Hi Tomer,
On 23.02.2012 20:25, Tomer Ashur wrote:
Thank you Sebastian for taking the time to write this. I have a few question which I would appriciate if you can elaborate about:
- What do you consider to be the main reason for WMDE being able to
grow so much while other chapters exhibit much smaller growth rate?
I'm not sure. I think part of it was that the chapter leadership right from the start expected the organization to grow and that things like having staff and an office were mostly a question of time, not of principle (like whether the organization should even have staff in the first place or not). There was also quite a bit of pressure each year caused by money coming in in the fall. We are by law required to spent (close to) every donation one year after we've received it. To do that sensibly at a significant volume required rapid growth as an organization. Similarly, public scrutiny of Wikipedia as an idea that would never work was very high so that demand by the news media was very high, again requiring quick reaction times and a robust way to respond to inquiries.
- You wrote that the board members are not liable for the chapter's
actions? Do you consider that to be a good thing? what is the mechanism (social or otherwise) that make sure that the decisions they make are in the best interest of the chapter (apart from being German of course)
The board members are liable for damages caused by intent or by gross negligence, but only for decisions they make as a board or a board member--meaning things they can actually control. They are not personally liable if, for example, the organization as a whole spends funds in contravention to German non-profit law with the result of losing non-profit status, because they have no control over day-to-day spending. Pavel Richter, our CEO, on the other hand, is fully personally liable for that. I do think that's a good thing because board members know close to nothing about what goes on in the chapter on a day to day basis. I cannot tell you what all the employees are working on individually, which projects are being executed right, what money is spent, etc. Those are all things that boards of small organization with small budgets can "easily" keep an eye on, but at 4 Mio Euro and more than 20 employees, that's not feasible anymore, provided that board members are still volunteers with limited time available.
What mostly guarantees that the board make decisions based the best interest of the chapter is a combination of a number of factors: * board members have to answer to the assembly and the board has to publicize all the decisions they make - the specter of being scrutinized in public actually helps a whole lot
* immunity from liability is limited to "simple" negligence so that, if the board makes a decision that's intentionally damaging the chapter or where the members should have reasonably known that such damage would occur, the board can be held liable for that.
* a strong conflict of interest policy
* a strict limit on the scope of the board's power in relation to the CEO
- Can you elaborate on how you evaluate the executive staff. What are
the metrics and how do you measure it?
The board evaluates only Pavel, the CEO. The main purpose of the evaluation is to appreciate work well done as well as provide feedback on what to improve with the intent that such improvement occurs in the future. There are four components:
1) A survey filled out by each board member assessing their impression of Pavel's performance based on 13 criteria (e.g. how well the office is run, how well members are taken care of, how well volunteer support works, how well the relationship to chapter and the foundation is). These are the subjective views of each board member, and naturally each board member will know more about some criteria and less about others. Each criteria is scored on a scale of 1 (worst) through 10 (best).
2) A second survey filled out by each board member for each of their departments assessing Pavel's performance against departmental goals. So, for example, one of my departments is volunteer support. There's a set of goals that have been set for the department. My job then is to judge, based on the information I can find, how well he's performed against each goal. Criteria here may be how well board members are involved in the annual planning for that department, how well they're kept in the loop on on-going developments, how well measures are defined, etc.
3) A written statement by each board member where they do a general assessment of what they liked and disliked about his performance and where they see room for improvement. Pavel gets to see these afterwards. Each board member is free to write whatever they want and feel important here. Pavel has found this to be one of the most valuable elements of evaluation.
4) A third survey filled out by all employees subjectively judging a number of different criteria, again on a scale of 1 through 10. These are based on operational issues (how smooth things run in the office), management style (how well one feels motivated), HR approach (how clear expectations are communicated and followed-up on), personality (how well Pavel accepts responsibility and makes decisions), etc. There are 33 criteria altogether.
This is done once a year, usually after the spring assembly when the members hear the annual report.
I'd generally be happy to share the surveys if there's interest. It will require a bit of effort to translate them though.
- Given that you have a paid staff person to handle the day-to-day
financial activities, what does your treasurer do?
The Treasurer's job is mostly to work with Pavel on the financial aspects of annual plan and of the annual report. She's also tasked to be the voice of caution and concern (as any good Treasurer is) during board deliberations.
- You write that you present the annual plan in a 5 days tour and that
you did not get much online feedback. I assume that is done be holding meetings in those cities. How many people usually attend those meetings?
We've had about between 10 and 20 people at these meetings last year.
I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, please let me know.
Best regards,
Sebastian Moleski President ------------------------------------- Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. Eisenacher Straße 2 10777 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0 www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.