> If it was a struggle to keep wikipedia's lights on, I'd consider donating myself

Isn't that kind of problematic too though? The idea that donations may only go to organizations that would struggle otherwise? (I know I'm inferring something you didn't explicitly say, but I do think that is a fairly common sentiment as well)

The situation becomes a bit clearer after drawing a distinction between a broad mission ("feed the starving") and a specific mission ("maintain wikipedia").

I'm ok with donations to a specific mission or a group with a very clear this-is-what-we-need-to-fund style goal and budget, and obviously if they are achieving their mission then they don't need more donations.

I'm not normally comfortable with the broad-mission style organisations. A large pool of money to be spent on an amorphous goal, by a group of essentially unknown people of unknown ability and beliefs? That is a scandal waiting to happen, and probably going to be mired in admin fees and corruption over the medium-long term if it isn't already.

Any charity that isn't struggling to keep the lights on is fundamentally suspect.

Well, alright. But can replace the word "organisations" and "charity" with "corporations" and "company" and explain why this logic of scandals and corruption waiting to happen no longer holds? Because I sure can't.

I also wouldn't advise donating money to corporations and companies. Corporations _are_ routinely plagued by financial scandals and corruption, but that is a problem for the owners, not the public. The harmed party is the shareholders, and to a substantial degree it is up to them to protect themselves.

A big difference that you might be looking for is that nobody is keen to give money to a company. People have (surprisingly effective) methods to find the cheapest producer. If the government is behaving appropriately this effect generally squeezes profit margins until they are uniform and thin. In theory. Practice is often close enough to theory to keep the system humming along.

Then it wouldn't be a charity donation. Giving money to successful projects is better done as an investment (or maybe purchase.)

I see no logical reason why being successful as a project implies that investing with a profit motive is the best option for guaranteeing continued success.

It isn't best option to guarantee success. It just means you're lower on the list of need-based funding allocations.

That makes sense, thanks. I have actually run into a use for one of the side projects (Wikidata) so I may be more optimistic about the foundation’s chances of doing something else useful with a big budget.