[marginalia_nu]

Politics aside, I do think it's an incredibly bad look to regularly break out the sad eyed Jimbo Wales banner begging for money to help keep Wikipedia running when they're so far away from a shortage of funds that they feel they can give part of the donations away to other organizations.

When you accept charitable donations, you have a duty to use those donations for the intended purpose. You aren't legally required to do this, but you're expected to do it. If you don't do it, or misrepresent what you're asking for, people will get upset. They will feel like you squandered their donation. They will write about it, and tell their friends.

I don't think this is strange at all. WMF has a reasonably good name due to the value and popularity of Wikipedia. Reputation is fickle though. It doesn't take much before WMF becomes that organization that said they needed money, but gave away all the donations (even if they only gave away a small portion; but that's public perception for you).

It's also important to emphasize that for an organization like the WMF, reputation is everything. You can not do donation-based charity work without a good reputation. The entire model hinges on the organization being trusted.