Kat Walsh Chair Board of Trustees Wikimedia Foundation In accordance with your discretionary power to divert from the Board deliberation procedures approved July 8, 2010,[1] and because of certain recent serious misleading and contradictory statements from senior Foundation staff and obvious financial accounting regularities concerning the Board's direction that the Foundation maintain a six month cash reserve, and for the other reasons stated below, I ask that you and the Board approve the following or a substantially similar resolution without a meeting in accordance with Article IV, Section 4(f) of your Bylaws[2] as soon as possible, and no later than this week: Whereas the Foundation's mandatory fiduciary duty of care requires that trustees act on a fully informed basis;[3] whereas the trustees were led to believe on May 12, 2012 that senior Foundation staff were in doubt as to whether they could significantly exceed last years' fundraising;[4] whereas in fact senior Foundation staff knew on May 11, 2012 that they were already able to exceed the performance of the best performing fundraising message from 2011;[5] whereas based on the information pertaining to Fundraising provided by senior Foundation staff, the 2012-2013 Annual Plan was proposed and adopted with a revenue target increase of $7.2 million, or $900,000 less than the previous Annual Plan's revenue target increase;[6] whereas actual fundraising far exceeded the stated expectations of senior Foundation staff, so much that the nominal fundraising goal based on the stated expectations of senior Foundation staff was achieved in about nine days of unlimited fundraising messaging to Foundation project readers;[7] whereas ceasing Fundraising prior to the last four business days of December in unprecedented in the history of the Foundation;[7] whereas the last four business days of December have over the previous five years yielded fundraising performance typically about triple the performance of the median fundraiser day's performance;[7] whereas senior Foundation staff have proposed fundraising next year in part during April, which this year was in fact the last month that senior Foundation staff were not able to produce a fundraising message outperforming those of the prior year's fundraiser;[8] whereas the tax code of the United States and other countries provide an incentive for wealthy donors to determine the optimal amount of their donations during the last week of December; whereas the Foundation staff has failed to maintain a six month cash reserve as directed by the trustees, even with lower than expected expenses and higher than expected revenues;[9] whereas junior Foundation staff are compensated substantially below that of typical advanced information processing technology workers in San Francisco;[10] whereas because of their low levels of compensation, the retention of foundation technical staff has been substantially below optimal levels;[11] whereas because of their low levels of compensation, junior foundation technical staff are often unable to afford housing which does not involve a lengthy commute from unsavory neighborhoods;[11] whereas the ratio of the compensation of Foundation executives to junior foundation staff and contractors has substantially widened in recent years;[10] whereas Foundation staff have been unable or unwilling to effectively staff programs such as the very successful Wikimedia Education Program at levels preventing serious problems for the editor community, such as, for example, including sufficient information to discern which articles are currently pending in the Education Program;[12] whereas the Foundation Annual Plan as amended lacks sufficient funding to explore telepresence options for those who can not attend events such as Wikimania or chose not to attend for ecological reasons; and whereas senior Foundation staff have recently discontinued major programs of the Annual Plan and the Strategic Plan without consulting the community,[13] therefore, be it resolved, that the Foundation will resume fundraising at maximal levels immediately until such time as sufficient funds are raised such that: staff salaries and contractor compensation can be increased so no contributor is compensated less than 50% of the amount of the highest compensated executive staff member, calculated on a per-hour basis for contractors; a one year contingency cash reserve can be maintained; sufficient staff can be added to the Education Program so that program article talk page templates can be provided with their correct academic calendar dates; the Wikimania program can include a telepresence pilot program; and the recent discontinuation of programs approved in the Annual Plan such as the Fellows program can be put to a question of the community with sufficient time for thorough consultation. Please let me know your and the trustees' decision on this matter. Best regards, James Salsman [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Board_deliberations [2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#.28f.29_Action_Without_a_Meeting . [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_manual#Fiduciary… [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Brea… [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Brea… "...we can feature Jimmy, editors, staff, donors and others and make as much as with our standard money-maker, the Jimmy appeal...." [6] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Ans… [7] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics [8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012#Questions [9] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_October_2012_-… [10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#Wikimedia_employee_salaries [11] http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=searchBtn&typedKey… [12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Ambassador_Program_student_… [13] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:;> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l

Whereas I'm confused.

whereas because of their low levels of compensation, junior foundation technical staff are often unable to afford housing which does not involve a lengthy commute from unsavory neighborhoods;[11]