New subject: Better public reporting for WMF $1m or $2m+ projects

30 Jun 2017

Could an unpaid volunteer who is not a WMF employee, or contractor, or
consultant, please have a go at answering my polite request for links
to "monthly or quarterly financial reports" from a few days ago,
below? I don't think this needs any time from employees to confirm
whether published versions exist or don't exist, and I don't want to
be publicly shamed for asking a question.[1]

I have searched through the WMF web pages with regard to the 2017
movement strategy,[2] but have yet to find any references or evidence
that there are regular reports of when or how the budgeted $2.5
million is being spent. Considering the large size of this project,
and especially the significant sums of money going to consultants, I
am sure everyone can appreciate there is bound to be interest from the
wider community in the progress of the spend and any unplanned spend.
I would expect that the strategy project has regular monthly tracked
spending reports, certainly I would find it hard to believe that the
WMF CEO and CFO do not require that level of tracking and reporting.

If nothing is published, then that would be a jolly good thing for our
movement to push for improved /public/ governance of $1m+ projects,
especially those with large sums going to consultants chosen using
non-open bid procedures, to deliver better transparency in line with
our movement values. The cost of this improvement would be zero. There
can be no doubt that summary reports already exist and there is
unlikely to be any reason for secrecy that would convince the
community that when spending very large sums of donated money, we can
be ethically transparent and accountable, but be unable to answer
these simple questions publicly.

Should the WMF CEO feel that publishing monthly or quarterly reports
on $1m+ projects is a pointless burden, then perhaps the CEO and WMF
board could agree at what level of spend there should be better
transparency, perhaps any identifiable programme spending more than
$2m?

Raising as a separate thread, as we have probably drifted away from
Pine's original question and intent.[3]

Links:
1. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-June/087910.html
Statement from Greg and Anna.
2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
Strategy pages on Meta.
3. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2017-June/087854.html
Pine's question.

Thanks,
Fae

On 27 June 2017 at 12:31, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
...
  On 27 June 2017 at 04:33, Anna Stillwell
&lt;astillwell(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote:
 ...
   * How
much is this timeline extension projected to cost, and from what
 source are the funds being drawn? (Note that this doesn't assume that the
 decision was a bad one, but I very much want to know the source of the
 funds and how much is likely to be drawn from it.) 
 We've got this covered, Pine. We are fiscally managing this process and all
 of our contracts well. Thank you for your concern.

  * Could you also discuss what measures are being
taken to control costs in
 the strategy process?

 We have plenty of measures in place to monitor costs (e.g., we don't need
 to control them because they are not out of control, we are within our
 budget). Also, describing financial metrics at any lower level of detail
 would be a waste of the strategy budget since we are within it.

 Always good to hear from you,
 /a 
 Anna,

 I'd love to examine the more detailed monthly or quarterly financial
 reports that demonstrate your assurance, and can be both examined and
 understood by volunteers like us. Could you provide a link to them
 please? No doubt the WMF wrote transparency and accountability right
 into the contracts, so that being transparent and accountable is not
 considered a "waste of the strategy budget" but instead is an activity
 absolutely critical to its success.

 Thanks,
 Fae 
-- 
faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae