[Foundation-l] Report To The Board June & July 2008
Sue Gardner
sgardner at wikimedia.org
Sat Aug 23 16:33:50 UTC 2008
Hey folks - This is a particularly long report, since it covers both
June & July. Enjoy :-)
...
Report to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees
Covering: June & July 2008
Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Prepared for: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
MY CURRENT PRIORITIES
* Funders' Briefing preparations (including materials such as
presentation, giving chart, annual report, etc.)
* Developing funding proposals for several foundations
* Orienting new fundraising team
* Ongoing major donor solicitation and stewardship
* Bits and pieces (Wikimania postmortem, office space revamp, launch of
NomCom, etc.
JUNE AND JULY
== FINANCE ==
Much of June was spent developing the Wikimedia Foundation's first-ever
annual plan, covering the 2008-09 fiscal year (July 1, 2008 – June 30,
2009).
Here is how the 08-09 annual plan was constructed: In planning
spending, we started with 07-08 historical spending information. We
modified those numbers in consultation with the staff and the board,
adjusting for increased costs due to anticipated project growth and
other changes, and adjusting for underspending in the prior year. We
then approved new spending in key areas, consistent with our strategic
goals. Also this year, for the first time in the Foundation's history,
we have set revenue targets for business development and fundraising.
The business development targets were set by Kul in consultation with
Véronique; the fundraising targets were set by Sue, Erik and Véronique.
On June 29, the board voted to approve the plan, with this resolution:
"RESOLVED, that the Board of Trustees hereby approves management's
proposed 2008-2009 annual plan of $5.97 million of annual expenses,
$7.33 million of annual operating revenues, and an annual operating
reserve of $1.36 million. If during the year management anticipates the
annual reserve will differ materially from the planned annual reserve,
the Board directs management to consult the Board Treasurer promptly." A
presentation summarizing the annual plan, including the budget, revenue
targets, goals and hiring projections, can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Finance_report. And there is a
detailed FAQ here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2008-2009_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Answers
At the end of June, at the request of Walter Vermeir, the board voted to
approve an interim administrative procedure for looking after the Dexia
account, currently maintained by Walter: "Whereas the Wikimedia
Foundation seeks to improve the security and controls of transactions
involving its Dexia Bank Account, the Board hereby approves the Interim
Dexia Account Policy." It was also agreed that a replacement for the
Dexia account, to be maintained by staff of the Foundation, would be
implemented before the end of December.
Much of July was spent in preparations for the audit of the 2007-08
financial statements, such as reconciliation of fixed assets.
== HIRING ==
Our fundraising team is now almost complete. The following new staff
were hired in June and July:
* Rebecca Handler, Head of Major Gifts (to begin August 4)
* Rand Montoya, Head of Community Giving
* Sara Crouse, Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations
We will also hire a Development Associate to support the team. Rand has
begun this hiring process in July.
Other important additions:
* Frank Schulenburg is now on-board full-time as Head of Public
Outreach, and we are helping him relocate to San Francisco.
* Tomasz Finc has been hired as a full-time software developer, to begin
work on August 4.
* Michael Dale has started work in the San Francisco office on open
source video editing tools. His work is sponsored by Kaltura.com.
* Patti Melton is the new Personal Assistant to the Executive & Deputy
Director; she started in mid-July.
Staff names and photos, as well as an organization chart, can be found
on the Wikimedia Foundation's staff page:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff
Job openings will continue to be advertised at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings
== ALL-STAFF MEETING ==
An all-staff meeting was staged in San Francisco on June 26 and 27. Day
One focused on orientation and getting to know each other, as well as a
presentation by Sue of the 2008-09 annual plan. Day Two focused on
2008-09 goal-setting. New staff members Rand Montoya (Head of Community
Giving) and Rebecca Handler (Head of Major Gifts) attended all or parts
of the meeting. Erik Zachte, who will be working with the Foundation as
data analyst starting September 1, and Domas Mituzas, Board member and a
volunteer on the technical team, also made it to San Francisco and
attended part of the meetings.
== WIKIMANIA ==
The fourth annual Wikimedia conference, Wikimania 2008, took place in
Alexandria, Egypt from July 17 to 19. The venue, the new Library of
Alexandria, was well-equipped to host the more than 650 attendees from
around the world. Talks and workshops in up to five simultaneous tracks
gave attendees from inside and outside the volunteer community new
insights into the Wikimedia projects, other free knowledge efforts, and
the challenges facing us.
The conference received positive coverage in both Arabic language and
world-wide media. Journalists James Gleick (the Wall Street Journal) and
Noam Cohen (the New York Times) provided in-depth coverage from Egypt:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121815517776622597.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/business/media/21link.html
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/wikipedia-goes-to-alexandria-home-of-other-great-reference-works/
Arabic press clippings have been compiled by the Library:
http://www.bibalex.org/isis/Frontend/News/Newspaper_archive.aspx
Videos from the conference can be found online both on the Library's
website, and on Kaltura's Wikimania video website:
Library collection:
http://webcast.bibalex.org/Home/List.aspx?Conference=6u0LkBzgNlZm+RzGhC/6Ag==
Kaltura Video archive:
http://www.kaltura.com/devwiki/index.php/Wikimania_Sessions
More information about the conference can be found in our press release:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedians_Prepare_for_Wikimania_2008
And on the official Wikimania 2008 website:
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Thanks to everyone who made the conference a success. As in previous
years, the Wikimedia Foundation and the chapters used the conference for
organizational meetings and work. This included:
* An Advisory Board meeting to discuss the Foundation's goals;
* A regular Board meeting and a Board Q&A panel at the conference;
* A press conference (thanks to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, we could
provide real-time translation from and to Arabic);
* Various Staff and Board meetings with dignitaries and potential
partners and supporters;
* An ad hoc meeting of chapter representatives;
* A presentation of the Foundation's goals & plans by the Executive and
Deputy Director;
* Various discussions, both on the program and off, between staff,
board, and volunteers..
A comprehensive postmortem of Wikimania is underway. Delphine has begun
work on a survey soliciting input from attendees and speakers, and input
has also been requested from the local planning team, the program
committee, the scholarships team, the site selection jury and the staff
of the Foundation. Results from a mini-survey given to the audience of
the "Wikimedia 2008-09" talk will also be published.
Wikimania 2009 will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and bids for
Wikimania 2010 are currently open at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids
=== BOARD MEETING AT WIKIMANIA ===
Key outcomes of the Board meeting at Wikimania include:
* The Board has appointed Michael Snow as its new chair, replacing
Florence Devouard, whose term expired and who chose not to run again.
* The Board has officially appointed Ting Chen, who was elected to the
seat formerly held by Florence.
* The Board has approved the process for forming a Nominating Committee,
which will begin a search process for the vacant appointed Board seats.
* The Vice Chair of the Board, Jan-Bart de Vreede, will officially
function as "whip" to ensure Board member attendance and participation
in the work of the Board;
Further details about the meetings will be published by the Board in its
minutes and resolutions.
== COMMUNICATIONS ==
In July, Treasurer Stu West arranged for the Wikimedia Foundation to
receive ongoing, free access to comScore Media Metrix internet audience
measurement data. This gives us access to a world of useful
information, including reach, ranking and raw numbers such as unique
visitors monthly. Jay is handling the comScore relationship on behalf of
the staff. Data and more information can be found at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia
In June and July, the Wikimedia Foundation participated in interviews
with the following media organizations: the San Francisco Chronicle, the
Washington Post, PR magazine, National Public Radio (Baltimore),
Newsweek, the Toronto Star (Canada), The Age (Australia), the
Municipalist (Washington DC), the Canadian Press, the Courier Post (New
Jersey), Publico (Spain), Haaretz Business (Israel), the International
Regional Magazine Association, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle
(Texas), NBC 6 (Florida), Hot Press magazine (Ireland), NBC News
(Florida), BBC News, the Rockford Register Star (Illinois), Human Events
(Washington DC), Fox Business News, Ideal TV (Brazil), Agence France
Press, the Allen Town Morning Call (Pennsylvania), the Sunday Times
(UK), the Los Angeles Times, Al Ahram Hebdo, al Yom Al Seoudya, Nesf El
Donia, Al Alam Al Youm, Al Akhbar, Rose Al Youssef, Al Ahrar, Al Dostor,
German public radio (Heidelberg), WNYC Radio, the IDG news service
(Florida), and the Baltimore Examiner (Maryland).
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact_2008
Sue is now represented by The Lavin Agency for speaking engagements. Her
fees will be paid to the Wikimedia Foundation.
A first draft "messaging grid" was released to the staff to help in
media and stakeholder communications.
There have also been many blog posts by various staff members in June
and July:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/06/
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/07/
== LEGAL ==
Work has continued on revisions to the privacy policy. The latest draft
can be found at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Draft_Privacy_Policy_June_19_2008; the
board will be voting on it soon.
Mike has followed up on several cases of trademark infringements, with
some now resolved. We have also prevailed in the Barbara Bauer court
case, concerning her biography on Wikipedia.
== PUBLIC OUTREACH ==
On June 9, Frank started a qualification program to train senior
citizens of the 50-plus age group as "Wikipedia trainers". The goal is
to enable the participants to run their own Wikipedia workshops in
Internet cafés for older people, in order to increase participation
among older people, who are underrepresented in the
Wikimedia Foundation's projects. More information:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Trainers
On June 20 and 21, Sue attended the Wikipedia Academy 2008 Berlin, which
took place in the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
with a focus on mathematics articles in Wikipedia. Photos can be found
here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Academy_Berlin_2008
Frank has begun coordinating the production of a video tutorial about
editing Wikipedia in collaboration with the German chapter. This video
tutorial will be available in English.
Work has continued on the first Wikimedia survey of readers and
contributors, which has now been fully translated into 16 languages. We
hope to launch the survey in September in cooperation with UNU-MERIT.
== OFFICE ==
As we continue to grow, our office set-up is rapidly approaching
capacity. With the help of design firm Because We Can, we have now
created several iterations of floor plans designed to optimize the
current space. We are also beginning to explore longer-term options such
as a radical overhaul of the current space, the possibility of accessing
additional adjacent space, co-siting with like-minded organizations or
renting satellite space.
== TECHNOLOGY ==
Due to the rapidly developing technical ecosystem of Wikimedia, this
report only tries to present a high level snapshot. Details concerning
software development can be found in the weekly Wikipedia signpost
newsletter. The June reports begin here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-06-02/Technology_report
=== FLAGGEDREVS ===
The German experiment with the "FlaggedRevs" extension for edit review
and patrolling continues. The feature allows regular contributors to
review and flag changes made to Wikipedia articles, and to select the
default version (most recent version, or most recent reviewed version)
shown to readers. In July, the configuration on the German Wikipedia was
changed to always show the most recent version, but this is not
necessarily final: a poll was started to determine whether and how the
feature should be used.
The general availability of the feature to all Wikimedia communities was
announced on June 4:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-June/043691.html
This announcement included instructions for requesting the feature to be
enabled. Several such requests have been entered into
bugzilla.wikimedia.org, and will be processed in the coming weeks.
The FlaggedRevs extension continues to be rapidly developed by Aaron
Schulz (under contract with the Wikimedia Foundation), based on bug
reports and enhancement requests. Some additional tools have been
developed by volunteers, such as the FlaggedRevs statistics tool at:
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~aka/cgi-bin/reviewcnt.cgi?lang=english
Aaron has begun work on a "reader feedback" feature for FlaggedRevs to
allow non-editing readers to rate articles. This widget will also plot
graphs of the perceived quality development of an article over time.
=== OTHER ===
* A new extension (TorBlock) has been installed, to regulate edits of
Wikipedia through Tor, an anonymization network. Edits from unregistered
users via Tor exit nodes are now blocked; and editors who are logged in
via Tor are restricted until they have accumulated at least 100 edits.
[Summary adapted from Wikipedia Signpost]
* Many bugs affecting media playback using the Java-based Cortado player
were fixed.
* Double redirects are now fixed automatically.
* New keywords __INDEX__ and __NOINDEX__ for including or excluding
non-article pages in search engines were added.
* New static HTML dumps of Wikipedia are available at:
http://static.wikipedia.org/
* Support for the Universal Edit Button extension has been enabled on
all Wikimedia wikis.
* We're bringing onboard additional technology contractors to work on
specific projects.
== FUNDRAISING & PARTNERSHIPS ==
We've completed our transition to a new fundraising database, CiviCRM
2.0, consolidating two older databases. This database will be used to
record our relationships with all donors, and to track all gifts. This
was a major undertaking, and is a critical precondition to effectively
conducting our fundraising work.
On July 9, the Wikimedia Foundation received a donation of USD 262K from
the Stanton Foundation, a private foundation created to further
philanthropic goals set by the late Dr. Frank Stanton, a noted American
broadcasting executive and longtime president of the CBS television
network. The donation is intended to support the purchase of database
servers, application servers, network equipment and other hardware. The
tech team has already begun to spend the money, and will begin to have
the new hardware installed and operating in just a few months.
On July 31, fundraising strategy firm Building Blox led a solicitation
training workshop in the San Francisco office. It was attended by Board
Chair Michael Snow, Treasurer Stu West, Jimmy Wales, Head of Major Gifts
Rebecca Handler, and Head of Community Giving Rand Montoya. Of that
group, it's expected that only Jimmy and Rebecca will directly ask for
donations; the goal for Michael, Stu and Rand was primarily that they be
able to support efforts by Jimmy, Rebecca, Sue and Erik, as required.
Sara Crouse, Head of Partnerships and Foundation Relations, is working
with Sue, Erik, Rebecca Handler (Head of Major Gifts) and Jay to plan
and stage the Foundation's first-ever funders' briefings – informal
events bringing together a few dozen current and potential financial
supporters. The goal of the briefings is to share and discuss the
Wikimedia Foundation's key goals and plans. We also hope to line up
major donation commitments in advance of the online fundraiser which is
planned to launch in late October.
Sara, with Sue, Erik and Frank Schulenburg, is engaged in the
development of several major funding proposals for foundations:
* A proposal aimed at encouraging participation among technology-averse
subject-matter experts: people who have a lot of knowledge to contribute
to the projects, but who are currently dissuaded from contributing
because they don't want to learn wiki syntax, and/or are experiencing
other technical or social/cultural barriers to participation.
* A proposal aimed at growing the Arabic-language Wikipedia and the
Arabic-language Wikimedia community.
* A proposal aimed at building technical interfaces among wiki communities.
* A proposal aimed at staging an international slate of Wikipedia Academies.
== OTHER BOARD RESOLUTIONS ==
On June 22, the board approved this resolution: "It is hereby resolved
that the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation approves the Duty
Entertainment Guidelines policy," which can be found here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:_Duty_Entertainment_Guidelines_Policy
On June 29, the board approved this resolution: "It is hereby resolved
that the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation approves the
Pluralism, Internationalism and Diversity policy," which can be found
here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Pluralism,_Internationalism,_and_Diversity_Policy
On July 28, Board Chair Michael Snow sent an announcement to the
foundation-l mailing list regarding the Nominating Committee, the body
which will help the "community representative" board members fill the
four seats on the board dedicated to specific skills and expertise.
Michael laid out a proposed process for the work of the Nominating
Committee, with the goal of having the seats filled by January. He also
asked for community volunteers to sit on the committee:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2008-July/044915.html
== COMING ==
Mike is creating a new version of the Gift Policy:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Gift_Policy.
The current version is a mix of policy-level material (guiding
principles, etc.) and procedures-level material (e.g., requirements for
acknowledgment "within two days of receipt"). The goal with the new
version is to remove procedures-level material from the policy, and
ensure that the remaining material is clear and understandable,
and accurately reflects the Foundation's intent and practice.
A first version of the first-ever Wikimedia Foundation annual report
will be released in September. This version will not include the 2007-08
financial statements. The report will be re-released including the
financial statements, once the audit is finished.
The open source wiki-to-PDF technology developed with PediaPress.com
will be rolled out, initially on Wikimedia Labs, followed by Wikibooks
and other Wikimedia projects.
The reader feedback module for the FlaggedRevs extension will be tested
on Wikimedia Labs.
Three new technology positions will be advertised: a mid-level software
developer, an entry-level developer / IT suppport specialist, and a
system administrator.
The Wikimania postmortem will be completed.
The Board will vote on Mike's new version of the privacy policy.
--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation
415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
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