Thank you for your feedback. As a team we are happy to see the necessary
conversations and questions being raised and we look forward to working
with you to make this better. The report was set out as an experiment with
the purpose of consolidating chapters published financial reports to
observe what trends may exist.
@ GerardM: As you have rightly said the relative value of the report is
affected if any principal information is omitted and also how things are
done within each chapter’s country needs to be taken into account. If the
current outcome of combining 37 financial statements is not optimal - we
acknowledge it can be improved - then how can we make it better? If
necessary, what variables (e.g. staff/volunteers info) need to be taken in
account? …
@Ilario: We appreciate that insight. We agree that further steps need to be
taken to make the data we gathered more comparable. A first step was
allocating all the chapter’s currently used line items to a common revenue
and costs category. Now we will need to focus more on refining the first
step and, in line with your advice, looking further into:
- how can the data we gathered be kept in its original context?
- how can the data be used by the chapters in a meaningful and comparable
way?
During our open discussion presentation at Wikimania, such questions can be
explored further. Since this is an experiment towards a consolidated trends
report, we can collaboratively observe loopholes/blind spots that may exist
and move towards a solution.
Thank you.
Regards
On Thu, Jun 11, 2015 at 3:23 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
Raising revenue is done in one way. We ask people, they give.
We tell everybody that the WMF is a charity in the USA.. FINE but it is
also a charity in many other countries for instance in the Netherlands.
Increasing the amount of money in the Netherlands can be done in many ways.
The chapter may help but there are other ways as well. To do this well. you
have to be aware about how things are done in a country. Given that it is
possible to have gifts to charities fully tax deductible, it is relevant to
look after such details.. I know about them and I do not mind to help.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 11 June 2015 at 11:49, Ilario Valdelli <valdelli(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, the idea is interesting, I am a volunteer in
same grant committees of
WMF and I can only agree to have a more comparable financial sheets
(mainly
in the use of the currencies).
But I have some concerns.
a) I hope that this project will produce more comparable financial sheets
but without leaving the context were chapters are working. An example is
the cost per day of an employee because if there is a standardization of
these financial data but "out of the context" the risk is that the
financial statements can generate not realistic data. It means that the
total costs of the staff in a country with high salaries cannot be
comparable with another having lower salaries without a "balanced" data.
b) I really hope that you will push also the addition of the relevance of
the results of the fundraising in each country, because we always think
that the cow produces milk, we never think that we have to harvest the
cow
to produce its milk!!!! The financial statements
of a chapters out of the
context of the WMF fundraising in each country limits a lot the real
value
of the costs.
Regards
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 12:15 AM, Michael Guss <mguss(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> We are the Finance Fellows, a multicultural team consisting of 4 young
> professionals. We are happy to introduce a 6-month movement-wide
project
that
focuses on the consistency of how we operate, which is explained
further in this announcement.
*But here's some information about us*:
Arda [User:Melmas_(WMF)] <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Melmas_(WMF)> is
from Turkey. He holds a BA in Economics.
Lene [User:Lgillis_(WMF)]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lgillis_(WMF)> is from Belgium.
She
holds a Master's degree in Applied Economics
and a Master's degree in
Business Communication.
Seyi [User:Oolukoya_(WMF)]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Oolukoya_(WMF)> is from Nigeria.
She
holds a Master's in International Business
and a BSc in Economics.
Walter [User:Wagsegura_(WMF)]
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Wagsegura_(WMF)> is from
Nicaragua.
He holds a BA in Applied Economics.
*About the project "Movement-wide financial report"*
Driven by the Wikimedia Foundation's guiding principles of transparency
and
> accountability, our goal is to gather data and develop systematic
metrics
in order
to provide a better understanding of financial statements. The
aim
> is to help make financial data and statements more consistent and
> comparable across all Wikimedia Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and
the
Wikimedia
Foundation, to the benefit of the whole movement.
The idea of this project comes from the WMF Board of Trustee's Audit
Committee and is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. An initial
quantitative
analysis of Wikimedia Chapters and Thematic Organizations
<
https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Chapters_in_Numbers
demonstrated
at Wikimania 2013 by Michal Buczyński (User:Aegis Maelstrom)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aegis_Maelstrom>, highlighted the
importance of meaningful, obtainable and unified data.
The Finance Fellows have been formed by WMF to spearhead this project.
The
> intention of this project is to enable Wikimedia Chapters and Thematic
> Organizations to benchmark activities and costs in a consistent way. We
> will begin by gathering comparable quantitative financial data about
> Wikimedia Chapters and Thematic Organizations. Our findings will later
be
released
movement-wide, on Meta-Wiki.
Please note that this is not an audit process. We are simply collecting
the
data and developing global metrics. The metric is
an objective
measurement
that will enable data to be consistent,
meaningful and comparable among
the
> Wikimedia Chapters, Thematic Organizations, and the Wikimedia
Foundation.
We will build on existing data sets and reach out to Chapters and
Thematic
Organizations if further information is required.
After processing the
gathered information, we will confirm the data with each organization.
In the long run, we envision that this project could be replicated
annually. In this attempt to enable Wikimedia Chapters, Thematic
Organizations, and the Wikimedia Foundation to help make the movement's
financial data more consistent, we rely on the data provided by the
organizations. We believe that there is enough data available to make a
new
attempt on capturing the movement's finances
as a whole.
A meta page <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement-wide_Financial_Report>
was
created for the project, in order to make the information accessible to
everyone and create a space for discussion and/or suggestions. We
strongly
encourage you to share with us what types of
additional information is
desired.
And of course: This is all an experiment! If it does not work, we will
try
> to apply a modified 'agile' process by iterating, repeating, and trying
> again based on the feedback we are getting. If this does not seem
right,
or
if it appears we are missing something obvious,
please let us know!
Thank you,
WMF Finance Fellows (User:WMF Finance Fellows)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WMF_Finance_Fellows>
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Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
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