Thank you Catlin,
yours and Julia's explanations here and on Meta are enough for me.
The Rai Tre broadcast program mentioned in the previous discussion talked
not only about money, and given that tomorrow is the last day to vote on
the strengthened guidelines of the UCoC and in some local communities I
have noticed deserted discussions, allow me to express - with no polemical
intention - the desire that the community devote at least as much passion
and time to improving the health of its internal dynamics as it does to
overseeing WMF's financial reports. It's not as secondary as it might seem,
because the entire movement and projects and their philosophy depend on the
community, the content it manages to generate in a serene environment, the
welcome it offers to new users who allow us to make the generational change
we need.
Camelia
--
*Camelia Boban (she/her)*
*| Java EE Developer |*
M. +39 3383385545
camelia.boban(a)gmail.com
WikiDonne Chair & Co-founder | Wikimedia Diversity Ambassador
*Wikipedia <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Camelia.boban> **| **WikiDonne
Project <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:WikiDonne> *| *WikiDonne UG
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiDonne>* | *WikiDonne APS
<https://wikidonne.org/>*
WMIT - WMSE - WMAR - WMCH - WMNY - WMDC - WMBE Member
On Sat, Jan 28, 2023 at 3:41 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear all,
I've been asked to explain what the issue with the Endowment is. Here is a
recap:
Over the past seven years, WMF staff have collected donations from the
public to build an Endowment that stood at $113.4 million a year ago (the
most recent update available).
The important thing that I and, I suspect, most of us didn't realise for
many years is this:[1]
1. The money held in the Endowment is not included in the net assets of
the Wikimedia Foundation, as those funds are held by the Tides Foundation.
2. Donations to the Endowment that are received by the Wikimedia
Foundation as a pass-through are redirected and sent to the Tides
Foundation. Therefore, they are not reflected on the Wikimedia Foundation's
financials as revenue or net assets.
3. When the Wikimedia Foundation makes special grants to the Endowment
Fund, those are reflected as "Awards and Grants" expenses on the Wikimedia
Foundation's Annual Independent Auditors' Report.
This means that under the past and present arrangement, all the auditors
at KPMG have ever included in their annual audit reports were the annual $5
million+ grants sent to Tides, recorded as an expense. Any money people
donated to the WMF specifically for the Endowment bypassed the audited
financial statements.
In addition, for the past two years, all the money people have willed to
the Wikimedia Foundation has been redirected to the Wikimedia Endowment
instead (except in cases where the terms of the will prevent that), adding
to these tens of millions of dollars of pass-through amounts that bypass
the Foundation's audited financial statements.[2]
As a result, there is a significant lack of of transparency and public
oversight in the past and present arrangement with Tides. Over $100 million
in donations and planned gifts collected from the public is too significant
an amount to say, "It's alright. We don't need to see any paperwork. We
know you are good people."
Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&d…
[2]
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Remit_of_Planned_Gifts_to_…
On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 11:08 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Caitlin,
Thank you for the clarification. Is there any chance we might see audited
financial statements covering the Endowment's past seven years, in a format
comparable to the annually published, audited financial statements
detailing the revenue and expenses of the Foundation,[1] and delivering the
same level of transparency?
If not, why not?
Best,
Andreas
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/
On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 9:19 PM Caitlin Virtue <cvirtue(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi Christophe,
This thread has circled around the main question of will any decisions
around the endowment be transparent. The answer is yes.
The question of transparency has also become conflated with the
mechanism of how the money is held. The answer here is that we are working
to transition endowment funds out of Tides to the separate 501(c)(3) entity
that is already registered
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/governance-updates-for-the-wikimedia-endowment/>
and the transition process will soon be underway.
Finally, to answer some questions that came up directly:
Is the Endowment an independent 501(c)(3) entity? Yes.
Is the money currently managed by Tides? Yes.
Will the money transition out of Tides to the new 501(c)(3)? Yes.
You can also find a similar reply that we gave earlier, on meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_with_Tides?>
.
Regards,
Caitlin Virtue
Senior Director of Development
Wikimedia Foundation
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list --
wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org