant" from the Ford Foundation. "In total, SWF is closing in on $1 million in financial support."
But there aren't any details about the funding , and the only grant from Ford Foundation to SWF's fiscal sponsor anybody's found so far is for $50K, which is a lot less than $1 million. So there's a lot of speculation -- and considering that Meta's involved, a lot of suspicion.
Transparency about funding could potentially be helpful here. If there is indeed a larger Ford Foundation grant, good to know, and what's it for? Also, maybe Meta's just chipping in a bit to get things off the ground. Even if Meta's contributing a lot more, far better to be up-front about it.
Then again, transparency about funding could also have its downsides. In a thread on SocialHub, SWF advisor @ben (who's worked in non-profits for a while) noted that there are quite a few reasons why making finances available in real-time (as opposed to the legally required annual Form 990) "may not be desirable - not least because it may impact ongoing fundraising from other groups." And it's certainly true that different non-profits take different approaches here, there isn't any one right answer in general.
So ... what do people think?