I can see the argument for say 175 employees and a reduced scope, while building up an endowment to better weather down-years is better for WMF's long-term goals, but there's also the risk that reduced spending would cause reduced donations.
> but there's also the risk that reduced spending would cause reduced donations.
Reduced spending and reduced donations would be a good outcome for Wikipedia readers (especially in the long term). Lower running costs allows putting more current revenue towards that endowment, and means the future is a bit more sustainable in less favorable economic cycles.
Donations also don't exist in a vacuum; the best use of donors' limited money is probably not WMF burning a pile of it.
I agree with everything you say, but presumably those in charge of the WMF believe their goals to be of sufficient importance, so arguing to them that they shouldn't spend money on those goals is silly, but one should rather couch things in terms of how best to achieve those goals.
I'm not arguing to WMF; I'm hoping to raise awareness among donors. If the WMF miss their fundraising targets due to donor displeasure, they have to come around sooner or later. Or who knows, maybe they'll run the thing into the ground. I hope not.
The worst part of it for me is that they advertise it on Wikipedia as if wikipedia were going out of business. When in reality, if you give $1.00 to WMF, ~$0.03 goes to server expenses. Wikipedia is their cash cow that funds a ton of random pet projects and a dozen or so executive staff (which seems huge for a 300 person organization).
If they were honest about that in their fundraising, I think they'd see flat or down revenue. I dislike the dishonesty used to solicit donations and then use them somewhere else. It feels similar to a con.
