Dear all,
The WMF appears to have made contradictory statements about the Wikimedia Endowment. Earlier this week, Rai 3, a channel of the Italian national broadcaster, aired a program about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.[1] On their website, they also link to responses the WMF gave to various questions the programme makers asked.[2]
One of these questions concerned the Endowment. I quote:
*Q: The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations? *
*A: Your information is incorrect. The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a separate entity and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2022 following a 2021 board resolution. *
This answer was given to Rai in November 2022. Now I do recall an October 2022 blog post from the WMF reporting that the WMF's application for a 501(c)(3) non-profit had received approval and that the WMF was "in the process of setting up the Endowment's strategic and operational policies and systems".[3]
Has the money actually been moved from the Tides Foundation to this new 501(c)(3)?
At the time of writing, the Endowment website continues to tell its readers that the funds are held and administered by the Tides Foundation.[4]
Is the information on the Endowment website obsolete?[5] If it isn't, and the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November substantially misleading?
Andreas
[1] https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/La-community-8bb003fb-d8cd-42b... [2] http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895524547_RISPOSTE%20WIKI%20MAIL%202... and http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895525034_TRADUZIONE%20RISPOSTE%20WI...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_f... [4] https://archive.ph/S8iI0#selection-2949.0-2949.1007 [5] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/01/11/adding-expertise-to-the-wikimedia-endo... refers to the "fact that we met – and even surpassed – our expected timeline for the Endowment’s maturation into a 501(c)(3)."
Hi Andreas,
I will support the underlying questions of this type (it's helpful to have conversations about our organizational structure, and how it works - clarifications are great!) but I would really hope that you could leave aside insinuations of the type "If it isn't, and the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November substantially misleading?". They are unnecessary and don't actually add any information. Could we possibly keep it a bit more constructive?
Thanks!
Lodewijk
On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 5:02 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
The WMF appears to have made contradictory statements about the Wikimedia Endowment. Earlier this week, Rai 3, a channel of the Italian national broadcaster, aired a program about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.[1] On their website, they also link to responses the WMF gave to various questions the programme makers asked.[2]
One of these questions concerned the Endowment. I quote:
*Q: The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations? *
*A: Your information is incorrect. The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a separate entity and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2022 following a 2021 board resolution. *
This answer was given to Rai in November 2022. Now I do recall an October 2022 blog post from the WMF reporting that the WMF's application for a 501(c)(3) non-profit had received approval and that the WMF was "in the process of setting up the Endowment's strategic and operational policies and systems".[3]
Has the money actually been moved from the Tides Foundation to this new 501(c)(3)?
At the time of writing, the Endowment website continues to tell its readers that the funds are held and administered by the Tides Foundation.[4]
Is the information on the Endowment website obsolete?[5] If it isn't, and the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November substantially misleading?
Andreas
[1] https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/La-community-8bb003fb-d8cd-42b... [2] http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895524547_RISPOSTE%20WIKI%20MAIL%202... and http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895525034_TRADUZIONE%20RISPOSTE%20WI...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_f... [4] https://archive.ph/S8iI0#selection-2949.0-2949.1007 [5] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/01/11/adding-expertise-to-the-wikimedia-endo... refers to the "fact that we met – and even surpassed – our expected timeline for the Endowment’s maturation into a 501(c)(3)." _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions, then by definition, one of them *has* to be substantially misleading as anyone who reads it would get the opposite of the true situation. If Andreas had an intent to be hostile, he could have said lie, which he did not.
Dan
On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 1:21 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Andreas,
I will support the underlying questions of this type (it's helpful to have conversations about our organizational structure, and how it works - clarifications are great!) but I would really hope that you could leave aside insinuations of the type "If it isn't, and the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November substantially misleading?". They are unnecessary and don't actually add any information. Could we possibly keep it a bit more constructive?
Thanks!
Lodewijk
On Thu, Jan 19, 2023 at 5:02 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
The WMF appears to have made contradictory statements about the Wikimedia Endowment. Earlier this week, Rai 3, a channel of the Italian national broadcaster, aired a program about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.[1] On their website, they also link to responses the WMF gave to various questions the programme makers asked.[2]
One of these questions concerned the Endowment. I quote:
*Q: The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations? *
*A: Your information is incorrect. The Wikimedia Endowment was established as a separate entity and received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in 2022 following a 2021 board resolution. *
This answer was given to Rai in November 2022. Now I do recall an October 2022 blog post from the WMF reporting that the WMF's application for a 501(c)(3) non-profit had received approval and that the WMF was "in the process of setting up the Endowment's strategic and operational policies and systems".[3]
Has the money actually been moved from the Tides Foundation to this new 501(c)(3)?
At the time of writing, the Endowment website continues to tell its readers that the funds are held and administered by the Tides Foundation.[4]
Is the information on the Endowment website obsolete?[5] If it isn't, and the money is still with Tides, wasn't the answer given to Rai last November substantially misleading?
Andreas
[1] https://www.rai.it/programmi/report/inchieste/La-community-8bb003fb-d8cd-42b... [2] http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895524547_RISPOSTE%20WIKI%20MAIL%202... and http://www.rai.it/dl/doc/2023/01/16/1673895525034_TRADUZIONE%20RISPOSTE%20WI...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-10-31/News_f... [4] https://archive.ph/S8iI0#selection-2949.0-2949.1007 [5] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/01/11/adding-expertise-to-the-wikimedia-endo... refers to the "fact that we met – and even surpassed – our expected timeline for the Endowment’s maturation into a 501(c)(3)." _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
I hope the always-welcome discussion here about non-profit logistics and online civility doesn't derail an answer to Andreas's question, which is important and remains unanswered.
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023, 5:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked *"Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?" *
Here is the complete question again:
Q: *The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations? *
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: *We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Endowment_Structure,_2021. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).*
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
1. Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in the public domain. 2. How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: *The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website. *
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked *"Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?" *
Here is the complete question again:
Q: *The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinion) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations? *
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: *We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_Endowment_Structure,_2021. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).*
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in
the public domain. 2. How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: *The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website. *
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_...
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_...
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgional structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Hi Lane,
maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you) to achieve just that: clarification.
Best, Lodewijk
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the
Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading
in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working
on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the
Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading
in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working
on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
Public archives at
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgional structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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Lodewijk,
The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
"Is the money still with Tides?"
The answer seems to be "Yes".
If so, then the next question is:
If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this sort of thing *undermines community trust in everything the WMF says*, especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists, as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"?
We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670 watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6] (last year, in a different context):
*"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it would be more unusual to find them being honest". *
*"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."*
I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the WMF should look at its paltering habit.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ? [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering [3] See also ongoing discussions here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197... [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Communit... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent&oldid=11...
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Lane,
maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you) to achieve just that: clarification.
Best, Lodewijk
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on
the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else
reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is
working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on
the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else
reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is
working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgional structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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It looks like what Wikimedia is saying is they gave a (typically) confusing response to the Italian journalists which they (in good faith) misreported.
Wikimedia communications would benefit from a willingness to answer yes/no questions with a yes or no, imho.
On Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:24 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Lodewijk,
The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
"Is the money still with Tides?"
The answer seems to be "Yes".
If so, then the next question is:
If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this sort of thing *undermines community trust in everything the WMF says*, especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists, as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"?
We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670 watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6] (last year, in a different context):
*"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it would be more unusual to find them being honest". *
*"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."*
I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the WMF should look at its paltering habit.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ? [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering [3] See also ongoing discussions here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197... [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Communit... [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent&oldid=11...
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Lane,
maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you) to achieve just that: clarification.
Best, Lodewijk
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the
money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about
this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on
the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several
weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else
reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both
true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is
working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the
money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about
this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on
the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several
weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else
reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both
true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is
working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes: > Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
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To unsubscribe send an email to
wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgional structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes: > Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
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Yes, but sometimes a yes/no answer does not reasonably represent reality.
Cheers, Peter
From: The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator@gmail.com] Sent: 25 January 2023 17:26 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again
It looks like what Wikimedia is saying is they gave a (typically) confusing response to the Italian journalists which they (in good faith) misreported.
Wikimedia communications would benefit from a willingness to answer yes/no questions with a yes or no, imho.
On Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:24 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Lodewijk,
The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
"Is the money still with Tides?"
The answer seems to be "Yes".
If so, then the next question is:
If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this sort of thing undermines community trust in everything the WMF says, especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists, as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"?
We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670 watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6] (last year, in a different context):
"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it would be more unusual to find them being honest".
"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."
I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the WMF should look at its paltering habit.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering
[3] See also ongoing discussions here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197...
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Communit...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent&oldid=1124517409 &oldid=1124517409
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Lane,
maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you) to achieve just that: clarification.
Best,
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_...
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=prev&oldid=23639117 &diff=prev&oldid=23639117 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_...
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides Foundation. According to SignPost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223 million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=prev&oldid=23639117 &diff=prev&oldid=23639117 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement [3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true, and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Virus-free. http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient www.avg.com
In this case, it does.
On Fri, Jan 27, 2023, 3:34 AM Peter Southwood peter.southwood@telkomsa.net wrote:
Yes, but sometimes a yes/no answer does not reasonably represent reality.
Cheers, Peter
*From:* The Cunctator [mailto:cunctator@gmail.com] *Sent:* 25 January 2023 17:26 *To:* Wikimedia Mailing List *Subject:* [Wikimedia-l] Re: The Endowment, again
It looks like what Wikimedia is saying is they gave a (typically) confusing response to the Italian journalists which they (in good faith) misreported.
Wikimedia communications would benefit from a willingness to answer yes/no questions with a yes or no, imho.
On Wed, Jan 25, 2023, 7:24 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Lodewijk,
The question at the top of that talk page section on Meta[1] is:
"Is the money still with Tides?"
The answer seems to be "Yes".
If so, then the next question is:
If the money is still with Tides, then why did the WMF tell the Italian journalists that their information was incorrect and the Endowment had already been moved to the 501(c)(3)?
It seems like another case of paltering.[2] The bigger issue is that this sort of thing *undermines community trust in everything the WMF says*, especially about money.[3] Why didn't the WMF simply tell the journalists, as you just put it, Lodewijk, "No, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"?
We had two high-profile community RfCs on the English Wikipedia's Vilage Pump last year that came to the conclusion that the WMF puts out misleading or deceptive communications.[4] Half the shortlisted board candidates in last year's board election endorsed that view during their campaigns.[5]
We have a longstanding and, I believe, popular (his talk page has 670 watchers) English Wikipedia administrator, a former member of the Arbitration Committee, saying things like the following on his talk page[6] (last year, in a different context):
*"I don't doubt that the WMF is lying here—when it comes to where the money comes from, where it goes, and who is taking a cut along the way, it would be more unusual to find them being honest". *
*"What's particularly irritating is that there's no need for the WMF to equivocate here and they're just doing it out of habit."*
I believe those are fairly mainstream views in the community, based on close observation of the WMF's conduct. It's not healthy, and I believe the WMF should look at its paltering habit.
Andreas
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paltering
[3] See also ongoing discussions here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Additional_members...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_193... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_197...
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2022/Communit...
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Iridescent&oldid=11...
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:18 PM effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Lane,
maybe I'm just reading this differently, but doesn't "we are in the process" typically mean "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"? If you don't feel this answers your question, it might be beneficial to spell out the question a bit more explicitly. Re-reading the statement of Andreas, I mostly see a statement that he is confused and his question is "could someone please clarify this please". In Julia's response, I read a good faith effort (but apparently insufficient for you) to achieve just that: clarification.
Best,
Lodewijk
On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 2:40 AM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
Fascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane (for the avoidance of doubt, I have no connection to Wikipedia Signpost)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the
Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading
in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working
on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizatFascinating, the WMF are saying they have answered the question on Meta, yet a simple fact check, by reading the page, shows they have not answered the obvious simple yes/no needed.
A vague reply of "We are in the process" must set off red flags for any logical reader. The huge amount of money under scrutiny is either controlled by Tides or it isn't. The fact that the WMF has evaded the yes/no question several times indicates there is a problem here that they are not prepared to confirm in public, such as using interim "holders" or incurring significant fees. Though the fast reader might think the answer was "yes", it does not actually say "yes", nor does it give any fixed dates that anyone could be held accountable to, like for example "the funds are controlled by Tides until the end of February 2023" which would be specific, accountable and verifiable.
Happy to be confirmed wrong, with *facts* rather than more opinions and defensive non-answers.
For some unknown reason, the WMF official reply was not included in the email, here it is for anyone to fact check where it can't be edited later on a wiki: "This question was also raised in a thread on Wikimedia-l. SJ’s message there summarized the situation very well. The Wikimedia Endowment has received its 501(c)(3) status from the US Internal Revenue Service. We are in the process of setting up its financial systems and transitioning out of Tides. This is in line with the direction from the 2021 resolution from Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. We plan further updates in the next few months.The statement made by the recent broadcast in Italy was unfortunately an incorrect representation of the answers we sent them; a further clarification was made on establishment of the Endowment in January also linked from the show’s page. Considered as a whole, there are lots of inaccuracies in the broadcast despite engagement with the show by the Foundation and Wikimedia Italia over a period of six months to ensure the movement and Wikipedia’s editing model were represented correctly.Best regards JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2023 (UTC)"
Thanks, Lane
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 07:13, Julia Brungs jbrungs@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi All,
We’ve answered this question on the Endowment’s meta talk page. [1] Regards, Julia
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Is_the_money_still_... ?
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 3:32 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
Dear Sam,
Money cannot be in two places at the same time. Either it has been
moved, or it has not been moved.
The Rai journalists specifically asked "Why the Wikimedia Foundation
didn't move it to a separate 501e3 entity?"
Here is the complete question again:
Q: The Wikimedia Endowment is today still entrusted to the Tides
Foundation. According to SignPost ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opin...) on March 2017 Lisa Seitz-Gruwell said: “The WMF board has already given us the direction to move it into a separate 501c3 once the endowment reaches $33 million. [...] WMF's Executive Director is supportive of moving it to a new 501c3 once it reaches $33 million." The Endowment has reached $33 million and passed them reaching $100 million today. Why the Wikimedia Foundation didn’t move it to a separate 501e3 entity? Being entrusted into the Tides Foundation is not available to the public any financial report about Wikipedia Endowment. Don't you think there is a lack of information and transparency about a fund that is created through worldwide donations?
If the picture you paint in your post describes the actual state of
affairs – i.e., the 501c3 has been set up, but it takes time to get the org ready, so for now the money is still with Tides – then the answer should, I feel, have looked something like this:
A: We were planning to move the Endowment to a separate 501c3 entity
when it reached $33 million, but then our board decided to postpone that move. We have now revived the plan to move the funds. We have established a new organisation for that purpose, which received its 501c3 status in 2022. We are currently getting that organisation ready to manage the Endowment and expect to move the funds from Tides to the new org in (month/year).
Instead, Nadee said Rai had it wrong, and made it sound like the money
had already been moved. And that is what the programme communicated to the Italian audience – that the WMF said the Endowment had been transferred to a dedicated new entity a few months ago in 2022.
This is contradicted today both by the Endowment website and the
Endowment page on Meta-Wiki, which says that the Endowment is "currently managed by the Tides Foundation as a Collective Action Fund".
There are really two issues here:
- Where is the money? There are now contradictory messages about this
in the public domain.
- How comfortable are we with how the WMF is communicating?
As regards the second point, Nadee also told Rai:
A: The Wikimedia Endowment was founded on and upholds principles of
transparency common to our movement. Our financials are available for public review and we ensure our community and benefactors stay informed on developments related to the endowment by publishing regular information such as the list of donors, announcements about Endowment Board members on the Endowment Website. We also publish current updates and new policy updates on Wikimedia Meta and regular updates on our Diff blog, as well as on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
I disagree with that statement. The most recent info we have had on the
Endowment reflects January 2022 status – figures describing where things stood a full year ago. And even then, nobody added the updated info to the Endowment page on Meta. I added it, sourced to board meeting minutes.[1]
And as I have mentioned before, we have not seen a single audited
financial statement for the Endowment showing revenue and expenses etc. in all the seven years it has existed. To me this falls short of the "principles of transparency common to our movement" (a point that, incidentally, was also made in the Italian programme).
I (and others) also asked questions about Tides Advocacy several weeks
ago on Meta.[2] There has been no reply from the WMF to date.
As you may recall, in 2019/2020, Tides Advocacy were given $4.223
million that were to be used for Annual Plan Grants to Wikimedia affiliates in the July 2020 – June 2021 financial year.[3] I have looked through the Form 990 disclosures Tides Advocacy has filed for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years (their 2021 Form 990 only became available a few weeks ago), hoping to find US and non-US expenditure items corresponding to that 2020/2021 APG amount over Tides Advocacy's 2020 and 2021 calendar years. I have not been successful. My sums fall about $400,000 short of the $4.223 million total.
Absent a clarification from the WMF, would you (and anyone else reading
in who feels so inclined) be able to have a look through the forms as well, to see whether you come to a different result? The forms are linked in the discussion.[2] It is always possible that you with your WMF board experience might see an error I made or an item I have missed that happily resolves the apparent discrepancy.
Regards, Andreas
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_Endowment&diff=pr...
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Knowledge_Equity_Fund#Tides_Agreement
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/...
On Fri, Jan 20, 2023 at 10:36 PM Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com
wrote:
The statements are not mutually exclusive. They are likely both true,
and what one might expect from governance decisions to date.
WME got its 501c3 status last year, expanded its Board, and is working
on its structure. It will start emitting 501c3 reports this year. It will need staff to take over any of the investment management Tides currently provides; I would expect the current endowment fund (the collective action fund) to remain there until an alternative is in place.
The sorts of regular reports we care about (reflections on
organizational structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.orgional structure, timelines, goals and budgeting, coordination with WMF, practicalities of how an endowment functions) are only partly related to the mandatory reports of a charity. Lodewijk, agreed that those sorts of clarifications are great, and relevant to how we all plan for the future; perhaps we can catalyze a public conversation about such things.
Warmly, SJ (still hoping for part of our movement to put out a series of plans
for maximizing project functionality on a minimal budget)
Dan S writes:
Since the answers express mutually exclusive propositions...
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Hello, Lodewijk (Anders).
Let me preface this by saying that I am responding to you with the benefit of years of IRL experience and education in the area of financial due diligence. I am aware of the "fallacy of appeal to authority". I am not doing that. In this case, "authority" would be mandatory reporting requirements as mentioned by SJ aka Samuel Klein in his remarks of 10 Jan 2023 https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... I am confident in his oversight of mandatory reporting, given my interactions with him as a Wikipedia editor. I am not an attorney. This is me in IRL https://linkedin.com/in/4lisa I know about ethical and defensible asset management. I'm not referring to ESG, but rather, to fair disclosure and adherence to investment guidelines.
My tone is harsher than is my want due to your response to Andreas of 19 Jan 2023 https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... challenging whether his questions were constructive. Andreas is unfailingly polite and courteous, far more so than necessary by U.S. standards for expressions of fiduciary and custodial concern. Since the WMF and Endowment funds are domiciled in the U.S., our local customs should be followed. Dan Szymborski https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... and The Cuncator https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... both addressed this already, but in cordial terms. I am accustomed to speaking in the voice of governance and compliance IRL, thus wish to reinforce their defense of Andreas.
Yes, you are correct in your reply to Lane Chance:
we are in the process" typically means "no, not yet. But we are going towards that new situation"
The problem here is this: That response is insufficient because of the time value of money.
Inquiries about the status of assets under beneficial ownership--whether held by a charitable organization or other entity--require a response that includes both magnitude AND control. In other words, we need to know the dollar amount AND a projected time frame associated with a change in control of these assets. (Note too that the trustees of these funds must be held accountable for both magnitude and time.)
I will make an engineering math analogy. A vector requires two values in order to completely describe it: Magnitude and Direction. The Magnitude of the Endowment is approximately $100 million. The Form 990s provide additional details of magnitude (although that isn't easily accessible to the Movement). Instead of Direction, given that this is an Endowment not a vector, we need to know where the funds are held, (i.e. by whom they are controlled) and how they are invested.
WMF has informed us that U.S. Internal Revenue Service granted a non-profit 501(c)3 organizational status to the Endowment no later than October 2022. Many, many inquiries, by Andreas and others, were required to obtain this information. Even the news media (in Italy) were unable to get a meaningful response. A meaningful response as of October 2022 would have been:
Yes, the Endowment has been granted non-profit 501(c)3 status as of <monthX, yearX> and we anticipate transfer of control from Tides to a WMF controlled entity no later than <monthY, yearY>. Any delays and the reasons for those delays will be communicated to the public and the Wikimedia movement via our periodic WMF blog posts at <URL>.
It is now March 1, 2023. We still do not know what <monthY, yearY> is.
Why didn't WMF do the groundwork for transferring the endowment funds from Tides to a WMF 501(c)3 given that there were over SIX long years to make such plans?
Why does WMF STILL not know how to effect this transfer or when it will be completed, despite the passage of six months?
My greater concern is based on what SJ said, and the quotes provided by Lane Chance. These suggest that WMF does not intend to transfer the Endowment away from the Tides Foundation, despite achieving 501(c)3 status. That means the WMF Endowment would remain under the control of Tides as a Tides Collective Action Fund. Based on Tides FAQ for Collective Action Funds https://www.tides.org/faq/what-are-collective-action-funds-cafs/ Tides has the authority to disburse WMF Endowment funds in support of Tides Foundation’s charitable purposes. These are NOT the same as Wikimedia's charitable purposes.
On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 at 09:26, myindigolife@gmail.com wrote:
Why didn't WMF do the groundwork for transferring the endowment funds from Tides to a WMF 501(c)3 given that there were over SIX long years to make such plans?
Why does WMF STILL not know how to effect this transfer or when it will be completed, despite the passage of six months?
The timeline of when the IRS would grant 501(c)3 status was completely out of the control of the WMF; they could make the application in a timely way, but they could not be certain at what point this status would be granted. I think we all recognize this; the IRS is a governmental organization whose decision-making process and timeline are completely outside of the control of the WMF, Wikipedia, or any other third party. While the WMF could reasonably expect a positive decision, it had no way of being certain when that decision would come.
I have little doubt that many of the same people complaining of how long it is taking to move things around *now* would also complain if staff had been hired for an entity that didn't yet exist, based on the prospect that it would eventually exist. Since the 501(c)3 didn't yet exist, all of its staffing costs would have come out of the WMF budget at the same time that other areas were being cut back in relation to lower-than-expected fundraising. I've got a lot more liberal a view of WMF spending than many others in this thread, and even I think that would have been a really poor use of limited resources.
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
Anne,
It's now transpired that the WMF actually received IRS approval for the new non-profit organisation intended to take over the Endowment over eight months ago, in June 2022.[1] The October 2022 announcement that approval had been received was made four months after the fact.
Two years ago, in April 2021, we were told that the Foundation would "move the endowment in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter".[2] Yet even with the letter received last summer we still seem to be no nearer to having our $100 million Endowment in the hands of a transparent organisation that publishes audited statements of the Endowment's assets, revenue and expenditure, along with a Form 990. We still don't have a date for when the money will be transferred from Tides. We're merely told it will still take "months".
So it looks like we will have had another full year of millions of dollars of donations bypassing the Wikimedia Foundation's books.
None of this would be an issue if the Foundation had released audited financial statements for the Endowment during the past seven years. But all we've ever had is promises of transparency in the future, and requests for more money now.
Remember, Anne, all donations to the Endowment are treated as a "pass-through", so "they are not reflected on the Wikimedia Foundation's financials as revenue or net assets".[2] That means they're essentially invisible to us, because the Tides Foundation doesn't publish separate financial statements for the Wikimedia Endowment showing us how much money has come in and how much has gone out.
Moreover, all planned gifts willed to the Wikimedia Foundation have also been going to the Endowment for some time now, wherever the terms of the will allow.[3] I am not sure whether that means that these planned gifts are now also processed as "pass-throughs". I suspect they are. If so, that means that these amounts flowing into the Endowment have also become invisible.
Am I mistaken on any of the above? If not, are you really satisfied with that degree of transparency over a fund reportedly holding more than 100 million dollars of donations? Would you accept such conduct from any Wikimedia chapter?
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IRS_Determination_Letter_dated_6-28-2022_... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&di... [3] https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Resolution:Remit_of_Planned_Gifts_to_t...
On Thursday, March 2, 2023, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, 2 Mar 2023 at 09:26, myindigolife@gmail.com wrote:
Why didn't WMF do the groundwork for transferring the endowment funds
from Tides to a WMF 501(c)3 given that there were over SIX long years to make such plans?
Why does WMF STILL not know how to effect this transfer or when it will
be completed, despite the passage of six months?
The timeline of when the IRS would grant 501(c)3 status was completely
out of the control of the WMF; they could make the application in a timely way, but they could not be certain at what point this status would be granted. I think we all recognize this; the IRS is a governmental organization whose decision-making process and timeline are completely outside of the control of the WMF, Wikipedia, or any other third party. While the WMF could reasonably expect a positive decision, it had no way of being certain when that decision would come.
I have little doubt that many of the same people complaining of how long
it is taking to move things around *now* would also complain if staff had been hired for an entity that didn't yet exist, based on the prospect that it would eventually exist. Since the 501(c)3 didn't yet exist, all of its staffing costs would have come out of the WMF budget at the same time that other areas were being cut back in relation to lower-than-expected fundraising. I've got a lot more liberal a view of WMF spending than many others in this thread, and even I think that would have been a really poor use of limited resources.
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
...
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath. Risker/Anne
The WMF has never claimed that setting out a fixed timetable that their CEO and the Endowment "agents" can be held accountable to is either impossible or bad. They have been talking this change up for years, and failed to move forward for reasons that have been obfuscated deliberately, as demonstrated by "thoughtful" tangential and delaying responses to basic yes/no questions. Considering that the aim here is ethical accountability, any delay is a choice for "non-accountability".
The facts are public, the failure to be transparent or accountable with many millions of dollars is a public failure. The WMF has damaged the reputation of the "Endowment Fund" within its own community of volunteers* and employees, and now risks a loss of public trust in its own claims to its donors and in the media for a declared value of transparency. Let's debunk the myth, as this is now playing pass the parcel with millions of dollars of donated charitable funds, the WMF can no longer have any credible claim to be transparent. This does not pass the sniff test, it wouldn't for any other not for profit or organization that claims to have charitable values or world leading ethics but chooses to hide millions of dollars from correct scrutiny.
* Really, do volunteers believe the Endowment Fund is or has done the things it was set up to do? Do we volunteers have reason to be confident that in 10 or 30 years time, these monies will be spent on the original objectives that were claimed for it by Jimmy Wales and others? I no longer have reason to be confidence in these purposes or that this very large sum of money will not be chipped away by "agents" or the careful re-spinning of what the words in the Endowment incorporation mean by the unelected board of trustees that are responsible for it.
As a polite observation on "take a deep breath", I would never say that to any member of my staff or a customer with a complaint unless I wanted them to walk out or put the phone down on me.
Thanks, Lane
Dear all,
A full year has now passed since the WMF received IRS approval for its new, transparent 501(c)(3) organisation, set up to take over the Wikimedia Endowment and end almost a decade of financial non-transparency.[1]
Let us not forget – Caitlin Virtue told us over two years ago, in April 2021:[2]
"We are in the process of establishing a new home for the endowment in a stand-alone 501(c)(3) public charity. *We will move the endowment in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter.*"
Said determination letter was received[3] in late June 2022 and announced[4] in late October 2022.
Today, more than a year on, the Wikimedia Endowment website still says[5] that the money – an undisclosed nine-figure sum – is with the Tides Foundation. Unlike a standalone 501(c)(3), Tides publishes no audited accounts for the Endowment and releases no figures for the Endowment fund's revenue and expenses.
The WMF has been talking[6] about this move to a transparent standalone 501(c)(3) since 2017.
When will the move take place?
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-03-09/News_a... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinio... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&di... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IRS_Determination_Letter_dated_6-28-2022_... [4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/governance-updates-for-the-wikimedia-e... [5] https://wikimediaendowment.org/#contact and https://archive.ph/CjcvW [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikimedia_Endowment&...
On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 7:12 PM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
...
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
The WMF has never claimed that setting out a fixed timetable that their CEO and the Endowment "agents" can be held accountable to is either impossible or bad. They have been talking this change up for years, and failed to move forward for reasons that have been obfuscated deliberately, as demonstrated by "thoughtful" tangential and delaying responses to basic yes/no questions. Considering that the aim here is ethical accountability, any delay is a choice for "non-accountability".
The facts are public, the failure to be transparent or accountable with many millions of dollars is a public failure. The WMF has damaged the reputation of the "Endowment Fund" within its own community of volunteers* and employees, and now risks a loss of public trust in its own claims to its donors and in the media for a declared value of transparency. Let's debunk the myth, as this is now playing pass the parcel with millions of dollars of donated charitable funds, the WMF can no longer have any credible claim to be transparent. This does not pass the sniff test, it wouldn't for any other not for profit or organization that claims to have charitable values or world leading ethics but chooses to hide millions of dollars from correct scrutiny.
- Really, do volunteers believe the Endowment Fund is or has done the
things it was set up to do? Do we volunteers have reason to be confident that in 10 or 30 years time, these monies will be spent on the original objectives that were claimed for it by Jimmy Wales and others? I no longer have reason to be confidence in these purposes or that this very large sum of money will not be chipped away by "agents" or the careful re-spinning of what the words in the Endowment incorporation mean by the unelected board of trustees that are responsible for it.
As a polite observation on "take a deep breath", I would never say that to any member of my staff or a customer with a complaint unless I wanted them to walk out or put the phone down on me.
Thanks, Lane _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Hello Everyone,
We have posted an update on the Endowment talk page [ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Response_to_off-wik... ].
Best Regards,
Jaime
Jaime Villagomez
Chief Financial Officer
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate. https://donate.wikimedia.org/*
On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 8:59 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
A full year has now passed since the WMF received IRS approval for its new, transparent 501(c)(3) organisation, set up to take over the Wikimedia Endowment and end almost a decade of financial non-transparency.[1]
Let us not forget – Caitlin Virtue told us over two years ago, in April 2021:[2]
"We are in the process of establishing a new home for the endowment in a stand-alone 501(c)(3) public charity. *We will move the endowment in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter.*"
Said determination letter was received[3] in late June 2022 and announced[4] in late October 2022.
Today, more than a year on, the Wikimedia Endowment website still says[5] that the money – an undisclosed nine-figure sum – is with the Tides Foundation. Unlike a standalone 501(c)(3), Tides publishes no audited accounts for the Endowment and releases no figures for the Endowment fund's revenue and expenses.
The WMF has been talking[6] about this move to a transparent standalone 501(c)(3) since 2017.
When will the move take place?
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-03-09/News_a... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinio... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&di... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IRS_Determination_Letter_dated_6-28-2022_... [4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/governance-updates-for-the-wikimedia-e... [5] https://wikimediaendowment.org/#contact and https://archive.ph/CjcvW [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikimedia_Endowment&...
On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 7:12 PM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
...
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
The WMF has never claimed that setting out a fixed timetable that their CEO and the Endowment "agents" can be held accountable to is either impossible or bad. They have been talking this change up for years, and failed to move forward for reasons that have been obfuscated deliberately, as demonstrated by "thoughtful" tangential and delaying responses to basic yes/no questions. Considering that the aim here is ethical accountability, any delay is a choice for "non-accountability".
The facts are public, the failure to be transparent or accountable with many millions of dollars is a public failure. The WMF has damaged the reputation of the "Endowment Fund" within its own community of volunteers* and employees, and now risks a loss of public trust in its own claims to its donors and in the media for a declared value of transparency. Let's debunk the myth, as this is now playing pass the parcel with millions of dollars of donated charitable funds, the WMF can no longer have any credible claim to be transparent. This does not pass the sniff test, it wouldn't for any other not for profit or organization that claims to have charitable values or world leading ethics but chooses to hide millions of dollars from correct scrutiny.
- Really, do volunteers believe the Endowment Fund is or has done the
things it was set up to do? Do we volunteers have reason to be confident that in 10 or 30 years time, these monies will be spent on the original objectives that were claimed for it by Jimmy Wales and others? I no longer have reason to be confidence in these purposes or that this very large sum of money will not be chipped away by "agents" or the careful re-spinning of what the words in the Endowment incorporation mean by the unelected board of trustees that are responsible for it.
As a polite observation on "take a deep breath", I would never say that to any member of my staff or a customer with a complaint unless I wanted them to walk out or put the phone down on me.
Thanks, Lane _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Thank you Jaime for this response and for the commitment on making a further update next quarter.
Lodewijk
On Mon, Jul 10, 2023 at 9:39 AM Jaime Villagomez jvillagomez@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Everyone,
We have posted an update on the Endowment talk page [ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Response_to_off-wik... ].
Best Regards,
Jaime
Jaime Villagomez
Chief Financial Officer
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate. https://donate.wikimedia.org/*
On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 8:59 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
A full year has now passed since the WMF received IRS approval for its new, transparent 501(c)(3) organisation, set up to take over the Wikimedia Endowment and end almost a decade of financial non-transparency.[1]
Let us not forget – Caitlin Virtue told us over two years ago, in April 2021:[2]
"We are in the process of establishing a new home for the endowment in a stand-alone 501(c)(3) public charity. *We will move the endowment in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter.*"
Said determination letter was received[3] in late June 2022 and announced[4] in late October 2022.
Today, more than a year on, the Wikimedia Endowment website still says[5] that the money – an undisclosed nine-figure sum – is with the Tides Foundation. Unlike a standalone 501(c)(3), Tides publishes no audited accounts for the Endowment and releases no figures for the Endowment fund's revenue and expenses.
The WMF has been talking[6] about this move to a transparent standalone 501(c)(3) since 2017.
When will the move take place?
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-03-09/News_a... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinio... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&di... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IRS_Determination_Letter_dated_6-28-2022_... [4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/governance-updates-for-the-wikimedia-e... [5] https://wikimediaendowment.org/#contact and https://archive.ph/CjcvW [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikimedia_Endowment&...
On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 7:12 PM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
...
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
The WMF has never claimed that setting out a fixed timetable that their CEO and the Endowment "agents" can be held accountable to is either impossible or bad. They have been talking this change up for years, and failed to move forward for reasons that have been obfuscated deliberately, as demonstrated by "thoughtful" tangential and delaying responses to basic yes/no questions. Considering that the aim here is ethical accountability, any delay is a choice for "non-accountability".
The facts are public, the failure to be transparent or accountable with many millions of dollars is a public failure. The WMF has damaged the reputation of the "Endowment Fund" within its own community of volunteers* and employees, and now risks a loss of public trust in its own claims to its donors and in the media for a declared value of transparency. Let's debunk the myth, as this is now playing pass the parcel with millions of dollars of donated charitable funds, the WMF can no longer have any credible claim to be transparent. This does not pass the sniff test, it wouldn't for any other not for profit or organization that claims to have charitable values or world leading ethics but chooses to hide millions of dollars from correct scrutiny.
- Really, do volunteers believe the Endowment Fund is or has done the
things it was set up to do? Do we volunteers have reason to be confident that in 10 or 30 years time, these monies will be spent on the original objectives that were claimed for it by Jimmy Wales and others? I no longer have reason to be confidence in these purposes or that this very large sum of money will not be chipped away by "agents" or the careful re-spinning of what the words in the Endowment incorporation mean by the unelected board of trustees that are responsible for it.
As a polite observation on "take a deep breath", I would never say that to any member of my staff or a customer with a complaint unless I wanted them to walk out or put the phone down on me.
Thanks, Lane _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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Dear all,
The lack of transparency around the Wikimedia Endowment is reaching new levels. A week ago, Jayde Antonio posted the minutes for the January 2023 Endowment board meeting on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment/Meetings/January_19,_202...
These minutes are an exercise in non-communication. You will look in vain for any *information* in these minutes telling you anything you didn't know before. For example, we were already told back in February 2023 https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.ph000tle=Wikimedia_Endowment/Meetings/January_19,_2023&oldid=24524042 that the meeting covered the following agenda items:
6:25 - 6:55 pm UTC: Fundraising Update (Board Chair, Jimmy Wales and Endowment Director, Amy Parker)
- FY22-23 year to date update - Campaign strategy
So, what do we know now that the actual board-approved minutes have been posted? All the minutes now say is this:
- *Fundraising Update* (Amy Parker) - FY22-23 year to date update - Presentation of campaign strategy
This is actually *less* information than we were given in February. In February we were at least told at what *time* these dicussions were held: from "6:25 - 6:55 pm UTC".
As for what Amy actually said: nothing.
The Endowment was set up in early 2016. The community and the wider public have never seen an audited financial statement. The last time we were told anything at all about the status of the Endowment was in the January 2022 meeting minutes https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment/Meetings/January_27,_2022 .
Could we please have an explanation for this complete lack of transparency?
Regards, Andreas
On Mon, Jul 10, 2023 at 5:39 PM Jaime Villagomez jvillagomez@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello Everyone,
We have posted an update on the Endowment talk page [ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Response_to_off-wik... ].
Best Regards,
Jaime
Jaime Villagomez
Chief Financial Officer
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate. https://donate.wikimedia.org/*
On Mon, Jul 3, 2023 at 8:59 AM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Dear all,
A full year has now passed since the WMF received IRS approval for its new, transparent 501(c)(3) organisation, set up to take over the Wikimedia Endowment and end almost a decade of financial non-transparency.[1]
Let us not forget – Caitlin Virtue told us over two years ago, in April 2021:[2]
"We are in the process of establishing a new home for the endowment in a stand-alone 501(c)(3) public charity. *We will move the endowment in its entirety to this new entity once the new charity receives its IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter.*"
Said determination letter was received[3] in late June 2022 and announced[4] in late October 2022.
Today, more than a year on, the Wikimedia Endowment website still says[5] that the money – an undisclosed nine-figure sum – is with the Tides Foundation. Unlike a standalone 501(c)(3), Tides publishes no audited accounts for the Endowment and releases no figures for the Endowment fund's revenue and expenses.
The WMF has been talking[6] about this move to a transparent standalone 501(c)(3) since 2017.
When will the move take place?
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-03-09/News_a... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-05-29/Opinio... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment&di... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IRS_Determination_Letter_dated_6-28-2022_... [4] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/governance-updates-for-the-wikimedia-e... [5] https://wikimediaendowment.org/#contact and https://archive.ph/CjcvW [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AWikimedia_Endowment&...
On Thu, Mar 9, 2023 at 7:12 PM Lane Chance zinkloss@gmail.com wrote:
...
It's not causing any form of disruption to make these changes in a
deliberate and thoughtful manner. Everyone can take a deep breath.
Risker/Anne
The WMF has never claimed that setting out a fixed timetable that their CEO and the Endowment "agents" can be held accountable to is either impossible or bad. They have been talking this change up for years, and failed to move forward for reasons that have been obfuscated deliberately, as demonstrated by "thoughtful" tangential and delaying responses to basic yes/no questions. Considering that the aim here is ethical accountability, any delay is a choice for "non-accountability".
The facts are public, the failure to be transparent or accountable with many millions of dollars is a public failure. The WMF has damaged the reputation of the "Endowment Fund" within its own community of volunteers* and employees, and now risks a loss of public trust in its own claims to its donors and in the media for a declared value of transparency. Let's debunk the myth, as this is now playing pass the parcel with millions of dollars of donated charitable funds, the WMF can no longer have any credible claim to be transparent. This does not pass the sniff test, it wouldn't for any other not for profit or organization that claims to have charitable values or world leading ethics but chooses to hide millions of dollars from correct scrutiny.
- Really, do volunteers believe the Endowment Fund is or has done the
things it was set up to do? Do we volunteers have reason to be confident that in 10 or 30 years time, these monies will be spent on the original objectives that were claimed for it by Jimmy Wales and others? I no longer have reason to be confidence in these purposes or that this very large sum of money will not be chipped away by "agents" or the careful re-spinning of what the words in the Endowment incorporation mean by the unelected board of trustees that are responsible for it.
As a polite observation on "take a deep breath", I would never say that to any member of my staff or a customer with a complaint unless I wanted them to walk out or put the phone down on me.
Thanks, Lane _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/... To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
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