FYI-
for those who are interested, a longer update from Sue on various operational issues. I've posted the attached org chart to: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia_Foundation_Org_Chart_Jan...
Staff reports are coming in again now with some increased regularity; as we fine-tune the process, I hope we'll be able to post an aggregated report to foundation-l (and/or a Foundation blog) at least once or twice a month.
Best, Erik
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org Date: Jan 11, 2008 4:11 AM Subject: [WMF Staff] Happy New Year (LONG update note) To: WMF Staff Mailing List staff@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi folks, and happy new year,
Because we've been so dispersed, it's been really tough keeping everyone in the loop on what's going on. Hence, this big e-mail. There is a whole bunch of information below, broken into subcategories. Feel free to share it with anyone you like - it's not confidential.
Also: attached, the "immediate future" final org chart: this is what the Foundation staff will look like once the current wave of hiring is complete - say, by March.
Lastly – please do read (or at least skip) to the end; there's a bunch of 'to do' stuff there.
Thanks, Sue
STAFFING UPDATE
* We've taken possession of the San Francisco office, but won't move in for at least another week. Hence, the San Francisco people are currently working from home. More on the new office below.
* Currently in San Francisco: - Cheryl Steffen: New, my assistant, started in December; - Erica Ortega: New, office manager, started in December; - Brion Vibber: The Foundation's first employee and our CTO, relocated to SF from St. Petersburg just before Christmas; - Cary Bass: Volunteer coordinator, relocated from St Petersburg about a week ago; - Kul Wadhwa: New, head of business development, started a week ago; - Erik Möller: New to the staff but formerly executive secretary of the board and a longtime volunteer, deputy director, arrives in SF Tuesday; - Mike Godwin: Legal counsel, started in July, will relocate from Washington DC in a few weeks; - me: ED, started in June, am currently in St Pete but mostly these days in SF.
* Outside the United States: -Tim Starling: software developer, Melbourne, Australia; - Delphine Ménard : Chapters coordinator, Frankfurt; - Mark Bergsma: system & network admin, Eindhoven, the Netherlands; - Jay Walsh: New, head of communications, Vancouver Island, Canada.
* St Petersburg - Barbara Brown, office manager; - Sandy Ordonez, communications; - Vishal Patel, business development; - Oleta McHenry, accountant; - Rob Halsell, IT manager and server admin.
Barbara, Sandy and Vishal will finish with us at the end of January, although they've all agreed to take our calls and answer questions long after that :-) Oleta will stay til the end of March, so that she can have a good long handover with the SF accountant. And, following the closure of the St Petersburg office, Rob will continue to work for the Foundation out of Tampa, maintaining the Tampa servers.
* There are a number of new hires pending. Erik and I'll probably announce the new CFOO within the next two weeks, and the new head of development (fundraising) by the end of January. The CFOO will then hire our SF accountant, who will likely be announced sometime late February or early March. There are a few software developer positions open: I believe those job descriptions are in development. And we have a vacancy for the head of partnerships, which I may or may not fill within the next few months. There's also a vacant "head of public outreach" position which I've currently got on hold; I don't have any plans to revive it in the immediate future.
* Pending hires - CFOO - Head of development - Accountant - Software developers - Head of partnerships
NEW OFFICE UPDATE
I know Erica is sending regular detailed updates on the new office, and it's not interesting for everyone, so I will keep this part short. Upshot: We have signed a lease, and all the SF staff (with the exception of Mike) have now visited the new space. We officially take possession on I believe Monday. We've got chairs and desks, and Erica is sourcing other furniture and equipment. Rob is looking after internet connectivity, the phone system, printer shipping, and all our other office IT needs. There is a little work left to be done on the space: the landlord is fixing a few things, and having the space cleaned. I believe Erica's target for having us fully moved in is January 15. If you've got questions, please send them her way :-)
FUNDRAISER UPDATE
The online fundraiser is complete, and has raised more than $2m from nearly 45,000 contributors. (This actually underrepresents the total, because it does not include all sources for donations - for example, it does not include donations to Dexia, or the chapters.) Erik is currently pulling together a postmortem document, which we will give to the new head of development so he/she has a head start on planning for next time.
I think Erik has asked some of you for information/data for the postmortem. If not, and you have something you want to contribute, go to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2007/Notes, where you can add links/info. I am encouraging Erik to not make the process too elaborate, because I think we have a pretty good grasp of what we should focus on next time (e.g., planning earlier, making sure the sitenotice and landing page are attractive, counting dollars not people, finetuning the appeals messaging, fixing our translation problems, using the matching donations earlier, etc.). I would say the fundraiser was pretty bumpy this year, but successful nonetheless - and I really appreciate everyone's hard work on it.
MAJOR DONOR ROADSHOW UPDATE
As you know, in December, Erik and I went on a tour of Silicon Valley to meet up with potential major donors. A number of next steps have arisen out of that, which some of you are involved with (e.g., the meeting with Sun & some other bits & pieces).
In January/February, we'll embark on phase two, talking to more people in the valley, and perhaps expanding beyond it. Additionally, we're targeting February for a potential-major-donor-and-rainmaker dinner or meeting. This, I hope, will be the beginning of the development of a rainmaker committee that will support the new head of fundraising in major donor cultivation. (This is a role that the board fills in most non-profits: when the board doesn't do fundraising, you need to develop some other mechanism for it.) If you've got questions/comments, talk with me or Erik.
AUDIT
The auditors' field work is complete, and I believe Oleta has now responded to all their outstanding questions and requests. This means the auditors will now begin to compile their report. Ordinarily this would take about two weeks, but in this case it may take slightly longer: 1., they still may come up with additional questions as they put it together, and 2., because we didn't expect the audit to take so long, they may have unavoidable commitments they need to juggle along with us - so, we may not have their full attention. Regardless, the audit report will be completed pretty soon - they say, before the end of the month.
NEXT STEPS
We have a lot of new people hired, and a few more to come - and of course, we're not yet settled into the San Francisco office. It's going to take us a while to establish a rhythm for how we will all work together – so it will be kind of organic and iterative for a while :-)
So I'm going to ask you all to do a couple of things:
* Let's please revive the weekly reports to the staff list. Recapping for the new people: everyone is supposed to send a report to the staff list, ideally around midday Friday. (The exception to 'everyone' is the tech team, which is represented by Brion.) The report should cover what you did in the past week, and your goals for the coming week. It doesn't have to be formal or long: it's just intended to keep me and the rest of the staff up-to-speed.
* As you know, I generally build my own report to the board largely out of your reports to me, and I send that report to you right after sending it to the board – so, for the new people: that report is a pretty good way to keep on top of my priorities and what everyone has been doing.
* In February, I'll revive our regular meetings in the same pattern as before: all-staff every second week, and headquarters-staff-only in the alternate weeks. I am hoping that meeting will later be superseded by smaller and more focused ones, but I think it will be useful in the beginning to all meet together. Cheryl will let you know when these will start up again: in the meantime, if you have any preferences re day/time, please tell her.
* As the new people establish themselves, I would like us all to start experimenting with the mechanisms we have for working with each other, and with the volunteers. For example, I know Erik has already been talking with Kul and Jay about ways to engage volunteers usefully and constructively in their areas -and i know Cary will get pulled into this too- this is great :-) Also, we on the staff should also be thinking about how we want to work with each other. For example, Kul may want to pull together regular biz dev meetings - even if the only other participant is Mike :-) The tech team will meet in whatever way it thinks is best. I will ask the CFOO to establish a weekly revenue meeting of her/himself, plus me/Erik, plus Kul, the head of fundraising, and maybe also Brion. There should probably be a weekly admin meeting of Erica, Cheryl, Oleta and eventually also the CFOO. The upshot is: new people and new roles make it time for us to rethink how we can best interact. Please experiment with whatever makes sense to you, and know that I'll be doing the same :-)
* Last point. I've asked Pat Hughes (the facilitator who helped us stage the "chapters" meeting in Frankfurt in December 2006) to help me put together an orientation/teambuilding session for San Francisco. I will not be flying in non-San-Francisco staff for this -with the exception of Jay, who is new and needs to meet people- it's too expensive. However, we're going to try to find a non-excruciating way to include non-SF staff in at least a small part of the agenda. So, please, all of you, reserve the dates of February 11 and 12. If you absolutely cannot be available for all or part of those days, please let Cheryl know, and also please put it in the staff calendar.
* Okay, not quite done ;-) Re the staff calendar: if you do not have access, please ask Erica to give it to you. Recapping for those who don't know: all your holidays should please appear in the calendar - Erica will put them there once they've been approved. Please feel free to put anything else in the calendar that you think might be useful for others - like, San Francisco meet-ups; important meeting dates; whatever. Also, Erica will ensure that all U.S. statutory holidays are in the calendar, so people know when the office will be closed.
Long mail, but I hope it's helpful. And welcome to all the new staff, welcome back from holiday to the existing staff, and my early -and continual!- thanks to the people in St Pete for keeping the ship afloat. It's going well: many thanks to you all :-)
Sue
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