Arne Klempert wrote:
Thanks for answering Arne
On 8/17/05, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
A week ago, at Wikimania, when it was pointed out that the german chapter had money, while the french and the italian did not, I suggested that possibly some of the german money could be used for other chapters, in particular when there is common currency and these countries are in certain common frame (here, european union). I am not sure I got a positive feedback on this (nor a negative actually).
The problem with this, like with almost every idea on how to spend the german money is that we don't really know yet if it's possible :(
Maybe it would help to clarify in which cases we could actually use the money and in which we can not.
This question is not easy to answer. The usual case for a charity organisation in Germany is to spend money for its own undertakings.
From what I know (I'm neither an expert in this field, nor am I the
treasurer) every other spending is more or less difficult. Spending money in Germany (for hardware or almost everything else) would be the easiest way. Likewise easy would it be to buy hardware in Germany and ship it to a data center, let's say in Amsterdam, providing the purpose of this hardware is easy to explain (to the tax office) in the sense that it can be separated from other things (eg. we wanted to buy a big tool server until a nice company came around and donated us one). Unfortunately, adding to the existing server park is much more complicated to explain to the tax office.
To pay for general hardware might be possible but would probably be much more difficult. For example, it *might* be possible to buy general hardware in Germany, send it to Amsterdam and explain how it is used to the tax office. This gets much more complicated if we buy hardware in the US and add it to an existing pool. The idea is that starting a whole new data center, anywhere in the world, as our own undertaking, run by German money, would be easier to endorse as a "Wikimedia Deutschland undertaking".
If Wikimedia Deutschland´s money is to be only a part of an existing pool, then we need a clear idea of what Wikimedia wants to do (not only now, but also in the next year or the year after). Then, and only then, once we have a plan, a budget... we can ask a tax professional to tell us, how this is possible and how - which paperwork (project descriptions, contracts) is needed. To be sure that the tax office will accept this later, we need to ask them beforehand. This will take time, perhaps a few months (until they might respond with more questions ...)
So far we (or at least I) have no idea what the mid-term plans are. Some months ago the Kennisnet cluster seemed to be a comparative easy option. But as I understood Jimbo, this is not an option "now". As I said above this "now" is part of our problem. Given the work and time it needs to find *one* way to spend a lot of our money and given the fact that Wikimedia Deutschland not only now has money but will probably have much more in the next months and years it would be much more effective to work on mid-term plans. I wonder if this is possible.
All right. In short, we should try to do some yearly budgeting for next year. I also wonder if this is possible, but possibly, with a full year past experience, this might be possible.
- paying some travel costs which would otherwise be paid by the
Foundation (easy enough probably would be to pay for some speakers to come to wikimania in Germany, but would it be possible for a german chapter to pay travel for Jimbo to Germany to meet with german partners, or for the german chapter to pay travel for Angela to go to South Africa to meet with some possible african partners ?)
Yes, we can pay for travel costs (in principle). But I'm not sure what the tax office would say if we spent 10k Euro for travel expenses, for people who are not flying from or to Germany or are not somehow connected with Wikimedia Deutschland.
Okay. This is why I suggested Angela. She is not a member of the german association, but definitely flying from Germany.
BTW: As far as I know Wikimedia Deutschland did agree on paying 50% of Tim's ticket for his trip to Berlin in December 2004. We never reimbursed the money to the Foundation because we never got a bill :(
Ouch. Right.
- Paying for some promotional items (easy enough in german for a
conference in Germany, but would it be possible to pay the publishing of an italian-language leaflet for a conference in Belgium for example ?)
Yes, we can pay for promotional items (in principle). Unless we don't spend huge amounts on this, nobody will ask us, in which language the stuff is printed and where and to whom it was given.
We should use this opportunity at next big meetup up in Europe (Fosdem type ?)
- Paying people for certain activities (such as, but non restricted to,
development). Could these people be paid if non german ? Could they be paid to work on global issues ? (for example, grant specialist ?)
Yes, paying people to improve free software is totally ok, but again, this has to be well documented (what project is the developer working on?). A grants specialist working abroad would be harder to explain, but one in Germany working on grants in which Wikimedia Deutschland is involved should be no problem.
For now, I can not think of a wise idea about this, but this is good to keep in mind.
In all these discussions we also have to keep in mind that the German board is responsible for the money, and this not only in a legal way. This also has moral implications. To give an example: Even if it is legally okay, I would find it very hard to explain to the German donators that *all* of their money has been spent on plane tickets or a single development task or something like that.
Agreed
I would be very happy if we can work together on other mid- or long-term ideas to spend our money. And while we are doing this we should give some money for some of the things mentioned above.
-- Arne (akl)
I suppose it would be easier as well to spend it on european-projects or areas. We probably need to make a second type of budget as well, involving the chapters. Could not a global budget, with certain expenses being dedicated to local chapters help getting understanding from the tax office ?
ermmm, and what about spending some of the money to get an expert in international organisations help to figure out how to organise all this ?