Hello Liam and Richard,
Let me try to answer some of your questions.
*Do you have an idea of how much work will be required by movement orgs for
this?*
*Very little actually: it is a matter of simply answering an email asking,
for instance, out of your "Administrative Costs" listed in your most
recent report, how much were your travel costs.* *There will not be further
paperwork to be submitted. It is the fellows' job to make the final report,
not the chapters or thematic organizations. Furthermore, we are working
with the WMF Grantmaking department as they contribute their expertise and
their already existing reports. Therefore, we won't be contacting the
chapters until we've exhausted our current available resources. Again, I
want to emphasize that we will not be asking for any additional paperwork
to be submitted. *
*I worry that your target of 20 January won't be met, as we don't have the
resources to help revalidate your data at that point of our year. December
is difficult, as the FDC figures are released then - which is when we need
to construct our final budget for the next year. January/February is also
difficult , as all our staff are already pre-booked working on our
financial year end of January 31 - which is also an FDC quarter end - so
there's a lot of work to be done!*
*We completely understand how overwhelming work can be near the end of the
year and the end of respective fiscal years. The date indicated is not a
hard deadline, but rather a tentative date the fellows have set themselves
as a group milestone; by no means is this date a "drop-dead" item. We fully
appreciate the work our partner organizations conduct and we acknowledge
the difference in abilities to respond to requests. Hopefully we are able
to catch the chapters at the most convenient time possible over the next
few months. Again, we will not reach out until we make certain that the
data we intend to find is not already available. *
*Has anyone contacted movement orgs already, perhaps a few months ago? *
*No, movement organizations were not contacted about this project within
the past few months.*
*Will you need to talk to treasurers? If so, please let us know as far in
advance as you can so we can book dates for meetings!*
*At this time, there is no need to talk to the treasurers. If the there is
a time, we will contact them as far ahead as possible. *
*What happens if movement orgs do not have time to check your data? Will
you go ahead with "unvalidated" data in your report, or will you be able to
move your timeline to fit with ours?*
*We are here to meet your schedule as best as we can. Given the six-month
duration of the fellows time here at WMF, we hope to conclude this project
before the end of March 2015 and to conclude the initial phase of
consolidating the data earlier than that. However, we are flexible.
Ideally, we would like to validate all the data we receive, but we
understand that this may not be the case for every item. We will indicate
line items that have not been validated in our final report, if need be.
That said, we appreciate if you are able to help us make the most accurate
final product possible. *
*How much input will chapters have in the process? who will have the "final
say" in the comparisons - presumably the WMF? *
*Chapters are strongly encouraged to offer their input throughout the
entire process. After all, this project concerns you! Chapters are
encouraged to reach out directly via the project's meta page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement-wide_Financial_Report> and the
fellows' pages with their questions, comments, and suggestions. Once we
have gathered as much information as possible, we will attempt to
consolidate our findings into a single, movement-wide report. Garfield Byrd
will monitor and determine the viability of the final product, but any
product rendered will be the result of the participation of our partner
organizations. If there are concerns about the quality of the data then it
will be highlighted in the report. *
*In response to MZMcBrIde, the user account 'WMF Finance Fellows' will not
be used to make any edits on any of the Wikimedia projects. *
*Thank you,*
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 6:00 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Thank you Garfield for your quick reply - and with
welcome news in it. I am
heartened to see your clarification/confirmation that this project is
specifically intending to re-use existing documentation and not to increase
the "red tape" or compliance-requirements of chapters. Also, as mentioned
in my first email, I would like to reiterate my support for the idea that
(especially smaller/newer) chapters have a dedicated contact person. This
will be very helpful for many.
On the other note I raised, could you/anyone also address whether the
chapters had prior-awareness of this new project's existence or planned
creation before this email announcement?
On Friday, 31 October 2014, Garfield Byrd <gbyrd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Liam:
My apologies for the language you noted, it was not our intent to, even
inadvertently, to degrade anyone. We fully appreciate the abilities of
our
community and I know from my meetings with
members of our community how
smart and engaged they are in a variety of issues impacting the Wikimedia
movement.
I want to clarify that these Fellows are not auditors. They will be
working from data as presented by the movement entities. The project has
been designed so that the fellows will be using existing data provided by
movement entities and the Fellows will only be reaching out to movement
entities with clarifying questions. So there should be no material
increase in staff/volunteer time to provide information for this project.
If this not the case, please let me know.
Best regards,
Garfield
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com
<javascript:;>> wrote:
Interesting development. Probably a very good
idea for transparency and
good use of the movement's money, and consistency of reporting to make
things comparable is a great goal. I especially think that for smaller
chapters there is lots of value in having a dedicated contact person!
But I find the self-description of the Fellows as "an elite group of
global
operatives"[1] a bit degrading to the rest
of us...
I presume it's taken a fair while to recruit the team and scope the
project
too (I see one linkedin profile which says
they've been working already
for
two months[3]). So, I wonder - did the Chapters
who have been allocated
to
each of these new auditors[2] have any notice
that this new process was
being created before it was announced today - so they were able to make
any
other time-commitments without being surprised by
a new layer of
paperwork?
>
> Also, I presume that the increased amount of staff/volunteer time
needed
to
> comply with new paperwork will be offset by streamlining this with
other
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement-wide_Financial_Report#Who_We_Are
[3]
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/seyi-olukoya/59/b09/a7
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
--
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext 6787
415.882.0495 (fax)
www.wikimediafoundation.org
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
*https://donate.wikimedia.org <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>*
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;>
?subject=unsubscribe>
--
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Michael Guss
Research Analyst
Wikimediafoundation.org
mguss(a)wikimedia.org