As a learning organization, it is already the case that the reporting burden is often higher than the invested resources. It's been that way for years. Fortunately, we have had the luck over the years to attract dedicated volunteers all over the world to help out with the burden or give feedback and tips how to cope, and most hired hands by now are used to the WMF changing the reporting rules with each passing year. I think that is inherent in a mostly volunteer-staffed worldwide multi-lingual network of people trying to comply both with local community needs/desires, local tax authorities, and the WMF.
On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 8:40 AM Bence Damokos bdamokos@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Pine,
Just as a thought experiment try to think through how your proposal would work for an all-volunteer organisation: A small group of volunteers starts some programme, and at the same time they hire a contractor (issue an ad, check CVs, hold interviews, draw up a contract, monitor and pay invoices, pay any applicable taxes and social security contributions) whose job it is to keep track of the hours and money the volunteers spend on the programme and on the administration of it (including the resources spent on hiring, managing and overseeing the contractor), plus the global metrics. (The situation is not much better if the contractor is hired at the end of the project and his job is to interview everyone, and for the volunteers they need to keep records in order to be able to reply to the questions.)
In the end, you have to retain proportionality of invested resources vs. level of reporting burden.
Best regards, Bence
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018, 01:12 Pine W <wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I'm going to respond to both Chris and Gerard in one email.
Gerard:
- I agree that it's possible to over-bureaucratize projects, including
small projects. This is one of the reasons that I think that performance analysis should mostly be done with staff or contractor time rather than volunteer time. I don't want small projects to get exempted from accountability, but I also don't want small projects to be weighed down with unreasonable administrative overhead.
- I agree that WMF Community Resources has room for improvement. I may
have
accidentally implied that I think that WMF always does things well and always makes good decisions. I too have had experiences of WMF Community Resources staff taking far too long to respond to inquiries. However, WMF has the money for grants for Wikimedia activities, and there are few alternatives to WMF for financial support of Wikimedia affiliate and individual projects. If WMF Community Resources' level of responsiveness
is
going to improve then WMF will need to choose to make changes.
Chris:
- I make a distinction between the formation of a user group, and that
user
group running programs. If a user group runs a single small program, and correspondingly has little money, then there should be little to report.
A
user group which runs multiple programs and is handling many thousands of dollars' worth of funds will have more extensive reporting requirements.
I
think that staff or contractors should complete most of the reporting and analysis so that volunteers are not burdened with that work. I would like volunteers to be able to focus on mission, on the creation and execution
of
programs, on developing supportive relationships, and on the strategic decision-making for their user group, rather than spending significant
time
and effort on administrative activities like writing reports.
- I don't see a way to get out of having multiple reporting systems, such
as for national tax authorities and for grantmakers such as WMF. Many charities deal with this. I think that most of the reporting work can be done with staff or contractor time rather than volunteer time.
- Regarding "There is no consensus around what metrics actually matter.
Global Metrics were only ever presented as a first draft of an answer,
and
for many projects they are simply poor metrics. The movement's focus for the last 3-4 years has been on movement entities developing their own metrics that are relevant to their own activities. Standardising on naive metrics would be a step backwards.", I partly agree and partly disagree.
I
think that we should have ways to compare performance of programs affiliates, so that everyone can learn which affiliates and programs tend to be especially good or problematic. Over time, as affiliates learn from each other, ideally this should lead to more efficient uses of resources, and to more effective programs and affiliates. Having common metrics
goes a
long way toward determining which practices are most effective and which should be changed or discontinued. I agree that custom metrics may in various cases be good to have in addition to Global Metrics. Maybe a way
to
think about this is that Global Metrics are necessary but not always sufficient.
- I have very mixed feelings about WMF and Affcom issuing edicts to
affiliates. I want affiliates and WMF to make good use of money and volunteers' time. For better and for worse WMF owns the trademarks and is the most significant source of funds for Wikimedia affiliates. Also,
Affcom
currently sets the reporting requirements for affiliates' annual reports. So WMF and Affcom have significant ability to use their authorities for good purposes. In the longer term, I would like to see more peer
leadership
from affiliates and less reliance on WMF for both grantmaking and trademarks. Perhaps in the course of the strategy work there will be some good developments. But I don't think that the ongoing development of long-term strategy is a reason to wait to require standardized financial and performance information in affiliates' annual reports, or to wait to provide staff or contractor time to produce and analyze financial and performance information. Ideally, affiliates and WMF will both benefit
from
these enhanced requirements by using the information to make decisions about what types of programs to run, so that volunteers make good use of their time and so that everyone makes good use of funds. In my unpaid capacity, one of the most demoralizing and frustrating experiences that I have is my time being wasted, which has happened on too many occasions. I am hoping that the actions that I am proposing here will lead to improved effectiveness of volunteers' time, and more effective use of WMF and affiliate financial resources.
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