On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 9:17 AM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 21 May 2014 13:19, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote: ...
- Probably not. See
http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/frequently-asked-questions/faqs-about-re...
This means that the WMF would need to establish an independent fundraising institution in the UK in order for it to be a registered charity. This would be in exactly the same ways as other global charities successfully manage it under UK law.
- I'm not sure where the 50% figure came from, but it is incorrect.
The
correct figure for that year is 69%. For this past quarter, the
correct
figure is even better, at 80.24%. In addition, our fundraising costs
as a
percentage of total spend have dropped from 22% to 10%. If anyone
wants
more information on this, our treasurer is happy to discuss it with
them by
email.
A strange response from WMUK as Russavia included a link to the analysis in his email, so this seems to be a tangent to the issue of the most recent accepted and analysed financial report, showing that more than 50% of funds are spent on non-project activities. Just in case people missed it, the link was
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/W...
The technical way of redefining English words in such a way so that the significant expenses of running trustee board meetings with staff support, or paying for highly expensive lawyers and management consultants as part of governance issues, gets reported as a deliverable open knowledge Wikimedia project, is unhelpful as a way to convince the Wikimedia community, or the WMF, that the UK charity is efficient compared to WMDE or the WMF. Using words this way undermines the value of the reports.
As a bizarre example the SORP way of conveniently redefining English words, I could re-employ Jon Davies as a temporary "management consultant" rather than a "permanent employee", even giving him twice the income to take home, and yet this could be reported as a significant increase in the efficiency of the charity, as an expensive line item would move from administration to programme costs. I doubt that many Wikimedians are taken in by this management jargon, as opposed to common sense or plain English use of words.
- As for the planes - it is indeed fantastic and a good example of
how,
even where we may disagree, we can still all pull together to do
great work
for the movement. Speaking personally, it's a shame we don't have
something
similar for ships!
...
On this, we can agree. The Avionics Project represents less than 0.1% of funds handled by the UK charity, yet these volunteer centric and cheap-as-chips projects now represent the significant majority of tangible outcomes for Wikimedia Commons, if one, say, counts the actual number of media files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, rather than soft (so-called "narrative") measures, or internal facing measures of success like supporting the Wikimania conference. As for ships, I have uploaded many thousands of historic images of ships to Commons which are highly valued by other unpaid Wikimedia volunteers, however these were not supported by Wikimedia UK due to previous concerns raised about my volunteer uploads from a potential partner institution that might have employed a WIR and might have done something similar. If the charity wishes to extend the project to media such as this, the trustees know how to find me.
PS For those unfamiliar with my background, I was previously a trustee of Wikimedia UK and even served time as the Chairman, until I resigned after lots of political unpleasantness. My awareness of WMUK figures comes from that hands-on experience, not so long ago.
Fae
Reading over the linked Meta page, it actually looks like this disagreement over expense ratios might be a misunderstanding. It's at least possible that the performance ratios Richard Nevell reported were misinterpreted as a description of how costs were classified.
I looked up the 2013 budget for WMUK[1] and did a rough classification of expense types. I get *£*434,552 in "programmatic" spending vs. 336,568 in administrative costs. Out of 771,119 in total planned expenditures, the programmatic spending is 53%. That's the inverse of Fae's calculation on the linked meta discussion.[2] Of course, 53% is still quite low and I'm glad to read that the recent quarter has climbed past 80%.
In any event, this is only tangentially related. I agree with Max's criticism of the letter as a little less professional and more emotional than I would have expected, particularly given WMUK hasn't participated as a payment processor since 2011. The smart move is to seek a re-evaluation with the next ED, without poisoning the well. I'm sure that the WMUK staff and leadership are aware that no affiliate is entitled to process payments for the annual WMF fundraising drive... It might be worthwhile to consider that communications that suggest a sense of entitlement might not sit well with the many chapters who never had an expectation of being able to process payments.
[1]: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArU6-SFBZAbs... [2]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/W...