The big question is, is transferring the funds to the WMF going to further our mission better than spending it ourselves in a rush? That's not easy to answer..
I don't know, I think it's fairly simple :) I've always been a big fan of spending through the startup phase (sensibly, not in a frivolous sense). We are in an interesting place with this underspend - because the earmarked expenditure will have to happen in future years (using future fundraising).
That's brilliant IMO because it effectively gives us a chunk of money now to spend on "nice to have" things.
I suggest considering a "fire sale" later in the year once the amount of the underspend is better known - literally assign half of the spare cash (or w/e can be spared) to whatever ideas the Chapter agrees would be useful things to do/have. I tend to mean "big" ideas here, stuff that it too expensive for the normal program of expenditure but would be really useful/helpful to have.
Random off-hand ideas: - rapidly expanding the coverage of the library/reference service (my preference :)) - Related to the above; invest in logins for some of the subscription data services (JSTOR etc.) - Put some money into kick-starting the education techniques - Fund some bigger GLAM events
I don't know, people probably have better ideas than me.
But basically; the money is there to be spent, if we can think of useful things to spend it on we should do so :)
(how much underspend is there likely to be?)
Tom