[Imc-finance] Ford & Indymedia (part 2) - many questions for us as a network

[Sheri Herndon]

* apologies for cross-posting *
* could someone please post a translation please *

hello friends,

many of you have heard pieces of this conversation and some of you 
are hearing about this for the first time.  sebastian just posted 
something to imc finance which i have not had a chance to read but 
will as soon as i can.  i am in the middle of a conference we've 
organized here in seattle called reclaim the media 
(www.reclaimthemedia.org) and i will be making this short.  more 
details and dialogue to follow.

after spending several hours talking to micah on the phone last night 
who has been talking on irc with our friends in argentina imc and 
getting more information to help us figure out what is going on, it 
is clear that we have a serious problem and that taking funds from 
the ford foundation might jeopardize the work of imc argentina and 
some would go so far as to say it would jeopardize the network as a 
whole.

so we must seriously figure this out.  is it as easy as just saying 
okay no we won't take these funds?  perhaps.  i am open to that, but 
perhaps there are other issues here that we can learn from as we move 
forward and figure out things together as a network.

while the simple goal of the grant to ford was to fund regional 
indymedia face to face gatherings (without any strings or 
conditions), the deeper long term goal of even having these meetings 
is to build network solidarity and to strengthen our connections are 
a network.  becky from ford has basically given us a yes to funding a 
2 year travel fund to be used at our discretion for $50,000 to be 
funnelled through urbana imc.

after learning more about the concerns raised by our brothers and 
sisters in argentina about the ford foundation's role in their 
country (not only in the far past in support of the dictatorship, but 
also more recent history), it is clear that taking funds from the 
ford foundation would not achieve our goal of building network 
solidarity and thus we must question this decision and choice.

this is critical.  balancing the decentralized nature of the network 
and local working group/local imc autonomy with the greater network 
is always going to be a dance, sometimes delicate, sometimes 
confusing, sometimes a challenge.

so while for many people, taking funds from this foundation and using 
them to do exactly what we want and to help us fund meetings across 
the network is not a problem, it is for imc-argentina and others. 
what is at stake?

questions we need to figure out:

*  is our only option to refuse a travel fund from ford foundation?

*  what are the activities and how well documented are these 
activities that ford foundation has supposedly engaged in?  it is 
still unclear to many of us.  however, what is quite clear is that 
many people in argentina believe that ford foundation has funded 
people and groups that have been ultimately responsible for killing 
people.  and not just during the dictatorship, but more recently. 
perhaps we need to do some more investigation on this and find out 
what exactly is the relationship?

*  is there a way to take the funds so that the imc in argentina and 
the communities they work with will be satisfied?

*  as a decentralized network with local autonomy, how do we make 
decisions about taking money from different places, such as 
foundations?  is it as easy as coming to consensus that yes we do, or 
no we never do?  or is there a balancing point?

*  can we develop a healthy process through which we can resolve this 
issue so that we have a win-win situation?

i know that the people who have been working on raising funds for 
regional/continental/international encuentros have a clear goal that 
it is for helping the network to grow in terms of solidarity, 
awareness and coordination and communication.  if we take funds from 
somewhere (regardless of who they are) that would work against this 
goal, then we are working against that fundamental goal and we thus 
must reconsider our strategy.

but many movements and radical organizations have taken funds from 
foundations and continued to do good work.  this is not new for 
movements and some groups have opted to refuse funds from foundations 
and others have chosen to do so without any strings.  what do we as 
indymedia network want to do?  what can we do as local imcs raising 
money for projects outside of our local sphere?  how to balance these 
issues?

so, i have asked many questions.  i do not have an attachment to this 
money from ford or to pushing it through.  however, i hope that as a 
precedent we will consider how to work through a process like this so 
that in the future we can balance all the needs of the network. 
perhaps ford is just the worse foundation out there.  perhaps we just 
cross ford off the list?  but can any local imc ever approach the 
ford foundation without it jeopardizing the entire network?

i do not want to do anything that would jeopardize the argentina imc 
or have their critical work in their community jeopardized.  they 
feel that taking this money from ford would do that.  we must listen 
to this and be in solidarity with them......their work in argentina 
and to the rest of the world is invaluable....we all know this.  we 
want to make choices as a network that support our collective work.

alot of information now has been presented to everyone,
we have alot of things to discuss,

love & solidarity
sheri