Richard, I appreciate your view and understand your concerns. But even if
all of your worries are true, which I'm not sure is the case, the
alternative of not doing anything or putting it off seems worse. A group of
people taking a run at sorting this out seems like a good first approach.
And an alternative approach of having all of this work be done by a formal
group of representatives of chapters/thematic organizations with the
assistance a WMF staff like the Fiance Fellows doesn't really seem to
answer the concerns that you raise. And in fact puts more of a burden on
the groups.
Sydney
Sydney Poore
User:FloNight
Wikipedian in Residence
at Cochrane Collaboration
On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Richard Symonds <
richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Thanks for the replies. They've calmed my fears a
fair bit, but I'm still a
little concerned - even simple questions like* "of your administrative
costs, **how much were your travel costs"* don't really make a lot of sense
to us, because some of our travel costs aren't administrative - and we
don't track "administrative expenditure" because that term isn't a
definition we use, and it's not clearly defined.
This is why we've been having trouble with understanding some
Grantmaking/FDC reports in the past - our method of reporting our financial
information differs from the way that teams at the WMF would like it to be
presented, because our key definitions differ (not to criticise the
grantmaking team, who are very helpful in this regard!)
I think that this project is trying to fix these problems, and it's a
commendable effort - but:
1. Your team can't create entirely new definitions for organisations to
report to (because we simply can't afford to increase our finance team
to
report to another definition - we already report to three different
definitions). There is very little appetite in the movement for bigger
or
more professional finance teams and any big changes to reporting
requirements simply won't be possible without more resources going that
way.
2. Your team may not be able to get all the information they need from
participants because participants are simply too busy - in which case,
the
results of the report will go ahead and be used by the movement even
though
it may not be accurate or indeed fit for purpose. If the FDC process
then
goes ahead and uses the report outcomes to ask for financial
information,
then it means that the inaccurate report will have a direct effect on
the
metrics we're marked against, and thus a direct effect on movement
funding.
3. As WMUK, I fear that the less effort we put into involving ourselves
in the process, the greater the chance that the final outcome will be a
poor one for us. This in turn means that this actually has to be
something
that WMUK put a fair amount of effort into influencing, to ensure that
our
views are listened to and that the final report is something we can
actually report against! I worry about how smaller chapters, like Ghana,
Ukraine or Hungary - or the fledgling user groups - will manage, if the
final definitions don't reflect their views at all.
4. You say that if an organisation can't give your team the information
they want, a phrase will appear in the final report along the lines of
"there are concerns about the quality of the data provided by Wikimedia
UK"... which won't be true, and will be read into by the community as
"WMUK
has been audited and found wanting"!
5. The report is intended to make data* "consistent, meaningful and
comparable among the chapters, thematic organizations, and the
Foundation" *-
a laudable goal and one I fully support - but it appears that the
Foundation aren't being consulted by the Finance Fellows at all. Where
will
their views and date be taken into account - will they be using the same
process as everyone else, or a different process? I am not a cynic and I
don't think that the WMF will use this process to dictate what reporting
requirements should be, but I do worry that unless the WMF go through
the
same process, the end result will be relatively easy for the WMF teams
to
accomplish and rather harder for the rest of us! This increases our
back-office costs and makes thorgs appear less efficient when that won't
necessarily be the case.
I trust the team - they are a group of keen, young, idealistic people - and
I know that this is going to be done in good faith, but I don't see how it
can be done fairly without a lot of work from the organisations involved -
if they don't get involved, their views won't be reflected.
In order for this to be successful, his has to be a* team effort*, from all
the financial and project teams (and individuals!) across the world, and at
present it isn't - and given that this is the first the rest of the
movement has heard of the report, it will be very difficult for the rest of
us to help at such short notice.
I really, really appreciate what you're doing - but I want to be part of
this endeavour, and I hope you see my worries!
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 31 October 2014 20:46, Michael Guss <mguss(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
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
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
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> > Peace, love & metadata
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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
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> >
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