Craig Franklin wrote: Hi. As I understand the history here (and please correct me where I'm wrong), Wikimedia UK was one of the early chapters (along with Wikimedia Deutschland and a few others) that set up fundraising agreements in the mid-2000s. This resulted in a few Wikimedia chapters receiving a disproportionate and frankly exorbitant amount of money as donation income steadily increased over the years and the agreements (which were percentage-based) stayed in place. Eventually the agreements were renegotiated, but not before a few chapters had hundreds of thousands of dollars and no concrete plans for what to do with this money. Wikimedia UK in particular had bad enough management issues that in late 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK worked together to generate a report about the various management and governance deficiencies within the organization, which was posted a little over a year ago. The history here is complex and it's certainly possible that the Wikimedia Foundation is acting in its own interest rather than in the interest of the Wikimedia movement. However, I have difficulty understanding why the decision to not renew Wikimedia's UK fundraising agreement would be surprising, given the historical context. I'm not sure this decision would be surprising to an outside observer. To that end, on the subject of outside observers and open letters: when writing such a letter, it's important to give context and err on the side of formality. I've never seen a professional letter begin with "Dear Sue" (no last name or contact information provided) and end with "Yours sincerely, Jon" (no last name or contact information provided). This isn't a huge deal, but it's perhaps indicative. MZMcBride

Hubert Laska wrote: Hi Hubert, https://www.google.com/search?q=formal+letter+template may be helpful. Nathan wrote: Yep. Though in addition to the issue of a perception of entitlement, I think there's also a larger issue of re-establishing trust between the two organizations. That's perhaps the central issue here. MZMcBride

On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Sometimes it is better to take a step back to understand in which conceptual frame each decision is taken. As I see it: - WMF: specialized in global matters, fearful of not having enough long-term resources to conduct its operation - Chapters: specialized in local matters, fearful of not having enough long-term resources to conduct their operation And resources are not only money, also the independence and political capital to act, or to build-up donor's trust for future fundraisers. Some chapters are taking a very active role in removing weight from WMF's shoulders also on global matters, and I think that increases trust. Perhaps there is a clear model about what expects each side, I was not able to find it (other than Chapters Dialogue), that would prevent disappointments like it seems in this case. Cheers, Micru

Hi Russavia, Just a quick response to your points: 1. Yes. Gift Aid isn't quite the same as tax deductibility. To take Wikipedia's example, when Mr Smith donates £100 to a charity, the charity gets £100 from him, plus an extra £25 from the government. It's more complex than this - not everyone is eligible - but broadly this is the case. 2. Probably not. See http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/frequently-asked-questions/faqs-about-r… . 3. I'm not sure where the 50% figure came from, but it is incorrect. The correct figure for that year is 69%. For this past quarter, the correct figure is even better, at 80.24%. In addition, our fundraising costs as a percentage of total spend have dropped from 22% to 10%. If anyone wants more information on this, our treasurer is happy to discuss it with them by email. 4. As for the planes - it is indeed fantastic and a good example of how, even where we may disagree, we can still all pull together to do great work for the movement. Speaking personally, it's a shame we don't have something similar for ships! Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On 21 May 2014 12:22, Russavia <russavia.wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:

To offer a clarification, SORP stands for Statement of Recommended Practice and offers a standard for best practice in charitable accounting. http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Charity_requirements_guidance/Accounti… Cheers Simon -----Original Message----- From: wikimedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Fæ Sent: 21 May 2014 14:17 To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Non-renewal of Wikimedia UK fundraiser agreement On 21 May 2014 13:19, Richard Symonds &lt;richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk&gt; wrote: ... This means that the WMF would need to establish an independent fundraising institution in the UK in order for it to be a registered charity. This would be in exactly the same ways as other global charities successfully manage it under UK law. A strange response from WMUK as Russavia included a link to the analysis in his email, so this seems to be a tangent to the issue of the most recent accepted and analysed financial report, showing that more than 50% of funds are spent on non-project activities. Just in case people missed it, the link was https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FDC_portal/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/… The technical way of redefining English words in such a way so that the significant expenses of running trustee board meetings with staff support, or paying for highly expensive lawyers and management consultants as part of governance issues, gets reported as a deliverable open knowledge Wikimedia project, is unhelpful as a way to convince the Wikimedia community, or the WMF, that the UK charity is efficient compared to WMDE or the WMF. Using words this way undermines the value of the reports. As a bizarre example the SORP way of conveniently redefining English words, I could re-employ Jon Davies as a temporary "management consultant" rather than a "permanent employee", even giving him twice the income to take home, and yet this could be reported as a significant increase in the efficiency of the charity, as an expensive line item would move from administration to programme costs. I doubt that many Wikimedians are taken in by this management jargon, as opposed to common sense or plain English use of words. ... On this, we can agree. The Avionics Project represents less than 0.1% of funds handled by the UK charity, yet these volunteer centric and cheap-as-chips projects now represent the significant majority of tangible outcomes for Wikimedia Commons, if one, say, counts the actual number of media files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, rather than soft (so-called "narrative") measures, or internal facing measures of success like supporting the Wikimania conference. As for ships, I have uploaded many thousands of historic images of ships to Commons which are highly valued by other unpaid Wikimedia volunteers, however these were not supported by Wikimedia UK due to previous concerns raised about my volunteer uploads from a potential partner institution that might have employed a WIR and might have done something similar. If the charity wishes to extend the project to media such as this, the trustees know how to find me. PS For those unfamiliar with my background, I was previously a trustee of Wikimedia UK and even served time as the Chairman, until I resigned after lots of political unpleasantness. My awareness of WMUK figures comes from that hands-on experience, not so long ago. Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Richard, To answer 1 and 2 together, and thanks for your response.... As you noted, under Gift Aid charities receive a 25% premium on donations (I hope that's correct just going on your figures), and I can't see the WMF really wanting to lose what is essentially, well, a gift. As Fae mentioned in his response, the WMF could set up a trust in the UK for the sole purpose of fundraising, to ensure that the 25% gift aid is retained. They could then distribute these funds to whichever countries they like. This is apparently how Greenpeace operates with the Greenpeace Environmental Trust[1] used to fundraise for the organisation, and Greenpeace Limited doing the stuff that wouldnt be legal for the charitable trust to do. With the fundraising the GET receives they can use these funds to support the upkeep of their foreign ships, or to protest Russian goings ons in the Arctic. I sincerely can't see WMF wanting to lose the premium on donations which I am sure they are aware of, and they don't want WMUK collecting donations, so the logical conclusion to this is that they are bypassing WMUK to do this themselves (which they have already stated, except for the how). So that we have some idea could we please get some figures on how WMUK collected for the WMF, and how much of the 25% premium (if that it was it is) the WMUK received. Cheers Russavia [1] http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Showcharity/RegisterOfCharities/Charit… On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 8:19 PM, Richard Symonds < richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk&gt; wrote: