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I'm a huge fan of co-operatives for this kind of org.

It would be interesting to create WikiMedia as a co-op and transfer ownership to editors, staff, donors, on some basis. There would be a huge argument about that basis, for sure. But if anyone has the experience to manage an enormous argument, and then handle the mechanics of conducting votes across multi-million-people ownership groups, it's WikiMedia.

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Recently, every time there's a discussion about single CEOs and/or private equity ruining good things, co-operatives seem to come up. Maybe they aren't such a bad idea. Certainly, for starting a company or org, it seems like a decent option.

The big problem from a startup pov is that there's no way of getting conventional/VC funding into a co-op that doesn't break the model.

WikiMedia is different because it already has funds - you could reasonably offer donors an ownership share for their donation, and it wouldn't flood the voting.

It doesn't seem to be anywhere close to where they're heading, however, which is a shame.

If you are looking for VC funding then you are already on the wrong track for an org to run something like Wikipedia.

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